To think this is grooming in plain sight

I don't think I am a prude but I am shocked by this ,children should have an innocent childhood with parents to love and protect them.
Looking at the advertising for this it looks like a freak show.

It is rather sad. Children should learn this stuff in a loving family context, where parents know their own children and what they are ready for. Why take them to see this stuff from random adults whom you do not know and hope they might be sensitive to your child's needs.

I am surprised it is being shown - do venues no longer have the courage to simply say no, without fearing that they look "unwoke."

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.

agree. anyone remember the paedophile information exchange, campaigned in the 1970s for children's rights, as they saw it, to abolish any age of consent.
adults getting undressed in front of children sounds like desensitising, normalising, what should be seen as abnormal and abhorrent.

MissAdventure

"Copulating on a bandstand while the band performs"

is that why the rhythm method is so difficult to achieve ?

I suppose it depends what they're playing.

to be fair, i don't think harriet harman had any direct involvement with the p.i.e.
being a lawyer, ithink she was part of a group that offered free legal advice to an umbrella group of charities/campaigns, and this p.i.e. slipped in by presenting itself as being about equal rights, similar to the gay equality lobby.
obviously there were some people who really did support p.i.e.
but when it became more widely known what they really wanted, partly due to mrs whitehouse, they were thrown out of various organisations.
was the legal group national campaign for civil liberties ?
i think they had ousted p.i.e. before harriet harman worked for them.

Galaxy

They dont say they work with the NSPCC do they? They say in line with NSPCC research which is a very different thing.

Yes, it's a different thing entirely.

I don't know enough about the content to decry it.

I have to say though, my DGS is 4. He knows the basics. And he would have zero interest in sitting for an hour/hour and a half watching a 'production' about sex and repro.

Neither his mother, nor I, have any issues about nudity with him. Either ours or other peoples. We all have bodies.

His mother would want right of veto though. So a production about sex with no info about the actual content? No.

GagaJo

I don't know enough about the content to decry it.

I have to say though, my DGS is 4. He knows the basics. And he would have zero interest in sitting for an hour/hour and a half watching a 'production' about sex and repro.

Neither his mother, nor I, have any issues about nudity with him. Either ours or other peoples. We all have bodies.

His mother would want right of veto though. So a production about sex with no info about the actual content? No.

Too true.
How cringeworthy to be made to have watch a show like that with your parents.
In some ways it must be even worse for the older children.
If I'd dragged my children along to that they would have disowned me!

is this like the drag queens read storytime in libraries ?
that sounded so bizarre and most people looked blank at the idea, but apparently there are some real concerns about it.

welbeck

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.

agree. anyone remember the paedophile information exchange, campaigned in the 1970s for children's rights, as they saw it, to abolish any age of consent.
adults getting undressed in front of children sounds like desensitising, normalising, what should be seen as abnormal and abhorrent.

I’m with you welbeck. I haven’t read the mumsnet thread yet but it’s good to hear young parents are uneasy about this.
Exposing children to sexualised information is grooming. It’s totally different than loving parents who are comfortable about being appropriately naked, getting showered getting dressed and other ordinary stuff,
5 year olds Seeing adults naked on stage as part of one and half hours sex education is just wrong.
Ask anyone who worked with abuse and they’ll tell you that sexualised behaviour in 3 year olds will be dismissed by their abuser as ‘oh they watched it on a video/tv channel’, nothing to see here, move on.

When the children who have seen this show (if there are any) go into school and re-enact what they have seen on stage to their classmates, what will happen then?

I've just been reading that part when I was looking for info on their safeguarding training.
Apparently, that would be fine, because it would explain why a child might talk about sex, and it wouldn't mean that anything needing further investigation was needed.

I'd have to know what the content is but sex education starts very early. We need to teach our children aspects of sex education from a very young age including the proper names for their genitals. Children need to know what can and cannot be touched. I know from my teaching experience that very young children are accessing totally inappropriate content so they discuss it amongst themselves and that can result in some miseducation.
We have always walked around naked in our house without embarrassment whilst our kids were young and they would determine if it bothered them, they would start knocking on the door or stop opening the door when you were using the toilet. They haven't grown up depraved.
One of my sons was very interested in porn as a youngster and we did everything we could to stop him accessing it, not because we think sex is dirty but because we wanted him to understand that there is lots out there which girlfriends would probably be offended about if he tried those things with them.

I never even walk around naked in front of myself

Galaxy They dont say they work with the NSPCC do they? They say in line with NSPCC research which is a very different thing.

Now that would really worry me, using wheasle words to infer that they are working with the NSPCC and easy to take as an NSPCC endorsement if read quickly without too much thought

In this field, especially, suggesting some kind of endorsement by a statutory or mainstream charity when that is not true, is a sure sign that what is being done does not have the approval of any reputable and appropriate organisation - and probably wouldn't get it.

As a child, I always wanted to see something magical at the theatre. This production sounds far from that. In fact it may even prove to be very tedious and bore the pants off you?

There is no trailer, so we are not given enough information about the production and would be going along on the basis of a word salad. All well meaning it seems, but quite a mystery.
Can’t imagine many people will turn up for something so I’ll defined.

So ill defined.

I don't know if anyone saw the programmes on Mary Whitehouse? I was really shocked to see an interview with two men from the paedophile information exchange explaining how 12 year olds were quite capable of consenting to sex because it would be a pleasurable experience for them! They also explained the way children were labelled, 15 to 12 year olds were Lolitas, under 12s were Muppets and under 8s were Nymphets. It sounded so incredible that it could be so accepted. I don't remember being aware of it at the time but I suppose I was too interested in my own sex life at the time. I hope we aren't slipping back to those days.

This production sounds very confused to me. Young children are easily distracted, if they strip off while talking about sex half of the children will be embarrassed and distracted, some of them will giggle and point and stop listening, some of them will just gawp and stop listening anyway none of them will pay attention to what is being said. It may or may not be inappropriate but it's certainly not well thought out.

There appears to be a certain section of society who are determined to force a level of maturity on children which they are simply not ready for. Let alone the fact that children develop at different ages.

In my opinion, there is a period in an ideal childhood which is one of innocence, where their world is composed of play and pleasure which is untainted by the realities of the darker side of human nature - which their developing brains would not be able to comprehend. We teach them subtly about the world - we replace their cuddly toys with visits to farms with real animals; their 'fairy' story-books with a trip to an adventure playground, a museum, a picnic in the countryside where we can show them the wonders of nature, etc, etc. Above all, we allow them to develop at their own pace and answer their questions when they arise because that is, obviously, the point at which they are ready to absorb the answers - including questions about their own bodies and their feelings, their ideas.

To me this kind of show / entertainment / workshop - or whatever it's called - is the result of a group of people who have decided that a child should be 'aware' almost from the moment it's born. Aware of sex, sexuality, gender. Instead of following the child's natural curiosity about its world, they want to impose their doctrine on it and in the process, I believe, they create an environment the forces a child to focus on issues that they may not yet be interested in, nor ready to deal with. And, in the process, I believe they are 'stealing' the natural innocence of childhood. An innocence that should end organically.

That's it really. Just an opinion. I'm as 'woke' as the next person, but this kind of production bothers me.

MissAdventure

I never even walk around naked in front of myself

Certainly I don't in front of a mirror

I popped on to the MN thread. I've looked at a few links. I really don't see a well thought out, well researched project here. I fail to see how you can have age appropriate material for a 5 year old that is equally appropriate to a 13 or 14 year old. My impression is it's a vanity project with an unclear agenda, but safeguarding red flags are definitely waving.

I find it totally wrong" Scary that there are parents that think it's ok.

It seems this show has been touring for a while... don't think the content can be a dreadful & inappropriate as some fear or it would have been closed down by now!
Here is a quote by one of the people involved in developing the production.

'The argument against sex education for younger ages has repeatedly been that education is indoctrination: the more we tell our children about sex, the more tempted they will be. “But there’s so much research that shows the complete opposite,” Dale-Jones says. Avoiding conversations about our bodies and how we use them, she suggests, is far more dangerous. “Knowing your body is about knowing your rights. The more we know, the more we can protect ourselves and each other.” Children aren’t anxious about the idea of the show, she insists. “It’s the older people who feel discomfort in something that’s challenging their preconceptions.”

I have not seen the show so no more knowledge than anyone else about its actual content but having written school policies & curriculum for, & taught, sex & relationship education to primary aged children I don't think anything I have read about it suggests it is inappropriate or dangerous. I would always want to see it before I took a younger child to be reassured it was appropriate &
so I was prepared for the inevitable questions afterwards!