The Beautiful, Sexy Truth About Children

[WavesInEternity]

You make a strong point and I have to agree with it.

Thank you. ♡ I tend to agree with your points as well, Outis. I think you represent one of the two kinds of people the MAP movement desperately needs more of: compassionate, agreeable, and with substantial life experience outside of online echo chambers. (The other kind is minor activists.) Sadly, bearing the brunt of Western society's greatest hatred tends to make a lot of MAPs antisocial and/or disagreeable.

I was fortunate as a child that I felt able to explore my sexual self, but I grew up in a different time and in a hard working family that had no politics or views over others. My parents worked hard and were good providers and I'm sure they knew I masturbated from an early age and never said anything to shame me. But I know that's not true for everyone and there is a slide towards the idea that kids are sexless and must be kept pure and anything remotely sexual is corrupting and bad and something to fear and feel shame about.

You're lucky. I'm sure that influenced the way you reacted to being "molested" by an adult. If I had been in your position, I'd have freaked out regardless of how it made me feel simply because of all the negative messaging I had imbibed regarding sexuality and "predators".

My family was a strange assemblage, my mother's side being working-class and my father's side upper-middle-class bourgeois. Both sides were relatively politically liberal, but the older generations were practicing Christians. My father as a child had a strict, repressive education, but financial stability; my mother had a more carefree childhood but was badly sexually abused and poor. I'd say my mother ended up more mentally damaged, but a much better person than my father. The sexual abuse of girls by family members was a major problem on both sides of the family. That is probably why I was raised with such paranoia regarding sexual matters (in the end, I wasn't the "victim", I was the "predator"!). My mother in particular was terrorized at the thought of me being sexually abused, and when I started looking at pornography online at age 10, she was sure that was what had happened.

When I was 9, I experienced romantic/erotic desire for the first time toward a cousin of about the same age as me. She had fallen asleep in the car with her head on my shoulder, cuddling me. I wanted to touch her so bad. Her legs and the region between them were so appealing. Throughout the following weekend which I spent at an aunt's place with her, I couldn't get it off my mind. I wish I'd at least have had the guts to ask her to "play doctor", or to caress her in tender intimate ways while carefully gauging her reaction... but then again, I know she was so innocent that she'd have told her parents, who'd have panicked and put me into a great deal of trouble.

When we had our first daughter she would masturbate a lot, by the age of 3 she would be constantly masturbating. We were really worried about it and so reached out to parenting forums for advice and we were reassured that's normal, most kids do it, it feels good so they do it. The advice we were given were to not stop it but to tell her it's something to only do in private. So we did that but then we'd find sometimes she'd have friends visiting then she would come over to us and ask if they would leave because she needed her alone time, which was her way of saying she needed to masturbate. She grew out of it or at least we stopped noticing. Our other kids were the same but we were less shocked.

But it taught me that kids are sexual and are not pure sexless beings. That doesn't mean contact is good, but it is a fact that kids are sexual.

Cute. It's great that you didn't shame her for it or tell her it was wrong in any way. That's a good way to promote a healthy sexuality later on, although in my opinion the best way is to provide an adequate explanation of what it's all about, as soon as the child can understand it. Is she an adult now?

Contact is neither good or bad in itself, for children or for adults. It's always very much a case-by-case assessment, no matter the age of the participants. Actual coercion is always bad, but that's about the only real rule I know of. Human sexuality is so diverse, strange and exuberant.

[Fragment]

When we had our first daughter she would masturbate a lot, by the age of 3 she would be constantly masturbating. We were really worried about it and so reached out to parenting forums for advice and we were reassured that's normal, most kids do it, it feels good so they do it. The advice we were given were to not stop it but to tell her it's something to only do in private. So we did that but then we'd find sometimes she'd have friends visiting then she would come over to us and ask if they would leave because she needed her alone time, which was her way of saying she needed to masturbate. She grew out of it or at least we stopped noticing. Our other kids were the same but we were less shocked.

I was looking forward to being a sexually progressive parent. But my daughter has shown very little interest in masturbating. That’s valid too, though!

[WavesInEternity]

I was looking forward to being a sexually progressive parent. But my daughter has shown very little interest in masturbating. That’s valid too, though!

Until she reaches the age of consent wherever you live, you'll always have the opportunity to avoid causing immense secondary harm through your reaction if she ends up with someone "too old for her".

A more likely scenario is for her to be involved in sexting as a teenager, which could even end up putting her in the absurd position of possessing/producing/distributing PIM.

It's only the beginning, really. I'm guessing you're far from the point where you'll have "the talk"?

[Fragment]

She saw me naked after a shower the other day and said I have a “big butt” in reference to my penis. I told her the correct language.

We used to shower together when she was younger as is common in Japan with prepubescents and their parents (including dads!) since my arrest nudity had made me feel irrationally disgusted though. When you’re arrested for your sexuality it can be hard to have a positive emotional view of anything sexual. Regardless of your intellectual views.

[WavesInEternity]

When you’re arrested for your sexuality it can be hard to have a positive emotional view of anything sexual.

I can barely imagine... What was it again, 6 months minimum for little more than mutual masturbation? Talk about a victimless crime where the punishment is totally out of proportion even with what I might imagine the supposed harm could be.

It does remind me a lot of drug laws. I remember taking the likes of LSD and MDMA and wondering—not just during, but also afterwards and until today—how it was possible for something so wonderful and healing to warrant putting anyone in prison. Closed-mindedness and ignorance can be scary. Indeed, what's perhaps scariest about them is that they can make even some of the most wonderful experiences available to the human mind, like sex or psychedelics, disturbing and wrong.

[Outis]

I think you represent one of the two kinds of people the MAP movement desperately needs more of: compassionate, agreeable, and with substantial life experience outside of online echo chambers. (The other kind is minor activists.) Sadly, bearing the brunt of Western society's greatest hatred tends to make a lot of MAPs antisocial and/or disagreeable.

Thank you, that's kind of you. I do activism as well, although I've not outted myself publicly so it's largely anonymous activism. I speak out where I can, contribute to blogs and articles, join various projects to try to lean them towards protecting map rights, I'm always working on a few practical projects at any one time towards supporting maps. I admire your knowledge and activism activities, it's knowing that people like you are out there working towards better understanding that encourages me that things will improve.

You're lucky. I'm sure that influenced the way you reacted to being "molested" by an adult. If I had been in your position, I'd have freaked out regardless of how it made me feel simply because of all the negative messaging I had imbibed regarding sexuality and "predators".

My family was a strange assemblage, my mother's side being working-class and my father's side upper-middle-class bourgeois. Both sides were relatively politically liberal, but the older generations were practicing Christians. My father as a child had a strict, repressive education, but financial stability; my mother had a more carefree childhood but was badly sexually abused and poor. I'd say my mother ended up more mentally damaged, but a much better person than my father. The sexual abuse of girls by family members was a major problem on both sides of the family. That is probably why I was raised with such paranoia regarding sexual matters (in the end, I wasn't the "victim", I was the "predator"!). My mother in particular was terrorized at the thought of me being sexually abused, and when I started looking at pornography online at age 10, she was sure that was what had happened.

When I was 9, I experienced romantic/erotic desire for the first time toward a cousin of about the same age as me. She had fallen asleep in the car with her head on my shoulder, cuddling me. I wanted to touch her so bad. Her legs and the region between them were so appealing. Throughout the following weekend which I spent at an aunt's place with her, I couldn't get it off my mind. I wish I'd at least have had the guts to ask her to "play doctor", or to caress her in tender intimate ways while carefully gauging her reaction... but then again, I know she was so innocent that she'd have told her parents, who'd have panicked and put me into a great deal of trouble.

I'm sorry to hear your upbringing had those challenges, it couldn't have been easy, especially as you start to realise that you yourself was a map.
I suspect that kind of negative messaging would have happened a lot and still does. I do think that children are fed horror stories from an early age and don't get any positive messaging around sex and relationships. There's a cookie cutter approach that is taught from birth pretty much, you don't touch and should fear adults, never talk about sex because it's inappropriate, you will find one person you love, marry, have kids with, die, that's your lifecycle. Girls you do think about sex are "sluts" and "slags" and should feel shame, be avoided. Anyone who does want sex at an earlier age is "corrupted" or "groomed" and are being "molested". All terms designed to crush and shame people who don't stick to the predetermined lifecycle.

I know you didn't mean to use the term molested in a deregotory way but in a tongue in cheek way about how it's misused, I don't consider myself to have been molested, I was loved and cared for. When I was bullied I had someone to turn to for advice and those times together when we were physical were oasis of fun and enjoyment for me away from the bullying and struggling at school and my siblings.

Cute. It's great that you didn't shame her for it or tell her it was wrong in any way. That's a good way to promote a healthy sexuality later on, although in my opinion the best way is to provide an adequate explanation of what it's all about, as soon as the child can understand it. Is she an adult now?

Contact is neither good or bad in itself, for children or for adults. It's always very much a case-by-case assessment, no matter the age of the participants. Actual coercion is always bad, but that's about the only real rule I know of. Human sexuality is so diverse, strange and exuberant.

She isn't an adult yet, none of my kids are. They're typical well adjusted kids, strong academically and musically, they have ambitions about the future which I encourage. My eldest is also quite political, at least she has strong opinions about kids in politics. She is very much pro-child rights to be able to vote and be involved in politics. Her view is that she is more effected by political decisions than old people since it's her generation who has to inherit the debts incurred by older generations and yet all they can do is watch older generations grow ecological and economical debt without limit and in the knowledge they they'll dump them onto future generations to pay off.

[WavesInEternity]

I do think that children are fed horror stories from an early age and don't get any positive messaging around sex and relationships. There's a cookie cutter approach that is taught from birth pretty much, you don't touch and should fear adults, never talk about sex because it's inappropriate, you will find one person you love, marry, have kids with, die, that's your lifecycle. Girls you do think about sex are "sluts" and "slags" and should feel shame, be avoided. Anyone who does want sex at an earlier age is "corrupted" or "groomed" and are being "molested". All terms designed to crush and shame people who don't stick to the predetermined lifecycle.

I completely agree. Fortunately, although I was fed a lot of negative messaging regarding sexuality, my mother didn't really have any expectations regarding my future relationships. She was very open to the possibility of her children being LGBTQ+. She even says that if it hadn't been for her fear regarding my two little sisters, she'd have been quite accepting of me being a MAP (she is now, but it took many years).

As far as adult partners go, I nearly always choose girls that are very promiscuous. I really like partners that don't feel any shame regarding sexuality and are extremely open-minded about kink. The downside is that they tend to be unfaithful...

She isn't an adult yet, none of my kids are. They're typical well adjusted kids, strong academically and musically, they have ambitions about the future which I encourage. My eldest is also quite political, at least she has strong opinions about kids in politics. She is very much pro-child rights to be able to vote and be involved in politics. Her view is that she is more effected by political decisions than old people since it's her generation who has to inherit the debts incurred by older generations and yet all they can do is watch older generations grow ecological and economical debt without limit and in the knowledge they they'll dump them onto future generations to pay off.

My impression is that you're a great father to them. Just make sure that you're always there for them and avoid divorce. My own dad abandoned me and my two adopted sisters to go live with his new mistress in another city... he had an open relationship with my mother and he still chose deception and betrayal.

Your eldest sounds like the kind of kid I'd love to tutor... and the kind of young girl I'd risk falling for. I prefer girls that are intelligent, motivated and interesting. I started being political at 10. By 11, I already knew more about politics than my mum, so she'd "give me her vote" (i.e. vote for the party I told her to vote for). By 13, I was more of an "adult" than the vast majority of 18-year-olds and was starting to ponder alternatives to the current voting age, such as an assessment of political competency, a voluntarist system in which anyone, at any age, could apply for voting rights and have them granted to him/her upon passing a basic test. Nowadays, though, I'm not sure that it's such a good idea to give young people voting rights... in hindsight, my own utopian political views of the time seem so silly! I was lacking so much information, so much wisdom. A society based on my teenage politics would be catastrophic unless human nature itself could change.

[Outis]

Thank you, I try my best and my daughter is pretty clued up on politics, she was considering specialing in it as a subject.

The thing is, most adults are not more clued into makeing good political decisions than most kids, certainly most teenagers. I've had my daughter pursuade me in political debates and most adults just vote however their favourite newspaper tells them to vote. Ask them an actual political question and they'll likely pivot into something they read in the paper or read online ina conspiracy forum. Kids by contrast in school have debating societies and get presented different angles for a political argument and so have to think about and evaluate issues.

Honestly, I think in many political debates, I'm the most stubborn and self confident but my daughters the most accurate. I think teenagers can make political decisions as well as most adults and they are in an institution geared towards getting them to stop and think about issues.

[WavesInEternity]

The thing is, while I was the star of the debating club in high school (my classmates thought I'd go into politics or law as a career), I never stopped thinking and debating afterwards. I never stopped learning, pondering, and changing my mind about key issues according to the evidence. I do know that very few adults do the same, and from that point of view, the perspective of teenagers is just as valuable as that of most adults.

Still, sometimes, I find myself having some sympathies for the idea of rule by an intellectual elite of philosopher-kings/queens, as found in Platonic philosophy. I always ultimately reject the notion that such a system would be preferable, mostly because there is no adequate mechanism to select the elite by true merit alone, and I remember the critical importance of collective intelligence in making society work. But it's a topic on which my thoughts are far from clear-cut.