NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #16

“Some men will be left out as polygyny increases.” This is based on the assumption that in a culture with gender equality, polygyny would still be more plentiful than polyandry. Anti-equality people, based on this assumption, insist that this will result in unmarried men devolving into criminals.

The mistake here is assuming that the second, third, etc. wives in a polygynous marriage would have wanted one of those unmarried men rather than legally sharing the man they did marry, and that the unmarried men would in turn want to marry them. Some of those men may want to marry men, or not marry at all. Why not allow people to marry the person or people of their choice? Why try to force people to settle? Also, the system is not closed. There are billions of people in the world and more and more people are reaching the age and status of eligibility every second.

There was a study attempting to link polygny to criminal behavior in unmarried/unpartnered men based in part on nineteenth century frontier America. Things have changed a little since then. And guess what? Married men commit crime, too. Most of the men in prison have been married, were married or had at least one girlfriend at the time they were convicted.

Maybe men in the hypothetical polygynous community who don’t get married are violent people. Is it better that they have a wife to beat instead of committing crimes on the street? I don’t want to be the one who tells a woman she can’t marry the man/men or woman/women she wants; rather, she has to marry a less desirable man so that he can take his aggression out on her.

The warnings that polyamorous or polygamous freedom to marry will result in an increase of violent gangs of unmarried men committing crimes falls flat when one considers the overwhelming data revealing both that 1) Men in the US are getting married for the first time later than ever, and 2) Crime rates in the US have decreased.

There is no good reason to deny an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion, the right to share love, sex, residence, and marriage (and any of those without the others) with any and all consenting adults without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.

Feel free to share, copy and paste, and otherwise distribute. This has been adapted from this page at Full Marriage Equality: http://marriage-equality.blogspot.com/p/discredited-invalid-arguments.html

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #15 

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Consanguineous) Love #17

Read More »

An Open Letter to Legislators

This letter is focused on legislators in the US, but may be adaptable to legislators and legislatures in other countries. In the United States, most "sex police" laws and laws applying to marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships are set at the state level, by state legislatures. For example, the laws in New Jersey are different from the laws in New York, Texas, Florida, and California. There are some laws set by Congress that apply to indigenous peoples living on "reservations," to US territories, and to military personnel. Whether you're a Senator, Representative, Assemblymember, or some other legislator, this letter is for you.


Dear Legislator:

There may be laws on the books in your jurisdiction that need to be cleaned up or removed. The basic freedom of association that allows consenting adults to love each other how they mutually agree has been restricted by various unjust and unconstitutional laws throughout history. Although some of these restrictions have been removed by the Supreme Court of the United States, even those may still remain in your state codes or statutes due to legislative inertia or as mean-spirit statements or even in the hopes of a reversal by a subsequent Court ruling. It is clear that momentum is on the side of civil rights and has been for a long time. We must move forward in securing the rights of all adults.


It would be wonderful if your state constitution could be amended with the following:

The right to marry or to personal consortium shall not be abridged or denied by this state on account of sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, ancestry, consanguinity, affinity, or number of participants.

We understand that a constitutional amendment may not be possible given current political situations. If that is the case in your jurisdiction, please introduce and support legislation that will be adopted that will repeal or override any past statutes that are remnants of discrimination and denial of rights. There should be no laws left on the books in your jurisdiction that criminalize or discriminate against any of the following:

• autoeroticism or masturbation
• interracial affection, sex, relationships, cohabitation, or marriages
• same-sex and same-gender affection, sex, relationships, cohabitation, or marriages
• nonmonogamous affection, sex, relationships, cohabitation, or marriages
• open relationships and open marriages
• consanguineous affection, sex, relationships, cohabitation, or marriages
• asexual or aromantic relationships, cohabitation, and marriages
• casual sex between two or more consenting adults 
• BDSM between consenting adults
• selling, buying, giving, owning, or using adult/sex toys, devices, aids
• observing, with their consent, consenting adults engaging in affection, sex, or BDSM 
• creating, possessing, or viewing photographic and video recordings of consenting adults nude or in sexual or autoerotic situations
• unmarried cohabitation, whether temporary or permanent, between two or more consenting adults
• marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships between two or more consenting adults
• physical affection, "sodomy," or sexual acts between two or more consenting adults
• sex therapy
  

***TRIGGER WARNING FOR SA***

It might also be a good to include in such legislation:

• prohibitions on "conversion" therapy
• prohibitions on "revenge porn" and nonconensual recording
• criminalization/increasing  penalties for stalking, sexual harassment, and sexual assault
• clarifications that date rape and marital rape are rape

There common element in all of these is consent as opposed to nonconsent.

Doing this is the right thing to do. Nobody should be criminalized or discriminated against for sharing love, sex, residence, or marriage, or any of those things without the others.

Even though there is no good reason to keep such laws, there will still be opposition to cleaning up the books. A simple and effective way for a legislator to respond to opposition is to say something along the lines of:

"Law enforcement resources should not be wasted in pointless attempts to keep consenting adults from loving each other how they mutually agree."

It's that simple.


Please, dear legislator, do the right thing and stand up for basic human rights and treating all adults as equal under the law.

Read More »

'Talk to your child at night, late at night': A valuable strategy to help parents 'keep connected' to their teen

Go to any parenting session and no matter who is presenting or whatever angle they're coming from, they will undoubtedly stress the importance of 'keeping connected' to your child, particularly during the adolescent years. Now as I'm sure many of you with teens of your own are saying, that is so much easier said than done! Trying to maintain a positive relationship with a 14 or 15-year-old can be extraordinarily difficult but is vital if you're going to survive the years ahead. During this time, your child is going through a whole pile of changes (physical, psychological and emotional) and trying to find their place in the world. They are desperate to establish their own identity and, in doing so, often pull away from their parents and, as a result, their peers become increasingly more important in their lives. It's a tough time for all involved! As one Mum wrote to me a couple of years ago:

"Every conversation I have with my 15-year-old at the moment ends in a fight! Apparently, I don't understand anything about the world, my rules are completely different to every other parent's and, as I'm usually told as the door slams, I just want to ruin her life!" 

I've used this quote before but it's worth showing again as it clearly illustrates the problem that almost every parent faces during this time. As a parent you must have rules and boundaries in place to try to keep your child as safe as possible and they are not going to like that! As far as they are concerned, they are now (young) adults and any attempt to 'hem them in' and prevent them from doing what they believe is their God given right is likely to be met with resistance, anger, frustration and a whole pile of yelling and screaming and slamming of doors!

As tempting as it must be sometimes to just turn and walk away and think this is just all too hard, it is incredibly important that parents continue to try and work hard to maintain a dialogue (no matter how stilted or one-sided it may be) with their son or daughter during adolescence. I can't tell you how many times I've been told by mums and dads that their wonderful, communicative and co-operative teen went up to bed one night and was somehow replaced by aliens with a 'pod person' - an adolescent that they now simply don't recognize! If a conversation was to happen, it usually ended up in an argument about absolutely everything but it was far more likely that words were replaced with mono-syllabic grunts, particularly where young men are concerned, and any attempts to find out what was going on in their lives was met with great resistance. But don't give up - although it may seem as if you're banging your head against a brick wall, I promise you that keeping connected as much as possible will be worth it in the end!

Sadly, I meet too many parents who beat themselves up around this area, acknowledging that they are busy people and 'time poor' and they feel as though they don't spend enough time connecting with their child. But this is not about 'quantity', its' about 'quality'. Even if you only manage to find a couple of minutes a week where you truly connect with your teen, that can be so very important. Spending an hour with your daughter at a coffee shop with both of you on your phones for most of the time is not going to be particularly helpful, whereas having a great 5-minute chat with your son as you're dropping him off at school can be so powerful.

Over the years I have found that parents are desperate for 'real-life' practical strategies to add to their parenting 'tool box', particularly in regards to helping them maintain a positive and open relationship with their child. Without a doubt, one of the best is as follows - 'Talk to your child at night, late at night.'

I have talked about the book Staying Connected To Your Teenager (subtitled How To Keep Them Talking To You and How To Hear What They're Really Saying) written by US parenting expert, Michael Riera, many times before. There are a whole pile of strategies that he suggests in this wonderful book and this is one of my favourites, particularly because of the science behind it …

In the opening chapter of the book Riera talks about the different sleep rhythms that adolescents have and how parents can use these to enhance their relationship with their child. He talks about research that has shown that teens have a different circadian rhythm (sleep-wake cycle) than adults. Where the fully-developed brain releases sleep-inducing chemicals in the early evening (around 7.00pm) causing adults to start to get sleepy after dinner, teens don't experience the same effect until much later, with many of them not getting sleepy until around 11.00pm. Because they get sleepy earlier, adults are able to wake up in the morning feeling well-rested and able to function, while teens on the other hand find the mornings very difficult and trying to have a quality conversation with them over breakfast or anytime before lunch is likely to fail.

Adolescents are most likely to open up and talk late at night and Riera suggests using this unique wake-sleep cycle to connect with your teen. In addition to their brain chemistry, it is at this time that they've had time to reflect on the events of the day, their defences are down to some extent and there are far less distractions. The problem for parents is that this is their natural time to sleep and it actually takes a little bit of forward planning to get these late-night conversations happening. Riera gives a couple of great examples of parents who have used this strategy successfully, including one mother who actually set her alarm to wake up at 1.00am and 'accidentally on purpose' bumped into her daughter and started a conversation by simply asking her 'How are things with you?'. In the words of this mum, "I've learned more about her life during these talks than I have in all the family dinners we've shared during the last three years." 

I've written about this strategy a couple of times before but I thought I would revisit it due to an email I received this week – it read as follows:

"I just wanted to say a big 'thank you' to you for one of the tips you suggested in a parent evening I attended a few years ago. You talked about talking to your child late at night (I think you suggested setting your alarm for midnight at walking past your child's bedroom and seeing if their light was on – if it was, just knock on the door) and the fact that they are more likely to have a good quality conversation at that time (I can't remember why that that was the case). My youngest daughter is now in university and still living at home and I continue to use that tip to this day. She shut down from my husband and I early in Year 11 and we were very worried about her – she wouldn't talk to us and her grades started to drop. Both my husband and I started to use the 'talk late at night' strategy and, although it took a little time, she finally opened up and we found out what was wrong. She was being bullied at school and was very unhappy. Once we found out and helped her (she eventually moved schools) she got back on course and did incredibly well (she's now studying medicine). Although conversation is much easier now, I still find that the best talks my daughter and I have happen late at night."  

Of course, once you've got them talking (as the mother did above) you've got to know how to respond appropriately (which, once again, the parents above seemed to get right). In addition, there's always that risk that your child is going to tell you something you really don't want to know, and you need to be prepared for that, making sure that you don't react in a way that is going to shut down future conversations. It's important to remember that sometimes just listening is enough …

I've been saying it for a few years now, but I'd strongly recommend that parents take a look at this book, whether you're struggling to keep connected with your teen or not. Here is a quote from the end of the chapter on the late-night strategy that will give you some idea of the positive messages contained in the book - I think you'll agree, it's well worth a read.

"Remember, your teenager has a different rhythm to his day than you. Therefore, even though it isn't convenient, it is well worth the effort that it takes to adapt your rhythms to match his, if even only for an evening every now and again ... Those are ... the nights that will help you get through all the other nights when it's an hour past curfew and you haven't heard a peep from your wayward teenager. It's all about balance. Just never let yourself forget that it is your connection with your teenager that will always lead him back home." 

Reference:
Riera, M. (2003). Staying Connected To Your Teenager, Da Capo Press Lifelong Books.

Read More »

The Spice of Life

Monogamy isn't for everyone, and very few people only marry and have sex with one person throughout their entire life. If monogamy or serial monogamy is what works for you, we fully support that and support your rights to be monogamous.

In return, we hope you support the rights of others to be ethically nonmonogamous, especially since it is what is best for some and some are polyamorous as who they are.

Your personal feelings, boundaries, or convictions may preclude any form of ethical nonmonogamy for you, but that doesn't you need to put down others who are different. Thankfully, most of you don't. There really isn't any good reason that people who are nonmonogamous should be discriminated against.

We take a live and let live attitude around here, supporting everyone who just want to be themselves and have their relationships and to avoid trouble.

Whether someone is engaging in casual sex, swinging, swapping, threesomes, moresomes, hotwifing, cuckolding, an open relationship or open marriage, relationship anarchy, polyamory, polyfidelity, group marriage, plural marriage, or some other form of polygamy, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, that should be their business and shouldn't subject them to discrimination or bullying or prosecution. Same goes for some asexuals and aromantics who don't want sex or don't want romantic relationships. Let people do their thing!

Please feel free to comment with your thoughts and experiences regarding any form of ethical nonmonogamy, or write to fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com.

Read More »

Has Your Partner Experienced Consanguinamory?

I used be active at a certain Big Internet Portal's Question and Answer service, until someone who couldn’t handle me answering questions truthfully when it comes to certain romantic or sexual topics decided to get me "suspended" using a weakness in their automated system. After that, I'd still check to see what questions were being asked there, even though I couldn't participate in any way or even contact anyone there unless they had somehow provided an email address in their question or answer. I will not link to the service, but I will quote it. Someone named Lauren asked this question...

Ok.....complicated one, recently found out my husband and his younger sister had sex for a number of years between the ages of 10-12, this is what he's telling me tho I'm aware this may have more to it? We are a young couple married with two children (boys) my relationship with his family has never been great and this hasn't helped! Can anyone give me any advice or your thoughts on how you would deal with this news? I'm up and down and so confused.....

Questions like this come up more than people might think. Person A is dating or married to Person B and Person A suspects or has found out that Person B has been sexually involved with a sibling or other family member. Person A usually wants to know what they should do.

It is important to clarify the situation by determining the answers to some questions.

1) Is this something that is suspected or has it been confirmed?



Not all families have the same behaviors and boundaries when it comes to physical affection, personal space, joking, and otherwise talking. As such, Person A can look at how Person B interacts with a sibling and think, “I wouldn’t interact with my sibling that way, only a partner” and so think that Person B must have sexual experience with their family member. It isn’t necessarily the case, though. On the other hand, with as common as consanguineous experimentation and sex is, it isn’t unreasonable to wonder.

Unless someone comes right out and makes a clear, credible statement either way, there probably isn’t an easy way to get the truth that will not cause some embarrassment.  One way of handling it could be in expressing needs and negotiating boundaries. Even if someone is monogamous, they should never assume their relationship is monogamous unless that has been explicitly discussed. So perhaps one oblique way of trying to determine if there’s anything current is to say, “I need monogamy. Is that going to be a problem?” Or, if polyamorous, saying “I need to know exactly who else you are going to be having sex with.” Trying to determine if anything happened in the past is going to take being a little less vague. It might be helpful to say something like this, in a nonjudgmental tone: “I was reading that a surprisingly high percentage of people have had sexual experiences with a close family member, enough that everyone knows somebody who has. But I’m not aware of anyone I know who has. Are you?” Depending on how serious the relationship is getting, the questioning can get more direct, because if someone is going to be creating a family with someone else, they should be talking about the dynamics and family history of both families.


2) Was this something that happened in the past or is it ongoing?

If confirmation is obtained, it is important to know whether the sexual aspect of the relationship is likely over for good or if it is ongoing or could easily resume. If it ended, when, why, and how did it end?


3) Was this consensual activity or was it assault/molestation?

I don’t classify assault or molestation as sexual activity or experimentation, as I think those are entirely different things. But as far as abuse or molestation goes, there is a difference between a 12-year-old grabbing his 10-year-old sister once to upset her and realizing it was a terrible thing to do and a 14-year-old forcing themselves on a 7-year-old repeatedly and trying to excuse it with “kids will be kids.” If someone is planning to raise kids with their partner, they should not ignore a history of child abuse.

Some kids engage in mutual exploration or experimentation. Most therapists don’t consider it abusive if minor family members close in age explore by mutual agreement. A 13-year-old and a 12-year-old might be curious. A 20-year-old and an 18-year-old might be in love. And that brings us to another question.


4) If this was a consensual thing in the past, was it a one-time event, a casual family-with-benefits thing, a love affair, or what?

They may have engaged in everything from a one-time instance of playing doctor or some other game, or had an ongoing love affair that they thought was going to last forever. Or perhaps there was something in between. That matters.


Discovering that your partner is cheating on you, deeply in love with a sibling, is a different matter than finding out that your partner used to masturbate in front of a sibling when they were teens, for mutual enjoyment, and both are different than finding out that your partner assaulted three relatives.

PLEASE SEE THIS if your partner has had a long lost close relative come back into their life and you think there is some attraction involved.

Going back to the question that prompted this entry, it wasn’t clear whether both of the siblings were "10-12" or not. Assuming they were close in age, it was not a matter of abuse, and everything ended before they were even teenagers, then there’s nothing for Lauren to do, unless she thinks it is causing ongoing problems in her marriage, in which case she should seek marriage therapy and perhaps individual therapy. If he is a good father and a good husband, she should be happy knowing that he chose to marry her and loves her. That should outweigh what happened in his childhood, even if she thinks what happened is wrong.

All of the above refers to interaction with siblings, cousins or even aunts/uncles who are close in age. There is a different dynamic if the involvement was with an older aunt/uncle, parent, or grandparent (or, in the case of someone who is older, an adult child). Again, abuse is a whole different matter than consensual sex between adults. But consensual adult intergenerational sex does happen, perhaps not as often as intragenerational, but it happens.

If someone is not in a committed relationship, but is rather just dating someone, and they think the other person is “too close” to a family member, they are entirely free to stop seeing them. A casual outsider is not going to change family dynamics, and trying to do so will likely make everyone unhappy. Who wants to be suspicious that their partner is cheating with anyone, let alone a family member? A consanguinamorous bond can be an especially powerful one, and if someone suspects they are dating someone who is has such a bond, issuing an ultimatum will likely mean the dating will end.

Like anything else about a partner’s sexual history, it comes down to knowing what you’ll accept and what you won’t (and what you need to know to begin with). While you may be missing out on a great partner if you “can’t” accept some of the consensual sex in their past or that they will not tell you something, it isn’t a good idea to get in deeper with someone if you’re going to end up holding that aspect of their past against them.

Conversely, if you'll love them and let them know they can be honest with you about their past and whether or not it (still) holds an erotic charge for them, you can have a great time or a great life together, especially if you are willing to sometimes play off of that history in fantasies.

Read More »

Bisexual Visibility Day

September 23 is Bisexual Visibility Day. 

To all bisexuals, especially our friends and readers, we see you. You are valid. You should have your rights and freedoms. You deserve representation. You should not be pressured to be closeted or to hide.

Read More »

NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #15

“This oppresses women.” Gender equality and the right to be unmarried or to divorce are necessary components of full marriage equality. Anti-equality people often point to polygyny in certain cultures, past and present, where women do not have equal rights. However, this is not proof that polygyny, much less the larger scope of polygamy or polyamory, oppresses women. Women would be oppressed in those cultures with or without polygyny. If a woman wants to marry a man who has other wives rather than another man who is an unmarried man, and the other wives agree, why deny her that choice? If a woman wants to marry two men, or a man and a woman, or two women, she should have that right, too. Some women enjoy polygamy, including polygyny, and they should have the right to consent to the marriage of their choosing.

The law does not prevent a man from having relationships with, and children with, multiple women, but he can't legally marry all of them even if they all agree. The law does not prevent a woman from having relationships with, and children with, multiple men, but she can't legally marry all of them even if they all agree. Three people can have a loving, lasting triad, living together for years and years, but can't legally marry. What kind of sense is that?

Protections against gender discrimination, domestic violence, and child abuse should be the focus, not preventing consenting adults from marrying. Victims of abuse would be more likely to work with authorities to stop abusers if consensual relationships were not criminalized nor discriminated against.
 
There is no good reason to deny an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion, the right to share love, sex, residence, and marriage (and any of those without the others) with any and all consenting adults without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.

Feel free to share, copy and paste, and otherwise distribute. This has been adapted from this page at Full Marriage Equality: http://marriage-equality.blogspot.com/p/discredited-invalid-arguments.html

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #14

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #16 

Read More »

What if a teenage party was run like a school excursion? What would be expected of the school and teachers?

I've written many times about the 'hoops' that schools have to go through to take students on an excursion and how parents would not expect anything less, particularly when it comes to their child's well-being. I raised this issue at a recent Parent Information Evening and was using it to emphasise the importance of parents 'doing their homework' before allowing their teen to attend a party on a Saturday night. It doesn't matter where a teacher is planning on taking a group of young people, whether it is a comparatively 'safe' place like a museum or a zoo, or a potentially more risky environment such as an outdoor education camp trekking through bushland for a number of days, they have to follow a protocol. I was talking to a couple of parents recently about this and they were quite surprised to hear about the lengths teachers have to go to in order to take a group of students off school grounds. That left me thinking, what would a school have to do if a teenage party was run like a school excursion? What hoops would a teacher have to jump through to ensure young people could attend?

Type in 'teacher checklist for excursions' into a Google search and you will find a range of documents, some from government departments and schools, as well as those developed and provided by places likely to be visited by groups of students (e.g., Perth Zoo, Australian Botanic Gardens) that provide assistance to teachers in this area. One of the most detailed is the Checklist for Excursion Management Plan from the WA Education Department's website. To introduce the document, the site states that the checklist provided "must be completed by the teacher in charge of the excursion and submitted to the principal for approval. The checklist confirms that the management plan in place for an excursion meets the requirements of the policy."

The document has nine sections, the first of which is titled 'Assess the Risks'. I haven't included everything listed under this section but hopefully you'll get the idea:

1. Assess the environment: The site has been assessed and is considered to be appropriate for the excursion 
2. Assess transport arrangements: Arrangements have been made for the safe transport of excursion participants 
3. Assess the students' capacity: Excursion activities are suitable for the students' capacity. Up-to-date information regarding student health care maintenance and/or intensive health care needs has been obtained 
4. Competence of external providers is established: 

• External providers conducting activities with students have a current working with children check card and national police certificate 
• Staff responsibilities of the school and venue have been established 
• External providers hold the appropriate level of public liability insurance

Other section headings include 'Establish Supervision Strategies', 'Provide Information and Seek Consent' and 'Complete Emergency Response Planning'. Sounds complicated doesn't it? But, as already said, no parent would expect any less from a school when it comes to their child's safety. Now try taking these protocols and procedures and applying them to a young person attending a teenage party on a Saturday night … How many parents actually take the time to ensure that the event their child is going to is safe?

So in a practical sense, using this checklist, what would a teacher have to do to make sure that a teenage party they were sending a group of students to meets Education Department requirements?

Firstly, they would have to assess the environment, i.e., where is the party being held and is it safe and 'appropriate'? This would mean having a site visit at some time before the event was held. They would then have to ensure that appropriate transport arrangements were made, providing departure and arrival times, the number of staff on the bus (making sure that there was the correct staff-student ratio) as well as nominating the supervising staff member. No matter what form of transport was being used, insurance details would have to be sourced and provided. The teachers would then have to establish that those young people attending were 'capable', i.e., the party and what went on there matched the students' maturity level. At the same time, information on any medical conditions would need to be collected and distributed to staff supervising the event.

Finally, the teachers would have to ensure that the host parents were 'competent' and would be putting on a party that was as safe as possible. Most importantly, the school would also need to see a range of documentation that demonstrated that the host parents were aware of their responsibilities in terms of health and safety (e.g., were they aware of the laws around underage drinking and 'secondary supply', did they have a plan on how to deal with intoxicated young people turning up to the party?) and that the event was covered by insurance should something go wrong.

The document outlines what a school has to do when it comes to school excursions - they have no choice! If a teacher was found negligent in this area (i.e., they didn't do all of this and possibly even more) they would find themselves on the front page of a newspaper or hounded by tabloid TV journalists. But there are few parents who even come close to matching this kind of effort and those who do (many of whom are regular readers of this blog) are often made to feel like they are 'overparenting' and 'not trusting their teen' … Can you imagine what schools would have to do if they were actually responsible for what teens did and didn't do on a Saturday night? The expectations of parents would be ridiculous but many do not hold themselves up to the same standards in this area and do little to ensure their teen's safety when they go out to a party on a weekend!

We also need to remember that with a school excursion the teachers just don't hand over the students to wherever they are going and walk away - they stay and help supervise. That is not usually the case, however, with a teenage party. So, in reality, what a parent does in the lead-up to a sleepover, party or gathering is so much more important than what a teacher needs to do prior to a school excursion (and that's not even taking into account that you've also got to consider that alcohol can often be involved, the events are usually held at night and so much more!). Of course, you're not going to want to see the host parents' insurance policy or ask them whether they have a 'Working with Children' check but it wouldn't be a bad idea to know something about them … So, if you use the document discussed as a template, when it comes to assessing the risk of a teenage party, the very least a parent should do is as follows:

• make sure you know where the party is being held - it would be wise to have confirmation that that is where it is actually being held and you have a contact number for the host parents 
• ensure you know how your child is getting to the party and how they will be getting home - as I always say, this really is the only non-negotiable parents should have when it comes to parties. The best option is for you to take then and pick them up, but that is not always possible. If you're not, speak to the person who will be
• find out something about the host parents - the best way to do this is to make contact with them but that can be difficult and confronting in some cases. If you start doing this when they're younger, however, it's not going to be so difficult when they hits their mid teens
• establish that this is a party that is suitable for your child - this can often become obvious when you make contact with the host parent but you also need to establish who else is going, do you know other young people attending and what type of event is it?

I believe a parent should do so much more than the bare minimum (and that's what I've listed above) but 'something's better than nothing' and I totally get that it's not easy … That said, I have met too many parents over the years who have lost their children in tragic accidents or have had their daughter sexually assaulted or son be a victim of alcohol-related violence who didn't do some basic checking of a party and have never forgiven themselves as a result. Making a call and 'doing a bit of homework' is not going to be appreciated by your child at the time, particularly around that age of 14, 15 and 16, but I guarantee they'll come back in a few years time and thank you for it!

Read More »

The Red Button

TRIGGER WARNING: Parts of this entry will deal with SA.

There is a big difference between abuse and sex, and nothing written below is included to minimize or obscure the fact that some adults and children are abused by family members or relatives. Assault, molestation, and other forms of abuse should be vigorously prosecuted and we note that removing laws and stigmas against consensual (to be redundant) sex will make it easier to prevent and stop abuse.

On to the main point.

It has been confirmed to us by some, and in other cases we suspect:

Ridiculous laws against consanguinamory can result in everyone involved being prosecuted, so in some cases, when it looks like arrests and prosecution are likely, one person falls on their sword and falsely confesses to assaulting the other(s). The strategic thinking is that it is better only one of them go to prison and be branded a sex offender than both or all.


This means that not every news report or bit of local gossip that comes your way about someone forcing themselves on a family is really as reported.

It is outrageous that anyone would feel pressured to falsely confess to assault when there was no assault, all because of ridiculous laws against sex. Unfortunately, this is a decision some people have to make individually or with their lover(s). This blog can't make the decision for you, but if you've done this or plan to, and feel like telling us about it, you can comment anonymously or with a screen name below.

Consanguineous lovers need to protect themselves and also each other.

There is no good reason for criminalizing or perpetuating a stigma against these relationships, but until unjust laws are removed, there will be people who press the red button as a last resort to protect their lover(s) from prosecution, taking all of the criminal punishment on themselves. This is an insult to justice and an insult to survivors of abuse, and is another reason why laws against consanguineous sex must go.

Read More »