Author Yumi Stynes hits back after sex book abuse
The ABC’s Yumi Stynes has hit back after a row erupted over her graphic children’s sex book – but one outcome has surprised everyone.
Books & Magazines
Don't miss out on the headlines from Books & Magazines. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A controversial children’s book about sex, which one detractor said made her “physically ill” to read, is now the best selling book in Australia.
Educational book Welcome to Sex, written by ABC broadcaster Yumi Stynes with advice columnist Dr Melissa Kang, has stormed to the top of the Amazon charts since a furore over its content and debate about its appropriateness for younger people.
A previous book by the pair called Welcome to your Period is now number 10 in the charts.
The sex book, which Stynes said a “mature eight-year-old could flick through,” covers masturbation, “scissoring”, anal sex and more.
It’s success has comes despite discounter Big W removing it from display and selling it online only after members of its staff were abused over the graphic content.
Stynes’ has defended her children’s book, which contains drawings of penises and describes men and women as “penis-owners” and “vagina-owners,” and said no one is forced to buy it.
Posting on Instagram, Stynes said she was “really proud of Welcome to Sex”.
“It’s A BOOK PEOPLE. If you don’t want to read it, by all means, don’t read it.
“If you don’t want your kids to read it, you REALLY don’t have to buy it for them.”
She also hinted that she had been personally abused over the book and said that she and Dr Kang had interviewed a vast array of experts before writing it.
“It was authored by myself and Associate Professor of Adolescent Health, the revered and (extremely) intellectually and academically rigorous Dr Melissa Kang,” the post read.
“As part of our research we interviewed stakeholders in preventing sexual abuse, educators who go into schools to talk about sexual safety, sexologists, therapists, frontline doctors, nurses and many, many teenagers.”
Stynes and Dr Kang have worked together on a number of books prior to Welcome to Sex including Welcome to Consent and Welcome to Boobs.
Welcome to Sex: Your no-silly-questions guide to sexuality, pleasure and figuring it out was hotly condemned in a viral video from podcast host Chris “Primod” Issa, who claimed it was “grooming our children, exposing them to sexually explicit and highly inappropriate material”.
Ms Stynes was criticised after saying that a “mature eight-year-old could flick through” the book.
The $16 book, released in May, has angered some parents so intensely, they have threatened to boycott the department stores until its removed from sale.
While Big W has defended the book, claiming it’s “educational, age-appropriate and inclusive”, critics have gone so far as to describe it “pornographic” and have demanded it be pulled from shelves.
Rachael Wong, chief executive of Women’s Forum Australia, told 2GB’s Ben Fordham Live she “felt physically ill at the thought of children reading it”, describing it a “graphic sex guide for children”.
She also took issue with the language around consent used in the book, which highlights the legal age as either 16 or 17 and suggests that “if the age difference is small, the law might take this into account”.
Ms Wong accused the authors of mentioning the legal age just to avoid “getting in trouble because the book is basically a sex manual for kids”.
“But then they sort of say, ‘if you’re a certain age and someone’s not too much older than you … you could get away with it,” she told listeners.
“The fact that a particular comment about the age of consent is couched in this book which explains all these sorts of sexually explicit activities is really just, ‘oh we might cover up that bit’ but at the end of the day we are promoting sexual activity for children,” she said.
Fordham took issue with the book warning young readers to crop their faces out if they decided to send explicit photos, arguing: “shouldn’t the advice be ‘don’t take the photos and don’t send them on’?”
Originally published as Author Yumi Stynes hits back after sex book abuse