Internet disinformation: The blue waffle myth

By Dr emma Chan

Sometimes being a facilitator for School of Sexuality Education involves attempting to hold the attention of young people through wit, honesty and sheer confidence as you explain a specific curriculum point as your unembarrassable self. At other times it involves asking questions your audience may not have considered before and standing back whilst a tide of answers hits you.

“Can anyone name any sexually transmitted infections?” My colleague asked of a group of year 10 students just outside of London. Three of us were delivering a workshop on sexual health. This was definitely going to be one of the latter type of encounters. Luckily, this group wasn’t a shy one and answers came flooding forward.

“Chlamydia”, “syphillis”, and “gonorrhea” were proffered. All good answers and affirmed as such.

“Mono” was suggested, the infection also going by the name of ‘mononucleosis’ or ‘glandular fever’ – the ‘kissing disease’. By our extremely wide definition of ‘sex’ (any behaviour that someone finds arousing) completely valid and a good opportunity to bring this in.

Illustration by Dr Emma Chan

“HIV” was another suggestion, to me offered surprisingly late. Once seen as the sexually transmitted infection in the UK, hopefully this reflects a reduction in stigma and fear around this disease as treatment and prevention becomes so incredibly effective.

“Crabs” one pupil proffered - a nice segue in to talking about parasites. Another good talking point.

And then it came. The complete surprise.

“Blue waffle” one student called out.

This caught me by surprise a little. I had heard of this before, but only come across it in training and never actually in the classroom before.

If you haven’t come across it before, blue waffle is a fictional STI. It was something that Amelia and Hazel, School of Sexuality Education’s founders, remembered from their own school days, and had come across when talking to children in their research. The story doing the rounds at the time was that blue waffle was a disease contracted by women who had had a large number of sexual partners. Sometimes the ‘main’ blue waffle image is just shared around for shock.

At the time a google image search would return pictures of vulvas covered in lesions - very nasty looking lumps and bumps. To my clinical eye, some of the images looked to be lesions caused by genital warts. Others, including the ‘main’ picture, looked like erosion and growths caused by vulval cancers.

There are also fake-medical webpages dedicated to “blue waffles disease”.

Interestingly (and perhaps not surprisingly) the rumour ran that it was transmitted to people with vulvas and did not trouble penises at all. Even though this is how the disease was said to be spread. Turns out misogyny can be a powerful vehicle for keeping a lie alive – who’d have thought it!

This turned out to be the case for the young person who had introduced it in to the classroom in this instance. He was quite resistant to my telling him that it was a made-up thing.

“But Miss, if you look on Google, there are pictures!”

I tried to gently unpack this, explaining what I thought these images were actually of. It was a nice opportunity for a discussion about being critical of sources, particularly those on the internet. However, I left with the distinct impression that I had only created an aura of doubt in this person’s mind. I had not completely convinced him it was a total urban myth and an element of belief in blue waffle remained.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Why education that promotes equality and diversity should not be up for debate

School of Sexuality Education has published a response to the no outsiders protests and why education must be inclusive of all - available here.

Elmer by David McKee is one of the No Outsiders books.

Debate has recently been raised as to whether or not education should be LGBTQIA+ inclusive at all ages. This has been in response to the No Outsiders programme, a scheme of work developed by teacher Andrew Moffat for primary schools.

In fact, to describe the protests as being in response to LGBT inclusive education for primary school children is almost a bit of an overstatement. The No Outsiders programme centres around a series of lovely children’s books that promote equal rights regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, including And Tango Make Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, and Odd Dog Out by Rob Biddulph. In reality, what is being challenged are children learning messages like, “did you know we are all different, and that’s a good thing” or, “by the way there are families that exist where there are two dads”.

The rhetoric surrounding the challenges to the No Outsiders programme has been strongly reflective of Section 28, which banned the so-called ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools. Although it was repealed in 2003, its legacy remains, resulting in the attitudes we have seen here.

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School of Sexuality Education provides LGBTQ+ inclusive sex and relationships education workshops for secondary schools, youth groups and universities, and training for staff. If you would like to work with us please get in touch.

Thank you to our volunteer Eve Pardoe for designing this piece.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Banning porn won’t work. So how can we best support young people’s digital intimacies?

WRITTEN BY PROFESSOR JESSICA RINGROSE AND THE School of Sexuality Education TEAM. originally published on the institute of education blog.

In recent weeks, conversation has been reignited around the UK’s porn block for under 18s. The plan to prevent teens from accessing porn has been long delayed, but the government recently reiterated that it is soon to come into effect.

Concerns have focused primarily on privacy: there is a particular danger that data breaches and data mining could occur because users will have to submit identity data so their age can be verified. The dilemmas for children and their parents and carers are vast.

But many experts who advocate for young people’s online rights and digital literacy do not believe that simply banning porn or mobile technologies will solve anything. Rather – in an age of widespread data mining, fake news and disinformation – we must ensure that digital literacy is the fourth pillar of education, alongside reading, writing and maths. We need to cultivate a well-informed citizenry that can navigate cyberspace. Protection from digital harm must be balanced with providing educational opportunities. And because young people also have rights to sexual health and information about their bodies, digital rights and sexual rights need to be considered in tandem.

Why the ‘don’t do it’ message won’t work

The failure to prioritise how the digital intersects with sexuality education was made particularly apparent in the recently updated government guidance for schools on Relationships, Sex and Health Education. As Jessica Ringrose explained on the IOE blog, the guidance fails to address important digital topics in enough depth or detail, even though porn is often one of young people’s main sex educators.

The two references to porn in the new guidance are: “that specifically sexually explicit material e.g. pornography presents a distorted picture of sexual behaviours, can damage the way people see themselves in relation to others and negatively affect how they behave towards sexual partners” (page 28); and that secondary school pupils should know the law around pornography (page 30). There are no links provided to in-depth lesson plans, policies or explanations to help teachers cover this topic, or information about why it is important to do so. Similarly sexting is only mentioned once to highlight that it is illegal under the age of 18. This is a worrying omission considering the depth and complexities of youth sexting.

So how are young people to learn about navigating digital intimacy, which is nowadays an everyday extension or antecedent to ‘in person’ sexual activity? How will they learn about sexual safety, respect and consent in the digital domain?

It is difficult to see how banning or limiting children’s access to certain technologies or digital spaces can answer these tough questions. Banning technology will not promote young people’s welfare when it is not paired with high quality education. Rather, the porn block seems more like a tokenistic tick-box exercise to appease groups who take a sex-adverse stance. But it is one that leaves young people at even greater risk than before.

Indeed, it is acknowledged that banning access to mainstream porn sites will not entirely restrict young people’s access to pornographic content, which is readily available on Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Google images.

The ‘don’t do it’ rhetoric surrounding teen digital intimacies can also be sex-negative. Stigmatising narratives can shut down much-need open and honest dialogue, and prevents people from reaching out when they need support, for fear of being shamed or blamed.

Sex-positive porn lessons

In partnership with expert advisor Professor Jessica Ringrose, School of Sexuality Education is working to tackle these issues. We work with a range of secondary school students who consume porn for a huge variety of reasons. Porn can sometimes provide much-needed reassurance that they are not alone in feelings, desires or identity – particularly for students who are not heterosexual. There is no denying that there are highly problematic tropes in much mainstream porn but the focus on banning access is overshadowing conversations around tackling this through effective education, through critical engagement and open discussion. Safeguarding young people’s rights and well-being requires in-depth exploration of these topics in age appropriate ways which is informed by up to the minute research.

Our lessons prioritise enabling young people to critically engage with topics like sexting, image based abuse and pornography. In each case the priority is placed on helping children with moral reasoning, ethical decision-making; and to advocate for their own and each other’s rights. Putting this into practise means understanding sexual consent, how it plays out in digital spaces, the signs of a respectful relationship, the role of bystanders and how systems of power operate in our society. This framework must be applied to explicit and relevant examples, rather than vague analogies or metaphors.

Our ‘porn lesson’ is tailored to help young people understand consent in real relationships in their own specific contexts and supports them to deal directly with questions and concerns in ways that unpack nervousness and anxiety. Discussions examine why porn is so popular and ask students to consider the economy of porn rather than something decontextualized that people simply consume online.

We also discuss much of porn’s orientation towards fast masturbation and prioritizing male desire in ways that can neglect consent and the needs and desires of others.

Let’s give young people the educational tools to navigate sexuality rather than relying on banning technology or digital content­ – a tactic that won’t work anyway. By carefully tackling taboo topics with young people, School of Sexuality Education’s approach has had meaningful impact on many young people’s lives. These research-informed lesson plans can help young people explore and develop their sexuality in a way that is safe, healthy, and shame-free.

Illustrations by Evie Karkera, unless otherwise credited.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.