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Att: Sandy Grant, Chief Executive & Chair and Fiona Hardie, Chair, Hardie Grant Media & Director

Remove harmful advice to minors on headless nudes from 'Welcome to Sex'

We the undersigned write to urge you as publishers of ‘Welcome to Sex’ (Dr Melissa Kang, Yumi Stynes, Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing, Richmond, Vic, 2023) to remove advice for minors re the sending of nudes.

While we support efforts to educate children and young people about bodies, sexuality, relationships and consent, we believe this advice fails child safeguarding standards and puts children and young people at risk.

In the section titled ‘Nudes, texting and online sex’, the authors write (p.174) “If we were talking to our own kids, we’d tell them to always crop their heads out of any photos, just in case…”

Australian laws make it a crime to possess, produce or distribute sexual images of minors. In some cases, there may be some limited exceptions and defences - but your readers, acting on the advice on headless nudes, may risk being charged with very serious criminal offences.

Criminal charges are not the only risk. There is evidence to suggest that boys in Australian schools play at guessing who the headless nude belongs to, causing distress among girls who fear they may be wrongly identified as the sender. In this context, boys play ‘swap the head’, superimposing a preferred head onto the image and sharing it among their groups.

We are also concerned about advice on p.175, “If you send a nude with someone you’re being intimate with, they aren’t allowed to share it with anyone else without your consent, and vice-versa – it can be a crime.” This advice is also misleading. In these cases, 'consent' may not be recognised as a defence or exception in criminal law.

We believe there is a significant risk that you have inadvertently published advice which may lead to the commission of an offence.

Children and young people – especially those skimming the book in school libraries without mediation of an adult who may understand the risks – cannot be expected to be across the legal ramifications.

For these reasons we call on you to remove this section of your title prior to the next reprint.