Sexologist Giselle Woodley says Keeping Children Safe Albany ‘misinformed’ over sex ed books access

A sexologist and researcher has hit back at a “misinformed” Albany group campaigning to restrict access to sex education books at the local library, pointing to the importance of “credible” resources for teens. Keeping Children Safe Albany is a recently formed committee that has called on the City of Albany to restrict access to books such as Welcome to Sex by Dr Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes, and Sex: A Book for Teens by Nikol Hasler in the Albany Public Library. Giselle Woodley, who is working towards her PhD on sex education in schools at ECU, said that while she believed the Keeping Children Safe Albany group was well-intentioned, they were ultimately “misinformed.” “This is nothing new that we haven’t seen before — people with good intentions, but intentions that are misinformed,” she said. “Research shows that books like these actually keep children safe by informing them, and by banning or restricting access you are keeping children vulnerable and essentially reducing their access to resources that allow them to have safe, healthy and wanted sexual experiences.” Ms Woodley said sexuality did not “turn on like a switch” and young people were more open to abuse or injury if they did not have the necessary skills to identify harmful behaviours or dangerous practices. According to the National Survey of Australia Secondary Students and Sexual Health 2021 by La Trobe University, the average age for a person to first experience sex is 14.9, with their first experience of pornography at 13.6. Ms Woodley said her research had found a strong demand in the youth demographic for comprehensive resources to “negate and balance” the “warped” information available on the internet. “What we found is that young people don’t know where to go — their parents are too awkward and they often don’t know about things like sexting, or want to discuss pleasure and positions, and their teachers are untrained and unsupported as they tend to talk around sex in terms of biology,” she said. “They’re going to their friends, going to Google, they’re going to porn for advice on what to do and how to do it. “They recognise it’s not credible but they don’t know where else to go.” Ms Woodely said “evidence-based, informed research by an expert” is “so important, filling that gap on where to go that the teens themselves have identified”. “Teens have asked for this information and censoring is not the way to help,” she said.