See, I would say that both of those things are important topics to cover in school. Children need to know about statutory rape, so they (a) don't ignorantly commit it / participate in it; (b) can be protected by those laws, in the event they need to seek such protection; (c) understand why those laws are there, so they don't stay in an abusive situation just because “I'll go to prison if you tell anyone!”.
The laws around drawn CSAM are strict. You don't get a free pass for drawing a 14-year-old having sex with another 14-year-old, merely because you're also a 14-year-old. (There's a good reason the law works that way, as ridiculous as it might seem.) Children need to be aware of such things, especially in jurisdictions where children can get tried as adults for taking naked photographs of themselves (which is just about the worst possible way to address that problem).
> Girls said they wanted more information earlier in secondary schools – for example in Year 7 – if not in primary school. They felt that currently, the lessons they do receive are delivered too late.
> Strikingly, boys saw huge value in messages which tackle ‘perpetrator’ behaviour with unequivocal and un-sensationalised information about the consequences and legality of this behaviour.
> Girls were generally negative about “consequences of sharing” messaging or any messaging they felt was simplistic and failed to address the underlying causes of sexual image-sharing.
> Children said that currently, they typically learn more about sexual image-sharing from sources outside of school such as friends and family, or informally in school from gossip around certain incidents, as well as from TV and social media. In many cases this information tends to minimise or normalise sexual image sharing.
The content of the curriculum is a separate issue to the content of school libraries, but similar attitudes motivate decision-making in both cases. Censorship of information about sex has concrete harms, and especially censorship of information about child abuse.
The laws around drawn CSAM are strict. You don't get a free pass for drawing a 14-year-old having sex with another 14-year-old, merely because you're also a 14-year-old. (There's a good reason the law works that way, as ridiculous as it might seem.) Children need to be aware of such things, especially in jurisdictions where children can get tried as adults for taking naked photographs of themselves (which is just about the worst possible way to address that problem).
https://www.nominet.uk/shifting-the-dial-how-internet-matter... says:
> Girls said they wanted more information earlier in secondary schools – for example in Year 7 – if not in primary school. They felt that currently, the lessons they do receive are delivered too late.
> Strikingly, boys saw huge value in messages which tackle ‘perpetrator’ behaviour with unequivocal and un-sensationalised information about the consequences and legality of this behaviour.
> Girls were generally negative about “consequences of sharing” messaging or any messaging they felt was simplistic and failed to address the underlying causes of sexual image-sharing.
> Children said that currently, they typically learn more about sexual image-sharing from sources outside of school such as friends and family, or informally in school from gossip around certain incidents, as well as from TV and social media. In many cases this information tends to minimise or normalise sexual image sharing.
The content of the curriculum is a separate issue to the content of school libraries, but similar attitudes motivate decision-making in both cases. Censorship of information about sex has concrete harms, and especially censorship of information about child abuse.