Outrage over Yumi Stynes' sex-ed book for teens needs to stop

OPINION

Cringe is a word that Generation Z has co-opted as their own. Could there be anything more "cringe" than adults talking about sex education for teenagers? Whether it's sitting down with cringing parents for "the talk", your earnest sports teacher demonstrating condoms (I'm cringing hard over here), or a genuinely cringe-worthy sex scandal where the leading protagonists are author Yumi Stynes and Big W.

Big W and sex scandal aren't words I imagined I'd be typing in the same sentence in my lifetime, but there you have it. If you're not up to date on the latest faux outrage, allow me to catch you up.

In May, Stynes and former Dolly Doctor and adolescent health expert Dr Melissa Kang (who mercifully hasn't copped anywhere near the flak as her co-author) released a book called Welcome to Sex: Your no-silly-questions guide to sexuality, pleasure and figuring it out. It's the fourth in a series aimed at teenagers on topics including menstruation, consent, and boobs.

Like many Australian women, I grew up with the iconic Dolly magazine and learned more from Dolly Doctor than my GP. So, I was intrigued to read that the book is based on 20 years of "genuine questions" about sex education as well as interviews with young people and adolescent experts about issues they're facing, particularly in an online world. Topics include communication, relationships, sexual and gender diversity, myths about sex, and reasons not to have sex. As well as consent, pleasure, intimacy, cheating, safety, and different ways people might have sex.

Seems innocuous? Hold tight onto your shopping bag because this week, Big W, who've built their entire positioning on "Every day is a big day" featuring families doing family-friendly stuff, even going as far as to state on their website, "We're big on family life", are selling a book for teens that features, God forbid, sex!

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Not only sex but oral sex, fingering, anal sex, scissoring, hand jobs, pornography, sexuality, and gender identity, which has many adults' panties in a twist. This week, a conservative threw the first match on the sex-ed book-burning pyre with a tweet that read, "Big W continue to stock books that are grooming our children, exposing them to sexually explicit and highly inappropriate material."

Beyond the book being for teenagers (the introduction even reads, "Welcome to a book about sex and being a teen!"), I take issue with the "grooming our children" line, as it dilutes the real, horrifically insidious meaning of grooming — something we should be educating young people about.

Online, Stynes and Kang were accused of targeting children, and labelled scum bags, amongst the nicer insults. Meanwhile, in-store, Big W staff were pelted with metaphorical tomatoes, copping abuse for being in the employ of a family store that would stock a book on sex education.

This and a hostile media campaign led to the retailer stripping the book from its shelves. However, they'll continue to sell the book as part of their parenting range online. Not satisfied, campaigners are now gunning for Target and Dymocks.

Despite the book being labelled a sex manual that "teaches sex", it talks to teens (and, by default, their parents) about navigating intimacy, tricky emotions and trickier situations like not wanting sex. These are the sorts of conversations, sadly, many teenagers in Australia wouldn't feel comfortable having with mum and dad.

The real danger

Instead, they'll go online to the world's most in-demand sex educator: Professor Porno. If you want to feel outraged, studies reveal that the average age of first exposure to pornography is 11 years old.

Pornography is a shocker of a sexual educator for many reasons: you never hear actors talking about consent, sex is most often viewed from the male gaze, female pleasure is subjugated, rough sex dominates, and there's unrealistic beauty standards, penis sizes, labia shapes. Porn only shows sex for fun (although it never looks pleasurable for the woman) rather than as a loving act between partners or, God forbid, for procreation. Apart from school sex-ed programs, the other place kids get most of their sex education is from other kids — probably the least reliable or safe source imaginable.

Australia lagging behind

Even as an adult, talking about sex can be "cringe" as it's not normalised in this country. Having lived in Berlin for many years, I'm highly aware of the sex education lag in Australia. Germany and France begin sex-ed in primary schools and have the lowest teenage pregnancy rates in the world. Families in the Netherlands have normalised talking about sex to the point that kids openly seek and value their parents' advice about it. A study that evaluated three decades of comprehensive and inclusive sex education beginning at a young age found it can sway young people to have sex later, prevent child sex abuse, reduce homophobic bullying and decrease rates of domestic violence.

While it may feel easier to ignore talking to your kids about sex, parents are the frontline of combatting misinformation and as grown adults, can provide information to keep their children safe, informed and heard. Maybe it's worth reading Welcome to Sex for some tips about what teens actually want to know about and what they're dealing with online and in the real world.

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