A sex education website complete with a 47-page “sextionary” has been taken off the internet after complaints from Christian groups arguing the site was “dangerous and degrading.”
The landing page for the website, Respect Yourself, states it is “currently under review.” The controversial site was initially set up by the National Health Service and the Warwickshire County Council.
In addition to featuring a glossary of sexually explicit terms, slang words to describe genitalia, and a question-and-answer section covering a slew of sexual acts, the website included photos, showing users “pleasure zones” on the male and female bodies, and contained content encouraging promiscuity — even telling girls how to safely engage sexually with a stranger.
“If you are on a girls’ holiday and make the decision to sleep with someone you’ve just met — for safety’s sake, take them back to your place, where you know your friends are only in the next room,” the website stated.
It even suggested it is OK for children to have sex at ages younger than 16, though the site did pay lip service, as The Telegraph reported in 2012, to the legal age of consent.
“The law says you are not old enough to decide for yourself until you are 16 — as this is the age the law sees us as being mature enough to decide,” the website stated in response to a question about children younger than 16 eager to engage sexually. “You are the only one who knows when you are ready. Some are ready before, some not till much later.”
Following a series of complaints, the Warwickshire County Council finally decided this week to pull the website down.
Simon Calvert, deputy director of The Christian Institute, said of the website: “Respect seems to be the last thing on the minds of the people responsible for this appalling material.”
“Young people deserve to be treated with dignity, not spoken down to as if they have no self-control or moral compass,” he continued. “Compiling an A-to-Z that includes some of the most dangerous and degrading sexual practices imaginable and presenting them all to young people as equally valid and healthy is profoundly irresponsible.”
And Norman Wells, director of the Family Education Trust, argued the site “pretty much tells young people they can engage in sexual activity whenever they feel ready, regardless of what the law says.”
“Parents throughout the region will be appalled that health professionals have supported the development of a resource that condones sexual experimentation by young people and uses crude and sometimes even foul language,” he added. “This is a grossly irresponsible website and a complete misuse of taxpayers’ hard-earned cash.”