By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter

A member of the Bellingham School Board in Washington state who's also the owner of a sex shop is offering sexual education classes to children and teens as part of a workshop series on a variety of topics, including gender and sexual identity and sexual anatomy for pleasure. 

The “Uncringe Academy”  workshop series is scheduled to take place at the Wink Wink Boutique, a sex toy shop in downtown Bellingham, in August for children ages 9 to 12 and 13- to 17-year-olds. Shop owner Jenn Mason is teaching the lessons, which are described as “sex education that's based in empowerment and information, rather than shame, fear, and judgment.”

Mason adds that the classes offer “honest, supportive, and inclusive sex education classes to help young people of all genders and sexual identities understand this important part of their life.” 

The workshops will divide children and teens by age. The topics covered during the two-day workshop range from “The science of puberty” to “Sexual anatomy for pleasure and reproduction.” 

Other topics listed include “Safer sex practices for all kinds of sexual activities” and “What IS sex? Kinds of solo and partnered sexual activities.” 

“We use an accepting, informing, and affirming framework,” the workshop’s event page reads. “Our focus is helping young people to feel comfortable around these topics so that they can advocate for their own bodies, health, and well-being.”

As KGMI reported, Mason has been a school board member since 2017. She claims that “it’s possible and important” to talk about sex with kids in “age-appropriate and healthy ways.”

The Bellingham School Board did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment, but a spokesperson for Bellingham Schools said in a statement to KGMI that Mason’s sex shop and the classes she’s offering are not connected to the district or its schools. 

Debates regarding children’s exposure to sexually explicit materials also arose last year at a Virginia school district

"After seeing a Sept. 9 school board meeting in Texas on pornography in the schools, I decided to check the titles at my child's school, Fairfax High School," the parent, Stacy Langton, told board members. She discovered that the same books are available in public school libraries in her school district.  

According to Langton, the books Gender Queer and Lawn Boy depict men and boys having sex and contain graphic sexual descriptions. As she began reading the curse words and sexual acts featured in both books, a school board member interrupted her, noting that "there are children in the audience here." 

In May, a Loudoun County, Virginia, teacher contacted police after a school librarian allegedly defended the presence of a book containing information about prostitution by claiming that some middle school students are involved in sex work. 

As The Daily Wire reported, the teacher recounted the exchange in a recorded conversation with the police. The exchange reportedly started after the teacher asked the librarian if the school had a copy of the book Seeing Gender by Iris Gottlieb, which includes a chapter titled "'Sex Work' Is Not a Bad Term."

The librarian confirmed the library had the book and asserted it was beneficial to students engaged in sex work. She did not provide the names of any current students, however, only pointing to one that graduated six years before that had allegedly been involved in the practice. 

"She started talking about how there's kids who come to the library who do sex work, and this makes them feel validated," the teacher said in the interview. "As a teacher, if you get an individual student coming to you because you're abused, you have to go [to] the police immediately."