On The Couch with Tessa Opie & Kerrin Bradfield

[00:00:00] Jennifer Farinella: Hello and welcome to an episode of On The Couch, where we collaborate with experts, practitioners, authors, advocates, and influencers to explore current social themes, sex positive topics, and share stories and insights that matter.

This podcast was recorded on Aboriginal country. We Acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands that were never ceded on which we live, work, and record upon.

We pay our respects to Elders past and present and to those who may be visiting our website or listening to our podcasts today. While listening, we encourage you to practice good self care. Check the show notes for content details and references. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, enjoy this episode of On The Couch.

[00:00:47] Winnie Adamson: Hello and welcome I'm Winnie Adamson and it's my absolute pleasure to welcome Tessa Opie and Kerrin Bradfield. We're going to be chatting about relationship, sex education for young people and look at the incredible work that Tessa and Kerrin are doing in this space.

So as a bit of an introduction to you both, with our guests we like to hear their story.

If you've listened to our recent On The Couch episodes, you might have heard that we've been using the concepts Field of Existence and Coordinates of Belonging, in that our beings are fields of activity made up of the stories we've been told, the ancestors that have existed and the land under our feet and the places that we stand. All of these forces inform who we are in this moment as contextual beings, and also really inform the work that we do. We thank Leah from Co Culture in Victoria for introducing us to this concept.

So I'd love to get started with your story, Tessa, you founded In Your Skin, which provides comprehensive relationship and sexuality education in a positive evidence based and harm reduction focused approach.

Can you share with us a bit about how you define who you are and how you locate yourself and your Coordinates of Belonging.

[00:02:07] Tessa Opie: Um, well, firstly I'd like to say that I'm joining today from beautiful Peramangk country in the Adelaide Hills. Um, my lineage is diverse. We're talking Irish, Swedish, South African, English. But I was born and raised on Kaurna country. I think the thing I sort of love about this theory is that it emphasizes that we are kind of ever evolving beings.

 And I guess for me, you know, I am someone who is ever evolving and I continue to surprise myself by my own sort of thoughts and ideas, which is, which is quite nice to do that as, as you grow older. Um, I'm a mother of four interesting and wonderful people. I'm always looking for ways to improve as a parent and a mentor.

And I think I'm sort of forever hoping that I'm doing the right thing, not only by my children, but really everyone who I share my life with. That's a common thread in my life and I'm very lucky to have had a wonderful role model in my mum. Um, I would say that I am grounded by my family, my friends, my dogs.

Um, I stand for social justice, which really kind of drives who I am and, and really drives the work that I do and it always has. Like I've sort of had this, this issue with justice from, for as long as I can remember. You know, and I love that our coordinates of belonging and not static, you know, from what I sort of read and listened to, you know, some of the people who have had the greatest impact in my life, um, you know, might have come into my fields of existence more recently, or perhaps they were only in my life for a season and it's exciting to think about, you know, who's yet to arrive. And Kerrin, you're a great example of this for me in terms of someone who has had a profound impact um, and so recently, you know, like I, we haven't known each other for long. Um, so that's sort of my story.

[00:03:56] Winnie Adamson: Thanks so much for sharing that.

I really love that, that idea of it's ever evolving, right? And , that's why we've tried to bring this in. It's, you know, to recognize all that history, but as well as the future of it too. I think that's really nice.

Kerrin, so we'd love to hear your story as well. How do you define yourself and your coordinates of belonging?

[00:04:18] Kerrin Bradfield: Thank you, Winnie, and thank you for having me. It's really a great pleasure to be on the show today. Look uh same as Tess, I guess I kind of looked into this and I watched and learned a lot and found it really fascinating that idea of how we position ourselves both past, present and future. So I'm coming to you today from the lands of the Kombumerri people, the unceded lands in the Yugambeh Nation.

And in terms of my own story, I guess one of the things that is ever present for me is being a first generation Australia, Australian, so of migrant parents, but also who came here for a better opportunity, but came here under a very racist white Australia policy. And so those two bits for me are always kind of at the fore in my work around my positionality as a white person and the circumstances that brought me here to have the opportunities that I do.

But also that disconnection from culture and heritage that my parents experienced in that search for a better life. Um, so that kind of, or, or always sits there, but like Tess, I've always had an interest in social justice. I was actually going through some paperwork last weekend and found an assignment I'd written in grade seven on a typewriter.

And it was looking at misogyny, sexism, and racism in popular media. And I couldn't, you know, it just was one of those moments where I was like, Oh, you're exactly where you're meant to be right now. And I kind of wish I could go back and tell younger Kerrin that, that, you know, that you were on the right path and everything would be fine.

So it's always been a huge part of my life in different ways and different elements of advocacy. And the same with sexuality and I think that, you know, sexism, particularly about sexuality and the free expression of that has been a really core part of myself and my journey. And then in my listening to the resources that you sent through something that really stood out to me was this concept of yearning.

And I've just spent weeks now just mulling over what is my yearning? What does yearning mean to me? And I think moving beyond the kind of yearning for lands and peoples that I think might be a common experience for many people, something that Adrienne Maree Brown said lives kind of rent free in my head, which is that "the love story with myself is the longest story I'll ever know, and I'm excited to see how big this story can grow". And it just kind of sits there as this yearning for not only self care, but collective care around how we pull all of those pieces together for people really investing in these love stories of connection with self and others. And I think that ties in with all of those other things, because I do see sexuality education as such a role and a tool in social justice change.

So those bits kind of all cross over and pull together for me in terms of that somewhat complicated experience of how I came to have so much privilege, but the ways that I'm able to use that privilege, um, and the intersection of those things that I do truly yearn for that move us beyond the teachings of colonialism and capitalism, particularly, I think, really are centered in my work and, and crossing over with Tess and, and working together has been a real moment of having somebody else who is so on the same page around that stuff that we're able to call each other out and check a lot of that stuff. You know, and it is kind of a central tenet I guess, for our work.

[00:07:29] Winnie Adamson: That's really beautiful. The yearning side of that and yearning together as a community. It's really empowering. Thanks for spending some time sharing that because I think it really does show, you know, who we are and also the work is so much more than just work for us here, so thanks so much for that.

It's pretty clear you both are very passionate and committed to your projects and I'm sure that everyone can see why we've asked you to be On The Couch today. So thanks so much for joining us.

So Tessa, when we actually originally reached out to you, you asked for Kerrin to join us and be involved in our chat today.

 So I'd love to ask a little bit more about how you've connected. And I know you've recently, partnered and founded the Respect Collective, which is RSE for the real world. RSE standing for Relationships and Sexuality Education. And it's an online platform and resource for high school educators to assist in delivering relationship and sexuality education.

With an innovative curriculum aimed at empowering educators, this online hub is full of lesson plans developed for years seven to twelve and is relevant, informed, age appropriate, flexible, inclusive, and also interactive. There's also an online inclusive community that supports and empowers high school educators to create safe spaces so that students can explore and develop healthy attitudes towards relationship consent, sex, diversity, and much more.

So I'd love to hear if you don't mind sharing a bit about how your collaboration came about.

[00:09:06] Tessa Opie: Yeah, this is sort of an ongoing joke with Kerrin and I, but I met Kerrin a number of years ago now through the Society of Australian Sexologists. Um, so it was the first Sexology in Practice Symposium, which I think Kerrin, correct me if I'm wrong, might've been 2019 in Melbourne.

[00:09:26] Kerrin Bradfield: Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah.

[00:09:29] Tessa Opie: Um, and we had a lot to do with each other virtually online through sort of committee meetings and whatnot with SAS, the Society of Australian Sexologists. And then for a while there, Kerrin was running, a sexuality educators sort of network group mentoring sort of group.

Um, and so as I became more familiar with the work that Kerrin was doing, and, and how much I admired their work. Uh, I decided I was pretty keen on, on collaborating. So it took, it took a while for me to sort of grind Kerrin down, but I got there. I got there.

[00:10:06] Kerrin Bradfield: Coerce is the word Tess

[00:10:07] Tessa Opie: That's right. And ironically, we teach about consent.

[00:10:13] Winnie Adamson: Yeah, nice. Can you tell us a bit more about the Respect Collective as well? And like, what, what really inspired that I know I gave a bit of an introduction there to the work, but can you give us more of an insight to that?

[00:10:28] Tessa Opie: Yeah, sure. I think for me, and I won't say much, I'll let, I'll let Kerrin speak a bit more to this.

Um, but for me, certainly, you know, working in sexuality education for such a long time, you know, having a lot of conversations with teachers about the various barriers. I was really keen to develop something that might actually cut through some of those barriers. Um, so, you know, we hear about time, we hear about lack of resources. We certainly know there's no lack of curriculums out there. There are many, many, many RSE curriculums out there, many of which are free, but of course they do still require, I guess, some, some training, some support, some time to better go through that and work out, you know, what needs printing and laminating and putting lesson plans together and all that kind of stuff, you know, PowerPoint presentations.

And so we were really keen to put something together that truly enabled teachers to hit the ground running. They didn't have to have, you know, sort of postgraduate qualifications in sexology or sexual health. Um, and in fact, it's sort of, it puts teachers in this role of really just facilitating a conversation that the students are having among themselves.

 So the idea there really was to, to make their job as easy as possible and to make sure that there were absolutely no excuses , that might enable them to not deliver the content. I'll hand over to you there, Kerrin.

[00:11:47] Kerrin Bradfield: Yeah, I mean, a hundred percent. That was our motivation was, I guess, on the back of a lot of government mandates around consent education and respectful relationships education.

We recognize that was a massive onus to put on teachers who already felt ill equipped to talk about these subject areas. Um, and so we wanted to, yes, upskill them. We wanted to provide a space of safety and community for them to raise their concerns, to discuss and unpack. So a community of practice that sits within Respect Collective, um, and also to be able to kind of standardize that to the point where, you know, often a fear for teachers is around, they'll say the wrong thing or that they'll, um, say something that's developmentally inappropriate.

So that's kind of all handled by Respect Collective where that information is really clear and transparent there. Um, so that, you know, that was really our drive was around to support teachers, to do that, but also to recognize that with the mandating and push for consent, education, and respectful relationships education, there was an erasure of sexuality education.

And so we felt that was really important and a kind of a central part to pulling all these pieces of the puzzle together. Which is why it is RSE for us, there are lots of different acronyms flying around at the moment around consent and respectful relationships, education, but we stick with RSE because we believe that those two elements are really the bits that need to be taught and the others are part of that.

[00:13:10] Tessa Opie: And I think as well, another kind of driving force for us was the fact that, you know, not all teachers delivering Respectful Relationships Education or RSE, you know, have the luxury of attending, you know, a professional development opportunity that provides them with a moment, a chance to sort of, identify and manage unconscious biases.

And so what we do know is for teachers who might be delivering this content who perhaps aren't aware of some of their biases, um, what they're delivering to students could be vastly different to what the students are hearing and learning in the classroom next to them. And so the idea again behind Respect Collective was that it does standardize the content that the students have access to. It standardizes that information. So there's no chance for it to really be filtered through a particular lens or agenda, if that makes sense.

[00:13:59] Winnie Adamson: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I imagine there would be a lot of barriers with that and then getting through with schools, especially as it's a new project.

Can you talk us a bit about some of those barriers you've been overcoming

[00:14:15] Kerrin Bradfield: I think the biggest barrier has just been that it's such an innovative and unique product. So it's, it is more about just showing teachers and educators how it works in practice. Um, and also that, that one of the things that we've built into it, it's a, like the language throughout the entire platform is very inclusive it caters and acknowledges a diverse range of identities, experiences, sexualities, relationships, but there is the freedom for schools to adapt that and discuss their own school values or faith based values or whatever that might be within the context of that.

So I think it, it has been just more around really showing people how how they might adapt it to suit their own context, you know, it is about taking people on a journey and this is so new for so many schools to actually have, you know, as I said, to have it mandated to actually have this as something that they need to roll out.

So it is just kind of that going on a journey, showing them how this platform can really help them with that, that it's evidence based, that it, you know, it is from a feminist framework that it does have those kinds of, agendas or, you know, kind of, frameworks and ideologies behind them, but in terms of the flexibility for them to then talk about what that might mean in relation to faith values or what that might mean in relation to their particular students, there's a lot of flexibility in that.

[00:15:37] Winnie Adamson: Yeah. It sounds, um, it sounds like you said, very unique in that you have very set out lesson plans for those teachers. Which , like teachers have to cover so many topics, and often, you know, we know sex and sexuality and gender and consent are taboo subjects in some regards.

So, how do you structure those lesson plans , can you give us a little look into, the classroom?

[00:16:03] Tessa Opie: Yeah. I'm happy to speak to that, but I think I'd also just want to sort of piggyback on what Kerrin was saying before in terms of barriers.

I think another barrier, you know, like if a teacher or a school finds the gender neutral language confronting or the scenarios and the case studies where we have sort of two characters that are essentially genderless, because then the students can, you know, attach gender to those characters and relationship type , sexual orientations. So, that's very intentional for us. A teacher might find, or a school might find that confronting, even though they can adapt that to their context.

But I think as well, Kerrin, and I don't know if you disagree with this, I think some schools might find the content itself quite confronting. Because Kerrin and I have done something that is not really happening anywhere else in terms of tackling online misogyny, tackling sextortion, um, tackling coercive control, we're tackling stealthing, like there are some really big concepts in there around normalized sexual violence, and sexual violence more broadly, you know, online pornography, you know, I think there's probably a lot of conversations in there, but if the teachers don't realize that it's a plug and play and they can just sort of sit back and make sure the students are communicating respectfully, they might feel a little bit sort of shy about sort of going in that direction. Would you agree with that, Kerrin?

[00:17:16] Kerrin Bradfield: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that, I think that trade off that we've had many discussions around, around what we know to be age and developmentally appropriate, might not quite be where schools are ready to be delivering that content, and certainly pornography is, you know, an example of that, where we know that young people need to be getting it much earlier.

That doesn't mean that the year seven teacher is feeling fully equipped to deliver that in that context. So yeah, it is often around that kind of what the evidence says or what might be best practice is currently not what is always going to be best in practice because it's such a new process for schools to really be taking this content on

[00:17:52] Tessa Opie: And an example that I think as well as in year 10, we have a lesson that is called Global Perspectives on Gender. And it really is an exploration in terms of the diversity of genders around the world, you know, in some of the oldest living cultures that were really wildly impacted by colonization.

But, prior to then was celebrated, revered, um, and the students they get given a different culture and have to do a bit of research. We've even had a couple of schools, um, you know, faith based, who have sort of said , is there an option, for example, for us to not implement the Global Perspectives on Gender lesson. And of course, that is an option, Kerrin and I would suggest that, you know, everyone should be implementing all lessons or delivering all lessons. But yeah, it's interesting to see sort of what perhaps some communities might prefer to shy away from.

Um, Yes. So, but that doesn't answer your question at all, Winnie, which is around what, what does,

[00:18:46] Winnie Adamson: It's a great discussion,

[00:18:48] Tessa Opie: But you know, what does the classroom, what does the classroom look like?

It's, I mean, the, the technology side of things is absolutely, you know, all of Kerrin's hard work. So Kerrin, I'll let you speak to that.

[00:18:57] Kerrin Bradfield: Um, yeah, so I mean, I guess the way that the lessons work is that they are digital plug and play lessons.

So each lesson begins with a safety statement and then a digital educator kind of gives an overview of the lesson. So in terms of trauma informed practice, really making the young people aware of what topics will be discussed that safety statement, very much acknowledges that it's okay to leave the room, so we give students that flexibility to manage , any discomfort or unsafety that they're experiencing.

And then the lesson steps through, so on the screen is the activity. It tells the teacher how long that will run for. Um, teachers get a cheat sheet, which has got some of the main points that they might want to draw out of those discussions, but the following screen in the player will also summarize a lot of those key messages.

So there's very little room for error. Um, and at the end of it, the digital educator comes back on again to reinforce all the key messages. So if the lesson does go a little bit off track or perhaps some of the really key parts are missed, that's saved at the end, I guess, with that fail safe, educator who comes on and does that.

So it really does just walk the teacher and the students through each element of it. There are a lot of interactive activities on the screen, um, where they can complete quizzes or, um, sorting activities. So it's kind of all built in to the player. There are also worksheets, but schools can choose to not print them.

So we're very aware of kind of environmental and sustainability practices, where many schools are moving towards paperless. So they can bring those up on the screen and just have students complete them either on their laptops or iPads or in a notebook if that's their preference. Um, yeah, so it's kind of all the information is there, you know, even with the quiz, as they answer each quiz question, the answer comes up with that additional information.

So it really doesn't require the teacher to be the holder of all that specialist knowledge. The added advantage of that is that once the teacher's delivered it one or two times, they start to become the holder of that specialist knowledge as well and gain their own confidence and ability to support those discussions.

Our job was to create the plug and play lesson that had the specialist stuff that Tess and I have worked our whole careers towards doing and researching and learning. And that the job of the teacher was to allow them to do what they do best, which is facilitate those discussions with the young people in their care, and really to help them kind of draw out what needed to be drawn out and also align it with school policies and discussions that they're having in other subjects.

So certainly drawing on those cross curriculum priorities was a really important part of that as well around, you know, there's no point talking about colonization if your entire history lesson only looks at the contributions of white men. So it does kind of allow for that opportunity to think, Oh, actually I might need to change the way that I've been talking about that.

So it is upskilling the teachers at the same time, but it's also kind of quite, um, it's quite hard to get it wrong because everything's built into the way that that digital lesson plays.

[00:21:44] Tessa Opie: I think as well, the beauty of it, you know, the research tells us that, young people, yeah, they might listen to an external presenter who comes in maybe they're perceived to have more credibility. They might listen to their teacher if they've got a particularly good relationship or rapport with that teacher. But really, the research shows us that young people want to be hearing from each other, they're really interested in each other's ideas and opinions.

And so I think, you know, another part of how we've designed those Respect Collective lessons is that there's a lot of small group work, there's a lot of, um, analysing case studies, um, scenarios that, that, don’t necessarily have any right or wrong answers, but there's a whole bunch of discussion or reflection questions that students can go through in small groups so they have those opportunities, to listen to each other and, um, and develop that, you know, better kind of collective understanding.

[00:22:30] Winnie Adamson: Definitely that, youth led approach as well, which, um, is something we actually talked about in our last On The Couch with Laura Crozier. It's really great to get an insight into what it looks like and you've definitely seen a gap there and bridged it in what you've created and that's amazing. I love hearing about it.

[00:22:51] Tessa Opie: Yeah, and I think the other gap we've bridged is that, you know, it's something accessible for schools remotely, regionally. You know, like it really is, it can be accessed anywhere. Yeah.

[00:23:01] Winnie Adamson: Yeah, that's great. Moving on, one thing we do ask On The Couch when we have consent as a topic, I know consent is something in your work, we really love to get the definition of consent that you use in your work. I also want to take that a bit further and look at how we actually see consent in practice as well, because I think it can be easy for us to understand a definition, but especially young, people, how do we actually teach them that practical side?

Because that adds to you having that real comprehensive consent understanding. So do you mind, giving us your working definition of consent for the Respect Collective and also how consent is actually taught in the practical sense within your lesson plan and workshops?

[00:23:51] Tessa Opie: Yeah, sure. Can I go first, Kerrin?

[00:23:53] Kerrin Bradfield: You may.

[00:23:54] Tessa Opie: Thank you. Um, well, the definition that we absolutely do not use is the federal government's definition as per the Commonwealth Consent Policy Framework. And in fact, you know, I think it's really important to highlight what a disservice that definition does to our young people.

So the government tells young people that "consent is a voluntary and informed agreement between two people to participate in a sexual act," which I really resent, for many reasons, but, you know, mostly because, I think that actually puts young people at increased risk of exposure to harm.

Um, if we think someone just has to say yes to something, if we think, if we conceptualize consent as a noun, you know, as agreement or permission, um, we can repackage that request a thousand different ways until someone finally says, yes. Did they say yes? Did they consent? Yeah, eventually, um, which is disastrous. And so, you know, we, we give a lot of, practical examples of how that can be true in terms of if that's how we conceptualize consent in, just everyday life, you know, more broadly.

Um, You know, often when I work with students, I'll sort of give an example of, my eight year old who might want an ice cream. Can I have an ice cream, mum? Not today, please. Not today. Oh, but I'm starving. Not today. But it's my favorite ice cream shop. Not today. Well, dad would buy me an ice cream. He probably would, but not today.

Okay, I promise I'll go home and clean my bedroom. Not today. You know, I promise I won't fight with my siblings. I promise I won't go on the iPad. All of these different ways. And eventually I might say, okay, I'll get you an ice cream. And they go, yes, you know, so I think it's really important that we highlight that and so instead we very much talk about, because we know it's protective, talking about consent as a verb, you know, as a doing word, and you've already alluded to this, but it's something that, you know, it's this mutually collaborative, mutually participatory process. You can't disentangle consent from the sexual activity itself.

It's not a box you tick prior to it's threaded throughout that entire sort of intimate exchange or experience , between people. And so we very much talk about consent as the practice of navigating both people's sexual pleasure and safety. Um, you know, the practice of navigating both people's or all everyone's, um , sexual preferences and boundaries.

 So more of that, you know, it's something you do. So you need skills to be able to do it well.

[00:26:13] Winnie Adamson: Yeah. And a commitment to really, understanding a partner and also those crucial non verbal cues and body language and

[00:26:24] Tessa Opie: And that's what, and that's interesting, Winnie, just to sort of build on what you were saying.

[00:26:27] Winnie Adamson: Yeah.

[00:26:28] Tessa Opie: You know, about nonverbal, you know, consent, communication, body language.

The reason I have such a problem with, with the government definition is that it means that students will say to us ,you know, what, what does consent, what does consent mean for you? And students will say, it's a verbal enthusiastic yes. And yet all the research looking at Australian young people and their sexual practices shows us that their sexual practices are wildly nonverbal.

So they can tell us what they think we want to hear, but it's actually completely misaligned to how they're going about navigating sexual activity, you know, among themselves.

[00:27:00] Winnie Adamson: Yeah,

[00:27:03] Kerrin Bradfield: I think too, that, you know, when we do talk about consent and that shared responsibility, we're really careful to move away from a lot of those false dichotomies that we see.

And as Tess said, that it's simply yes or no, um, that there's always kind of this asker and gatekeeper. And I think that it always is enthusiastic or it's coerced. We've got this kind of current, discourse around consent that suggests that everything without consent is problematic and everything with consent is unproblematic.

Um, and it's simply not true when we look at relationships and how people navigate consent and their sexual relationships. If we say that any sexual activity, that's not enthusiastic is non consensual, we're removing the opportunity for people to have curiosity about things they're not certain about to try things that maybe they're kind of having a bit of a discomfort about, but probably do want to try or the times when a person might not really feel like being sexual, but they want to do it for their partner.

Like it isn't always enthusiastic and yet we frame it as if anything that's not enthusiastic is somehow problematic. So I think it's really important in our work that young people see that it's, it isn't this dichotomy that consent is this practice that we can navigate with the people that we care about.

And ultimately the goal is to leave people the same, if not better off than when we found them, you know, that we don't want to cause harm. And the way we do that is certainly through understanding the complexity of it, but that there are lots of different ways that we navigate consent and experience sexual activity, whether it's a one night stand or something in a much longer term relationship.

So we do delve a lot into that and as Tess said, there's, there's kind of a lot of experiential activities in our program. And so a lot of opportunities to kind of see what it feels like, obviously non sexual consent, cause we're in a classroom situation. But those experiences of what does it feel like to agree or to want to do something, but not be sure how to communicate it or to ask somebody for something we're not sure that they're going to want to do.

So really giving students that opportunity to put it into practice, rather than looking at what these kinds of false dichotomies or binaries are that, that sit around that discourse that young people are currently being fed.

[00:29:10] Tessa Opie: And that includes as well, strategies around what could we do if we thought someone was saying yes to something, but actually that they thought that, you know, you think that actually like to say no.

So strategies that also go beyond that, you know, as well.

[00:29:24] Winnie Adamson: Yeah, I like that. Because like, also, if someone feels pressured to say yes, but the other person's picking up or but you don't really seem like you're saying that for the right reason or what's happening there like to encourage that communication.

It's really important.

I want to dive into, porn education. We know that young people are getting a lot of sex education through, social media or, pornography and young people are being educated about relationships, sex, consent in these environments that are very sex negative and pornography does exist within a broader socio cultural, context in which stereotypes such as gender, sexism, sexual objectification, and violence supporting attitudes are at play and represented.

And in porn, we don't really see representation of communication or consent And there's often very objectifying views of women and violence against women with those acts kind of normalized , like choking, for example, and of course, we don't see promotion of safe sex very often, you know, you don't see people having STI chats or condom uses or contraceptive conversations.

But you also don't see the messy kind of awkward side of sex, which , I think is really important for young people because as you're starting to develop and experience your first sexual encounters, it is awkward, it is messy, it is getting a hair caught in your mouth kind of situation, like, and I think there's an intimacy there that's really important.

I've been reading a lot about porn literacy, which is a term that refers to the ability to critically analyze pornographic content and its impacts and influence on how it makes us feel and think about relationships, consent, and sex. And porn literacy is a way of teaching young people about these problematic and unrealistic messages and behaviors that can be imparted.

I've actually listened recently to, Triple J Hack where they had a story on misogyny within the classroom and, there's a lot of behaviours that are being seen in the classroom that are forcing teachers to essentially leave. We don't really hear much about what we actually can do about it because the porn industry is not going to go anywhere. And I know Tessa, you have some thoughts on this and Kerrin, as you've both talked before about it, can you tell us how you tackle it in your work and how you teach from a porn literate lens?

[00:32:03] Tessa Opie: From my perspective, um, I think it needs to be a positive conversation for one. Otherwise, I think young people won't be listening. , and I think probably. You know, of course, we probably need to highlight how it might be somewhat misrepresentative, perhaps, um, the more important conversation is, well, maybe what is the mainstream freely accessible stuff not showing us that's actually vital to awesome sexual activity in the real world.

And I think that's a way of framing that conversation in, you know, through really positive lens because it gives people an opportunity to explore all the great stuff. All of the great stuff. Um, but I think a part of porn literacy is about encouraging young people to think really critically, possibly for the first time, that sex actually means different things to different people, and really empowering them to, place themselves in the driver's seat and, and work out what their own definition is.

And, you know, what are their sexual values and what are their sexual preferences and boundaries and , does what they're watching online, how does that align or does it even align with what's going on for you, you know, and what, what arouses or excites you.

Um, and I think as well for me, porn literacy is certainly not that finger wagging and, you know, shaming them for being curious. So recently, you know, we took the, the University of Melbourne data, that study into classrooms with year 11 and 12 students. And that sort of showed us that I think it was something like 61 percent of, of women aged between 18 and 35 in Australia have experienced sexual strangulation.

And I think it was about 78 for gender and non binary people, and maybe around about 40% for men Um, and what we actually did was just gave them a snapshot of that study so they could look at , a bit of that data and then again, a bunch of discussion questions that they can explore in small groups and they can listen to each other.

Um, so for me, I think it's, it's going to be a really kind of constructive conversation and not one of shame and taboo and you know, your sexuality is defective if you're enjoying it. Kerrin over to you.

[00:34:13] Kerrin Bradfield: I mean, I agree with everything you said, and as you know, Tess, I'll listen to you talk all day. Um, yeah, I mean, I do agree.

And I think, you know, pornography and porn literacy is another area where we really see this kind of binary where pornography is either liberation or harm. But the reality is that it can be both of those things. To some people, it's incredibly liberatory that it is a way of seeing themselves represented, it's a way of understanding their sexuality, their body, their desires, their feelings, all of those things can be there, but we don't have to discount the fact that pornography as an industry represents some harms and has some kind of problematic things going on around it.

But often when we talk to young people, there's this approach that porn literacy is, if we just teach you how to recognize everything that's wrong with porn, then you'll make better choices and you'll be a better human. What we need to do is resource young people to find safe, pleasurable spaces where they can also see everything that's good about porn, how it might be beneficial to them in their lives.

So it is, as Tess said, kind of unpacking what is missing from mainstream pornography. And we are predominantly talking about freely accessible mainstream heterosexual pornography, because we know other forms exist. Young people are rarely paying to access pornography.

But it is around how do we help them see both sides of the stories, because the last thing that we want to do in RSE is put more sexual shame on people and the current discourse very much sits in that space where if all porn is bad then what does that mean for you as someone who masturbates to it? Well, it must mean that you're bad, that you should somehow be ashamed of that.

And we hear that from young people all the time around, um, particularly young men who really feel like they, they are bad people because they're enjoying watching pornography, but also absorbed in this current social discussion that everyone else is kind of hearing that that must mean that you're anti feminist, that you are now a toxic person, that you don't, you know, that you hate women. And that really isn't true. Billions of people around the planet watch pornography every day and don't go on to use violence as a form of intimacy.

So we can't leave that out of the conversation. But we also can't ignore that for some people, particularly men and boys who already hold violent, supportive attitudes, that pornography may well be reinforcing those and not just pornography, but social media, all of those spaces online, that links to kind of what you were saying before around, um, you know, digital misogyny online.

Um, manosphere, you know, red pillars, all of that space that we're really hearing a lot more about those things aren't siloed.

They're all linked and they do attract young men and boys who already feeling disenfranchised and shamed around their sexuality.

And so going in there and saying that porn is bad and if you watch it, you're a bad person is really not helpful to how we empower young people to celebrate their sexuality and to practice community care, to really look after their lovers and whatever that might mean, because again, we kind of see this thing where, you know, a lot of activities that we don't use, a lot of activities around pornography frame this idea of real sex and porn sex, but porn sex is real sex.

They're real people who are really having sex, and so the idea of real sex becomes anything that kind of fits this narrative around, committed, long term, married, vanilla, heterosexual, like all of that is real sex and anything that's a non normative practice suddenly is porn and is bad.

So we have to change that conversation with young people as well around, it is all real sex. There's the kind of sex that we're shown in porn, what might be good about that and what might be problematic.

And then what's the kind of sex that you crave for yourself and your partners and, you know, now and in the future. And what are the differences between those things that, you know, what can you use to learn from that? Because I think it's really important that we don't hold onto this idea that the only kind of good sex is partnered, missionary, highly intimate, lots of kissing, you know, all of those things, because lots of people are into things that aren't any of those things.

And, porn is there and is attractive to lots of people for lots of different reasons. So certainly, I think we have to recognize that, but at the same time, we have to have those really difficult discussions around the contribution that the pornography industry plays in a violence conducive context, that we live in a community and a society that is patriarchal, is misogynistic, devalues women and gender diverse people.

And so what's the contribution of pornography to those things. Um, and certainly there's some fantastic research by Dr. Fiona Vera Gray where they looked at the titles of pornographic, videos on current websites and really found that the dominant ways that these videos were described were in relation to incest, sexual assault, image based abuse, and coercion and exploitation.

All at the same time, this industry is saying, well, there's nothing non consensual on our site. So that's really confusing for people across the board, but particularly for young people as they're coming into their sexuality and looking for places to learn about it.

You're being told all of this is consensual and yet stepdad upskirts cheerleader is not consensual by any definition. And it's certainly not ethical or acceptable in the kinds of communities that we want to try and build. So I think, there's a lot of that, we try and embed it. It is really difficult in terms of pornography because schools aren't quite ready to have those really in depth conversations, but as much as we can, we try and really break some of those, um, overriding kind of shame based approaches to pornography and really create spaces.

And Giselle Woodley is bringing out some absolutely fantastic research, prioritizing the voices of young people, um, particularly around sexual choking and non normative sexual practices, and really seeing I guess, her research shows two things. One is that young people are quite good at repeating narratives of harm.

They can easily tell you everything that's harmful about pornography that's, you know, they hear in media and they hear in these other discussions, but they can also identify what they enjoy about it and why they like it and how it links to their own sexual learning and development and experiences.

So, I think it's looking a lot more at that kind of research and I guess it's in terms of, you know, we're seeing this social media kind of ban and stuff at the moment. Another one of those binaries that I think we really need to disrupt is this idea that online safety equates to sex free content because that's not true.

Like those two things shouldn't be related. I mean, probably the disclaimer I should put on that is when we're talking about primary school children, obviously there's some additional things around that, but if we're looking at high school students, particularly those over the age of consent, safety and sex free content don't go hand in hand it's more about skills, it's about understanding and lots of those other things that across the board are relationships and sexuality education.

[00:41:12] Winnie Adamson: I haven't really heard much of that, like the negative look at porn literacy, I guess it really comes back to that positive, holistic approach, because it's definitely not something that's black and white, and watching people have sex is just a normal part of human nature. But, it's the actual porn industry itself that's creating these kind of issues.

[00:41:36] Tessa Opie: Yeah. Part of taking that sex positive approach, I think it's really important to then, you know, you cannot claim to be sex positive and simultaneously make people feel bad for either being curious about sexual activity or being aroused by watching people engage in sexual activity. Like those two things just can't coexist.

[00:42:00] Winnie Adamson: Yeah. Yeah. It's very true.

I'd love for you to share a bit about, , how can we actually implement these conversations, you know, a lot of our listeners, we're parents, we're teachers, we're professionals. How can we approach and start these conversations with young people in that positive way and keep them engaged and empowered on this journey?

[00:42:28] Kerrin Bradfield: Listen to them.

I think it's really important that there's, you know, it's not a lecture. Sometimes there's bits of information you just have to kind of drop as lecture style and then walk away from and let the young person ferment in their own right. I think it's, yeah, it's really important, particularly around pornography.

You know, I guess the four kind of elements that I would say are central to that are really around it being that non judgmental space. Really balancing both sides of that discussion and fostering that literacy well beyond kind of real versus porn world.

So yeah, just giving them the opportunity to explore both sides and to find things that align with their values, with their politics, with their ethics, you know, we can talk about all of those things unrelated to sex and the more opportunity young people have got to discover those and assert those, the more attractive different kinds of media become to them anyway.

And that's true on social media, um, you know, you, you can defeat the algorithm by just actively searching for things, in the opposite of what it's showing you, we can disrupt the way that those things work. So, yeah, I think they're, my kind of top tips in terms of young people is don't lecture, but leave the shame at the door and foster those other skills that you wanna see in them and encourage them to understand how they relate to sexual content or sexual activity and experiences.

[00:43:43] Winnie Adamson: Yeah, and as people talking to young people, looking internally at our own biases. Like we are also still discovering it as well ourselves.

 How do you empower those teachers with that porn literate aspect as well, like have you had much feedback on how teachers feel and how they feel empowered by that, by the work and the lesson plans?

[00:44:08] Tessa Opie: Well, I think that this is, you know, another, this was another motivation, I guess, for Kerrin and I in developing Respect Collective because online porn is generally a conversation that most teachers do not want to have. And not only that, when they do have it, many of them, it's very value laden incredibly value laden.

Like that's a great example of one of those sort of things we were talking about earlier. So again, a lot of it's small group work. So it might be sort of watching videos, clearly not watching online porn, but you know, different sort of interactive resources that we've included in there and just getting young people to talk about it.

I think at the crux of, of porn literacy, or I guess sexual intelligence, whatever you might want to call these different kinds of concepts that have similar threads, it's just making sure young people understand, the diversity of opportunities, the diversity of sexual practices, and they get to work it out for themselves, letting them know that it's protective for them to consciously think about their own definition, because that's going to feed into the extent to which they can find people they're sexually compatible with.

So I think it's going to be that really positive, you are in control here. You don't have to do that just because you've seen it a thousand times online. The sky's the limit, your imagination, like you can get into whatever you want to get into. And it might be, as Kerrin said before, it might be, you know, missionary sex with a whole lot of kissing, it might be something else entirely.

But I think it's reinforcing that they are in complete control of their definition, you know. What sexuality means to them, the skills they've developed to share that well and safely with someone and how they go about sharing that hopefully with someone they're wildly sexually compatible with.

 As the Respect Collective is quite new in its project and development, where do you hope it to go? What are your big dreams for it?

[00:46:04] Kerrin Bradfield: I think we'd like to see it being used in every classroom across Australia. Um, but certainly Respect Collective is bigger than that. Like social justice and philanthropy are both really important to Tess and I. So being able to kind of use that platform to reach other groups, more historically excluded, marginalized, vulnerable groups that may have, you know, may even be adults that have not had the opportunity to get any of that education.

So I think for us, that's really the kind of the big goal is to be able to get this out to the people who really need it, whether that's in a school context, but certainly well beyond that.

[00:46:37] Tessa Opie: And we'd love to see the collective nature of it, just grow and flourish, you know, the community of practice online, teachers connecting with each other all over the country, talking about, you know, what works so well in their classrooms, but also the people we bring in, you know, with their expertise to be a part of this.

So we had, um, Dr. Kris Taylor last month do a webinar for us around the manosphere and, the do's and don'ts of having the Andrew Tate conversations in the classroom so that young people engage. And, you know, Kris Taylor and their colleagues are going to develop a lesson plan, for the platform and we want to nationally and globally bring all of these incredible voices into this conversation who can share their knowledge, who can, who can, who can organize activities that teachers can facilitate or watch the young people sort of engaging in the classroom, you know, it's, it's hopefully going to be this huge community of practice where we're just sharing knowledge and not harboring it.

[00:47:30] Jennifer Farinella: Thanks for listening to On The Couch. We create this podcast because we are allies in actively challenging discrimination, microaggressions, and exclusionary behaviors. We want to create spaces where people feel safe to share their thoughts, knowing they will be heard and respected. Such an environment fosters collaboration, innovation, and contributes to a more inclusive society.

Connect with us on Instagram and Facebook where you can share On the Couch with your colleagues, friends, and family. On The Couch is made by Jennifer Farinella, Naomi Viret Maddy Stratten, and Winnie Adamson.

Until next time, peace, love, and protection.