Emma Thompson writes sex guide for daughter and reveals that she was 'sexually abused' during eighth birthday party

Actress Emma Thompson arrives at the premiere of Walt Disney Pictures' 'Saving Mr. Banks' during AFI FEST 2013 (Getty)

Emma Thompson is so worried about the sexual pressures children face in the age of social media that she has penned a handbook on sex and emotion for her teenage daughter, she has revealed.

The British actress, who will next be seen on cinema screens in Saving Mr Banks, said she had been moved to write a guide for her 13-year-old daughter Gaia as she was in a “constant state of anxiety” over what today’s children were exposed to.

Thompson also revealed that she was molested by an elderly man at a birthday party aged eight. “I thought it was my fault,” she said. “Children always think it’s their fault.”

“There are so many more pressures,” she told the Daily Mirror. “That sort of sexual questions being put to young kids is horrifying to me, but that’s what’s out there. Boys and girls watching pornography; boys showing girls hardcore porn on their iPhones.”

She said the only way to help was “by listening, being aware, by not turning away”, adding that she was in a “constant state of anxiety”. She continued: “So I wrote my daughter a handbook about where emotions are felt in the body, about sexual feelings and the connection between sex and emotions.”

She said the aim of the guide, which also contains pictures, was to show her daughter that “you can sometimes feel things in your loins you don’t feel in your heart, and you need to look at that. If you listen to what’s going on in your emotional language, you will be able to keep the sexual activities safe.”

In Saving Mr Banks Thompson, 54, plays PL Travers, the author of Mary Poppins. The film follows the efforts of Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) to bring the novel about a magical nanny to the silver screen. It is believed it took Disney 14 years to persuade the author to allow his studio to make the film.