Teens need help to navigate boundaries
OF COURSE, many people will regard the decision to bring in ‘sexual consent’ classes for transition year students as yet another example of political correctness gone mad, but maybe, just maybe, in this increasingly sexualised world, it is now necessary for children to be taught about consent, boundaries and sexual violence?
There are few adults over the age of 30 who have had such early access to extraordinarily hardcore porn as children have today and so few of us know or can hope to understand how this has shaped teenagers’ attitudes to sex. At the click of a button, teenagers today are offered access to ‘rape porn’, ‘violent, forced sex’ and ‘avatar, rape porn’. When we think back on 1970s or 80s porn that was secretly passed around classrooms, it seems very innocent compared to the nasty, brutal porn that is commonly available these days.
Today’s porn is more hardcore, it’s more focused upon pain and violence and it introduces ever more tantalising experiences than it did before the digital age. This is why so many kids with raging hormones and little knowledge of real sex are easily led into a dark world where they can choose to become brutal rapists or lecherous predators who drug girls in order to have sex with them. If they so wish, they can also choose to become avatars who are brutally raped.
As a psychotherapist who often works with teenagers, a significant proportion of my work with teenage boys is supporting their desire to overcome their addiction to hard-core porn. These kids, often already addicted to virtual sex by the time they are 15 years old, are usually completely inexperienced in real life. And yet, more often than not, even though they have had very little sexual experience with actual humans, they appear to be jaded and cynical about sex because their virtual sex life is astonishingly experienced.
This bizarre paradox inevitably leads to clumsy and clueless sexual experiences in real life and they often find these experiences so traumatic that they quickly retire back to their screens where they can get their sexual kicks without needing to show any vulnerability or emotion.
While this is bad enough, a weird kind of collusion is also taking place where many girls feel that they need to look and behave like porn stars if they are to impress any boy, while the boys expect the girls to behave in this way. It’s not only girls who feel heavily sexualised – many young teenage boys, gay and straight, also feel the need to sexualise their identity before they are really ready.
Sixteen year olds are often shy and clumsy when it comes to the opposite sex, they haven’t yet learnt about the delights of flirting and they are still inexperienced in reading body language. Hopefully this programme will help to clarify the complexities of flirting, sexual consent and boundaries.
THE extraordinary events that propelled the #MeToo campaign has tapped a reservoir of deep emotion in many women as we suddenly realised that we, finally, had the power to stamp out lecherous and inappropriate behaviour. We have collectively reared up against the sexist chauvinist behaviour and walloped it out of the park. With this, many male teenagers are now almost fearful of any sexual contact with potential girls; they’re afraid to misread signals and they’re afraid they’ll be accused of ‘unwanted sexual attention’ if they take the plunge and it isn’t reciprocated.
Any programme is only as good as the delivery and if this programme encourages teenagers to discuss all the issues pertaining to consent and sexual violence then the kids will become a lot more knowledgeable and empowered.
Some kids need to learn about passive aggression, while others need to learn about the difficulties surrounding mixed messages; still others need to learn to be assertive.
This programme is the perfect framework to explore the intricacies of sexual behaviour and so long as it doesn’t turn sex into a joyless, soulless, dead-eyed, legal contract, then teenagers are bound to benefit from it.
This bizarre paradox inevitably leads to clumsy and clueless sexual experiences in real life and teenagers often find these experiences so traumatic that they quickly retire back to their screens