"Protect the children" by banning educational material.

PaulOige

I have to get it off my chest. I have gone on a deep dive watching live streams from the hate campaign travelling around Ireland, harassing library staff and calling everyone who disagrees with their thoughts a pedophile or a groomer. These straight men have no idea what growing up LGBTQ+ is like. They have no idea what not getting any LGBT sex education can do to someone who is gay. 

Hetetosexual sex education has always been offered at 5th and 6th class. However, the LGBTQ plus community are, and continue to be, completely ignored. So where did I, a 11 year old gay boy in rural Ireland, turn to for sex education? The Internet. This is almost 20 years ago, but I had no where else to go. This started a very rapid learning curve. My initial search into "how do gay men have sex" rapidly led to porn. By 12 I was watching porn daily, and by 14 I was watching extremely hardcore stuff. I grew up thinking it was normal to be in pain during gay sex. It was normal to be forced into scenarios you didn't want. Kinks most people would never consider, never explore, to me were just the norm of gay sex. This lead in my later teens and early 20s to meeting with a lot of older men - both singly and in groups. I thought gay sex had to include everything I've seen in the videos, so that's what I looked for. "Inexperienced young rural teen seeks older men for kinky fun" was my Craigslist advert. Force, pain, groups, public sex, humiliation and publicly humiliating scenarios were all part of my "coming of age" story, and it wasn't until I got out of rural Ireland and made gay friends in the city that I realised... it wasn't the norm. 

These books may seem unnecessary if you grew up receiving sex education that we useful to you. If you saw sex on TV programmes that you could identify with. However, books like "This Book Is Gay" offer essential support and knowledge to children like I was. To teens like I was. They may prevent these kids and teens from becoming a young adult like I was. If I had this book, maybe I would have ran to Craigslist to tick off an extremely long list that I felt I had to do, or I wasn't a real gay. 

They can call us pedohiles and groomers, but i know from experience they are wrong. Sex education doesn't mean we are groomers. However, by educating teens about sex relevant to their sexuality, it means the true groomers won't be able to manipulate them as easily.

In short, please support your local libraries! These books are important, if not for you, then maybe for someone you know.

Str8outtaWuhan

In fairness no child in Ireland gets their sex education in school despite all the "programs" .it's always been and always will be from your peers and media. Join the club.

The thread title and first post are completely at odds which makes me think this will just turn into another anti-LGBTQ+ thread

Hangdogroad

Some of the upstanding citizens claiming to be protecting the kids.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120978233#Comment_120978233

Yep, OP is spot on when you actually read their post. Hopefully a mod updates the title cause it's much needed perspective on the topic imho.

newmember2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120978216#Comment_120978216

Indeed and OT but, we didn't have 24/7 hardcore porn available to us as soon as we learned how to spell it, like they do now.

In all seriousness, how is this still tolerated? Is it not just universal consensus to child endangerment??

buried

Yeah, amazing how the untold billions of homosexual people in the past reached adulthood before the internet and schools took an interest in them.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120978233#Comment_120978233

The OP has the ‘protect the children’ part in inverted commas, indicating that the actions of a few weirdos who are claiming to want to protect children, actually aren’t, given the OPs personal experience of relying on pornography and older men for their education in sex and sexuality. They’re implying that had these kinds of books been available to them in their local library as a child, they might have been better armed with the knowledge to protect themselves from exploitation.

All seems entirely reasonable, except for the fact that the OP fails to mention and doesn’t appear to recognise the parents role and responsibility in educating their own children in relation to matters regarding sexuality and relationships. I don’t think the books should be available to children without parental guidance, and similarly their access to the internet should be the responsibility of their parents, as opposed to the idea of children relying on themselves to educate themselves about sexuality and relationships, or their peers equally poor grasp of sexuality and relationships at that age.

I also don’t support the idea of weirdos showing up in libraries threatening and intimidating staff and members of the general public. I see that as an entirely separate issue though as to whether or not the children’s section in a public library should include books about sexuality and relationships, particularly books which are of little educational value in any case. If parents want that for their children, there’s Amazon, or a whole plethora of sources online which offer tools and resources aimed at parents in educating their own children in these matters in accordance with their own values and beliefs and so on.

Str8outtaWuhan

Imho the state should have no had , act or part in any form of social education. It stinks of indoctrination. We had 60 yrs of Catholic sponsored indoctrination no we've had at least 20 yrs of leftist identity idealogy. Neither should be tolerated in a true republic as social education is at the whim of the ideological flavour of the day. Yes teach kids civil education, no to social education.

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120978233#Comment_120978233

It won't get the chance

We don't need another of these threads

Closed