golbatgender:

It’s important to include kink in sex education to protect children from predators. This is both so kids know how to avoid bad situations and also so parents can recognize when a situation is bad.

For children under 10, this looks like “Don’t do things that people online tell you to do without checking with an adult you trust to make sure it isn’t a predator, even if it just seems silly,” and “Be wary of adults who want to touch you or watch you do weird things for no reason, even if it’s something that seems harmless like letting them touch your feet or squishing up things. Any touch you don’t want is a bad touch.” This fits in well with other basics about bodily autonomy.

For preteens and younger teens, you can be more direct (they’ll understand that sex is a thing beyond just creating babies, whether they’ve been properly educated or not). Something like “Some predators might have requests that don’t seem explicitly sexual at first. If they seem to be getting something sexual out of it, or if it just seems too weird or if it makes you uncomfortable at all, don’t do it, or ask a trusted adult and alert any site mods, if it’s online.”

For older teens and adults, more of the above, plus showing examples of common “challenges” that are actually kinkbait. (i.e. writing stuff on your feet and taking pictures of it, stepping in slime or gross/painful things, questions about theoretically squishing or eating people, tying up yourself or others, “gallon of milk” type challenges that often cause vomiting.) At this point, the object is not just to prevent individual victimization, but to allow them to identify situations where children are being preyed upon.

In addition, knowing what kinks are means that people who have them are less likely to think it’s okay to trick others into doing them. If you emphasize that kinks are sex, people will realize that forcing them on others is not just a prank with a dirty secret, but actually sexual assault. Younger people with kinks (they often do start in childhood; sometimes they’re not explicitly sexual until around puberty) will learn not to put themselves in dangerous situations over things they don’t understand yet, and also that there isn’t anything wrong with them. In all cases, it should be emphasized that the kink is not the problem, but the predatory behavior and coercion of others into sexual acts. If the kink is portrayed as the problem, people won’t make the distinction between doing it with a willing partner and tricking people into it, and the cycle will continue.

Lack of education is why predators can get away with things like this. There probably aren’t very many of these predators out there, but the nature of the internet and meme culture means that just one can easily get a lot of victims through things that seem like ordinary challenges or surveys. IRL, once again people often don’t realize that something could be predatory if it doesn’t involve breast or genital contact. Education is what’s needed; driving kinks underground and acting like consensual kink is predatory just makes these situations more likely.