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The Pillars of Proof: Exposing the Sexual Hypocrisy

A lot of people want that special someone they desire to be with. It could be that persons looks, personality, what that person does, and many more things that are the catalysts of how that person makes you feel that draws you to that person. There could be a good looking person that may make you feel either sexually attracted, romantically/emotionally attracted, and many more things that draws you towards that person. From simply strong feelings for a person, it can turn into something of a strong bond and loving relationship. Most of us had experienced these feelings and desires before whether as a child or adult. But here is the thing, despite us as human beings experiencing these feelings and desires at almost any age, the world as a whole condemns, humiliates, threatens, and demonize adults who have either sexual and/or romantic/emotional attraction towards a child, say eight, nine, or ten years old, despite a lot of people having those kinds of feelings around those ages and younger. To me, this is pure hypocrisy for us as human beings to have those kind of feelings and desires as children, but to turn around and demonize the adult who reciprocates those same exact feelings and desires back for the child. The question is, why? Where does all the hatred and disgust come from? To put it simply, many people around the world view sexual interactions between a child and an adult inherently harmful/evil. But the thing is, are sexual interactions with a child inherently harmful/evil? Not at all. It's not the sexual interactions themselves that are particularly harmful, it's the nature of such interactions that makes it harmful, i.e. abuse. Many view these kind of interactions with a child inherently harmful because they either believe the notion that children, more so with younger children, don't have sexual feelings and desires and may in engage in sexual activity such as masturbation or sex play solely out of curiosity and self-soothing, they don't have the neurological development to consent to sexual activity regardless of their desire to express/explore the sexual feelings they may have for another person, or they are not physiologically developed enough to enjoy sexual activity, and for the reasons aforementioned, sexual interactions between a child is abusive and thus inherently harmful/evil. These are the most used reasons that people use to condemn such interactions with a child, despite them being very flawed arguments that I will be analyzing and debunking. I will be separating these flawed arguments into four parts called "The Asexual Argument", "They Can't Consent", "The Physiological Argument", and "It's Always Abuse" that will be debunked with empirical and scientific evidence, and logical reasoning. The counterarguments I will be using to debunk such flawed arguments is what I will call the pillars. As a side note, the citations or links to cite the evidence that I use will be in the "Links/Citations" list, since putting links in the argument paragraphs does strange things with the paragraph.

The Asexual Argument

Since the invention of childhood and innocence, and the rise of the Bourgeoisie during the Victorian era, these major events not only had an impact on sexuality, but it had a huge impact on the way society as a whole views sexuality in children. During these times, children were looked at as pure and free of the darkness of the world which included sexuality since it was understood as something that can give birth to all kinds of vices such as rape, cheating, and many more things driven out of lust, especially if it was outside of marriage and procreative purposes which were rooted in religion. Because of these shifts in attitude in sexuality and children, along with compulsory schooling that created a greater divide between adults and younger people that created a sense of strangeness and aesthetic disgust for people who have sexual feelings for children, but we grew a profound hatred for those kinds of people that is rooted in fear from the past and later horrific sex crimes committed onto children. As a result of these shifts in attitude of children and sexuality, the world as a whole believes the notion that children, especially young children that have not undergone puberty, don't have sexual feelings and desires and may engage in sexual activity solely out of curiosity and self-stimulation. They then use this belief that it is selfish and immoral for an adult to engage in sexual activity with a child since a child doesn't have such desires/feelings and thus never wanted/asked for it and does not understand what it is that he/she is doing and is exploitive as a result. This very belief that a lot of people still hold till this day is completely wrong. First off, even if the child engages in a sexual act such as masturbation with no sexual feelings attached (which is only partially true), they can still feel the physical aspect of it with orgasm through the curiosity of exploring their own bodies. For example, if you're a parent and you discover that your child that is maybe an infant to three years old and he/she happens to discover that a specific area feels good and the child wants that parent to touch them there to self-sooth them, and the parent reciprocates that back to self-sooth them, then there is really nothing wrong with that. Regardless of what society may look at that as, the fact of the matter is, it was a parent self-soothing the child, and the child looked at it as nothing more. While it is true that with younger children, they are more inclined to engage in such acts through the curiosity of exploring their own bodies, it does not necessarily mean that they don't have sexual feelings and desires, i.e. feeling sexually excited/horny. When a child engages in such acts, the child is going to find out that it feels very good to the point of orgasm in which then they will feel a sense of euphoria/ecstasy as a result. By them experiencing those feelings, they are going to get sexually excited. That much is just common sense. Lastly, children as young as five-seven years old go through a phase of puberty called adrenarche nicknamed the psychological phase of puberty, which is a precursor to the physical phase of puberty that is commonly taught in school. Adrenarche is the activation of the adrenal glands which releases a spike in androgens such as DHEA(S). DHEA(S) is responsible for a number of things such as body/pubic hair growth, acne, oily hair, but more specifically, libido. A lot of children who go through this phase experiences mood changes and behaviors and may be more inclined to sexually explore amongst themselves or with other people to satisfy the sexual urges that they may have either by being exposed to seeing sexual activity, or experiencing those feelings through curiosity/exploration after engaging in such acts with themselves or with another person. This phase of puberty, more specifically the changes in androgen and oestrogen levels, peaks in the early twenties in men on average and nineteen or twenty in women on average. Also, newborns have a high level of DHEA/S, but quickly drops during or right after birth (don't quote me on this) and spikes back up again during adrenarche. The thing is though, having sexual feelings and desires is not necessarily puberty dependent since everybody is born with sex hormones and sexually explores at any age. There is tons of empirical data that has been done on the sexual behaviors of children that directly correlates to the biological facts on how children are born with sex hormones and go through adrenarche that enables sexual feelings and desires. These studies in short, demonstrate the common sexual behaviors that children may engage in depending on the age-group. However, one thing to keep in mind that these studies were originally done to study what sexual behaviors were normal or not on specific age-groups to potentially look for signs of abuse, not the focus on sexual feelings, and deny sexual feelings and desires in children who have not undergone puberty and claim they solely do it out of curiosity and self-stimulation, in which would be contradicting to the biological facts on how children are born with sex hormones and experience an increase in those sex hormones during adrenarche that may make them more inclined to sexually explore/experiment the sexual feelings they may have. Not only that, but there is tones of testimonies from my own experiences, other peoples experiences in my life and on the internet, and victims of CSA. I was six years old when I experienced sexual feelings for the first time after waking up and witnessing my mother and her boyfriend having sex in the same bedroom I was sleeping in on the other side of the room. We shared a room. At first, I felt confused as to what I was looking at, but at the same time, I understood it as something intimate where two people were making each other feel good physically and emotionally. Having this understanding in mind, I began to develop erotic feelings and wanted to try that out when no one was looking on a rolled up blanket, and experienced organism with a sense of ecstasy/euphoria as a result. When I was seven years old, I was at a sleep over in a friends house that was eleven years old at the time. We slept in the same bedroom where I was on the top bunk and he was on the bottom bunk. Moments later, I heard and saw him humping on either a rolled up blanket or pillow while chanting how hot and sexy this girl named Alexis was that was twelve at the time, which made me feel excited (horny). The last time I witnessed a child engaging in sexual activity was when I was twelve years old. The boy was seven years old at the time. As I was playing video games, I turned around to ask the boy something and long story short, I saw him humping on one of the couch pillows while he had a video paused to a female WWE superstar doing a suggestive pose with mild provocative clothing on and her back turned against the screen. It was pretty self-explanatory on why he was humping on the pillow. There are plethora of testimonies you can find on the internet such as Reddit and Quora where I read on about this one guy who was four or five years old at the time humping on stationary bikes due to him getting horny after witnessing his mother's aerobics and Latin dance classes. There are also numerous of testimonies from victims of CSA who experienced hypersexuality and looked at men and/or women differently, and felt shame and guilt as a result. That's pretty much it. Children of nearly any age have erotic feelings and fantasize about the people that they find sexually attractive. These feelings are innate and natural from a very young age and therefore is backwards and hypocritical for society to either tell young people to suppress the feelings they have and do it amongst themselves, or society being fine with children sexually exploring with other children but to turn around and condemn or even wish death upon the adult who reciprocates those same feelings back for a child. Despite this being a innate and natural thing for them to have, many people would say children engaging in sexual activity, especially with an adult, is harmful because they do not have the neurological development to consent to such activities that would make them more susceptible to exploitation as a result, despite their desire to express/explore the sexual feelings that they may have for another person.

"They Can't Consent"

If a child has sexual feelings that he/she wants to express/explore to his/her adult friend and the adult reciprocates those feelings and desires back, then that is by definition mutual consent. Contrary to this fact, many people will disagree and argue that they can't give informed consent due to how neurologically "underdeveloped" they are to understand the consequences of sexual activity, as well as understanding what it is that they're doing. Well, they are right to some degree, but it is not necessarily the fact the children "can't" understand or have the foreknowledge to understand the potential consequences of sexual activity because of how "underdeveloped" their brains are , it's because they are stripped away from sexual knowledge in the education system such as safe sex until they're in high school/late teens due to societies attitude on sexuality in children and make up arbitrary standards on what kind of sexual education is "age appropriate", thus young kids that are eight, nine, or preteen age are more prone to not having the knowledge of the potential consequences of sexual activity. The very people who argue that children/minors can't understand the consequences of sexual activity because of how their brains are not fully developed, and they don't understand what it is that they're doing is not only wrong, but amounts to nothing. First off, children do understand what it is that they're doing to some degree. They understand it as a form of affection/intimacy between two people that feels good physically and emotionally, despite not knowing the potential consequences of sexual activity or sometimes with younger children, not knowing the words of what it is that they're feeling and doing such as "masturbation" and/or "horny". However, them not knowing the words does not simply mean that they do not understand what they're feeling or doing as distinct in a way that it feels sexually exciting and feels good physically, and understands the social context of how sacred it can be. Lastly, people who use how children's lack of understanding of the ramifications of sexual activity is due to their brains being "underdeveloped", is a fruitless argument that amounts little to nothing. A person of six years and a person of thirty years has the same amount of neurons and connections, but the difference is the level of myelin, or how strong those connections are. Myelin is the fatty cells that wraps around the axon for higher action potential speed or to put it simply, faster connection from one neuron to another with a lower chance of the electric charge or information being lost. One of the ways that myelin is produced or strengthen is by stimulating the connections of a specific area of the brain. In other words, as you learn and practice a specific skill, you are making and stimulating connections in your brain. The more you stimulate those specific areas or connections in the brain, the more myelin you produce and thus, the more you practice something, the better and more efficient you become at that specific skill. Having this knowledge in mind, we grow and mature based on the environment and experiences we are given, and not necessarily as a result of fixed evolutionary stages of the brain. A child of eight years of age can have a higher maturation index in specific areas of the brain than adults do due to the environment and experiences that the child was given. So a twelve year old can be better at specific skill or have more wisdom on something than someone that is thirty. The brain is very plastic and can be shaped and molded throughout the rest of our lives by new experiences we encounter. So a kid not being able to understand the ramifications of sexual activity due to their "underdeveloped" brains amounts to nothing. A kid can easily understand the consequences of sexual activity as much as a kid can understand the consequences of riding a motorized vehicle such as a dirt bike or shooting a firearm such as a long gun that is more complex and of higher risk of fatality then sexual activity that can carry long-term consequences. Children as young as six years old ride dirt bikes well and have the foreknowledge to wear protective gear and know when to speed up or slow down so they won't potentially get hurt such as breaking their bones or suffering from a head injury that is either life-altering or fatal. Not only that, but kids as young as preteen age and younger have the foreknowledge of how to handle a firearm for hunting and shooting practice. "What!?" "Kids are allowed to operate firearms!?" "I thought that was illegal!?" Nope, it's perfectly legal for kids to operate a firearm under the supervision and teaching of an adult who knows about firearms of course. The only thing that minors can't do is to own a handgun, but don't quote on this and I may be wrong, but they are allowed to own one under certain circumstances. So, not only you can break your bones and suffer a head injury that can be either life-altering or fatal with a dirt bike, but you can either easily blow your or someone else's brains out with a firearm if you do not know what you're doing. Now some people will argue that the kid didn't have the foreknowledge beforehand and needed to be taught by an adult, in which case they would be right. Yes, the adult is the one who taught the child how to ride the dirt bike and made the suggestion to put on the protective gear, or taught the kid how to operate the firearm safely, but that is with everything and any age. Nobody is a predictive machine where they know every possible outcome of a specific thing, we are all taught through either the experiences we are given and/or being taught by someone that is more experienced that results in us having the foreknowledge on what we're doing. That is how foreknowledge is gain. Having this understanding in mind, it's pretty clear that the children who were taught how to ride the motorized vehicle and wear the protective gear to protect themselves, or the kids operating the firearm with the safety of themselves and other people around them in mind are applying what? Foreknowledge. It is therefore backwards and hypocritical to accept the fact the kids can have the understanding and consent to riding motorized vehicles or operating firearms and use that prior knowledge to prevent themselves from injuries that can be either life-altering or potentially fatal, but to turn around and say kids can't consent to something that is innate and natural in them such as sexual activity that is less complex and of lower risk of harm and death. There is no room for debate; that is by definition hypocrisy. Not only that, but due to the rise of the internet and the increasing implementation of sexual knowledge in middle-schools and even some elementary schools about puberty and how babies are made, as well as parents becoming more comfortable in answering their kids questions on where and how babies are made in a more honest way, kids are becoming more and more aware of the potential consequences of sexual activity, thus being able to use that kind of knowledge to prevent potential harm that can come from stds and/or potential pregnancy. The only thing that opponents can argue about is how someone much older has more experience on a specific thing than a child that can be exploitive, in which case they wouldn't be necessarily wrong, but that does not make it automatically exploitive. It entirely depends on the situation. For an example, if a child and an adult decides to meet up for sex where the child was uninformed and the adult informed, and the adult had the mindset of having no regard for what may happen to that young person in the future such as getting pregnant or catching an std and thus only sees the younger person essentially as a dumb horny person to be used as a rag, then that is exploitive. On the contrary, in the either the same scenario where the adult and child meets up for sex, or the child in a relationship with his/her adult friend where the child wants to explore the sexual feelings that he/she may have for the adult friend, and the adult reciprocates that back with the younger persons interests in mind by wearing protection, pulling out, or doing a non-penetrative sexual activity, then that is not exploitive. If we're going to use such logic that someone more experienced engaging in a sexual interaction with someone that is less experienced or in other words, not as informed about the consequences of sexual activity automatically/inherently exploitive, then by that very same definition, a doctor performing surgery on a patient or a parent administrating medication to their child is exploitive since those people in those kinds of positions poses greater knowledge on what they're doing and can easily exploit and get away with what they're doing. Now one may argue the difference between that and a child engaging in a sexual interaction with an adult is that one is more beneficial and necessary that helps other people, and the other is not. But then again, that holds no relevance and does not change how flawed that kind of logic is, regardless of the beneficial reasons or not. Not only that, but a child/minor engaging in sexual activity with another child/minor is also exploitive if we're going by that same definition. You can say that they're "exploring" or what not, but that does not change a thing, it's still exploitive by that same logic. Adults sexually explore all the time as well, that's what makes sexual activity exciting. The fact is that while there is a higher room for exploitation for people that are not as knowledgeable of the potential consequences of sexual activity, that does not necessarily make it exploitive and really depends on the mindset/intent of the informed. So all in all, kids are more than capable of consenting in evident in how they are becoming more aware of the consequences of sexual activity and their engagement in other activities that are more complex and have a higher risk of fatality such as sports, shooting a firearm or bow for hunting, and dirt bike riding that can carry long-term consequences.

The Physiological Argument

This is the weakest argument that opponents may use and basically means how children, more so with younger children, can't enjoy sexual activity due to their petite size. This is only partially true in which that kids come in all shapes and sizes and can enjoy any kind of sexual activities. It all depends on the person and the rule of thumb to always follow is to do whatever both parties find pleasurable, regardless of the type of sexual activity they're doing. There is really not much to say on this and debated whether or not I should even include this section in. Well, I'll see what my like-minded peers think of this section and their inputs on what should be added, expanded, or refined on.

"It's Always Abuse"

It is a widely accepted notion that all sexual interactions between a child and adult is automatically/inherently abusive; however, reading all the things I wrote prior on debunking the popular beliefs by demonstrating how children of nearly any age do in fact have sexual feelings and desires that they mostly express in fantasies through masturbation, are more than capable of consenting to such activities, and how someone's physical size does not deter one's own sexual enjoyment, having this understanding and logic alone, sexual interactions between an adult and child/minor are not inherently abusive. To be able to explain what actually causes that harm in interactions/relationships like that, we are going to break this down into three separate parts of harms: sociogenic/iatrogenic harm, and just flat-out abuse/violence. Sociogenic harm is harm that a person undergoes through societies condemnation of a particular act that is not necessarily bad or evil, but is taboo and suffers a lot of distress from what society has done and told them as a result. An example of sociogenic harm can be either an interracial couple in the times where that was illegal, or a relationship between a child/minor and adult that was found out, punished in various ways such as prison (which in this case the adult being put to prison and being labeled as a sex offender), with the interracial couple suffering emotionally and the child not only suffering the same, but being labeled as a victim of sexual violence/abuse by either the parents, law enforcement, and therapists/clinicians. Iatrogenic harm is basically sociogenic harm, but with doctors/therapists. Iatrogenic harm in its basic definition means accidental harm caused by a doctor that can happened during surgery or a dental check-up, but in this case, iatrogenic harm is harm caused to a child/minor that was found out in having a sexual relationship with an adult. The child /minor undergoes harm due to the therapist/clinician instilling, and possibly relentlessly instilling the thought that they were abused and never consented to such acts, thus making the younger person eventually feel that they were a victim of sexual violence/abuse despite them never having any negative experiences with the interactions that they wanted to explore/express with the adult. Once the younger person is convinced that they were abused, they will develop even more pain and trauma as a result. Lastly, sexual abuse is a sexual interaction that is either coercive, manipulative, and/or exploitive in nature that violates a persons autonomy in various ways such as rape, trafficking/kidnapping, grooming (i.e. deception), and many more things. This violation of a person autonomy can cause a great deal of psychological and physical trauma that can last for a long time such as self-shame and guilt for what had happened, feeling betrayed and disgusted with themselves, scared, depressed, angry, and many more things that can lead to hurting themselves, hurting or even possibly killing another person, and/or killing themselves. Therefore, a mutual sexual interaction between an adult and child/minor is not necessarily abusive, it's the nature of such interactions that makes it abusive. Ninety-nine percent of all the ones that are sexually abusive fall into the categories of either coercion, manipulation, and/or exploitation where it was obviously unwanted. The one major flaw in the "CSA" cases, and the scientific literature about the this particular subject matter as a whole, is how all sexual interactions between a child and adult are grouped into as abuse, regardless of the nature of the interaction itself. There are people who are in the field that admits that positive experiences can exist in those kinds of interactions/relationships with a child even though they word it as "abuse" in the literature, and people like James Cantor, along with other people who are in that field, more specifically in the studies of pedophilia, admits that the majority of the sexual abuse done onto children/minors are a result in coercion, manipulation, and/or exploitation. All of the rest of the harm is either caused by sociogenic and/or iatrogenic harm from the parents and therapists who put the false mindset into the young persons mind by making him/her believe they were a victim of abuse despite the younger person having positive experiences with the sexual interactions that he/she wanted to explore/express to the adult.


Links/Citations

Adrenarche:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7891873/
https://patient.info/childrens-health/adrenarche
https://www.parents.com/kids/developmen ... d-to-know/
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/adrenarche
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenarche

Sexual Behavioral Data:
https://depts.washington.edu/uwhatc/wp- ... ildren.pdf
https://www.nctsn.org/sites/default/fil ... ildren.pdf
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploa ... -_copy.pdf
https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/20 ... /p1233.pdf
https://www.icmec.org/wp-content/upload ... ildren.pdf

Testimonies of Experiencing Sexual Feelings (Physical/Non-physical feelings):
https://www.quora.com/At-what-age-did-y ... al-desires
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comm ... ing_horny/
https://www.quora.com/At-what-age-did-y ... ting-horny
https://www.reddit.com/r/hypersexuality ... it_just_a/
https://www.reddit.com/r/sexualassault/ ... _shameful/
https://www.quora.com/At-what-age-can-b ... al-arousal

Brain Development:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etqNwdMqsco