The book, Welcome to Sex: Your no-silly-questions guide to sexuality, pleasure and figuring it out by Yumi Stynes and Dr Melissa Kang, has sparked debate around sex education for children, with many parents furious.
Big W, which was criticised for stocking it, bowed to pressure this week and removed it from sale.
One section of the book discusses sending nude pictures and sexting, which Dr Kang likens to love letters that were once sent before phones, ignoring the innocence of those letters, which were generally written by adults, compared to the explicit pictures and videos that can be sent today and shared to the world instantly.
The authors write that if they were talking to their own children about sending nudes, they’d advise them to crop their heads off just in case, because once a picture is out there you have no control over it.
However, cyber safety expert with 27 years in law enforcement, Susan McLean, said she was concerned about the peddling of misinformation on such an important topic.
“These people haven’t a clue about the reality of the digital world,” she stresses.
“They are encouraging behaviour which is likely to cause a young person to be arrested and charged and that is not ok.
Ms McLean said minors sending nudes was a crime in Australia, except for Victoria in certain situations, and if convicted, kids could become registered sex offenders.
Child psychiatrist, Dr Jillian Spencer says she has seen children charged by police with the distribution of child exploitation material in her practice.
Dr Spencer explains that exposure to sexual concepts needs to occur gradually and tailored to the child’s individual stage of development.
“The book appears to inundate children with a lot of graphic adult sexual information and pictures,” she says.
“It describes sex acts without any relationship context.
“It is likely to frighten some children and encourage children to view sex as a series of acts that are separate from any emotional connection with another person.”
McLean agrees that it reduces a young woman to the sum of her body parts, which is not empowering.
“It is misleading, dangerous and damaging content,” she stated.
Source: ‘No, your kids shouldn’t send nudes even with their faces removed. Here’s why’ | Kidspot
I find the whole push on the part of these two supposedly aware adults to be mystifying They are not safe guarding and are following an agenda which will damage children and stress their parents…since when do we think swapping nude pix of self at any age is a wise move. Child abuse still occurs snd is still not handled well.