ECU research findings show that content such as the books targeted in this campaign is needed by certain young people.
Last month, the Cumberland City Council in Western Sydney had its attempts at banning books at a local library overturned.
Now, here in WA, we face our own copycat book burners, with a group calling itself the Keeping Children Safe committee committed to restricting access at Albany's public library to "sexually graphic" books they deem inappropriate.
In our research, funded by the Australian Research Council at Edith Cowan University, we spoke to dozens of teens about their perceptions of online sexual content and how they learnt about sex and relationships. Our findings showed that content such as those books targeted in these campaigns is needed by certain young people.
The majority of teens find it too awkward to ask their parents about sex. Their teachers are also untrained or uncomfortable talking about sex. Indeed, the majority of sex education teachers do not require specialist training.
Young people were unsure of where to turn to for questions about sex. Instead, they’re turning to Google, pornography, or their friends as first preference, a practice the teens themselves acknowledge is problematic.
The Keeping Children Safe committee complained to Albany council and police that books, including Welcome to Sex by Dr Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes and Sex: A Book for Teens by Nikol Hasler, were in "gross violation" of community standards and "not appropriate for our children". However, we beg to differ. Resources such as these books can be very useful in informing young people about sex and keeping themselves and others around them safe.
Welcome to Sex, which Stynes said could be appropriate for a "mature eight-year-old", recently won a well-deserved award for "book of the year for older children". But this isn't the first time it has sparked backlash. Last year, the resource was removed from bookshelves at BIG W.
Our study reinforced previous research by finding young people were accessing pornography as young as seven. This access at such a young age, without other resources or information about sex, has the potential to affect some children's conceptualisation of sex and relationships. For some children and young people, pornography as the main source of sexual education could be detrimental to their development and future relationships.
While no one is forcing anyone to read the content, "The age range of young people, for whom such books could be relevant, is very dependent on the individual child themselves. Comprehensive information about sex can be applied on a case-by-case basis depending on an individual child's needs. For example, if children have accessed pornography early (a growingly common phenomenon), they become aware of their sexuality early, or they have experienced child sexual abuse, need may necessitate engagement with educational resources earlier than expected."
Albany-born sexologist Jordina Quain has worked in protective behaviours education of young people for more than 10 years.
"The drive to condemn publicly available resources for teenagers about sex and sexuality is completely misguided and unfounded by decades of research," she said.
"Such research shows that equipping young people with information about sex and sexuality, in fact, delays their first sexual experiences, increases their likelihood of using safer sex practices (condoms and contraception), and decreases the likelihood of their sexual experiences involving coercion and non-consent.”
Providing kids with information can prevent violence before it occurs and can teach young people the necessary skills to keep them safe. Such information can assist children to be able to identify harmful behaviours and prevent young people from enacting sexual and gender-based violence.
"The more access young people have to accurate and evidence-based information, the safer, more empowered and healthier they are," Quain said.
"To put it clearly, not only do resources such as this not encourage grooming and sexual abuse, but they are, in fact, the key to preventing these very things. Restrictions to these resources increase the vulnerability of abuse and harm to young people."
The committee in Albany referred to books with sexual content (even when educational in nature) as forms of "grooming" and "sexual abuse". These terms have been grossly misused and misapplied.
Grooming is the act of manipulating, persuading, and prepping a young, vulnerable person with ill intent, usually to abuse. It normally happens slowly, over time, with someone the child trusts, where a relationship is built on mutual interests and making them feel special.
Grooming predominantly occurs by a family friend, a charming adult a child trusts, or strangers online who pose as someone else, coaxing a young person into a false sense of security and preying on their vulnerability. It normally occurs one-on-one, underhandedly and almost always in secret.
Using grooming as an insult or in the wrong context is not only offensive to actual child sex abuse survivors, but it can also potentially be harmful as it complicates identifying actual grooming behaviours when they occur. Their misuse minimises and confuses actual harmful behaviours.
Information is the enemy of actual groomers and sex abusers. Books like Welcome to Sex offer non-judgmental support based on expert advice, which children and young people in our research said was missing from the conversation or that such content was not accessible.
Young people need and want these resources. Even the most "controversial" of the content offered by such books — information around anal sex, sex positions and sexting, which can understandably be confronting to some adults — is still relevant safety information.
Some young people are engaging in such behaviours unsafely and unhygienically and, in some cases, mimicking the aggression in pornography. As teens in our research observed, they cannot approach their parents or teachers about such information, and so many turn to pornography for answers. By banning such resources, we are simply redirecting children to less credible and potentially damaging sources of sexual information.
Giselle Woodley is a sexologist and PhD Candidate at Edith Cowan University
This article was first published in The West Australian
