Den kulturelle skolesekken has long been a cornerstone of Norwegian education, with the goal of giving children and young people access to high-quality art and culture. However, recent revelations are shedding a sharp light on the content presented, and what has emerged will shock many.
Activism presented as culture has been found to contain material that many parents and teachers believe is inappropriate and even harmful to children. In this article, we take a closer look at the most controversial findings.
The performance To become who you are is based on the autobiographical graphic novel Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. The book is already controversial and discussed in a number of media outlets, including VG, as mentioned in the image below.
The book explores the author's life and identity journey to find themself. In Genderqueer This is shown through the exploration of one's own gender identity, where the book uses pornographic images to explore sexual fantasies and fetishes. As a result, it has become the most banned book in the United States and is banned from several libraries and schools.
Now the book is coming to Norwegian high schools as a cultural performance, first in Agder. Based on explicit sexual content and the queer theory that students can feel like other genders, the show's producers are preparing the students for change after the show. Those students who see the show and "feel the need to talk to someone" are informed about links to queer websites and chat services where they can explore or discover their queer identity. This is, to say the least, reprehensible and reminiscent of indoctrination:
First, a new message about identity and sexuality is preached, when doubts or questions arise, students are sent to queer activists to get answers and a queer-centered understanding of themselves. straight/queer understanding of themselves.
We expect parents to react, and that there will be a requirement for parents to see the performance before it is shown in schools.
The performance is set in Agder: Becoming who you are 2024 – 25 | Den kulturelle skolesekken
The performance Just a wet mouth? will be shown at upper secondary schools (VGS) in Oslo this winter and will be described as follows:
“The two actors stage themselves as goddesses – strong, sexually liberated, graceful, caring and maternal. What is required and what kind of power and privilege do we gain by confronting the heteronormative Western culture’s ideal of womanhood?”
Sexualization involving students after the performance
Queer theory and norm criticism are conveyed uncritically as what is presented as right and true from the stage. From their “educational arrangements for the performance”"Students should expose themselves by placing themselves at the top or bottom of a line in the classroom when statements are read out:
Are you happy with your own “gender identity”?
Do you think it's easy to talk about sex?
“I masturbate”
“I am concerned that my partner is satisfied when we have sex” and similar statements mean that students should make their private lives and sex lives visible to each other. This is highly objectionable.
Students will then write all the words they use for genitals on the board, before groups of girls and groups of boys are asked to discuss expectations about sex and what they think the other group turns on sexually.
The performance is deeply about sex, fantasies and unfiltered pornographic details, which the students are expected to engage with actively through assignments, and to expose themselves to their classmates. Is this really culture and theater worthy of our children?
From the commentary on NRK p2, Studio 2:
“Just a wet mouth talks about EVERYTHING sexual life can entail. It is a search for recognition, a search for value, a search to be part of what is happening, the creation of identity. Many young people today, I think, more than having an interpersonal relationship with what unfolds in front of them on stage, they experience it through a screen. Porn is something they have a relationship with via a screen, things happen via an intermediary, while here it happens physically right in front of them. Here someone talks to them directly about orgasm or whatever it may be. They have no place to hide. Who takes that space, who is going to talk directly to young people about everything they are wondering about, how they feel about sexuality.
The theater can do it!”
The performance is set in Oslo: Just a wet mouth | Den kulturelle skolesekken
How the performance is described Queen's Hour shown 65 times in 2024 and now scheduled many times in 2025 in elementary schools: “Drag artist Nabi Yeon Geisha takes the throne and tells fairy tales with a queer twist, which opens up opportunities for children to fantasize and dream their way into a more beautiful, generous and fun world, where all children can be princes and princesses if they want to – no matter who they are.”
Here, children as young as 6 are told that they can be a boy, a girl, or whatever they want. Queer twists on fairy tales often end with the princess who is to be won becoming a feminist, finding herself in a queer identity, and marrying another woman. The fairy tale and show are performed by a drag artist, who is a man dressed as a woman. Drag has its origins in sexual content from men who are sexually aroused by dressing up as women.
We believe that this is objectionable content and yet another step in the sexualization of society, and an uncritical exposure to queer theory and gender identity directed at young innocent children. Parents have the right to react and can demand that their children be exempted. Not everything that is called “culture and theater” is something that children must participate in.
Video greeting to the students from the drag artist: cdn.denkulturelleskolesekken.no/nordland/0d32b1a0-dronningtimen.mp4
The performance is set in Nordland: The Queen's Hour | Den kulturelle skolesekken
The visual performance called Weird icons is coming to high schools across the country. A tent is set up in the classroom with pages from the book after which the show is named after, and from which the content comes. The book has sexual and pornographic content, both in terms of images and text.
The icons presented includes advocates for and, if we understand the text correctly, even practitioners of pedophilia, fetishism, BDSM, pornography, sex shopping and orgies. A student at VGS has contacted us and asked if the schools really believe that this is both culture and role models for youth? We at Kristent Ressurssenter also ask that question.
Truls Olufsen-Mehus, spokesperson for culture and society, has submitted a proposal to Finnmark County Council on December 12, 2024 to remove sexualized content from VGS and Den kulturelle skolesekken. However, the case was taken down because the use of the images was problematic. There was no vote, and students must continue to watch the program.
Icons who masturbate in public, engage in pedophilia, and buy sex?
Lars Daniel Krutzkoff Jacobsen defends pedophilia and wants a lower age of consent for sex, and believes that men in their 50s who have sex with experienced children of 13-14 years old should not be punished. He is buying sex and believes it should be legal – one of the icons highlighted in the book.
From the book: “One night I stayed at his director's house. Then a Swedish man appeared and started to molest 16 years old me, which I really liked. When it had happened to me, I wondered if he couldn't do it again, but he couldn't. He had to go back, he told me, to his girlfriend who was sleeping in the next room. So sin quickly appeared. This must have been the first or second time I had sex. If I went out on the town, it was to have sex or to find a girlfriend. It quickly turned out that sex was the easiest thing to do.”
Lars Daniel Krutzkoff Jacobsen
Violent or pain-loving icon?
“Many people think that BDSM and fetishism are about violence, but I'm not a fucking violent person just because I like what I like! For me, fetish and BDSM aren't something I do, they're something I am!” Svein Skeids
Naked icons surrounded by penises?
From the book:“When I make the masks in Maskorama, I do it for the ten- to twelve-year-olds in the audience who could have been me. I want to create a show where, as a child, I could have walked into the auditorium, seen something absolutely amazing on stage, and been inspired to create something myself. I am allowed to be a role model for young people and show that there are ways to express oneself.”
The role model for 10-12 year olds, Kjell Nordstrøm, who in his chapter has naked men and semi-erect penises surrounding themselves in a kind of orgy in several images. These are the most pornographic images in the book, of a man who claims to be a role model for young children. It is something that does not quite match the description and expression of an icon for children.
The book and the images used from “queer icons” can be downloaded here: download
The performance is set up at the following locations:
Finnmark : Queer Icons-Den kulturelle skolesekken
Stavanger: Queer Icons-Den kulturelle skolesekken
Rogaland : Queer Icons-Den kulturelle skolesekken
Oslo : Queer Icons - Den kulturelle skolesekken
The picture shows that the students will sit on cushions made of queer icons and read the book, and talk about queer activism and rights struggles. The students can sit in the tent and read the text that is printed on the tablecloth that is from the book. Two school hours are spent on this “visual project”.
These performances were shown in the fall of 2024 and will be shown again in the spring of 2025. The events are organized and financed by the county municipalities through the state project Den kulturelle skolesekken. Feel free to contact your county council representatives to get a comment on how taxpayer money is used. Ask them whether they consider this to be culture and whether it is appropriate for county and municipal schools. Also contact the school owners, which are either the county municipalities for upper secondary schools or the municipal councils for primary schools.
Parents and students should react, as teachers and politicians believe this falls under culture and that “censorship” of culture is dictatorial. However, there must be limits to what is considered culture, especially when the culture is publicly funded and shown in public schools to children and youth.
