Thread by @rebeccamakkai

Hi @TuckerCarlson here are some ways to ACTUALLY stop sexualizing children:

1) If you have a TV show, maybe stop talking about children + sex constantly

2) Campaign against child beauty pageants

3) Stop asking young girls if some boy is their "boyfriend" and vice versa

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https://twitter.com/abughazalehkat/status/1594862683060314112

4) Campaign against school dress codes that imply that girls' shoulders are endlessly distracting to other students and adult teachers

5) Don't promote laws that would force raped children to carry and give birth to their rapist's baby

6) Hold the Catholic church accountable

7) Spread the information that 40% of sexually abused children are abused by a family member

8) Spread the info that 76% of child sexual abusers are married men

9) Advocate for education about sexual abuse in schools, including accurate names for body parts, setting boundaries, and knowing who to tell when there's a problem

10) Advocate for education to take the emphasis off "stranger danger" and to teach kids that 93% of abuse comes from someone known to the victim

11) Advocate for people to stop putting t-shirts that say "Lock up your daughters" on toddler boys

12) Recognize that society grooms predators through constant inoculation to rape culture

13) Advocate for adults to stop complimenting little girls based mainly on their looks and boys based mainly on their strength

14) Teach kids that they have bodily autonomy. This includes knowing who they are, what they want, and how to say no

15) Advocate for the beauty industry to lay off the toddlers, and for parents to stop imposing that crap on kids who didn't ask for it

16) Advocate for more depictions of consent within porn

17) Advocate for harsher penalties for child pornography

18) Advocate against abstinence-only education, which does not teach about consent, safety, or agency

19) Support stores and toy companies that do not gender-code absolutely every single thing in an effort to double their income

20) Advocate for more education around the pressures that social media puts on young girls to be both sexual and conventionally attractive

21) Advocate for more education around sexting, more education about internet safety, more education around healthy relationships

22) Share with your audience the fact that EVEN among men who molest young boys, only 20% identify as gay.

23) Believe experts who explain that this is because abuse is tied far more to issues of power and control than to sexual orientation.

zeroabuseproject.org/victim-assista…

24) Stop creating moral panics that make/allow your listeners to fixate on children's sexuality and gender in unhealthy and unhelpful ways, rather than listening to their kids about who they are and what they need.

25) Stop making the world less safe for kids to a) acknowledge their gender and sexuality; b) ask for help in dangerous situations; c) exert bodily autonomy; d) recognize actual abuse; e) not get shot for who they are; f) not get kicked out of their own homes

26) Address this on your show: You know who's really really vulnerable to sexual abuse? Kids without supportive families, kids without homes, kids without support systems, kids who no longer trust adults, kids in the foster system.

27) Acknowledge that the biggest reason LGBTQ+ kids are more susceptible to sexual abuse is that they're far more likely to be in foster care or homeless because of families that have kicked them out, or families they could no longer live with safely

28) Acknowledge that in addition to the SIGNIFICANT and UNFORGIVABLE damage you're doing to the LGBTQ+ community, you're harming all children by inventing a bogeyman that makes it easier for those in power to ignore actual risk factors for kids

(You guys, it turns out I could yell at #TuckerCarlson ALL DAY.)

29) Publicly support organizations like @Join1Love that teach teenagers about healthy relationships and how to get out of toxic ones.

30) Stop using "grooming" to mean things other than what it means.
Grooming involves: isolating kids from their families, filling unmet parental roles, treating kids as older than they are, breaking down physical and emotional boundaries, giving gifts, bribing, threatening...