Sexting, or what teenagers apparently call “dodgy pix”, “nudes” or “nude selfies” – not that I’ve ever heard them do that – is becoming standard practice among this age group. This announcement comes from the government’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) which is worried that most who do so are unaware that their actions could result in a criminal conviction. As a secondary school teacher and parent I can attest that we are in uncharted, daunting waters.
Yet while there is frenetic work going on over radicalisation and child sexual exploitation, the most recent official government advice on sex and relationship education was issued 15 years ago. There is no strategic focus on sex education and this remains shocking, particularly when figures show that 31% of girls and 16% of boys aged 13-17 report that they have experienced sexual violence at least once in their short lives.
The training given to teachers on sex and relationship education is either nonexistent or inadequate and we are left to muddle our own way through, should the topic present itself. It is unsurprising, then, that I and 62% of my fellow teachers are apprehensive about delivering sexually explicit content. Yet the issues raised by teen sex and relationships can affect our work as teachers.
How, for example, is the reality of sexting affecting young people’s emotional wellbeing and their educational attainment? And before the rolled eyes or exasperated sighs of “we can’t be surprised young people are obsessed with sex”, let us pause to consider how it might feel to know that five of your colleagues in the office have circulated a picture of your breasts or a dick pic. It would be difficult to return to work each morning amid the giggles and sneers, much less concentrate, wouldn’t it?
In the vacuum created by not providing personal social and health education (PSHE), this is increasingly the experience of our young people. And, as with most things in society, there is a heavy gender imbalance. According to the NSPCC, where sexting is concerned girls are “the most adversely affected”. The usual double standards abide; girls’ sexual expression is easily twisted into something to be ashamed of while boys can boast of theirs.
What the NSPCC finds is that, yes, sexting is an expression of burgeoning tween/teenage sexuality. But it is also, all too often, linked to harassment, bullying, control and violence. It objectifies and is largely coercive. Some girls become victims of “snaking” – a practice in which a boy befriends a girl, solicits “dodgy pix” only for them to be shared among his friends as a form of cultural currency. The French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss posited that patriarchy is founded upon the “exchange of women” between men. It is something these teenage boys innately understand.
And so, in any given class, a teacher might find themselves managing the behaviours of a victim of sexual bullying and harassment, an abuser and countless online bystanders. Teachers, parents and, crucially, young people themselves, need sex and relationship education to be made compulsory. This is the only way to ensure that schools give it proper curriculum time. Currently state secondary schools are only required to cover sex education as it relates to contraception and sexually transmitted infections. Schools are therefore well within their rights to ignore issues such as pornography and sexting. It’s shocking to think that secondary academies and free schools do not have to provide any sex education at all.
We know young people are interested in sex, so educating them on these issues shouldn’t be about finger-wagging moralising. Neither should it be about criminalisation because, really, how many adults can remember passing up stolen fumbles with their teenage crush because, you know, it’s illegal. That is not the world as we knew it then or now.