For the Children!

[forsyth]

Okay, y'know, maybe this is really a stupid question. But it's been bugging me lately.

One of the givens whenever discussions about porn or information about sex or anything like that comes up is "We've got to protect the children! Keep this away from the children!" Honestly, why? What's the problem if kids see naked people, or even people having sex? Seriously, kids who haven't hit puberty won't care, they think kissing is gross, they wouldn't even believe descriptions of sex. And if kids have hit puberty, then they're going to be able to find pictures of naked people one of many places. And even if they couldn't...

So what? Why are people so set on keeping kids ignorant about sex? Ignorance doesn't protect people, and seeing somebody naked isn't going to scar a kid for life.

Yeah, I'm never getting elected to political office now. And if I ever have kids, maybe I'll get all paranoid about keeping them away from naked people too. But right now, I just don't get it.

Comments

[evilcarp.livejournal.com]

Actually, if you leave children to their own devices, they will experiment with their sexuality. You ever seen the video of the two little kids dry humping each other at a wedding reception? It's not unatural, kids don't play "doctor" because they were exposed to something they shouldn't have, they'll play at having sex with other kids even if you hide every aspect of sex that you can from them. Complicated things about sex kids don't get because they haven't developed the emotional and mental tools to understand it.

Exposure to porn doesn't screw anybody up unless they were screwed up already. If we want to talk about anecdotal evidence, when I was really young, I found a pile of porn in my mom's boyfriend's house. I don't remember most of it, since I have a terrible memory, but I'll always remember one magazine that had a story and series of pictures about two women who lived together and had sex on the hood of their classic mustang. Granted, I have an unnatural attraction to mustangs, but having seen that imagery actually made it easier for me years later to understand what was going on when I started feeling attracted to other woman and made me feel like it must not be so wrong or unnatural. I have since then also seen a lot of other porn, such as pictures of women having sex with squid, but it certainly hasn't made me think that everything I see in porn is OK for me to do myself.

Despite the low opinions our society has of its children, kids are actually very good at telling the difference between reality and fantasy. Despite the fact that the news is telling us to be worried for our kids not being able to know right from wrong because of violent video games, research consistantly show that healthy children aren't negatively effected by violent games or TV. This will carry over to porn as well. When I first discovered anime when I was 15 and rented one in which monsters rape young women, it certainly didn't make me or my brother go out and start raping people. Because it was a fucking cartoon. Children understand this.

My mom sure was pissed when she saw what we were watching, though.

Folks who specialize in telling you how you should raise your children (the kind that actually went to school and have done research and know what they're talking about, no the kind you see on TV) will tell parents that they should introduce their kids to what sex is when they're young. They might not understand every detail, but they should have heard of sperm and ova long before sixth grade, or whenever the public school system teached sex ed. And you shouldn't talk to your kids just once. Start early and bring up the subject often. That way when your kid is old enough to get someone pregnant (or get pregnant), they'll be more likely to listen to you or come to you with questions when you try to explain how not to get pregnant.

But parents are afraid. They're afraid of having that conversation with their kids because their own parents couldn't do anything more than try to scare them into not being sexual beings. Hiding information from children is a way of controling them and for some parents, it's easier to control then to teach.

More on control below.