‘Putting Ideas into Their Heads’: Advising the Young

Over ten years ago when researching my sex education book for teenagers, Make It Happy, I decided early on that it should be the teenagers themselves who would decide what went into it. Incest and paedophilia (although few used these actual words) were two subjects which they spontaneously raised and insisted I should not ignore. Not one of the many sex educators, child psychologists, parents, doctors and others in the childcaring professions whom I consulted raised the subject of child sexual abuse. Much has changed in the intervening years. The professionals are now openly writing and talking about child sexual abuse. It is no longer only the feminist bookshops which stock books on the subject. However, one thing hasn't changed. The paragraphs in my book I now believe them to be all too briefexplaining merely what the words mean, the legal position and where to get help, have attracted and continue to attract more angry criticism from the moral right than anything else that is mentioned. I have been accused of 'putting ideas into children's heads before they are ready' and of'teaching vulnerable young children that adult-child sex is normal'. I now see that the initial silence from the professionals and the subsequent fury from those who wish to impose ignorance on all children was and is all part of what Dr Marietta Higgs of Cleveland has discovered: