Australian author and radio host Yumi Stynes has revealed the extent of online trolling she’s been subjected to over her sex education book.
Stynes co-authored and published the book Welcome to Sex: Your no-silly-questions Guide to Sexuality, pleasure and figuring it out in May this year, and since then has encountered significant backlash.
Stynes posted some of the screenshots of “abuse, threats of violence and homophobia” in the messages – which are far too violent to report – as well as the accounts they are sent from, on her Instagram account.
“Some of these are old. I’m just emptying the inbox. They’ve been sitting there like a toothache” she wrote in one post.
Hi, I'm over on Threads as @yumichild, mostly posting dumb sh!t like this: pic.twitter.com/BnLiMTG36f
— Yumi Stynes she/her (@yumichild) July 23, 2023
Stynes said when she first began receiving messages of abuse online, she would delete the messages and block the account. Now, however, she said she wants to “hold these people accountable” and “keep a record of the abuse”.
“Because you wouldn’t believe what some people will say,” she said.
“Even the people themselves sending the messages I think – they forget.”
Stynes’ book is part of the Welcome to You youth book series by Hardie Grant which explores issues young people face as they grow up, including consent, menstruation, emotions and relationships.
Last month, Welcome to Sex was pulled from Big W shelves because of “multiple incidents of abuse directed at our store team members”, according to a Big W spokesperson.
The book was also criticised by a conservative male podcast and anti-trans group in Sydney, who accused Stynes and her co-author Dr Melissa Kang for “coming after children” and “exposing them to sexually explicit and highly inappropriate material”.
Despite the severe online trolling, Stynes’ book has become a Number 1 Adult and Children’s Bestseller, and among the backlash, she has also received a lot of supportive messages as well.
“Thank you for messaging me those kinds of words!” she said.
Behind the online trolls are not just influencers with a large online following – who Stynes refers to as “the cookers” – but also ordinary people who enjoy “being part of the mob”.
“They’re pretty much just like me – a mum of kids who has fear,” she said in an interview on Abbie Chatfield’s podcast It’s a lot.
“I fear for my kids. I want them to be safe. I want them protected from predatory people. I want them protected from rank influencers.
“If somebody was massaging my fear gland and whipping it up, I can understand why people are having this big reaction of terror, of almost a violent need to protect your child.
“So I don’t really blame those on-ground mums and dads who are just following one charismatic cooker.”