"Sex education for teenagers is a right and it must be egalitarian"

• After a volume 1 intended for children, the author Julia Pietri signs today the continuation of her

  Little guide to sexual pussy

  , in bookstores this Friday.

• A volume 2 where teenagers aged 12 to 16 can find the answers to their questions about anatomy, puberty or even consent.

• For the author, the important thing is to offer an egalitarian sex education tool.

A changing body.

Growing hairs.

And questions around sexual identity, gender, or even masturbation.

Welcome to adolescence.

Period during which it is not always easy to find simple and reliable answers to one's intimate questions.

In

(ed. Better Call Julia), in bookstores this Friday, the author Julia Piétri, creator of the Instagram account @gangduclito, answers all the questions that can cross teenagers, and

Questions

.

There are already sex education guides.

Why write one for teens and what makes it stand out?

I decided to write the guide that I would have liked to have in my hands when I was a teenager and that I experimented the entry into puberty.

In my time, information was quite rare: I remember having received a sex education guide for teenagers as a gift and having searched for "masturbation", the only thing written was: "it does not make you deaf", as if it wasn't a real topic.

This book is designed to help pass a course, play down all taboos, and allow all teenagers in 2022 to have the answers to the questions they ask about the body - their own and that of others, puberty, sexuality, the first times, with a scientific approach, and without sexualizing the body.

At the same time, it is not a book focused on hygiene, prevention and danger.

The bias is to offer hyper benevolent and reassuring content, to explain that puberty can be a great time in life.

A period when we ask ourselves a lot of questions around identity, gender, and when we face a number of injunctions and preconceived ideas related to sexuality...

Absolutely !

I have a militant background, I am a feminist and it was essential to breathe this spirit into this book, to make it a tool for egalitarian sex education.

This involves deconstructing received ideas and breaking myths that have a deleterious impact on sexuality.

Women have long been taught that entering into sexuality is through pain, that the first time hurts, that's how it is.

This is a misconception that makes many women then find it very difficult to reclaim their desire, and their pleasure.

Because no, it's not normal.

In the same way that penetration is not obligatory during sexual intercourse.

There is an injunction to satisfy male desire and female pleasure is often denied in the prevailing discourse.

Gender equality also involves equality of pleasure and information,

It is in this idea that the anatomical boards are presented in the same way, to break the received idea of ​​a strong sex and the other weak and the image of the only penis in erection.

Let's not forget the clitoris!

Because everyone has an erectile organ.

Promoting anatomical equality in the representation of bodies then helps to change mentalities.

How do you find the right tone to address these questions that teenagers often don't dare to ask?

To create a link with the teenagers who will read this guide and give them confidence, I open up a little about the complexes and questions I had at their age.

This shows that it is a universal step, that everyone can be complexed.

Me, I plead for a popular culture, for flexible pedagogy.

Today, in the era of social networks and a kind of elitist feminism of knowledge, there is no longer the idea of ​​transmission, we are immediately in virulence.

By adopting a simple and uninhibited tone, in inclusive writing, all identities feel represented, and those who do not fully understand these questions find answers.

This is also why there are also sourcing pages to allow them to go further and get information in a safe and reliable way.

There is both a link to family planning and QR codes that link to well-designed videos on consent or condom use, made by serious Youtubers that young people know well, to adapt to their codes of communication.

The idea is to make it both a support for oneself, where one can take refuge alone, at this age when one is emancipated.

But also a vector of communication to accompany speech.

The first volume of this guide was aimed at children from 4 years old, and the second is aimed at teenagers from 12 to 16 years old.

What do you say to those who think it's too young to talk about sexuality?

Volume 1 is aimed at children, but also and above all at parents, to help them answer "pee poo" questions and find the right words and tone to talk about anatomy, nudity, prohibitions, but also emotions and sisterhood.

To create a dialogue and make the child feel comfortable talking.

As for teenagers, you have to be aware of the reality: today in 2022, most 12-year-old teenagers have already viewed porn at least once and for a long time.

Without necessarily having entered into sexuality, they have already entered into a – distorted – representation of sexuality.

The idea with this guide is to provide information and reflection tools to support them both in their construction and in the deconstruction of received ideas which they have already been able to absorb.

Hence the importance of talking to them about their rights, of consent, of explaining what the culture of rape is: all these fundamental subjects, which touch on patriarchy and which we talk about too little, because we lack feminist and militant education.

However, sex education is a right.

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*

, by Julia Pietri, Better call Julia editions, 19.99 euros, in bookstores on June 3.

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