Online furore over a sex education book for young people being sold in Big W has seeped into a parliamentary inquiry probing the state of sexual consent laws and education across Australia.

Welcome to Sex, written by Yumi Stynes and Dr Melissa Kang, the longest-serving expert behind Dolly Doctor, has become a target of conservative media after it was criticised by campaigners as a “graphic sex guide for children”. Big W said it would pull the book from its physical stores after a number of employees reported instances of abuse from customers.

Greens Senator Larissa Waters, speaking at Parliament House this morning, said there had been a “ridiculous prudish outcry” in the last week over the book.

“[The outcry] is just really not doing anything to keep our kids safe. That fear, or that mischaracterisation of teaching kids about consent as grooming, is so deeply damaging and so deeply wrong,” she said.

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“The experts are telling us and begging us to have age-appropriate, respectful sexual relationships education for kids, starting as early as you can, and going right through to university and beyond. We need to stop this epidemic of sexual violence. We need to change the attitudes that underpin it.”

The parliamentary inquiry, which began today, is probing whether uniform laws across Australia around consent – including a standardised age, and legal expectation for actively communicating consent – would create a clearer message about acceptable behaviour, and allow for consistent sex education that can spark cultural change nationally.

Commentator Jess Hill told the inquiry that children who were educated about sex were less likely to be naive and vulnerable to influence.

“Certain sections [of society] are quite happy to whip up a puritanical fervour over sex education for young people,” she said. “The idea of it being grooming – [it] is just precisely the opposite.”

Advocate Saxon Mullins said consent underpinned everything people do, and it was important children had a strong understanding that could be built upon throughout their lives, including when they became sexually active.

“When people get worried about what is being taught to children – I’m worried about what is not being taught to children, and what that leads to,” she said.

Advocate Chanel Contos said children and young people were otherwise learning about sex from porn – which was particularly damaging to young women.

“That’s basically like learning how to drive a car by watching Formula One. It’s extremely unsafe. It’s extremely dangerous, and it is mainly young women who are being subjected to metaphorical car crashes,” she told the inquiry.