Children will learn facts about life from disrupting online porn: Experts see ban on sex education for under-nines ‘incredibly harmful’ – and warn young people could develop an ‘unhealthy relationship’ with sex

Banning sex education for children under the age of nine could be ‘incredibly harmful’, experts have warned – as young people could ultimately learn the facts of life from disrupting online pornography.

Education Minister Gillian Keegan is to impose a total ban on sex education for infants, with classes not allowed to start until the fifth year.

Other proposals include stipulating that gender identity be taught in schools as a “contested topic.”

But five experts have told MailOnline that the ban could have shocking unintended consequences for young people.

Dr. Amanda Gummer, who specializes in child development, said sweeping sex under the rug is “dangerous and naive.”

She said: ‘Children need questions answered and nothing should be taboo. The sooner you introduce sex and reproduction as a normal part of life, the less stigma will surround it, the less it will be seen as something ‘naughty’ and the healthier your relationship with it will be.

‘Talking to children about the biological facts of reproduction can happen as soon as children start asking questions about it.

‘The withdrawal of formal sex education from schools is really dangerous, given the extent to which children are exposed to the internet from an increasingly young age. Children will ultimately get their sex education from porn, which can be incredibly harmful.”

Last year, an alarming report by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza found that one in 10 children had viewed pornography online by the time they were nine.

A quarter of young people in the last year of primary school, aged 10 to 11, were found to have viewed explicit sexual content, much of which contained violence.

Four in ten young people between 16 and 21 years old believe that girls ‘enjoy’ aggressive sex, such as strangling and hitting.

Dr. Gummer said sex education lessons in primary schools should cover the biological facts about where babies come from to help “demystify” this – and that parents should be willing to get involved.

“The more children can role-play and discuss this in a safe, non-threatening, open way, so that it doesn’t become taboo, the healthier it will become,” she said. ‘A game-based approach really helps them to give meaning to it themselves. And I don’t think it should all fall on schools.

‘It is naive and dangerous to protect children from the facts of life, because they want to know more about them. It’s fascinating, and for generations, kids have been trying to find out about this stuff one way or another.

‘Nowadays it is very easy to get on the Internet. If you don’t talk to kids about it, if they don’t have an authoritative, trusted source to go to with questions, they’ll turn to the Internet.”

She added that concepts like love, trust, relationships and loyalty are “fairly irrelevant” to children before they hit puberty, so lessons dealing with these things can wait until later in life.

“When it comes to issues of gender, what is taught in schools should be evidence-based and evidence-based,” she said. ‘Gender as a construct versus gender as a biologically determined factor is still controversial. But that also applies to many things surrounding monogamy, love and relationships. So it can also be part of the conversation, as long as it is not presented as a scientific fact.’

Dr. Gummer, founder of the Good playing guide for parents, said sex education has been ‘bundled’ with issues surrounding gender identity, leading to both being removed from the curriculum.

“I think the two things are very different,” she said. “Sex education should essentially be a science lesson. The gender debate can be saved for PHSE lessons.

‘It’s important to distinguish these two when teaching children because one is biological fact and the other is heavily influenced by your religion, your culture, your geography, your age – and your opinions about those things can change over the course of change the time.

‘Sweeping sex under the carpet and pretending that children will only have access to any information about it later in life is dangerous and naive.’

Child development expert Dr Jacqueline Harding said the ban could lead to shielding problems by preventing schools from responding to students’ individual needs.

“My immediate concern is how much of it is subject to robust scrutiny, and how much of it is politically motivated,” she said.

‘It is a mistake to deprive school principals of the power to respond intelligently and sensitively to certain issues within their school, especially in the area of ​​safeguarding.

‘Schools are already obliged to inform parents about the sex education lessons their children receive, and parents can already withdraw their children from these lessons if they wish.

‘Have the needs of the children really been taken into account on all sides? Have all possible security issues been considered?

‘The government says the new limits are based on advice from a panel of experts. I would like to see the advice of this mysterious panel. It must be based on substantial research, not just conjecture or opinion.

‘Flexibility is necessary because life is not neat. Politicians are unaware of the real-life issues children face in every school, including protecting issues such as sexual violence or exposure to inappropriate images.

‘If a school is suddenly confronted with a particular situation, such as sharing an inappropriate image with an eight-year-old, schools should be able to make decisions based on the best interests of the children in that class. ‘

Stella O’Malley, psychotherapist and founder of the gender campaign group GenspectAccording to the report, banning sex education is a knee-jerk reaction to concerns about over-sexualization and the teaching of gender identity in schools.

She said: ‘Banning sex education for children under 9 is a direct result of the world becoming highly sexualised for children. It feels like a reaction, and a bit exaggerated.

‘Children need to know more about their bodies. They don’t need to know everything about sex, but they do need to know what boundaries are and what is private and what is not.

‘I think sex is intertwined with gender identity, and that makes me very uncomfortable. Ten years ago no one was teaching gender identity, and suddenly it’s being taught as fact in some places, which is completely inappropriate.

‘Combining it with sex education has made the whole thing very confusing. They are two very, very different topics. Banning sex education suggests that the government has accepted that the two are intertwined, which is not good for anyone.”

Pediatrician Dr Katie Malbon said girls get their periods earlier – as young as eight years old – so limiting sex and contraception education beyond this point “only explains half the biological story.”

“It’s just going to lead to more unanswered questions,” she said.

Jas Schembri-Stothart, co-founder of teen wellbeing app Luna, said: ‘It is absurd that we would refuse to give children access to accurate and reliable sex education when we know that puberty does not correspond to the school years, and that many children start to experience changes in their bodies long before they reach year 5.

‘If we don’t provide them with a safe environment in which they can learn more about their bodies and feelings, we are bringing them even closer to unreliable and often very dangerous online sources of information. I speak to young girls every day and the misinformation they find on platforms like TikTok is truly terrifying.”