Blindfish RSE

Today on BBC Three Counties Radio I heard an interview with 20 year old Grace talking about her experience of being pressured into watching pornography by her then boyfriend when she was 15 years old. She was incredibly honest and open about how she felt it had negatively impacted her. If you would like to listen to the interview it will be available for a week at the BBC , skip to 1 Hour 7mins into the programme or you can read my typed up  complete transcript of the interview. In this blog I want to pick out a few of things that Grace said.  One of the first things Grace says is  So the boy I was currently dating at the time, was obviously at that age where he had been watching it since about the age of 12 and he had heard from some of his friends that they watch it with their girlfriends. So he came up with a suggestion to me and I said no and I kept saying no and then he just kept on pushing, so I then said “well ok lets check this out, I’ve never looked a...

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 ...

C hab Dai  is  a project that instead of being just a single project, works as a  coalition . A  coalition  of over 50 projects all working with the issue of Human  Trafficking .  We walked back from the Chab Dai offices under a glorious (hot) blue sky The issue of human trafficking is not limited to one country or continent but is a global issue, yet in each country it will have its own specific styles and issues. In Cambodia poverty is a huge driving factor in people ending up being trafficked.  The sensationalised media accounts of trafficking usually shows people being snatched and dragged away in chains. This is far from the common way people end up in the trade. Helen Sworn (the coalitions International director, who we got to meet and talk with) estimated that less then 2% of trafficked people have that sort of experience. Most trafficked individuals are trapped by much more subtle approaches.  For example,...