Blindfish RSE

My view of the channel 4 show "Porn on the Brain" which is all about how teenegers might be being impact by watching porn online. I have just finished watching "Porn on the Brain"   (if you live outside UK Tunnel Bear can let you watch this) a Channel 4 British documentary by a previous editor of Loaded (lad mag) Martin Daubney . In this documentary Martin looks to try and find out what is the situation of porn and teenagers. Now sometimes the show becomes a little sensationalist with phrases like "The internet brought about the end of innocence" but behind some hype is some interesting stuff. With Martin spending 15 years of his life dedicated to (soft core) pornography with his work in loaded his perspective on the porn industry is not naive, he describes himself as an "wanking expert". Early in the show he makes a judgment of how he views the changes in the porn industry.  "Porn has lost its sense of humour and become something mac...

I have started teaching a lesson on the media's portrayal of Sex and Relationship. The lesson focuses on movies, TV shows and visual pornography. But with all the media hype around 50 Shades of Grey I wanted to do a small scale survey of young people I work with to see if the hype had any grounding in reality. Are young people reading it and is it impacting young people?  At the end of a session looking at the Distortion of Media I handed out some small surveys. Just half a dozen questions and a space for general feedback. I did this with two year groups both mixed gender. A group of year 10 students (aged 14-15) and a group of year 12 students (aged 16-17). With the older group I also asked if the book had encouraged them to experiment with "BDSM/fetish/kinky stuff" but talking with school staff it was decided not to ask that direct question to the year 10 groups. Below are some of the figures from my study, please note it is very small scale and may not ref...

Today I shared another resource listing the agree disagree statement I often use in Relationship lessons. I find agree disagree activities as a bit of a two edge sword. Sometimes they are great and sometimes they just seem flat.  I think agree/disagree activities work well if young people in the group do not all think the same. The true value in agree/disagree activities is the discussion it can stir up. The discussion is the point where young people learn things and develop their attitudes. The statements need to be crafted to try and divide opinion and stir up this discussion. When the statements do not divide group opinion then rarely will I get a good follow up discussion. The problem is that the statements that work well for one group do not work for another group.  The temptation is to try and pick truly controversial issues but I have had as much success with the historically controversial issues (abortion, porn etc) as the more s...

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Please make use of all these notes/links from my session today at the Esteem Resource Network Conference looking at the topic "Let’s talk about porn" Firstly my presentation Why talk about Porn? on Prezi Documents Sheffield Centre for HIV and Sexual Healthwith Brook, FPA, The National Youth Agency People and Pornography - A Briefing for Workers NSPCC sexting study Summary report of the qualitative study Full report of the qualitative study   McAfee The Digital Divide: How the Online Behavior of Teens is Getting Past Parents  Digital Divide BBC Newsbeat Survey  Men worried about Porn Sex Education Vs Pornography statistics taken from show episodes, they are currently unavailable but you can find useful stuff at their sexperince website   Youtube clip from Friends episode about the need to turn off the porn Books I may not agree with everything in these books but they have some interesting bits. Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain ...

Thoughts on how SRE workers may have to respond to it with young people.  I have just finished reading 50 shades of grey. As a youth worker and sex and relationship educator I felt it was important to have an informed opinion before September when teenagers/young people might ask me questions in lessons and youth clubs. I'm a little behind the trend but spending 12 weeks travelling did take me out of touch. I have always thought it is crucial to read a book itself before commenting on it. So even though it is not my typical book I thought it was important to read it.  To be clear this book was not written for young people, it is not meant to be read by young people and I don't believe E. L. James would be happy for young people to read it. But in my experience young people love to consume (watch, read, listen) media that adults do not want them to read. Either as a form of sexual exploration or out of rebellion or for many other reasons young people have a...

Pattaya - the Thai city of sin? Both Thailand and Great Britain share a number of the same issues in Sexual Health but these issue express themselves in different ways. I want to learn from the situation in Thailand, especially how people are responding, to improve my work in the UK. I have just returned from a 12 week trip around South East Asia as part of this trip I visited a number of projects in Cambodia, see previous posts and I spent a month in Thailand. In Thailand I visited three projects all tackling different sexual health issues. "The House of Grace" A HIV orphanage, "The Tamar Centre" helping people who wish to leave the commercial sex trade and "ACET Singburi" a schools based prevention programme and HIV+ home visit team. Traveling around South East Asia I became aware of a number of cultural differences that permeate society and impact sexual health in complex ways. I cannot claim to understand the social sexual health situation ...

Something a bit differant today. I'm in Thailand visiting a HIV orphanage and education project that is also linked with my work with ACET in the UK. I'm going to post a full account later. But today I just wanted to share with you this image. Walking through a Thai supermarket we found this tshirt. "Practice safe snax, always use a condiment" I found it funny, Michelle loved it and so did our hosts. A married couple both over 70, missionaires who have been in Thailand 40+ years and who have spearheaded amazing HIV prevention and care work. Inspiring people to stay with.

What's in a name? I regularly run into the problem of giving a concise but comprehensive name to the work I try to do about sexual health and wellbeing (see I just tried to summerise it in 4 words) but every term I use seems to fall short of fully explaining the field. Every worker in this field of knowledge of biological, sociological, emotional, technological and probably some more -icals related to reproduction has their own personal favourites. My favourite is Sex and Relationship Education. Short and simple but not necessarily very complete in covering all I work on when I have lessons covering individual self esteem, sexting and the distortions of pornography. Most names in the field have a history and reason for their particular emphasis. For example my favourite name for my work emphasis a core approach that I will only talk about sex as part of a larger curriculm which includes discussion on healthy relationships. I fully believe this is a key learning point for young pe...

Fighting for love? I love dystopian future stories. I don't know maybe there it is the part of me that loves to watch how things might fall apart. From the bleak Joss Whedon Firefly and Dollhouse  TV shows or the amazing Metatropolis  anthology to this new trilogy of books and 1st film the Hunger Games. By Suzanne Collins this triology explores a bleak near future where America has collapsed and ruled with an Iron Fist the capital city holds 12 districts under its thumb treating them as slave labour. Barely able to survive, working back breaking jobs the vast majority of the population serve the few rich capital city dwellers. As part of the capitals drive to keep the districts under heal and broken they city forces each district to select 2 young people to fight to the death in a televised event called the Hunger Games. The games themselves unfold in a very similar way to the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale  but the world they are set in is ...