Bad Advice Throughout The Years

In the research for my book, A Girl's Guide To Getting Off, I have emailed, Skyped, Facebooked and talked face to face with dozens and dozens (maybe even hundreds) of women of all ages (from around 13 to over 70) about sex and the sex education they received and I have to say that on some topics I was sad to see that not a lot has changed over the years.

Across all ages I have encountered girls who had no idea what was happening when they got their period, women completely disgusted by the look of their own genitals, women afraid to touch themselves for all manner of reasons and fears, and girls told that what they wear or how they act will make them somehow responsible for their own rapes or sexual assaults.

Today I would like to share with you some of the bad advice they were given.

(All names have been changed)

On Periods

“I was bleeding. I had no idea what it was. I thought I was dying. I went and told my mother and she slapped me! Slapped me right in the face, gave me a packet of pads and told me to never speak about it again.” - Sue 71

“My mum came to me when I was about twelve and told me I would start bleeding from my private bits soon and that these [pads] would help soak it up. She didn't tell me what it was or why. Just that it would happen and happen a lot. It wasn't til I was about sixteen that a friend explained it to me. Up until then I thought it happened to boys too.” - Liz 50

“It happened at school camp when I was about 14. I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was going to die. My year co-ordinator was so lovely. She gave me pads and told me what was happening. When I got home and told my mum all she said was 'You're a woman now.'” - Carly 18

On Boys

“Mum told me to never let a boy pay for everything on a date because then he would expect certain things. She didn't tell me I had the right to refuse or that he had no right to demand. Only that the best way to avoid it was to make sure you didn't 'owe' him anything” - Jessie 37

“I have always been told, since I was a kid, if a boy is mean to you it means he likes you. That's led to some pretty fucked up relationships I can tell you. I will never tell my kids that. If someone is mean to you, it's because they are a mean person. End of story.” - Anne 29

“My older brother has never had a curfew. I always have. When I questioned it my dad said it's because girls get raped and boys don't. When I said that maybe that should mean boys shouldn't be allowed out rather than stopping girls he told me I didn't know what I was talking about. Talk about double standards” - Debbie 17

On What You Wear

“My father telling me I wasn't leaving the house in that was almost constant. When my breasts began to get really big he made me cover them in a cardigan, no matter how hot it was. He told me it was because boys get ideas and he wasn't going to have his daughter be the one to give it to them.” - Sara 40

“My mum told me it was a shame I had big boobs because everything I wore made me look like I was asking for sex.” - Anne 29

“My mum always says if you dress like a slut you'll be treated like a slut. I've been treated pretty bad just in jeans and a top so I don't think she's getting the whole picture.” - Kerry 19

On Sexual Assault

“When I was 19 I was raped. I went to the police and they kept asking me what I had been wearing and if I had led him on. It was really horrible. The fact I had a black eye and scratches all over me didn't seem to matter. One of the cops even said if I hadn't made such a fuss maybe [the rapist] wouldn't have hit me so hard.” - Fern 50

“I had big boobs in high school. I got used to the boys trying to touch them and grab them when I walked past. If you complained they called you frigid. I actually didn't think about it til years later how completely wrong it was” - Jessie 37

“When I was in grade seven I complained to my teacher that the boys in my class were trying to feel me up. She told me 'boys will be boys' and to not encourage it by wearing my school skirt so short” - Hayley 17

On Losing Your Virginity

“On my wedding day [I was 22] my mother pulled me aside and told me that now I was a wife I had specific duties. One was to let him touch me with whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. She said it would hurt but I would get used to it.” - Carol 68

“My mum told me to save myself for marriage or I would get a bad reputation. She said it was okay for boys because boys needed the practice to make sure they were good husbands. It never made any sense! Who were they supposed to be practising on and why couldn't I practice to be a good wife? She never answered my questions. She just said not to do it.” - Jennifer 39

“My mum hasn't really said anything to me or my sister about sex. She gets really embarrassed about it. She gave us a book though. That helped us learn a bit more, but I don't know. The girls at school says it hurts.” - Alannah 15

On Masturbation

“My mother caught me masturbating in the bath once. She screamed and told me I was dirty and going to hell and that I was to never, ever touch myself there again. Of course I didn't listen. I just made sure I was more careful about where I did it.” - Sara 40

“My mum told me if I touched myself down there it would ruin my vagina (she didn't actually use that word. She just called them 'bits') and that no man would ever want to marry me.” - Anne 29

“My mum has never talked to me about it ever. I wouldn't know how to talk to her about it either.” - Hayley 17

                                                                       *****

So much confusion. So much wasted self doubt. So much bullshit! All in the name of what? Protection? Fear? All that has done for most of these women is left them feeling unsure, abnormal and completely unaware of their own bodies, their own sexuality, their own pleasure. Not a life I wish for my daughter, nor yours.

I absolutely believe it is imperative that we open the doors to honest and proper sexual education and allow teenagers to explore, learn and develop without any fear of judgement or punishment and without ridiculous scare tactics and untruths about what will happen.

Yes, sex is an activity that comes with responsibility and risk but then so is almost everything we undertake as we grow from children into adults. Let's be true educators. True guides. After all truth is knowledge and knowledge is the key to all greatness and that is what I wish for my daughter and yours.

Sex Education and the lack of it. Or, Why the hell did I write my book?

I have finally finished writing my book, A Girl's Guide To Getting Off, and other things you won't learn in sex ed.

It all began when I was running a group of skillshare events with a friend about sexual pleasure, sex toys and Gspots and all the good things sex can do and discovering how many women over forty had never had an orgasm or even knew what pleasures their bodies were capable of. They were telling me things like "I wish I'd learnt all this as a teenager. It would have saved me a lot of confusion, self doubt and bad decision making as an adult."
It got me thinking of my own sex education and what I wish for my daughter... And I looked and I looked, and I found very little age appropriate stuff on the matter of sex and pleasure and relationships and all of the things we are supposed to automatically know when we "grow up".
So... Being the go-getter that I am, and a person who knows quite a lot about sex, pleasure and how to get the best out of it, I wrote it myself. And below are just some of the many other reasons this book needs to be out there...

Publishers please take note, and check your slush piles. I'm sure it's hiding in there somewhere

Technology is amazing. I mean, the things we can do nowadays! I can have a live video phone conversation with someone sitting in a grass hut in Africa. I can go on a virtual deep sea dive in an almost inaccessible part of the world. I can read the entire works of Shakespeare and all the Mr Men books and then take a tour of The Louvre while listening to a live Doors concert and I don't even have to get out of bed!

The wealth of information that comes through these little lit-up screens in our hands and on our laps is so far beyond 2000 it's crazy. Everything can be found by Googling it and I mean everything. The good, the bad and the ugly. Really, really ugly.

Yes, technology these days is amazing, but it can be fraught with problems too. One of the main issues that comes from such a huge influx of information is that it can be tricky to separate the truth from the lies, the real from the fake. And, if we lack the ability to process all this information in a way that helps us understand what we are seeing, why we are seeing it and what it all actually means, it can become a very dangerous thing.

One of the groups most vulnerable to the exposure of false, misleading and damaging information are teenagers. The brain is still developing, traits like reason and risk management are still developing or changing, and (as we are all aware) teenagers already know everything, so they can't be logically explained to or told otherwise. And now, with this universe of information in their pockets, they can claim to be experts on almost anything and have the “proof” to back it up.

Now that's all well and good when it comes to the latest Xbox game or the season finale of The Walking Dead, but when it comes to things that can be potentially life changing and damaging we, as adults, parents, friends and members of the universe, have a duty of care to make sure our younger generations are given the right information and tools to move into adulthood with minimum damage. It's fantastic that all this information is out there literally at your fingertips, but giving kids free reign of it all and not helping them process and understand it is as dangerous as letting a toddler play with an oven and figure out for themselves why their hands are getting burnt.

And this is all too obvious when it comes to sex. Proper sex education of young people is in decline. Parents are too afraid or embarrassed to talk to their kids about sex and teachers are afraid of the parents' reactions to their teachings and therefore keep it so basic that nothing is really taught and real questions are not being answered,and so a lot of kids end up in situations they cannot understand or process properly.

It's an illogical circle really. I won't tell my kids about sex, pleasure, orgasms, safety, consent, relationships and then they will never ever do it til I think they're old enough to handle it, and in doing so push their kids to the step of finding it out for themselves and inevitably seeing and experiencing worse.

The thing is plenty of teenage kids are going to have sex. Whether you want them to or not. They will. They have been for generations. And will for years to come. It's normal exploration. Telling them not to doesn't work and telling them not to without any good reasons is even worse. Telling them that sex is dirty, dangerous, bad and wrong is also not going to stop them. What it will do, however is make sure they are uninformed, unsafe, irresponsible and completely against coming to you for any help or advice when things do happen that are less than desired like pregnancy, STIs or sexual assault.

I recently heard of a woman who kicked her 15 year old daughter out of her home because she had got pregnant. Her reason? “I told her not to have sex. She didn't listen. What will the community think of the sort of mother I am who lets her teenager get pregnant.”

I'd be more worried about what the “community” would think of me as a mother who throws a young, pregnant vulnerable child out onto the street... But maybe that's just me.

She hadn't taught her daughter about safe sex. About condoms or the pill. About any of that. She truly believed that no information and “banning” her from doing it was the way to go. It wasn't. It isn't. And it never will be.

In 2011 the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society conducted a survey among nearly 300 secondary school teachers of sexual health from every jurisdiction in Australia including government, Catholic and independent schools.

Some of the key findings were:

* Most sex education teachers are female teachers trained in PE and health.

* Sixteen percent of teachers had no outside training whatsoever, and the majority of those who did attended a one day seminar with only a single focus, which was mainly reproduction.

* Only a quarter of all surveyed teachers had external help from organisations that specialise in sex education.

* Most sex education classes are given to students in years nine and ten with very little being taught in years eleven and twelve.

* Less than fifty percent of respondents taught about the pleasure of sexual behaviour/activity which suggests that Australian sex education focuses more on the negative outcomes rather than an overall approach.

* Over half of all the teachers surveyed said they found it hard to fit sex education into the curriculum as it wasn't allocated time.
* A fifth of all respondents cited a lack in training and resources as to why they avoided teaching some topics

* Just under fifty percent said they were afraid of community/parental backlash from some topics so were less likely to teach or talk about them in class. (including pleasure and same sex attraction)

* Topics that teachers said they would like to see included in the sex ed curriculum were: Same sex attraction, pleasure of sexuality, communication and negotiation skills, sexual decision making, respectful relationships and contraception.

* Almost a quarter of the teachers surveyed were unsure whether their school had a sex education policy.

Actual quote from survey:
“Teachers indicated that sexuality education should start in primary school and cover topics such as relationships and feelings, names and functions of body parts and reproduction. For most of the topics listed in this survey teachers stated that they should be taught earlier than they were actually teaching them as per curriculum. ...While the majority of teachers (51%) thought sexuality education was very effective in increasing knowledge and understanding in sexuality and sexual health, they judged sexuality education programs less effective for teaching young people about exploring and clarifying feelings, values and attitudes, developing and strengthening skills and promoting and sustaining risk-reducing behaviour.”

 

It's clear from this that most teachers are aware of what should be taught and when it should be taught but are mostly afraid to do so. Especially when it comes to teaching kids about pleasure which, when you think about it, is what sex is. It is pleasurable. It feels good. It is ultimately why most people have sex - for the sensation.

Telling children it is wrong or bad or dirty or beneath them is the first step to creating guilt, shame and confusion. But it feels good! How can it be bad??
In the same way we teach kids to enjoy chocolate but not be irresponsible with it and eat nothing but junk, we need to be able to tell our kids the same kind of things about sex. Sure it feels good, it can be one of the best things out there, but it comes with risks and responsibilities and ways to make sure you come out the other end undamaged. Just telling them how awful it is, without addressing the things they know to be true (like how good it can feel) is only telling half the story. As adults we know you can't build an Ikea bookshelf without half the instructions, why would we send our kids into the world with only half the instructions and then expect that bookshelf not to come crashing down and potentially kill them?

 Just look at these figures.

STI Rates (taken straight from Australian Bureau of Statistics "social trends" June 2011)

Chlamydia... For women aged 15-19 years, the notification rate increased from 569 per 100,000 in 2001, to 2,228 per 100,000 in 2011
Gonorrhoea... The national notification rate for people aged 15 years and over was 65 per 100,000 population, up from 40 per 100,000 in 2001.
Syphilis... The 15-19 years age group increased by 60%, 35-39 years increased by 84% and 45-49 years increased by 129%.

 HIV AIDS... In 2010, there were 1,031 new cases of HIV among men and women aged 13 years and over, or 5.5 notifications per 100,000 population.

 

 This, all of this, is why I have written my book. I believe there is a great deal of information our teenagers are not getting due to parental ignorance or embarrassment, teacher and school restrictions or lack of guidelines on what can and can't be taught.
There needs to be a place where kids can go to get all their information and knowledge from that is not only age appropriate, but correct, respectful, fully inclusive and spoken in a language they understand. They don't need to be told “no”. They need to be told everything, and then make up their own minds as to what they will do. I truly believe if we want to raise intelligent adults, we need to start with having informed children.

Why can't you just be a MOTHER??

I am about to do something I never in a million years thought I would ever do. Ever. I am about to stick up for Kim Kardashian. I know right. What the fuck?

I will admit it was only about a year or so ago that I found out exactly what a Kardashian was. Seriously. I thought it was a clothing line or a dog breed or something to do with Paris Hilton when I first heard the name. I don't follow celebrity news, I don't read or buy trashy magazines, and I have no interest in watching Entertainment Tonight or any of those things. So yeah. I didn't know who she was or why she was famous or even THAT she was famous. But I digress.
The second thing I am about to do that I never thought I would is to use a Kardashian in the same breath as feminism. I know. Strap yourself in... This IS going somewhere I promise.

I have (apparently) odd views of feminism. You see, I think of feminism as a thing where women can choose to be and do anything they put their minds to. Whether they decide to be a sex worker or a brain surgeon, if they have made the choice to be who they want to be, good on them. Power to you! Yeah sisterhood! I put “apparently” in brackets because I couldn't tell you the number of times I have been told that I am not a feminist because of the work I do, or I am just some silly little brainwashed thing who has been tricked into thinking I'm making my own mind up but really I am just a product of false consciousness and must be saved. Yawn. Yeah, whatever.

So, back to Kim Kardashian. She recently published a photograph of herself online. It's a pic of her in a pretty small leotard, posing butt-popped in the mirror. It's an okay picture. She has a fantastic booty. And, considering Kim Kardashian is famous for being famous and her butt is one of her most famous assets, I say whatever. Enjoy. Wish I had a butt like that.

Enter moral crusader and saver of women and identifier of all things feminist and otherwise, Mia Freedman.

Sitting up on her morally perfect high horse she writes of this picture “Are you a Mother or a Porn Star?” and then goes on to not only shame and ridicule the photograph but deem her some sort of bad mother because, god forbid, she has a body she is proud of and wants to show it off.

Well here is a big hearty fuck you, Mia. Who died and pronounced you god of motherhood and what mothers should do?

I bet you a hundred bucks if it was a picture of a woman posing post baby showing stretch marks or wobbly bits, Mia would declare it “brave” and “beautiful”. If it was a woman of plus size wearing a bikini and posing sexily Mia would post a blog on how wonderful it is that women are loving their bodies... But for some reason this offends her. She talks of the “whip lash” she got from looking at the booty pic and then a pic of Kim's new baby basically saying that, to her, a woman must be one thing once she has a child: A mother. A demure and pure and non sexual thing without any thoughts or ideas of personality beyond that of motherhood.

She goes on to deem the photograph “desperate and sad” because, you know, someone who is famous for having a body like that and showing that they still have a body like that after having a baby is somehow going against what we all know the Kardashians to stand for? Um... No.

You know what IS desperate and sad? The fact that Mia Freedman makes a hell of a lot of money shaming and judging other women for being whatever they choose, under the guise of some kind of concern for the children (won't somebody think of the children!!!!) and saying nothing of any real value or importance other than “look how morally upstanding I am and how shameful and wrong other people are who do things I deem shameful and wrong”.

The thing is, some mothers ARE porn stars. Some mothers are truck drivers. Some mothers stay at home and do the housework. There is nothing in the world wrong with a mother doing things other than being a mother. I know, from my own personal experience, if I was ONLY a mother I would go fucking crazy.

The biggest kick in the face really is the fact that unfortunately some mothers are not very good. Some mothers drink the grocery money and leave their children in dirty nappies and squalid conditions. Some mothers ship their kids off to everyone they can so they can have a social life and do not love or care for them the way they should. Some mothers abuse their children physically and sexually. This is where this outrage should be placed. Not on a picture of a woman (who happens to also be a mother) showing her butt off in a leotard.

I find the whole thing utterly repulsive. How dare you declare, in your oh-so-distateful way, that mothers cannot be sexy or proud of their sexuality. How dare you slut-shame. And, more importantly, how dare you make me get so pissed off I end up writing a blog in defence of a Kardashian! How very dare you!

(Because I have no intention of giving her any more traffic I have not posted a link to the offending blog here. If you want to see it, Google is your friend... But I won't lead you there.)

Confusion, Hypocrisy and a F*cking Good Read

Originally Posted on: Friday, 15 July 2011 
For The Australian Sex Party 
 
This is my response to the viral video of Noni Hazlehurst Reading the book : Go The Fuck To Sleep: 

http://www.youtube.co/watch?v=3xtcB457jqQ&feature=player_%20embedded 

I am confused. As you get to know me you'll find this is not a rare thing, lots of things confuse me. City parking signs and why people still continue to wear leggings as pants are good examples of these, but the confusion I am feeling today is different. It's a bit tummy twisting and odd and I can't quite pinpoint what it is that's making me feel it.

I guess the place to start is around 30 years ago. I was four and the best part of my day was when mum and I would have our “milk and a biscuit” and sit in the living room to watch Play School.

Ah, Play School. It was, and still is in my opinion, the best TV show for kids ever. Forget your weird, slightly nightmarish Night Gardens and your odd, orange-legginged Djs, Play School is where it's at. With their cardboard toilet tube people and their spotty kinds of days they educate, entertain and delight children and parents alike.

When I was little I had two heroes on Play School. One was the hilariously funny John Hamlin whose little asides to the parents and tendency to dress as Miss Polly had both my mother and I in stitches, and the other was Noni Hazlehurst. With her wonderful crinkly-eyed smile and her little head shrugs and winks she was like a second mum. The kind of mum who'd blow on a cut after putting Dettol on it and who would tuck you up warm and safe in bed with a story every night.

When I was a teenager I would watch it with my niece and love the fact that my childhood hero was still entertaining kids, and as a new mum in my late 20s I would watch Noni on the show with my mum and my daughter and marvel at how three generations of my family could come together and find wonder and delight in this same woman, over two decades on.

At this stage I was writing weekly for one of my favourite magazines, Australian People. With its tongue-in-cheek bogan-ness and its scantily clad models it really was one of the most fun and amusing publications to write for. It has no pretensions. It's all about boobs, bums and beer and hey, there's nothing wrong with that! We're adults, we're allowed to like boobs, bums, and beer. That's one of the perks of growing up! So imagine my dismay, my hurt and my disbelief when I picked up the paper one morning to read that Noni Hazlehurst, my childhood icon, the woman who taught me the words to Bananas in Pyjamas, was tut-tutting and wagging her finger at me and my colleagues accusing us of the most heinous crime of sexualising children.

According to her the fact that these magazines can often be seen in the eyesight of children is inappropriate and they should be moved to the back corner of the shop with the restricted R rated magazines like Hustler and Playboy.

But hang on a moment I thought as I looked at the cover of the latest People magazine, 

how is THIS (People) 

any worse than THIS (Cosmo)?