The smartphone generation, my two teenage children included, have had to deal with the lure and pressures of 24/7 access to the digital world during their formative years. Now 13, my daughter came of age when getting an iPhone at the end of primary school was a rite of passage. Suddenly everyone with a smartphone had a “porn production studio” in their pocket, as American sex-advice columnist Dan Savage puts it. Being concerned about the impact of pornography on young people

Relationships and sex-education educator Yoan Reed (pictured giving a lecture in 2017) talks to Outspoken co-founder Leah Jewett in the second of a 3-part series The thesis you did in August 2017 to get your masters in International Child Studies from King’s College London – which received a distinction – focused on parental engagement. Is the theory you set out about parents being the missing link in their children’s relationships and sex-education learning unique to you? YO

What is one of the most important elements that is missing from your children’s sex education? What’s missing is you – their parent. Although we live in a highly sexualised culture, it rarely comes naturally to talk openly with our children about challenging issues like body image, unwanted touching, the impact of porn, sexting, pleasure and consent. But research consistently shows that both parents and children want to communicate with each other about these and other sex-ed

In today’s digital and highly sexualised world, there is a pressing need for relationships and sex education (RSE). Recent media coverage and increased public awareness around some of the topics it covers – such as consent, sexual harassment and the impact of porn – as well as the fact that it will be mandatory in secondary schools as of September 2019 mean that RSE is on the national radar. Discussion of sex and healthy relationships – whether it’s through the lens of safegu

Near midnight on 12 February 2018, the website for the Department for Education (DfE) seemed close to crashing. The deadline was imminent for contributing to the government’s consultation on updating relationships and sex education (RSE) and personal, social, health, economic education (PSHE). The goal was to update guidelines that have not been revisited for 17 years in order to “make sure pupils are being taught the knowledge they need to thrive in the modern world”. The ca

With at its heart the motivation to set up a local equivalent of the ground-breaking Bristol Ideal – a whole school approach for ending sexual and domestic violence – the Women’s Rights Action Group (WRAG) in Cambridge hosts a half-day conference on 19 March 2017. Porn Generation: Why Sex and Relationships Education is More Important Than Ever, held at Anglia Ruskin University and attended by 65 people, is spearheaded by Shally Shefer. Egalitarian in construct, the conference