Editor Note, Jul 11: As expected, today's Cascadia Daily News has an in-depth article on Jenn Mason's Wink Wink business. Have not found any coverage in the Herald on this sensitive issue although they have seen fit to highlight axe throwing as a sport.
This recent article from London's Daily Mail newspaper is about Bellingham and likely of interest to local residents. This story is now appearing in U.S. online news sites, but not our local news media.
“School board director in Dem-led Washington state plans to hold workshop to teach children as young as NINE about 'sexual anatomy for pleasure' and 'safer sex practices' at her shop called WinkWink
- Jenn Mason, who serves as the school board director for the Bellingham School District, is hosting sexual education classes at her sex shop WinkWink Boutique
- The courses are broken down by age with children 9 to 12 in one class and children 13 to 17 in another
- Among the topics students will discuss are 'sexual anatomy for pleasure and reproduction' and 'safer sex practices for all kinds of sexual activities'
- It comes one month after Mason hosted a Queer Youth Open Mic Night at the store, offering those '0-18' a chance to share poetry or songs”
You can read the full article on the Daily Mail.
Comments by Readers
Randy Petty
Jul 07, 2022“A spokesperson for Bellingham Schools says Mason’s store and the classes offered there have no connection to the district or any of its schools.”
https://kgmi.com/news/007700-bellingham-school-board-member-offering-classes-on-sexuality-for-kids/
Angelo Tsoukalas
Jul 07, 2022Oh man, I heard about it yesterday. I can’t believe this. I mean why can’t she focus this on teens 16+? What the bell is going on here? 9 years old??? Gee whiz give em a chance to enjoy their childhood like we all did! Is that too much to ask in this stranger and stranger education system???
Randy Petty
Jul 07, 2022There’s a growing thread on this over at NextDoor:
https://nextdoor.com/p/2-wg9cpBjfDs?view=detail
Angelo Tsoukalas
Jul 07, 2022Thanks Randy but nextdoor is the big Leftist “Sista” and loves to silence anyone that doesn’t have their woke view. So I’m done with them, except for basic neighbor stuff and maybe some humor, but debating on nextdoor even in the political section is a total joke and an egragious insult to democracy. Thus the lack responses if you’ve noticed. Hopefully these tech tyrant monopolies will be broken up like US Steel, Bell telephone, etc, and given some rules about not being so freaking biased one way or the other.
D. Crook
Jul 07, 2022Seems like a citizen “journalist” would want to go for a little more substance / fact-checking / evidence / etc. than a copy/paste of click-bait / shock-headlines from a notorious tabloid, John.
A little curiosity would have been appropriate before posting here. For example, have you reached out to Wink Wink? What do they mean by developmentally appropriate presentation? What is the actual content of the courses? Are 9-year-olds coughling-up 50 George Washingtons on their own, or is parental supervision and support involved here? Beyond that—a little medical info / citation on what puberty is and when it starts would provide some important context for a story like this.
What you *did* actually know before your posting is that this kind of headline is red meat for the Magas / Q’s / right-wing conspiracy theorists who care very little for evidence, and who think D’s, Progressives et al. are child predators / cannibals / and every other horrible thing they can imagine. (Speaking of cannibalism, Q and the Daily Mail’s solid reputation for hard-hitting journalism—check out their article from 2015 claiming a Nigerian restaurant was serving human flesh…). Without having any more evidence than what you copied/pasted from this awful and reckless tabloid—did Mason’s personal safety cross your mind before you dropped this little bomb on your readers here?
Have some shame, brother. Find out what’s true or not before posting—this is reckless.
This is the Wink Wink posting that the tabloid reported on: https://winkwinkboutique.com/pages/classes-events. And here is their response to your news headline: https://www.facebook.com/winkwinkboutique/. From their post “Some facts about the Uncringe Academy”—“1. There is absolutely nothing hadns-on in the class. We are not teaching children to pleasure themselves or others. I can’t believe we have to say that, but apparently we do. 2. Parents are their kids’ first teachers! We hope these conversations are happening at home. But we’ve also heard from lots of parents who aren’t comfortable having these conversations or their kids just won’t listen to them. They’ve requested classes like these, so we’re offering them.”
A couple of places to start. After that—pick up the phone, send an email, ask questions—you know, “journalism”.
John Servais
Jul 07, 2022Well, D. Crook, thanks for posting what I knew someone would post. Of course I researched it before posting. To wit, the business website, legal filings, and more. Regards media credibility, the NYT said Saddam had nukes and NBC said an innocent fellow bombed the Atlanta Olympics. Further, a dozen U.S. media news outlets already have this story. I expect the Cascadia Daily will carry the story soon - and well before the Herald does. We at NW Citizen often post articles that nudge the local corporate media to report. Been doing it for 26 years.
You try to shame me for posting. You do not debate any of the facts in the article. You object to the posting of news. And you have no knowledge of who I have talked to nor what I know. You surmise - and you miss. You yourself did not research what you wrote in your comment.
We at NW Citizen have no reason to post ckick bait articles because we are not monetized. Perhaps you do not understand the role of click bait in the business plans of corporate news. Click bait is intended to generate revenue. We have no revenue, only donations from readers and all donations go to website expenses. No person makes so much as a penny from NW Citizen - not the owners, not the writers. We do this as a community service and as volunteers.
I posted this because local media was avoiding it - except for a radio station that also posted it today. This is in national news about Bellingham - and residents here should know about that.
In closing, I did not write any criticism of the business. We here at NW Citizen decided that local residents should know this story is in news media in the U.S. and overseas. We in Bellingham should not be the last to find out.
Randy Petty
Jul 07, 2022Is this a private business offering classes which parents would need to sign up and pay for? And is the owner’s only connection to the school system that she is an elected board member?
If so then I guess it’s up to the parents to decide if they want their kids to attend, and up to voters whether they still want Mason as a board member.
D. Crook
Jul 07, 2022What you did in this post isn’t journalism, John. Is there a potential news story here? Of course there is. What a great prompt for you to make some calls, ask some questions—and report some news. I’ve seen a lot of other articles on NW Citizen where journalism work had clearly been done. Is a post, which is in it’s entirety a copy/paste from a notorious tabloid what you’re calling “news” here?
None of the research you say you did is evidenced in your post. If you did do research, but then chose to omit it, posting only the inflammatory quotes from the tabloid…, and none of the references to the business or their response to your questions, and no other information you gathered in your research… To quote a past president: “Sheesh”.
I don’t mean to shame you for making a post simpliciter. “Have some shame” is meant to call your attention to moderating what appears to have been an impulsive / reactionary “re-tweet” on your part—from a tabloid source no less, none of it is your own words, containing none of the research you say you did, no follow-up or response from the business—nothing newsworthy.
Your definition of clickbait… you might consider that you did get value from it—namely, people reading your post (or quotes from the Daily Mail’s post with your name on it, in any case).
John Servais
Jul 07, 2022Correct, D. C. I am not attempting journalisn nor poetry here. It is largely copy and paste - but of only the beginning of the article. Thus the link at the bottom to the rest of the article. The post is to show local readers what is being written elsewhere about us. It is not intended to give an opinion or value judgement on the issue. Yes, a good news article can be written and I expect the Cascadia Daily will do just that. What is posted is not “inflamatory quotes” but the beginning paragraphs. Obviously you saw red when you saw this article and are now determined to put up any number of straw men to knock down. Me thinks it is not my writing that upsets you but rather the very existence of this post.
Tip Johnson
Jul 07, 2022It’s interesting that when I “retweet” so-called news about a beach cleanup, no one complains.
I have a dear gay Austrailian friend who is grateful her country was populated by criminals instead of puritans.
Carol Follett
Jul 08, 2022The Netherlands are leaders in community social well-being, and a good go to place to preview leading ideas in many areas. We could use much more education around interpersonal relationships in our school systems, sexual development included. This is an informative presentation on the subject from PBS.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/spring-fever That said, this education should be organized and overseen by our schools, and not taught in a shop selling adult sex items.
Although I appreciate being informed about a situation of which I was completely ignorant, I am concerned that the title of this article links this to politics. Our democracy, such as it is, is in too fragile a condition, and an election too close to do this.
This is not a subject, and not a time, for volitile, trigger phrases when we need reasoned thinking and discussions.
Pearl Follett
Jul 09, 2022Is it legal for under 18 to go into this sex store ? What laws govern shops of this kind ? Perhaps Child Protective Service should check this store out. The children may be at risk .
Pearl Follett
Lisa E. Papp
Jul 10, 2022Elisabeth Britt
Jul 10, 2022Pearl, According to the Wink Wink website, It’s legal for people under the age of 18 to shop in the store and purchase merchandise. No ID required. The Wink Wink blog also states that the uncringe class attendees can enter the classroom through the events space entrance or from an accessible door in the shop itself. The website states that Jennifer is a certified sex counselor. And that may be. But to some, it may appear that Wink Wink is attempting to generate a new crop of loyal young clients for the shop. Is Jen using her elected school board position to legitimize the courses? It’s murky. Some will say yes. Others will say no. I’m not comfortable learning that a local store may be selling sex products to 9 year old children. Nor am I comfortable with a local for-profit store counseling my children about having sex. That is a discussion that I should be having with my young children. Sex may be fun. But it also creates opportunities for exploitation. I’ll leave it up to the voters to decide if Mason should continue to serve on the Bellingham School Board.
Dianne Foster
Jul 16, 2022We passed the “Healthy Youth Act” here in Wa State that mandates sex ed in the schools. Why do we need a purveyer of dildos to do this on the side?
D. Crook
Aug 11, 2022Wink Wink’s windows being bashed out…
Staff receiving threats…
White Nationalists / MAGAs / et al. extremists protesting…
https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/crime/article264375726.html
Not here to argue about what counts as journalism or not—really didn’t intend for that particular rabbit-hole / digression in earlier commentary.
Not here to argue about sex education either (various commenters)—whether to teach it, who should or shouldn’t be allowed to teach it, what content should or shouldn’t be taught, etc.—We can all see that different people feel different ways about it, and that strong emotional positions aren’t generally engaging to or engaged by reason-based positions—which makes it very difficult for the two sides to work things out with each other. Suffice it to say, Wink Wink’s classes were created *at the direct request of* the children’s parents—and it might be easier for us to agree on allowing each of us to raise our own children, and leaving it there.
If violence is in anyone’s list of what counts as free speech / debate—they’re wrong. Being violent is wrong. Encouraging others’ violence is wrong. Negligence resulting in violence is wrong. Apathy toward violence directed toward people you disagree with is wrong. This principle is fundamental to sustaining a safe and healthy community. Violence escalates, and as soon as one side can use violence to push their point of view, so can the other. It doesn’t change anybody’s mind; it is not persuasive—it just leads to people getting hurt, emotionally, physically, financially, etc. / creating more danger for the community in general.
I don’t think it’s “puritanical”, Tip, to ask folx to be careful when they step too close to this territory. (In this case—the NWC headline, and the linked-to DM article using hate-speech as part of it’s content). That doesn’t make it puritanical, or said another way, it doesn’t make it a “witch-hunt”, hyperbole 45 was (and still is) so fond of using, to send-up a warning. I know inter-generational communication can be more difficult—frustration felt strongly on both sides of that one—maybe that’s the difficulty we’re having here. Anyway—peace and the presumption of your best intentions to you and John, whatever else. Potential outcomes, not personal intentions, are the point of my critique.
Safety / Violence is why I was concerned about the headline you used for your post, John, and the Daily Mail article you linked to which uses hyperbolic / MAGA-hate tweets as content, calling the proprieter a pervert, predator, deviant, etc.). It is interesting as a topic, and I hear you—your objective was just to get Cascadia and the Herald to report on it and you seemed unhappy with them for not doing so sooner; and they weren’t your words in the DM article, and you weren’t critiquing Wink Wink… I grant you all of that—but the consequently increased risk to personal safety was forseeable—and that was my point.
At least the staff & proprieter weren’t injured this time (ref: Herald link above)—it was just the windows that got smashed; though MAGA’s / white nationalists / extermists continue to pose a real threat to personal safety of staff and patrons of Wink Wink.