Adult sexuality vs. childrens' sexuality
Adult sexuality vs. childrens' sexuality is an artificial dichotomy created by antisexuals and sexophobes to (falsely) support their claim that adults and younger people should not engage in sexual activity with each other, even if the activity does not otherwise seem to cause any harm to the young people.
Adult vs. child sexual activity
Adult sexual activity is considered to be "goal oriented," while child sexual activity is considered to be only "play" or "exploration". In fact, when adults engage in sexual activity for pleasure, this is no different from sexual activity engaged in by young people for pleasure.
Sexual activity (particularly that which produces orgasms) is an very effective stress-reliever, and sexual activity, in general, is an excellent way to establish closeness, trust, and intimacy between two people. It has played those roles throughout all of human history.
Kinsey found that the physiological reactions of prepubescent boys when orgasming are identical to the physiological reactions of adult males (with only one small exception: prepubescent boys do not ejaculate semen, though a drop or two of clear seminal fluid may be produced).
(Supposed) violations of cultural standards of "morality"
It is claimed that prepubescent children do not understand the views on sexual morality held by society, but this is a fallacy. First, "society" is not monolithic, but, instead, is a heterogeneous collection of subcultures, each with their own "morality". Second, even within an otherwise relatively homogenous group (one specific "subculture") individuals may hold quite different views of what is considered to be "moral" and what is "immoral," especially with regards to sexual behavior.
Violation of taboos
Many adults in society treat sex as a taboo subject. It is rarely publicly discussed, and discussions between parents and children rarely take place. (Some jurisdictions even criminalize the act of an adult speaking of sex and sexuality with a minor!)
The fact that many parents have been socialized into believing that young people are (or should be) "asexual" often causes the parents to react negatively to overt sexual activity engaged in by very young children. The adults may either--verbally or nonverbally--demonstrate strong disapproval, or they may actually punish their child when he or she is caught engaging in masturbation, or in so-called "sex play" with another child. This itself is a terrible form of child sexual abuse, as it instills feelings of guilt and shame into the child about engaging in behavior which is actually quite normative.
Children usually learn very young to hide their sexuality--Freud (genius that he was) formulated his (now thoroughly discredited) theory of "child sexual latency" to explain what he believed was an absence of sexual interest on the part of prepubescent children--that is, children from the ages of about 4 to 10. Freud did not realize that it was the disapproval on the part of the adults--which was then sensed by the children--that led the children to then hide their sexual activity from their parents and from other adults!
Childhood "sexual rehearsal" for adult sexual roles
In "How Children Learn About Sex: A Cross-Species and Cross-Cultural Analysis," Lawrence Josephs explains in the abstract to his article:
- Scattered and not widely disseminated evidence from primatology, anthropology, and history of childhood sexuality support the hypothesis that throughout much of human behavioral evolution that human children have learned about sex through observing parental sexuality and then imitating it in sexual rehearsal play with peers. Contemporary theories of psychosexual development have not considered the possibility that young children are predisposed to learn about sex through observational learning and sexual rehearsal play during early childhood, a primate-wide trait that is conserved in humans but suppressed in contemporary contexts.
(Note: the entire article may be downloaded at the link provided below.)
See also
External links
- Download the article "How Children Learn About Sex" at this link:
- Download Alfred Kinsey et al. (1948) Chapter 5 of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male "Early sexual growth and activity":
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