Underage Sex

[botias]

I get the feeling that a lot of people are squicked by 'underage' sexuality. There are folks that get fired up over Spawn, and folks that are disturbed by HP fiction involving teens shagging each other silly, because they don't like to think about people under the age of 18 as sexual beings. With chagrin, they mention the existence of children of their own that are the same age.

I get it. I would just as soon pretend my parents aren't sexual beings, which is even more disconnected with reality. But in a way, it's really too bad (no, not about my folks) It's too bad 'cause even my babies grope their genitals, with a rather astoundingly vicious enthusiasm I might add, in clear preference to other areas of their bodies. I can remember crushing on guys, and girls for that matter, as early as the first grade. I can remember very sexually explicit, if clearly ignorant, folk tales passed around at sleep-overs and summer camps as early as the 3rd and 4th grades. I can remember feeling like there might be something wrong with me because I was interested in sex. It's sad to make kids feel their sexuality is something to be ashamed of.

I can indulge the pretense that my folks aren't sexual beings because I am not responsible for nurturing healthy and responsible sexuality in them (thank god). But that's fully my responsibility to my children. Even if my idea of healthy sexuality in teens or the un-married were restrictive nearly to the point of non-existance, I could't begin to address this very important responsibility if I'm pretending it doesn't exist.

Comments

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

I don't think it is the idea of children having a sexuality at all - they obviously do and that's fine.

It's the idea that adults get off on the porn about it that squicks me slightly. If I ever saw a link to fic that was a sociological analysis of Spawn I'd read it, but I don't think it exists. Spawn mostly = porn = designed to get an adult readership off.

Which is fine if it's people's thing, it is fiction and whatever. But saying it squicks people because we like to deny children's/minors sexuality is disingenuous.

I'm sure people like to read it from the 'teenage' part of their imagination - replacing Dawn with their teenage self. That's all cool, and I wouldn't want to get into what should and shouldn't get people hot anyway.

But the 'young hot body' angle doesn't do much for me. I read futurefic in the SV fandom for example, because I like my porn adult and consensual and don't have to worry about the morals of it.

Fascinating subject though, people are complicated :)

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

*I meant that it squicks me personally as an initial reaction, not that adults getting off on it in general squicks me. People like all sorts of things that do nothing for me :)

You've probably seen this, I thought some of the respondents reasons were interesting:

http://community.livejournal.com/blog_sociology/232049.html?style=mine

Also I liked these previous discussions on underage characters:

http://community.livejournal.com/metabib/3598.html

[botias.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thank you. :D

[botias.livejournal.com]

I don't think it is the idea of children having a sexuality at all - they obviously do and that's fine.

You obviously are not in the US. I talk frankly to my kids about their bodies and the names of their body parts. My mom warned me that other parents will not want their kids to play with a kid that has words like 'penis' and 'vulva' in his vocabulary or shows any interest in same, but I already knew this was the case. I worry that someone may even think he is being sexually abused because he talks about these things. But what can I do? Being all OMG about the word penis is just not what I think is right.

But saying it squicks people because we like to deny children's/minors sexuality is disingenuous.

I don't think I am. I mean, my culture is just now really coming to grips with the idea of adult women wanting and enjoying sex, much less teenaged ones. I'm specifically, though perhaps poorly, talking here about parents who find the idea of their children or anyone else's being sexual very uncomfortable, and think it should just go away. I guess I'm just saying that I think this attitude is both cultural and harmful. Obviously there maybe plenty of fics, esp. Spawn, that might have themes that some people find objectionable for other reasons, like teens (or anyone) being manipulated by 100+ year-old serial killers. Even then, I think some element of the objection is the idea that sex sullies women and girls, that someone who 'tempts' them into having sex is doing them a great and irreparable harm.

While I don't want to take out a billboard advocating that people should have sex with people many years their junior (yeah I'm looking at you Mr. Marsters) I'm a little confused as to how sex is by nature harmful to the young person.

Notions of consent and at what age to draw the line, and what sorts of sexual expressions are appropriate to what age are not questions to which I think there are hard and fast answers. And many of the questions make many Americans very uncomfortable. I think it's obvious that a whole lot of people of all ages and sexes find teenagers sexually attractive, based on their prevalence in all our entertainment, fan fic included, as sexual objects/beings.

I would love it if we dealt with that more honestly as a culture and as parents.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's necessarily a US thing - there's whole books about how we repress children's sexuality in the west generally.

I can't remember which Germaine Greer book it was where people snickered at the idea that little girls don't know what vaginas are (I think she said something like 'they treat them as hideyholes - who hasn't had to remove shiny beads?') and if you've got a boy you kind of know they like their bits :) well either that or you're deliberately not seeing it.

I'm specifically, though perhaps poorly, talking here about parents who find the idea of their children or anyone else's being sexual very uncomfortable, and think it should just go away.

Ah, okay, I conflated it with the fic reference which I think is an altogether different and diverse thing.

While I don't want to take out a billboard advocating that people should have sex with people many years their junior (yeah I'm looking at you Mr. Marsters)

Actually I think the two are deeply different things - age differences are not the same as childhood sexuality - eg. my first male partner was 20 yrs older than me, and I was exceedingly young, but the two were separate issues :)

Even then, I think some element of the objection is the idea that sex sullies women and girls, that someone who 'tempts' them into having sex is doing them a great and irreparable harm.

The thing that fascinates me about that is at what age people in the US will pearl-clutch as opposed to people in Europe. Clearly there are people in the UK who think 16/40 is dirtybadwrong, so you can't generalise that much, but I think in general 'minor' in the US is way older than here. Like twenty-one? you're kidding me.

I would love it if we dealt with that more honestly as a culture and as parents.

Well there'd be a lot less confused STD infected pregnant children, for sure :)

[botias.livejournal.com]

The shiny beads thing, I'd never heard of it. :) I have all boys so... so far all shiny beads I've recovered were inserted elsewhere.

Actually I think the two are deeply different things - age differences are not the same as childhood sexuality

It's true that they are different issues, but they also can intersect. If a sixteen-year-old girl wants to have sex with a 40-year-old man, that is part of her 'childhood' sexuality for better or worse. I'm not convinced that such a thing is bad and wrong by its very nature, though like I said, I'm not prepared to endorse it.

Well there'd be a lot less confused STD infected pregnant children, for sure :)

Wouldn't that be lovely. :)

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Hats off to Queen Victoria - but keep everything else on, please. :P Children are pure and innocent and unaffected by carnal thoughts and if we twig that they are, well, then we have to make them wear wire cages around their groins at night so they can't touch themselves, and tell them weird horror stories about sex.

There's lots of good books out there, though the only one that I remember is Where Did I Come From (http://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-Come-Peter-Mayle/dp/0818402539/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5367988-2888619?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173034995&sr=8-1), and I remember it very well.

As for porn involving young people... I dunno, it's a subject on which our Victorian society is completely mentally retarded. The "protect the children!" wingnuts seem to be the most obsessed and creepy group out there, especially since they're constantly getting their panties twisted about STRANGERS TAKING ADVANTAGE OF YOUR CHILDREN (OVER THE INTERWEBZ!!!) and yet never, ever address the vastly more common issue of children being sexually abused by their own parents and family in their own home.

*sigh* *rubs forehead* I have to admit, this is another of those reasons I'm glad I have a tubal ligation. ;)

[botias.livejournal.com]

At the moment, I'm being quite horrified by the genital mutilation practiced by our culture, originally to discourage masturbation. That we tie days-old infants down and cut off one the most sensitive parts of the their bodies until quite recently with no pain relief... I have no words. That a few hundred die from it every year and many more are impaired (more than intended anyway). I just want to throw up. Isn't that cheery?

Yes, raping children (or anyone) is clearly VERY VERY BAD. I'm glad our culture is addressing this issue, though I think it will always be difficult to police what goes on in people's families and homes, and rightly so, no doubt, given that people disagree on what sexual acts are VERY VERY BAD.
I'm still haunted by a tale I read in Jocelyn Elder's autobiography about a girl who came into her hospital in the 1940s or 50s because she had diabetic complications. She told Elders that her brother and his friends got drunk every weekend and gang-raped her. At that time there was no program or agency or precedent to help people like her, at least not in rural Arkansas, and she was sent back to her 'family'. There was nothing Elders could do, short of kidnapping her. At the time and place, how people treated their children/spouses was not considered society's business.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

On the upside, wossname thingy circumcision is being shown quite dramatically (in, fr'ex, Africa, where they're taking a remarkably keen interest in such things) to quite radically curb and prevent the transmission of STDs, including HIV/AIDS. And I understand that doctors are very reluctant to give small infants any kind of anesthetic, because the dosages are so damn tricky at that size - it's far too easy for the kid to not wake up. And, a percentage of kids die from complications arising from vaccinations - but if the vaccinations didn't take place, hundreds, thousands, possibly millions of kids and adults would die from the diseases that they hadn't been vaccinated against. As a parent, you have the unenviable job of weighing the current risks and future benefits of your child's adult life with choices you can make now. Yet another reason I'm glad I got my tubes tied. ;)

Sex is weird and complicated enough without burying it under the crushing weight of SHAME that prevents most people from thinking coherently about the subject, never mind (oooh) talking about it in a reasonable manner (i.e. without resorting to crude jokes, smirking, or "oh that's nasty!"). Don't you know that SHAME is vitally important to, uh, God-being's PLAN for humans, and by being a pervy sex-talking ATHEIST you're, um, *handwave* and going to BURN IN HELL?? Yeah, whatever. But what we are, as humans in this day and age and place, is a result of our cultural baggage as much as anything else... and a lot of that baggage involves some very messed-up and backwards attitudes about sex. Which brings me neatly back around to my original point, which was: I forgot. :)

[botias.livejournal.com]

Alas the HIV study is quite controversial. For example, most of the circumsized men were Muslim whose faith specifically prohibits alcohol consumption and extra-marital sex. This could account for a difference in transmission rates even if the Muslims were not 100% compliant. The chances reduced were something like from 3% to 1.5%. So yes, 50%, but more people will probably die from the notion that being circumsized provides meaningful protection. Not to mention that surgery in darkest Africa is probably not something to take lightly.

The vaccination thing doesn't really compare. Babies get the vaccines when they do because they are most at risk of perishing from these diseases between the ages of birth and 5 years old. Circumcision, even if it did protect from STDs, presumably the procedure could wait until the child was an adult and able to decide for themselves whether amputating part of their genitals is worth whatever negligable protection such a thing might provide. Certainly amputating my breasts would protect me from breast cancer, men could add a good few years to their life simply by getting castrated, but not to many folks seem to be lining up.

As far as the anesthetic, I'm talking about local rather than general. Fact is, many doctors didn't believe babies felt pain until fairly recently, odd as that may sound. But look how long it was put forth that animals did not feel pain, at least in the scientific community. To me this argument is like saying that it is dangerous to medicate a baby just to peel off a few of its fingernails. My view of course, is that the best way to avoid this risk is to not torture the baby. I don't think there are any bits that it is OK to cut off baby boys any more than baby girls. I think it should be equally illegal.

Pervy, sex-talking atheist :) Me like. *nods* I think I need a license plate frame. Yes, I think shame is a really unfortunate approach to sexuality. Maybe the shame thing partly explains this compulsion to carve on our genitals. Genital mutilation seems like it is pretty much always about trying to control people's sexuality.

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Interesting point. I'm mildly appalled at male circumcision, but the babies usually don't really seem to mind. It's the female mutilations that horrify me. We have a large east african population here (mostly somali), and the women tend to have large families. Scar tissue doesn't stretch. I've attended a lot of those deliveries; women who have been infibulated have a much higher rate of delivery complications.

::climbing off my soap box now::

[botias.livejournal.com]

I'm mildly appalled at male circumcision, but the babies usually don't really seem to mind.

I find that surprising. The few I've seen or read about the babies were always screaming, and logic would hold that the procedure is painful since the foreskin and the associated frenulum are some of the most sensitive parts of the penis; granted the presenter was almost always anti-circumcision.

Still, even if the babies didn't care, it reduces their sexual functioning and pleasure as adults. Sometimes it leaves them even more damaged than intended or, in rare cases, dead. Further it makes their penis smaller and less stimulating to their partner. Not too many guys would sign up for that.

Yes, the things they do to women are horrible. While male circumcision is bad, at least they don't have to deliver a baby with their bits.

[rahirah]

What I've always found interesting is that people will still get het up over, say, Spike/Dawn even if it's set at a point when Dawn is thirty-five and a divorced mother of two. And the same people who get het up over sixteen year old Dawn and Spike will oftimes swoon over sixteen year old Buffy and Angel, or sixteen year old Buffy and forty-mumble year old Giles. Which I can sort of understand, because Buffy was often played older than her years and Dawn was usually played as much younger, but still.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I can believe that. It's true that Buffy was very physical and sexual from the start of the show, and different things were apparently expected of Dawn. I suppose that's true in a real way what with the greater responsibilities that Buffy carried. Seems like they touched on that a little in 'Him'. Dawn wasn't really behaving any differently than Buffy at the same age, but everyone is horrified at her 'slutty' behavior. 'Course the scoobies have expressed displeasure at Buffy's sexual choices too, so...

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

I usually find Spwan squicky-- I think that's partially from Spike's quasi-parental role though as much as "teen sex bad!" Set it a few years down the road (as curiouswombat has done) and it works fine.

It's too bad 'cause even my babies grope their genitals, with a rather astoundingly vicious enthusiasm I might add, in clear preference to other areas of their bodies.

Hee-- i had a pt the other night-- a corrected 28 week preemie (former 25 weeker) who was thrilled to discover his penis. He can't remember to breath or consistently have a heart rate, but he can grab on to his tiny little penis! It was kind of funny!

[botias.livejournal.com]

Hee! Yes, they do seem to find the penis grabbing maneuver comforting. :) The other day my 1yo and my 3yo knocked heads and when I looked up they were both cross-legged on the carpet crying and clutching their bits.