Parents have welcomed the decision to remove references to a controversial sex guide book from the school curriculum after sections of the book were described as being close to pornography, highly sexual, and harmful to children.
The book, This Book is Gay, written by Juno Dawson, contains explicit tutorials regarding anal and oral sex, and also explains how to use a sex app, which are usually for 0-18s while the book has been pitched at teenagers as young as twelve.
While the content is explicit, the language is often pitched towards a young audience, with lots of headings like ‘Handsies’ and “Bummies”, and “Sexyfuntimes”.
Parents have said that the mix of childish language and cartoons with graphic sexual instructions is jarring, and the ‘teensy’ layout and animations don’t seem to sit comfortably with instructions to 12-year olds about how to give orgasms & to “rub cocks”.
The inclusion of the book in a recommended reading list put together by the Department of Education and the HSE for the SPHE Junior Cycle curriculum – typically 12-15 year olds – caused a storm of protest from parents.
Today the Parents Rights Alliance welcomed the decision to remove Dawson’s book , but said that there was more work to be done in terms of other sexually explicit books being recommended to teens as young as 12 in schools and libraries.
The Irish Times reported that “a HSE spokeswoman said its SPHE (Social, Personal and Health Education) learning resource was being revised to reflect the updated Junior Cycle curriculum and would be republished shortly”.
“The new versions of the resources will not include recommended reading lists for teachers or parents, and therefore the resource will not be mentioned in the revised version of Relationships and Sexuality Education,” she added.
The controversy around the book and others also deemed to be too explicit, raised the issue of child safety especially concerning the use of sex apps, gender ideology, and the assertion that porn is “fun and fine”.
Giving instructions how to use a sex app, Dawson says:
“Upload a tiny pic of yourself to the app. The app works out your location. The app tells you who the nearest homosexuals are. You then chat to them. Because they are near, it is easy to meet up with them”.
“Now. Not everyone on a sex app is there for sex. Like a website, it’s just another way to meet like-minded guys or girls,” the book adds.
This week, parents voiced concerns to the media about what children were being exposed to at a young age in both school and in libraries.
One teacher and parent Lynda Kennedy told Liveline that this was not about keeping young people in the dark.
“I believe that sex education is necessary,” she said, adding that she is a teacher, and that children should be taught the facts of life, but that the very explicit nature of what was written was a problem for her in a book pitched at kids as young as twelve.
Jana Lunden, founder of Natural Women’s Council, said the campaign was about child protection – and quoted Section 10 of the Children First Act in 2015 (‘2015 Act’) which obliges service providers to “ensure, as far as practicable, that each child availing of the service from the provider is safe from harm while availing of that service.”
The Irish Times reports that “Children’s Books Ireland has also said it will remove the book from its Pride Reading Guide for young readers.”
“Although it was initially recommended for readers aged 15 and older, Children’s Books Ireland said it found “the language and tone is, in parts, better suited to older teenagers and young people outside of Children’s Books Ireland’s 0-18 age remit”.”
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