Media frenzy over primary school gay sex education claims
September 17th, 2008
Right wingnewspapers and Christian groups are whipping up a homophobic media frenzy by misunderstanding an academic seminar as a suggestion that 5-year olds should be taught about the pleasures of gay sex.
In a seminar at Exeter University tomorrow (Thursday 18 September 08), researchers from the No Outsiders project will be discussing “pleasure and desire in educational contexts”.
No Outsiders is an organisation set up to stop homophobic bullying and prejudice in schools. The project currently operates in 14 primary schools.
In documents prepared for the seminar, project leaders have set themselves a goal of “creating primary classrooms where queer sexualities are affirmed and celebrated”.
The documents state: “The team is concerned to interrogate the desexualisation of children’s bodies, the negation of pleasure and desire in educational contexts, and the tendency to shy away from discussion of (sexual) bodily activity in No Outsiders project work.
“The danger of accusations of the corruption of innocent children has led team members to make repeated claims that this project is not about sex or desire - and that it is therefore not about bodies.
“Yet, at a very significant level, that is exactly what it is about and to deny this may have significant negative implications for children and young people.”
The seminar will “question the taken-for-granted of the supposedly sexless, bodiless and desire-less primary classroom’ and examine ‘the place of the research team members’ own bodies, desires and pleasures in this research”.
Right-wing groups have chosen to interpret this as proof that gay sex will be taught to primary school children.
“The proposal is that primary school classrooms should be turned into gay saunas,” claims Patricia Morgan, author of anti-same-sex parenting book ‘Children as Trophies’. “This is about homosexual practice in junior schools. The idiots who repealed Section 28 should consider that this is where it has got them.”
However, No Outsiders Project leader Dr Elizabeth Atkinson said the seminar had no connection with No Outsiders’ work in classrooms. “The seminar is part of a long-standing academic debate and has nothing to do with schools,” said Dr Atkinson. “It has no connection with sex education.”
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