Another Battle Over Parental Rights Emerges

Group of children walking towards a school bus

A school board director is again inviting 9-year-olds into her sex shop classroom for “sex ed,” and parents across America are asking how this was ever allowed to start.

Story Snapshot

A sitting school board director runs a private sex-ed workshop for 9–12-year-olds inside her own sex shop.
Past ads for the class listed “sexual anatomy for pleasure” and “solo and partner sexual activities” for kids as young as nine.
The director now claims the course only covers standard topics like puberty, consent, and relationships, with no “hands-on” content.
The fight highlights the larger battle over who teaches kids about sex: parents, schools, or activist-run side businesses.

Sex shop school board director blurs the line between public office and private agenda

In Bellingham, Washington, school board director Jenn Mason owns WinkWink Boutique, a self-described “inclusive” sex shop that sells sex toys and lingerie.^[2] She also runs “Uncringe Academy,” a sex education class for kids ages 9 to 12, inside that same business, using a separate classroom entrance. The event is advertised as a four-and-a-half-hour workshop focused on bodies, puberty, gender, sex, and relationships, framed as “honest” and “inclusive” instruction for young people and their families.^[1]^[2]

According to the event listing, topics for the 9–12 group include healthy relationships, jealousy and control, gender and sexual identities, the science of puberty, how periods work, paths to parenthood, sexual and reproductive anatomy, and “defining sex and sexuality.”^[1]^[2] The program calls itself “empowerment and information, rather than shame, fear, and judgment,” and says it uses an “accepting, informing, and affirming framework” to help kids feel comfortable and “advocate for their own bodies” as they grow.^[1]^[2]

From “sexual anatomy for pleasure” to softer language after backlash

Critics point to what the program used to say. Earlier promotions for Uncringe Academy told parents that the 9–12 class would cover “sexual anatomy for pleasure” and “kinds of solo and partner sexual activities” for children as young as nine, according to reporting that quoted those materials directly.^[4]^[7] Those phrases go far beyond the typical fifth- or sixth-grade puberty talk most parents expect from schools, and they sparked national outrage when first reported in 2022.^[2]^[7]

Radio host Jason Rantz, who has covered the story for several years, notes that the new event description drops the “pleasure” language and now leans on words like puberty, healthy relationships, and consent.^[3] He argues nothing meaningful changed except the marketing, saying it is “the same store, same instructor, same 9-year-old target, just a friendlier brochure” after parents saw what was written the first time.^[3] That shift feeds fears that activist educators will sanitize public-facing language while keeping the same ideology behind closed doors.

Claims of “standard” sex ed clash with past definitions given to children

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Mason said Uncringe Academy is a voluntary program created “in response to requests from parents” who wanted more teaching on healthy relationships, anatomy, consent, and safer sex than public schools provide.^[2] She insists the curriculum covers “standard sex education topics” and that all lessons are “developmentally appropriate” for each age group, with parents always welcome to attend alongside their children for added oversight.^[2]

Yet critics highlight Mason’s own past words about what she teaches kids. In audio and video cited by commentators, she once defined sex to fourth-graders as “any activity a person does with themselves or others to become aroused” and told them “there’s no such thing as real sex.”^[3]^[4] For many parents, those terms—“aroused” and “no such thing as real sex”—sound more like adult bedroom talk than age-appropriate guidance for nine- or ten-year-olds. This gap between her public assurances and earlier statements fuels deep distrust toward both the program and the school board that still seats her.

Adult venue, young kids, and the bigger parental-rights fight

The setting alone raises red flags. WinkWink is an adult sex shop, not a neutral community center. It openly sells sex toys and lingerie and brands itself as a “not creepy” sex boutique.^[2]^[7] Mason stresses that the classroom has its own entrance and is physically separate from the retail floor, but critics argue that does not change the basic fact: children as young as nine are being invited into a business whose core product is adult sexual pleasure.^[1]^[2]^[7] Many parents see that as a bright line that should never be crossed.

This clash sits inside a much larger national battle over sex education and parental rights. There is no single federal standard for sex education; rules are made at the state and local level, and quality and content vary widely.^[11]^[16] In recent years, conservative parents have pushed back hard against “comprehensive” sex education that introduces topics like sexual orientation, gender identity, and explicit sexual practices in elementary and middle school. Washington state itself now requires schools that teach sex education to follow a comprehensive model, which many families say already goes too far, too early.^[12]^[16]

Activists like Mason often step into that gap, saying they are giving kids the information schools “won’t teach” and that parents “do not know how to explain.”^[1]^[2] But when those same activists hold public power on school boards, run private side businesses, and teach about sex and “arousal” to fourth-graders in a sex shop setting, many see a direct conflict with the duty to respect families’ values. The core question remains simple for a lot of parents: who decides when a 9-year-old learns about sexual pleasure and “partner sexual activities”—their mom and dad, or an unelected activist culture that keeps moving the line?