An analysis report published on January 30 by SOS Education, an association campaigning for the improvement of the French education system, describes certain abuses linked to sexuality education observed in different educational establishments in France between May 2022 and June 2023.
These are “only” twelve situations but their description is disturbing, even chilling. We would like to believe that this is anecdotal but that is not so certain. Since 2001, France has held three sexual and emotional life education sessions between first grade and final year. Sessions which are often supported by activist associations, or provided by insufficiently trained people. “The intrusion of activist associations into sexuality education sessions has continued to increase,” underlines in the introduction the report , which denounces the ideological discourses held in classrooms, sometimes even in kindergarten, very often in the absence of the teacher and without the parents having been warned in advance.
For SOS Education , “such comments, almost pornographic, can constitute psychological rape, violating the modesty of children, given the young age of the recipients, prepubescent”. This is what the association, mandated by parents of children, denounced in a letter sent on April 3, 2023 to the Minister of National Education at the time, Pap Ndiaye.
The report published at the end of January by SOS Education analyzes in nearly 200 pages the risks of early sexualization of children. To do this, he relies on the opinions of experts such as Dr Régis Brunod on child development, Dr Nicole Athéa on the construction of the adolescent and Dr Maurice Berger on the mechanisms of break-in and of trauma in children and adolescents. “We assessed the risks and benefits of sexuality education in schools through the exclusive prism of the best interests of children and adolescents. We addressed all subjects, without a moralizing spirit, seeking to understand, describe and explain the best ways to respect childhood and support adolescence,” underlines Sophie Audugé, director of SOS Education. “It was urgent to bring a little science and common sense into this tsunami of institutionalized sexualization. »
It was urgent to bring a little science and common sense into this tsunami of institutionalized sexualization.
A sexualization that occurs early, much too early, in classrooms, as evidenced by a dozen cases observed in French schools between May 2022 and June 2023, reported by parents of students, in particular through the association Mamans Louves . Among the twelve cases recorded, the parents are unanimous: they were not warned, neither of the date of the intervention in their child’s class, nor of the content of the session. Another element is that most of the time, teachers are not present during the session, thus depriving the children of their comforting presence.
Shocking content
In January 2023, in a public establishment in the Loire, CM2 students, in the absence of their teacher, had a sex education lesson with a nurse from outside the establishment. They were forced to hear, at 10-11 years old, that “for pleasure a girl sucks the boy’s penis”, that “we can have sex in the buttocks”, that “for pleasure the girl can caress gently the boy’s testicles”, that it is necessary to be “vaccinated against the butterfly” and that “you can change your sex and take medicine to block the beard and body hair”. Management acknowledged the comments were “not necessarily appropriate”, but affirmed that the nurse would have answered questions from “more than half of the class”. The management of the establishment planned to continue the interventions with the same nurse and assured the parents that she is “an experienced and competent woman”. The nurse was officially supported by the Sud Éducation union.
And this is not an isolated case. The report mentions other situations where the words of the speakers were absolutely not adapted to the age of the children. “Sucking is like sucking a Haribo candy, it’s pleasure…”, reported CM2 children attending a public establishment in the Alpes-Maritimes. “Boys can make love on their own. To please themselves, they squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the sperm comes out,” said CM2 students, in Hérault, after the intervention of a nurse.
If the words shock, so do the drawings and videos. Last June, in a public school in the Rhône, a nurse showed CM2 students a close-up drawing of the penis of a woman giving birth. The children covered their eyes. The nurse and teacher made them watch and listen to the comments. And gender ideology is not left out. In April 2023, in Morbihan, an association presented to CE1 students (7-8 years old) drawings representing a little girl naked in the shower with a boy’s penis and a little naked boy in the shower with a boy’s penis. girl and assured “that a little girl can be born with a willy or a willy, and that a little boy can be born with a willy or a willy” or “with both sexes”. Finally, in May 2022, in Loire-Atlantique, an association showed CE1 students a video in which the children said they saw “a gentleman and a lady in positions, the lady was jumping on the gentleman, they were all naked, the gentleman had his penis raised.”
Children’s reactions
Among the situations mentioned, the children’s reactions differ. Some are immediate, others take longer to manifest, they are also more or less discreet. Among the immediate reactions, some children cover their ears, lower their heads, cry… In the longer term, others become mute, suffer from nocturnal enuresis, or refuse to return to class…
“The symptomatology of children who have had their sex education classes relates to that of a “post-traumatic stress state”, which is defined in the Diagnosis and Statistics of Mental Disorders manual as “a specific reaction which can develop following to exposure to traumatic events,” underlines Alexandra Rhodes, clinical psychologist, cited in the report. The clinical signs of this psychological state result in a reliving of lessons, avoidance strategies (not wanting to return to school, not hearing, seeing or remembering, chatting with other students to distract themselves ), cognitive disturbances (alteration of thinking, such as astonishment, confusion) and hyperactivity which manifests itself by bodily discomfort, hypervigilance, difficulty falling asleep, nightmares and major anxieties, emotional upheavals, strong emotional insecurity.
Depriving the child of his fantasy life is a fundamental attack on an essential resource in his development.
What is the cause ? Adult sexual language used when addressing children. This in fact forces children and young adolescents to become adults without having the resources to do so. “Adult sexuality is explained in detail, it is modeled on the child’s impulses, which creates an abrasion of his fantasy life, that is to say of what he imagines and elaborates on conception. And fantasy life is necessary for one’s psycho-affective development and constitutes a valuable protection against anxiety. Without it, desire cannot exist. Depriving the child of it is a fundamental attack on an essential resource in his development,” underline the authors of the report.
Furthermore, teaching sexuality to primary school students amounts to stimulating their impulses, while on the contrary, the developmental phase in which they find themselves is a time of calming their psychosexual development and an increase in intellectual interests. “This is the period for the child when his instinctual energy shifts towards a non-sexual goal. The child channels by investing in socially valued objects or activities that bring him intellectual, artistic or social but non-sexual satisfaction. It is therefore a question of non-respect of his evolutionary rhythm which is intrusive and eminently traumatic at his age. »
