To think this is grooming in plain sight

SueDonim

A friend has close connections with this theatre. She’s shocked by it. Do five year olds really need to be making genitals out of Playdoh?

No. Some children might, with no encouragement, make a penis but that doesn’t mean all children should. I’ve never seen any child make female body parts and I’m certain that building them and encouraging interaction with them would be more a weird form of adult entertainment than serving a useful purpose for children. Some children equally play with their fæces, but would anyone recommend teaching that?

I don't know any more than the rest of you about the show but here are the FAQs:
thefamilysexshow.com/faq

A friend has close connections with this theatre. She’s shocked by it. Do five year olds really need to be making genitals out of Playdoh?

snowberryZ

GagaJo

What is the content that is offensive?

The cast are talking about sex to very young children.
At one point the cast get naked in front of those children
Being naked in front of children whilst discussing sex = not OK.

No younger than 5. 5 year olds should know the very basic facts of life (not detailed of course). My DGS knows about seeds, eggs, penis in vagina, baby in tummy, mummies and daddies and love.

Do they actually take EVERYTHING off?

I'd forgotten all about that monkey

It is grooming. Normalising sexual behaviour in abnormal situations-just putting on a show like this does exactly that.
Not being ashamed of your body and knowing when it is appropriate to be naked are two different things.

Knowing how young children take things at face value I would be suspicious of the motives of this group.
Interpretation of the law can lead to people thinking this (mentioned by Galaxy above) is acceptable viewing for children

"Copulating on a bandstand while the band performs"

GagaJo

What is the content that is offensive?

It is another example of the wider agenda of normalising the overt sexual grooming of children in society. Not just affecting the children unlucky enough to be present in the room for an operatic ode to the clitoris. The most important thing about this, for those making/promoting/defending this work of subversive art, is the(retrograde) change in the culture which it represents.

Children's experience, or lack of it, understanding etc will vary enormously from child to child. I can rmeember a friend telling me the difficulties of sex education in a primary class where the children ranged from a very young-for-her-age carefully protected child to one, the youngest in the family by 10 years, who was knowledgeable beyond her age, as a result of having siblings in their 20s, living at home, and with active social lives.

Shame about sex, or rather, lack of it, doesn't mean dancing round the streets completely naked or copulating on a bandstand while the band performs.

It means having a core confidence in yourself and a knowledge of where your own boundaries lie and an acceptance of other peoples. I cannot see how this show has anything to do with that.

GagaJo

What is the content that is offensive?

The cast are talking about sex to very young children.
At one point the cast get naked in front of those children
Being naked in front of children whilst discussing sex = not OK.

Why on earth do children as young as five need to know all this ? Can we not just let children have a childhood? They will have to deal with these topics soon enough, let children be children. You can still warn them about danger. I wouldn't be taking any child to this.

Nudity per se doesn’t bother me, I’ve whipped my clothes off often enough for medical appointments. I definitely wouldn’t be doing it for this though, I wouldn’t like to frighten any youngsters in the audience!

I won’t be taking any of my young relatives to see this.

I wouldn’t be comfortable taking a child to see this. It doesn’t feel to me like an appropriate forum for sex education. I notice that people (I get the impression this may include members of the audience) will be taking their clothes off to the extent that they feel comfortable. I’m no prude but it comes across as being a bit ad hoc depending on who says or does what - unpredictable.

The law around exposing children to sexually explicit material is very clear so I am assuming they are following the law. Although there has been a recent incident at a library/theatre company activity for children that hadnt been checked, and was inappropriate much to the local authorities embarassment.

I think we do need to be much more open about sex, sexuality & gender. We need to enable our children to grow up knowing & being comfortable about sex & relationships..what is healthy, loving and good & what is not.
Whether this show helps to do this I would not know. I would want to see it before I took a child to see it!

I can think of better days out for the family.

I'd like to know specifically what the content is. No one could consider taking their children to this without having specific information about the content.

But yes, as a teacher, 11 year olds do know about porn, and many have already accessed it. It's freely available online.

When I was a young girl there were neighbourhood quite naughty boys aged thirteen who hung around the girls' school. These boys knew about the local man who interfered with children and joked about him. Consequently these boys were not at risk from the man, and the boys' knowledge and attitude communicated them to us girls and taught us to be more streetwise than did any of the teachers or parents.

This is interesting though

Porn.

We are hoping the show offers an alternative to porn. We can’t (and no one else can, no matter what locks you put on your devices) control how or when young people get access to porn. It’s normally as fast as the fastest in the class.

A recent article by the BBC suggests that children as young as 11 are learning about sex from porn. Research (2021) by the British Board of Film Classification has found that children as young as 7 encounter porn, their study also shows more than 60% of children aged 11 to 13 who had seen pornography said it was unintentional.

We want to equip young people with a wider critical toolkit which they can then apply to life, including interactions with any kind of porn. So this might include: ethical decision making; sexual consent; equity - the skills to spot gender norms, male gaze, racist tropes, ableism; understanding of safe sex (able to spot non-use of protection), etc.

(if you're interested in reading more about how we can best support young people's digital intimacies, you can do that here)

And…

Shame.

We’ve not been able to shy away from it, but have actively tried to move away from presenting shame on stage. We have made a choice to present positive stories. In the development, it felt like adults wanted to hear stories exploring shame, but we wondered how useful it would be to put stories relating to shame on stage when we see it everywhere already.

There is a difficult line to tread when what we are feeling is not shame, but is about wanting to remain private... to say "this is not for me". And that being a choice too. And needing to show that as an option

We made a podcast series. We used the podcast as an opportunity to acknowledge some of the mess and complexity of the things we've left out of the show. You can listen or read that here

I don't know if having it in a theatre is appropriate or not but I do think there needs to serious discussions around porn and consent. We need as adults to give our children the best tools available to help them stay sexually safe.

What is the content that is offensive?

I agree with this comment:

I work as a mental health professional in the field of childhood sexual abuse and have for decades. I also have children. I am also extremely relaxed about nudity and spend time in naturist environments, together with my children. I am no prude sexually and have had an interesting personal life in my time. I also know without a doubt that this show is deeply inappropriate and highly concerning and think you should rethink what you are condoning here. It's not just the effect on the children who go to the show. It's societal grooming. It's what has happened for years in more confined circles, and is now bursting out into the mainstream.

It's aimed at 5 years old and up.
Yes you read that correctly.
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