Sexual Equality

“A man should pray to have right desires, before he prays
to have his desires fulfilled.” Plato (Jowett, 1875)

In her study of adolescent girls’ experience of sexual desire, Deborah L. Tolman reports how 30 normal adolescent girls were typically reluctant or unable to describe their own sexual desire. Half of the subjects the author invited to participate in the study declined the invitation (1).

A 17-year-old girl reports that her first sexual experience wasn’t planned but “just happened.” She says “He was kissing me,” not “We were kissing,” or “I was kissing him.” Some of the girls seem very confused, or perhaps they were deliberately trying to deceive the interviewer. One girl was asked if she felt sad, and with tears rolling down her face she replied “Umm…I don’t know.” Another girl reports “Well, I don’t really know what I’m thinking.”

The author interprets the girls’ statements as evidence that they are uncomfortable about the subject of sexual desire and need guidance. Ms. Tolman says many things that no reasonable person can dispute:

1. Sexuality is important throughout life and sexual desire is life-sustaining.
2. There is a strong cultural taboo against girls having and expressing sexual desire.
3. Young girls are capable (theoretically) of strong sexual desire.
4. Girls are morally entitled to experience sexual pleasure no less than boys.
5. Girls are being cruelly cheated by traditional beliefs and rules about what is “proper” for girls.

A girl is expected to appear seductive: she is supposed to stimulate a boy’s sexual desire, but she isn’t supposed to have any sexual desire of her own. Good girls are only supposed to desire emotional relationships. Good girls are desexualized and disembodied. Rarely does a young girl admit: “I want to have sex.” A girl saying that publicly is considered pornography.

Some adults claim they merely want to “protect” girls from the risk of negative outcomes. But the author notes if that were true then girls would be encouraged to engage in self-masturbation or mutual masturbation to avoid infectious disease and unplanned pregnancy. In reality female sexual desire itself is popularly considered the monstrous “danger.”

Amazingly, none of the girls in the book ever mentions the clitoris or clitoral erection, and neither does the author call attention to that glaring omission. The girls do frequently report faking sexual pleasure. The author says that some of the girls have “silent bodies,” but she avoids discussing the possibility that many of the girls may actually be sexually dysfunctional and lack sexual desire. Some of the sexually active girls admit they don’t have orgasms, and wonder what an orgasm would feel like. One girl says: “It’s not easy…to have one.” Another girl says genital intercourse is sometimes “very boring.”

A girl who considers herself a lesbian usually keeps her sexual desire (which she calls “being excited”) a secret. When she finally has a chance to feel and express sexual desire with someone who is uninhibited, she laments that “it’s not even that exciting.” The author doesn’t consider the possibility that this girl is sexually dysfunctional; the author avoids the obvious and instead offers the non-explanation: it’s “so difficult to play out her feelings authentically.”

One girl says sexual desire is “all in my head…my body has nothing to do with it.” I begin to wonder if Ms. Tolman, herself, has ever felt sexual desire, when she says here’s one girl who really knows how to describe it: the girl says she feels “really hot, like, my temperature is really, really hot…And my body would like have, I would like have a feeling going up my spine.” That’s the strangest kind of “sexual desire” I’ve ever heard of!

When girls deny sexual desire the author is skeptical of their sincerity, and she says they are reluctant to admit they feel sexual desire. But the author doesn’t consider the opposite possibility: when some girls claim they do feel sexual desire, they may be lying and trying to cover up that their genital organs are dysfunctional.

Ms. Tolman spends a lot of time arguing that sexual desire is “socially constructed,” and she promotes the belief that female “dilemmas” may be treated by a talking cure. She quotes one girl who said that after the interview her sexual experience was “better.” Does that mean the girl experienced clitoral erection and orgasm? The author doesn’t speculate what “better” might mean.

Talking to young girls about sexual desire and pleasure is important and profound, but the author never defines exactly what she means by “sexual desire,” except to say it is “a feeling of wanting.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.) one definition of desire is “that feeling or emotion which is directed to the attainment or possession of some object from which pleasure or satisfaction is expected.” I would define sexual desire as the wish or urge to have your genitals physically stimulated. Is that what Ms. Tolman meant by “sexual desire,” and is that what her subjects thought she meant?

By that definition even very young children can be observed spontaneously exhibiting sexual desire when they fondle themselves and press or rub their genitals against furniture, adult body parts or other children, although children might not label their feelings with grown-up vocabulary like “sexual desire.” Healthy children fondle themselves intermittently even during non-sexual play, and even when they are primarily focused on the non-sexual play – the sexual self-stimulation is incidental and secondary to the child’s main interest at the moment. It may be considered a failure in empathy for adults to see a child fondle herself and then bizarrely declare “children have no sexual desire.”

Sexual desire may occur before, during or after genital erection, but it is certainly (usually) strongest during genital erection. The existence of spontaneous erection in boys and girls indicates it is primarily a physiological process, not a psychological or cultural phenomenon. Genital erection may be influenced by psychological fears, expectations, or culturally induced shame, but in a healthy individual genital erection is a physiological state – not a social construct.

Oddly, the author says curiosity is “a precursor to desire.” I can imagine that young people’s curiosity is often a precursor to interpersonal sex play, but it’s more likely that some teenage girls who have been mentally castrated confuse curiosity with desire. The girl previously mentioned, with the feeling going up her spine, which the author points to as a model of sexual desire, says of her first time trying genital intercourse: “I just wanted to, because I wanted to see what it was like.” That is not sexual desire; that is curiosity mistakenly labeled as sexual desire.

In my opinion, a healthy individual (male or female, young or old) who has slept well, eaten nutritiously, and is relaxed, feels sexual desire. Curiosity is unnecessary and irrelevant to genuine desire or arousal. Some people also confuse real-world sexual desire with the dramatized fictional image of sexual passion, but in a healthy young person sexual desire is quite casual rather than intense or obsessive.

A few girls report that when they feel sexual desire their vagina “acts up.” Does that mean they lubricate and expand? Little girls often have clitoral erections, just as little boys have penile erections. Healthy mature males continue to have genital erections, but mature females usually don’t. The author does not mention that or ask her subjects about it. Clitoral erectile dysfunction is, as yet, a politically incorrect topic. Political correctness dictates that female sexual dysfunction be blamed on child sexual abuse.

The author arranged to refer girls who reported childhood sexual abuse (carelessly undefined) to so-called “therapists.” One 18-year-old girl revealed that when she was seven a teenage boy did “unspeakable things” to her, and threatened her not to tell anyone. She expresses anger and seems to feel very vindictive toward the boy. Her mother did nothing about it, and neither did the boy’s mother (as far as the girl knows).

The girl is certainly justified in feeling angry, and understandably feels confused. The boy should have asked for the girl’s consent first, and the girl should have had the opportunity to consult her mother before any actual contact. Was the boy previously instructed about that? Why wasn’t he forced to apologize and reassure the girl that he would never threaten her again? Where was the girl’s father when all this was happening?

But the author’s reaction seems just as odd as the mothers: Ms. Tolman suggestively asks if that early experience affects the girl’s current sex life. To the girl’s credit she replies: How should I know? The author’s question sounds to me like a transparent attempt to encourage the girl to blame a male for the girl’s later problems, while ignoring the possible part played by the mother in previously mentally castrating the girl.

Despite her many insightful observations about sexual desire in young girls, the author doesn’t mention that it is women who physically castrate their daughters in the Third World, and it is women (as early childhood educators) who mentally castrate little girls in the West today. Why do some women do that, and why doesn’t the author confront those facts?

Many parents are unaware of the specific physiological origin of female sexual dysfunction – both the lack of desire and the difficulty in reaching orgasm – as an understandable consequence of individual adults sexually neglecting or actively “inhibiting” little girls during early development (2), long before the confused period called adolescence. Many parents unthinkingly commit the same tragedy that they suffered when they were children. Are highly educated feminists unaware as well, or do their political priorities discourage them from acknowledging the inconvenient origin of female sexual dysfunction?

Ms. Tolman doesn’t challenge the ghastly myth that normal sexual desire and healthy sexual function can be safely “inhibited” during early childhood, because they will magically spring back into existence after puberty. In the end the author says what is needed is for women to help teenage girls think about and talk about sexual desire and sexual pleasure, to foster outrage against their “socially manufactured” dilemma. In the very last footnote of the book the author reveals she is well aware of the problem of sexual dysfunction in women – although she understates the prevalence (3), but she suggests that the origin of female sexual dysfunction is the social “dilemma” girls face in adolescence.

In reality the mass hysteria over child sexual abuse, which was started and spread by feminists (4), has legitimized the tradition of mentally castrating girls rather than challenging it. The mythology of child sexual abuse and the eager marketing of unverified “treatment” has demonized early sex play and become a politically correct dogma to excuse women’s responsibility in mentally castrating girls, not in adolescence but beginning in very early childhood.

References
1. Tolman, Deborah L. Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk about Sexual Desire. Harvard Univ. Press, 2002.
2. Clitoral Erectile Dysfunction. http://sexhysteria.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/clitoral-erectile-dysfunction/
3. Tolman cites a 1999 survey, but more recent evidence indicates that two-thirds of women suffer from sexual dysfunction. See: Sammy Elsamra, Michael Nazmy, David Shin, Harry Fisch, Ihor Sawczuk, Debra Fromer. Female sexual dysfunction in urological patients: findings from a major metropolitan area in the USA. BJU International, 2010; DOI: 10.1111/j.1464-410X.2009.09091.x, which was indirectly confirmed by a more recent ABC telephone survey. http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/959a1AmericanSexSurvey.pdf
4. Whittier, Nancy. The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse: Emotion, Social Movements, and the State. Oxford Univ. Press, 2011.

Age of Consent

Competence to consent is popularly considered an extremely important moral and legal principle when it comes to sex play, but the issue is much more important and profound in the field of health care. This post reviews some of the superficial beliefs commonly expressed about competence to consent in relation to sex play, and then considers the much more crucial question of competence to consent in cases of serious disease or terminal illness in childhood.

According to some authors, informed consent entails understanding the possible consequences of your choices, and the alternatives available (1). Competence to understand consequences and alternatives is certainly an important factor in determining whether an individual may freely consent to sex play.

The ability to resist manipulation may also be considered important, but even mature adults are often quite incompetent to resist the simplest forms of manipulation in interpersonal relations and the commercial marketplace. To resist manipulation, most children (like many adults) need assistance from disinterested third parties, preferably experts in the relevant field: assisted consent.

Do most young people become competent to understand consequences, alternatives and manipulation on midnight of a certain birthday? The concept of “age of consent” is merely an administrative convenience, since competence may vary between individuals of the same age depending on differences in education, experience and biological maturity of the individual’s brain. So in reality accurately measuring competence to consent would require extensive evaluation in each individual case.

To avoid such effort and expense, legal administrators merely assume everyone below an arbitrarily selected age is “incompetent” and then count an individual’s birthdays to determine whether he’s “competent” or not. That simplistic and superficial bureaucratic trick is nonetheless popularly worshiped as if it is an expression of divine wisdom.

The concept of age of consent is merely an expediency for administrators (kings and churchmen in the past, and government employees today), it’s not for children’s benefit. How ironic that individuals who call themselves a child’s “protectors” have no qualms about administering carelessly conceived rules to selfishly lighten their own workload.

Taking advantage of the widespread ignorance over the concept of age of consent, some other individuals claim that many states and countries had a surprisingly low age of consent in the past, and suggest that such ages are highly relevant to the question of competence to consent today. Such individuals seem to think that if age of consent was lower throughout most of history, the current (higher) age of consent is a historical aberration.

But even if the age of consent was much lower in the past, that doesn’t necessarily mean that younger children are competent to consent today. In any case, we still have to obey current laws, and any age of consent is arbitrary: some individuals below the arbitrarily selected age may actually be very competent, while other individuals above the magic age may actually be incompetent.

Instead of worshiping administrative convenience, I believe that children should be educated for competence from the earliest age. A responsible parent teaches a child what consent means, and that granting or withholding consent is every child’s right. Instead of telling a child nothing about sex, or simply commanding: “Don’t you dare do it!” (and thereby provoking reckless rebellion), a responsible parent informs a child about the need to understand alternative choices and possible consequences of each choice, and the opportunity to seek third-party (preferably expert) advice before deciding to consent.

For example, a responsible parent advises a daughter of any age that when she feels she wants to experience anything more than minor sex play, they can go to a gynecologist together first to learn how to avoid injury, disease or unplanned pregnancy.

Traditionally, adults are considered responsible to foster a child’s health and happiness for his long-term benefit, even if that entails disregarding the very young child’s current wishes. Many parents abuse that custom, e.g. by forcing children to undergo unnecessary circumcision in infancy. Deciding to disregard children’s consent may be easy in infancy and very early childhood, but the older a child gets, the harder such parental judgments become. There is not much difference between the reasoning ability of 11-year-olds and university students (2), and what little difference there is may be reduced even further through specific education for competence. So competence or incompetence to understand consequences and alternatives is far from clear in many individual cases.

Some pediatric protocols assert a child’s right to be informed about the seriousness of his disease, the risks and benefits of different treatment options, and where relevant: the possibility of imminent death. There is evidence that “parents who have open conversations with their child about death and dying do not regret having done so” (3). When children are well-informed they can avoid unnecessary fears or worries, e.g. that dying is physically painful, or that opioid sedation hastens death. Children of any age should be informed that fast-acting medicines eliminate moderate to severe physical pain, so if necessary a patient can be medicated to sleep and dream most of the time, without impairing attempts to prolong life.

Care aimed at improving quality of life in the here and now can and should be provided along with life-prolonging care. But some adults believe that it is better to deceive the child into thinking his illness is only temporary and will disappear eventually. Some parents don’t even want their child to be informed of what his disease is (e.g. cancer). If his condition progressively worsens, then some people believe that parents, doctors and psychologists should lie by telling the child this is only a temporary setback.

That strategy has serious obstacles in practice because children aren’t stupid. The patient may subtly perceive the truth, or may find out the truth (e.g. from another patient), or the child may hear about the death of another patient who has the same disease and “isn’t supposed to die.” In such cases the child may lose all faith in the words of parents and medical staff, and may understandably rebel and refuse to comply with any directions. Deceiving a seriously ill child sometimes entails deceiving siblings too, and such deception may have a life-long, negative impact on the surviving sibling’s trust in his parents as well as health care personnel in the future.

Another strategy is the religious belief in the afterlife. Some children are told that God wants to separate the child’s soul from his body, bury his body in a box, and send his soul to heaven (i.e. take him away from his parents). But in practice a child may naturally wonder: What kind of God is that? Parents in such cases, even true believers, may have difficulty hiding their own discomfort, and the child may perceive the parent’s veiled skepticism. In such cases the child may not only lose hope but even question the parent’s ability to reason coherently. A child in that situation may suffer even more.

Misinforming a child patient and siblings about prognostic uncertainty and possibly imminent death denies them the opportunity to do things they would like to do while they still have the chance. End-of-life planning should occur well in advance, not during a near-death crisis. For example, boys and girls who are terminally ill may be allowed to sleep together if that’s what they want. Young people can be given the choice to agree to tissue/organ donation or sperm/egg donation, thereby enjoying the satisfaction of voluntarily helping others and leaving a legacy. A deceived child’s death is, in effect, worse than what it could have been because it is sudden and without warning as far as the children are concerned – precisely because of adult deception.

No one doubts that at some point during development the child becomes competent to be informed and make his own choices. Many children in Western countries today have access to much more information, as well as more leisure to study, and hence may be in a better position to make mature judgments than children in the past or in other cultures.

Robert Epstein has described how in some cultures a person is considered mature and a full member of the community at puberty. Such individuals can and do work, marry, participate in community decisions, etc. (4). In modern Western culture young people have no political or economic power or influence, so it is no wonder that they are often hostile (“rebellious”) and even suicidal.

The complex problem of competence to consent can be confronted more effectively by educating children for competence from the earliest age, including critical evaluation of popular information sources such as the mass entertainment “news” media. Children should even be informed about the future possibility of serious or terminal illness, and asked if they would prefer to be accurately informed (or lied to) in such a case, which gives children more of a sense of control.

Conversations with children about these subjects at different ages may be recorded, and such recordings may serve as evidence of individual competence and a kind of living will. Conversely, a parent’s refusal to educate a child about consent may be considered a form of selfish and irresponsible neglect. I suspect that children who have been specifically educated for competence, and have previously chosen to always be accurately informed, will surprise and inspire us all when and if they are actually faced with challenging decisions.

References:
1. Faden, Ruth R. et al. A History and Theory of Informed Consent. Oxford Univ. Press. 1986.
2. Lipmann, Mathew. Thinking in Education. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003.
3. Ullrich, Christina et al. Pediatric Palliative Care. Chapter 40 in: Kliegman, Robert M. et al. (ed.) Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics. 19e. Saunders, 2011.
4. Epstein, Robert. The Case Against Adolescence. Quill Driver Books, 2007.

When Virgins Become Eunuchs

In her classic feminist manifesto “The Female Eunuch,” author Germaine Greer argued that sexual liberation is the key to women’s liberation (1). The title of Greer’s best-seller seems to suggest that the gifted writer knew about the neurological consequence of lack of stimulation of the clitoris during development, long before I described it. But her provocative image of the castrated eunuch was merely a rhetorical device. Unfortunately, Greer’s book largely ignored female sexual dysfunction, as if women’s sexual difficulties are merely a minor and temporary ailment that her enthusiastic followers could cure through pep talks.

 Greer suggests that “the role of the eunuch,” and “a passive sexual role” result in “the force of inertia,” and are the culprits in mentally castrating girls. Although she rejects the “capitalist” viewpoint in which sexual energy must be conserved and invested wisely (the myth that holding back sexual energy makes an individual somehow stronger), she nonetheless didn’t realize the physiological connection between early sexual “inhibition” and clitoral erectile dysfunction later (2).

 Greer clearly recognizes that “The little girl is not encouraged to explore her own genitals or to identify the tissues of which they are composed, or to understand the mechanism of lubrication and erection.” (p. 44) Such anti-sex indoctrination leads to guilt feelings and “role expectations” that must be overcome through consciousness-raising; the liberated woman must “rediscover” sexual pleasure, says Greer, as if being sexually functional is merely something women were forced to forget.

 At puberty or in adolescence “Little girls only learn about the pleasure of sex as an implication of their discoveries about their reproductive function, as something merely incidental.” (p. 53) But instead of offering insights and specific recommendations on sex education and practice in early and later childhood, Greer complains that the sexual revolution has led to an increase in “child violation,” and she criticizes Masters and Johnson’s research because it has led to excessive focus on the clitoris!

 In reference to adult women’s sexuality Greer laments that female orgasm has come to be considered a “duty.” She did not mean that orgasm is unpleasant; her complaint concedes that reaching orgasm is no easy task for many modern women. Of course, it should be obvious that modern women cannot be expected to have orgasms if they have been mentally castrated. What Greer failed to realize is that for many women, reaching orgasm during normal intercourse isn’t merely difficult, it’s physiologically impossible, and all the consciousness-raising in the world won’t change that.

 Greer makes fun of traditional love stories but is just as silly herself in citing the ridiculous myth that without romantic rituals “sexual intercourse is another household duty” (p. 205), and women are “frigid because the requirements of romance are not satisfied” (p. 221). She also seemed to believe that once women achieve political, economic and social equality, female sexual dysfunction will disappear naturally, like the withering away of the state in a communist utopia. But I’m afraid the bitter pill is that sexual function is a matter of physiology not sociology, and mental castration cannot be cured; it must be prevented.

 The brain area that has atrophied as a result of lack of stimulation during development cannot suddenly develop the capacity to make a dysfunctional clitoris become robust. In some cases a girl who was allowed to develop sexually may become temporarily dysfunctional later due to physical trauma or severe psychological stress, and she may benefit from some form of convalescent therapy (neuroplasticity). But I suspect the more frequent diagnosis is that healthy clitoral function was permanently damaged by early neglect or active “inhibition” by misguided parents.

 The tragedy of millions of women permanently mentally castrated may be partially offset by the hope for future generations. Adults must learn that when a little girl raises her hand under her skirt in private or in public, she has not done something uncivilized or unhealthy. Parents must not stare, scold the child, “distract” her, or otherwise interfere with her self-stimulation. The child is not merely indulging in gratuitous pleasure; she is developing the area of her brain that makes normal (i.e. healthy) sexual response possible. The child’s self-stimulation is precisely what is appropriate for children to do. When, where and how she does so should be her instinctive choice, not a dictate of distorted social etiquette.

 Self-stimulation is only one side of the story. The sacred cow of “virginity” in youth should be attacked as an ancient joke. In the distant past before science understood the nature of micro-organisms and infectious disease, people were the helpless victims of superstition. The high-sounding word “chastity” literally means cleanliness. Guess what: It has been discovered that cleanliness is a matter of soap and water, or other hygienic practices, not abstinence from sexual contact. Cross-cultural evidence indicates that pre-industrial traditions, rituals and taboos that supposedly make an individual “clean” cannot be explained or justified in terms of hygiene (3).

 In some parts of the Third World today many mothers still physically castrate their daughters. Here in the West Greer and some other confused feminists have contributed to mentally castrating millions of their young “sisters” by sowing enmity between boys and girls, and raising suspicion about what is actually natural and healthy sex play in childhood. Girls love playing matchmaker for single teachers, an obvious source of vicarious excitement for inhibited little ladies.

 Life is filled with real magic, and one of the most magical parts of life is the too-infrequent interaction of boys and girls through visual, auditory and – yes – tactile communication. Parents should cultivate and foster that contact through education, e.g. instructional videos to learn buddy massage, not avoid and prohibit contact through enforced isolation or gender segregation, such as girls-only pajama parties!

 Even Greer criticized Israeli kibbutzim where children were subject to “an unnatural restriction” against sexual experimentation (p. 264). Mutual play and exploration are normal ways for children to experience the wonder of life, and develop healthy sexual response in the process. Boys and girls belong together, and children’s spontaneous sex play should be welcomed as conducive to healthy neurological function.

1. Greer, Germaine. The Female Eunuch. 2008 (originally published 1970).

2. Clitoral Erectile Dysfunction. http://sexhysteria.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/clitoral-erectile-dysfunction/

3. Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge, 2002.

Attraction and Arousal

The primary focus of this blog is children’s sexuality, which is normal, natural and healthy, a fact that is widely ignored and neglected, and even flatly denied in some quarters (1), which is not in children’s best interests. The mass hysteria over child sexual abuse demonizes innocent sex play, and draws attention and resources away from the more frequent and most deadly dangers children face. But in this post I want to discuss the attraction and arousal that adults and children may feel for each other, which is widely considered both a moral crime and a mental disorder, a contradiction that some confused individuals don’t seem to notice: punish the sick?

Some therapists and other special interests profit from the creation of categories of customers who “need” products and services that therapists want to sell (2). However, whether or not such categories actually correspond to any individuals in the real world is debatable. Contrary to popular beliefs and claims about “abnormal attraction” or “excessive arousal,” there is a strong case to be made for a more positive view of sexual health based on the conventional medical model of the effective functioning of body organs.

A paradigm case is the category of homosexuality, which was formerly considered a form of mental disorder on the basis of its “abnormality.” Although some suggest that the recent removal of homosexuality as a category of mental disorder was due to political pressure and threats of violence rather than clinical evidence, it has been convincingly shown that the criterion of “abnormality” is inappropriate as a measure of mental health (3).

A similar case is that of pedophilia, which may be viewed as a form of fixation, and considered a mental disorder when (if) accompanied by difficulties in work, social relationships, or other important areas in life, not because it is “abnormal.” As we shall see, some arousal toward children is normal in the statistical sense.

The very existence of “homosexuals” or “pedophiles” should not be taken for granted, even though some individuals choose to identify themselves as members of those categories. Note that millions of people consider themselves “Christians,” and invest a lot of effort to convince themselves and others that they really are “Christians,” but despite my 60 years and extensive travels I have yet to meet a single person I would call a genuine follower of Jesus of Nazareth.

Some sexologists now consider sexual “orientation” or sexual “identity” to be a matter of degree rather than either-or. Statistically, most people may be primarily heterosexual or primarily homosexual, but few people (if any) are 100% hetero or 100% homo. In some individuals that degree may be fluid and change over time. For example, in childhood an individual may be less hetero, but during the reproductive years become more strongly hetero, and then in old age become less hetero again.

There is some evidence that “pedophilia” may also be a matter of degree. Experiments using laboratory instruments to measure signs of sexual arousal in men and women have found that many people who are not “pedophiles” (if defined as an exclusive sexual preference for children) exhibit varying degrees of sexual arousal when shown photographs of children accompanied by erotic audio narrative (4). Some degree of sexual arousal to children may very well be species-typical, and may change over time, rather than being a neat, clear and fixed category requiring professional merchandizing of psycho products and services.

A popular belief is that any sexual arousal toward children is extremely dangerous to the latter as well as society as a whole, but there is no evidence that arousal must necessarily lead to acts of sexual abuse. Some individuals may feel strong arousal to children but never actually go out and violate a child. Similarly, some children who are sexually abused may be the victims of psychopaths (who usually prefer adult victims), not “pedophiles.”

I have already criticized the fairy tale that all children who are touched in an unauthorized place are inevitably traumatized for life (5). As a volunteer with child cancer patients and their families for many years, I am repeatedly amazed at how many kids can completely ignore their life-threatening illness and be happy as if they are at home rather than confined in a hospital. The exaggeration and exploitation of the category of child sex abuse victims is perhaps the most shameful practice of opportunists and profiteers in the rescue business.

As far as we know it’s possible that the reality is quite the contrary: a significant lack of arousal to children may be a contraindication for parenting or jobs with childcare responsibilities. In my extensive personal experience I have repeatedly seen children dangerously neglected and even physically injured by self-proclaimed asexual heroes of prudery. A chilling example: a staunch enemy of “abnormal arousal” allowed a toddler to enter a backyard pool unsupervised. “Don’t worry,” the adult said, “he’s wearing a floatation jacket.” When I rushed to be with the boy I found him in the deep water with his floatation jacket unfastened.

Instead of considering kinds and degrees of sexual arousal as mental disorders, it might be more fruitful to study the other side of sexual fixations. When an individual is obsessed with one gender or age group, he is usually dysfunctional with the other gender or age groups. From that point of view, both heterosexuality and homosexuality are disorders, as are both pedophilia and its opposite: the mature-playmate-only model of political correctness.

In other words, the interesting problem that is worthy of closer study is: why do some people (“heterosexuals”) exclude same-sex playmates? Why do other people (“homosexuals”) exclude opposite-sex playmates? Why do people with different-age preferences (“pedophiles”) exclude same-age playmates? Why do people with same-age preferences (the “politically correct”) exclude other-age playmates?

There seem to be some values of sexual attractiveness that are very common if not universal: i.e. no physical deformity and no symptoms of infectious disease. But the possession or not of genitalia of the “right” gender, or the age (maturity or immaturity) of genitalia, seem to be odd reasons for failing to experience arousal. If we consider love an element in arousal, individuals of any gender or age group may possess the qualities that make a person potentially loveable. What specific qualities of any gender or age group are equivalent to deformity or disease?

Insofar as physical appearance is an element in arousal, we must note that the quality of someone’s physical appearance is not necessarily related to any age or gender. Some individuals are widely considered average-looking or even mediocre before maturity, but become more attractive after maturity; while other individuals are widely considered very attractive (“model material”) before maturity, but become less attractive after maturity.

A girl may be pleasingly tall and thin before maturity, but become excessively tall or obese after maturity. Or a nose may be well-proportioned before maturity, but become oversized after maturity. Being flat-chested before maturity is unobjectionable, but if a girl remains flat-chested after maturity she is commonly considered unattractive. Age – in itself – is not a reliable indication of the quality of physical appearance.

What are the origins of attraction and arousal? In evolutionary terms, the tendency to be aroused by individuals during the reproductive years is often rewarded by offspring, who in turn may pass on the same tendency. Hence, the statistical infrequency (“perversion”) of arousal during the reproductive period that is not likely to result in reproduction. But even though it is popularly considered “perverted” to be aroused by individuals who are before the reproductive period, nobody suggests that being aroused by individuals who are after the reproductive period is “perverted.”

When you are too young or too old to reproduce (or otherwise infertile), there is no evolutionary advantage in being aroused by individuals who are in their reproductive period. Likewise, there is no evolutionary advantage in being aroused by individuals who are voluntarily infertile, e.g. on oral contraceptives or determined to abort any eventual conception. Evolutionary tendencies that developed in one environment may be useless or even fatal in a changed environment, and hence are not an appropriate measure of mental health.

Under some circumstances an inability to experience arousal with the “wrong” class of partner or playmate may be considered a form of dysfunction. In terms of organ function, when someone sits on a healthy male’s lap, the sensation of warm, soft buttocks in contact with the male’s penis (even indirectly through clothing) causes an erection. That is a normal and healthy physiological reflex. It should not matter what gender or age the person sitting on your lap happens to be. If you don’t get an erection, then your erectile reflex may be considered dysfunctional.

The paradigm case here is the child. Children are models of robust health, energy, highly effective organ function, amazing resilience and healing. When a healthy little girl straddles an adult’s knee, you can feel the tip of her clitoris protrude erect, pressing against your knee like a firm fingertip. That is a normal and healthy physiological reflex, and it doesn’t matter to the child if the knee is male or female, young or old. Children tend to stimulate themselves in order to develop the relative brain areas that render sexual function robust. When a little girl wants to straddle her father’s knee while eating lunch in a public restaurant, she should be welcome to do so.

As I pointed out in my previous post, many individuals who claim to be aroused by the “right” class of playmates are merely faking arousal (6). The same may be true for love: many people who claim they love “only” a certain limited class of individuals are merely faking love. They don’t really love anybody. One practical advantage of limiting the pool of “acceptable” playmates is to limit the burden of how many potential playmates you have to fake arousal by or love for. Individuals who are sexually dysfunctional may be understandably invidious and attempt to hide and defend their dysfunction by attacking sexually functional individuals as “sex maniacs.”

It’s also possible that the burden of sexual dysfunction isn’t merely a lack of sexual and emotional pleasure; there may be a causal link between sexual dysfunction and other health problems such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Epidemiological data indicate that women – who are disproportionally sexually dysfunctional – suffer from IBS at 2.5 to 4 times the rate of men. In the case of the male, lack of a functional sex life is a risk factor in eventual prostate cancer.

Children are highly flexible in their choice of playmates, sexual or otherwise. Kids aren’t so much “bisexual” as they are Omni-sexual. But through years of neglect or deliberate mental castration by a parent many become less flexible and even dysfunctional as they mature. The mental health industry is quietly moving away from the primitive focus on “abnormality,” but superficial popular attitudes cultivated by the mass entertainment “news” media still thrive.

An important step in preserving children’s healthy capacity to function flexibly throughout the lifespan is to promote accurate, balanced and comprehensive sex education from the earliest age.

References:

• 1. See, for example, “The Talk: What Your Kids Need to Hear from You About Sex,” by Sharon Maxwell (Avery, 2008), in which the author makes the unsupported claim: “99% of ten-year-olds have never felt an inkling of sexual desire.”

• 2.
• “From Persuasion to Coercion: Psychopharma’s Priesthood of the Mind.” http://memoryholeblog.com/2012/10/05/from-persuasion-to-coercion-psychopharmas-priesthood-of-the-mind/#comments

• 3.
• “Homosexuality and the Unnaturalness Argument,” in Philosophy and Sex, Robert Baker et al. (eds), Prometheus Books.

• 4.
• “Pedophilia and Sexual Offending Against Children: Theory, Assessment and Intervention.” Michael C. Seto. American Psychological Association. 2007.

• 5. “The Courage to heal? A Critical Review.” http://sexhysteria.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/the-courage-to-heal-a-critical-review/

6.“Faking Orgasm to Hide Sexual Dysfunction.”

http://sexhysteria.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/faking-orgasm-to-hide-sexual-dysfunction/

Faking Orgasm to Hide Sexual Dysfunction

There are several excuses that some women use to hide their difficulty or inability to reach orgasm during conventional intercourse, such as claiming that orgasm isn’t very important (the “closeness” is sufficient), or their partners aren’t competent performers (“too fast”), or the partner’s penis isn’t big enough (need a stallion), or female anatomy suffers from “a design flaw,” or that the clitoris is in “the wrong place” (1). This post focuses on the attempt to hide sexual dysfunction by faking orgasms.

First we should note that no woman need feel guilty or blameworthy for any attempt to hide sexual dysfunction. As I have pointed out previously (2), I believe that female sexual dysfunction is often caused by mental castration in childhood by parents and other misguided teachers, so when a woman grows up sexually dysfunctional she can hardly be considered at fault, and since mental castration is not yet popularly acknowledged, attempts to hide the problem rather than admit it and confront it are perfectly understandable.

The classic attempt to fake orgasms is for the woman to make dramatic noises during intercourse, such as “Ooh, ooh, oh, oh, ah, ah…” with increasing pitch and/or frequency to coincide with the male’s approaching climax. The dysfunctional woman attempts to deceive her partner into thinking she is normal and healthy (i.e. sexually functional).

But in reality the build-up to genuine orgasm is a process of progressively deepening relaxation, not increasing “excitement” as the dysfunctional woman mistakenly presumes. It has become a cinematic fashion to portray feverous excitement as normal sexual arousal, but such exaggerated drama is for the goal of story-telling, not realism.

Monkeys in the wild approach copulation very casually, and female monkeys in the laboratory have been measured reaching orgasm within seconds of penetration, without any sound effects, just as male monkeys and sexually functional male humans. If anything, making theatrical sounds distracts the male’s concentration and interferes with relaxation, rendering his orgasm more difficult. I suspect that women who manage to reach orgasm alone with the aid of a medical prosthesis (“vibrator”) do not engage in any audio drama. The only purpose of the woman’s sound effects during intercourse with a partner is to hide the woman’s sexual dysfunction.

I think it’s also safe to assume that male monkeys don’t study sexual techniques to become expert performers to satisfy their mates. Nor do male monkeys try to delay their own orgasm as long as possible to give the female “enough time” to climax too.

When it comes to the question of penis size, the logic of the “big is better” is unconvincing. Relative to body size, all species of monkeys have a smaller penis than human males. In theory, a larger penis is more effective in stimulating the vagina and clitoris (which actually extends internally and along both sides of the vaginal opening). But if that were true, then large vibrators would be more effective than small vibrators, or in the case of the male, being masturbated by a large hand would be more effective than being masturbated by a small hand. But none of these natural extensions of the logic of penis size have ever been verified.

Some men may really believe that a partner faking orgasm is sexually functional, while other men don’t care, and some men pretend to believe it so as not to hurt the woman’s feelings. (Some men fake orgasm too.) In a random telephone survey, most women who admitted faking orgasm (nearly half of those surveyed) said they did it to “please” the partner or to get the act over with. Only 30% of women surveyed said they always have orgasm during “sex” (3). The latter figure is consistent with previous surveys in which two-thirds of women admitted suffering from some form of sexual dysfunction. Strangely, the multiple choice questions did not even include “to hide sexual dysfunction” as a possible answer to the question: Why fake an orgasm?

We may reasonably ask, What is more pathetic: women pretending to have orgasms, or men pretending to believe them? Monkeys and other mammals make no attempt to hide their desire for copulation, nor the obvious pleasure of intercourse. The young see sexual activity modeled on a daily basis as a normal and positive part of life. Monkeys and apes do not grow up sexually addicted by such modeling. Our closest relatives do grow up to become sexually dysfunctional when they are isolated in the laboratory and don’t witness sexual desire and the pleasure of normal intercourse.

Historically I suspect that faking orgasms is a recent phenomenon. In the past when religious dogma had more influence on popular culture, male sexuality was downplayed and female sexuality was denied completely. So if a woman did feel sexual desire or sexual pleasure, she was expected to hide it rather than exaggerate it.

Once when I was a university student a professor was talking about estrus in lower mammals (the period of fertility when females become more receptive to copulation), and I remember a young woman in the class turned red and she looked away to hide her embarrassment. Even today, in some families a “virtuous” woman is expected to act as if she is mentally castrated whether she actually is or not; i.e. she is expected to be uninterested in and unresponsive to sexual stimulation.

That’s one reason why the “spurned woman” was traditionally considered a victim. If a man had a sexual relationship with a woman without following up with marriage, he had enjoyed himself but she (assumed to be “virtuous” and hence uninterested in sexual pleasure) hadn’t.

Sexual desire and sexual pleasure are perfectly normal and natural, and there is good reason to believe that the immature clitoris and penis need stimulation during childhood to allow the relative brain areas to develop healthy sexual function (4). Women’s physical and mental health require that the custom of mentally castrating little girls be stopped.

Even though immature sexual organs aren’t capable of genital intercourse, they may be effectively stimulated through self-masturbation. In the current climate of hysteria over child sexual abuse, that means there needs to be legislative reform that specifically allows parents to teach their children how to masturbate (e.g. by providing access to instructional videos), and specifically allows a parent to give children the opportunity (time and space) to masturbate or engage in sex play (mutual masturbation) with each other. Such children will grow up to become sexually functional adults, and pathetic behavior like faking orgasms will then become a relic of history.

References:

1. The hypothesis of a “design flaw” in female anatomy is quoted in: “The Science of Orgasm.” Barry R. Komisaruk, et al. 2006. The suggestion that the clitoris is in “the wrong place” is by the author of: “The Technology of Orgasm: Hysteria, the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction.” Rachel P. Maines, 2001.
2. “Sexual Inhibition and Mental Castration.” http://sexhysteria.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/sexual-inhibition-and-mental-castration/
3. “The American Sex Survey: A Peek Beneath the Sheets.” ABC News, 2004. http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/959a1AmericanSexSurvey.pdf
4. “Clitoral Erectile Dysfunction.” http://sexhysteria.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/clitoral-erectile-dysfunction/

Respecting Children’s Boundaries

In an article entitled “When Are We Crossing a Child’s Sexual Boundaries?” the authors suggest that certain adults (vaguely referred to as “professionals”) are competent to make sexual choices for all children, rather than allowing any other adults to make sexual choices for children, or (God forbid) allowing parents and children to make their own choices (1). But in reality the supposedly enlightened elite are denying children’s agency, as well as denying the competence of any parents or other adults who disagree with what the supposedly enlightened “professionals” claim. The topic is very complex, but in this post I will point out some of the fundamental problems when some adults arrogantly attempt to prescribe simplistic sexual “boundaries” for all children.

Claiming that child sexual abuse is “more prevalent” than was believed in the past, and that many more kinds of behavior should be labeled “abusive,” the authors say they hope to educate modern parents about what professionals have learned by “working with” victims of abuse. The authors state: “It is not the purpose of this paper to blame or accuse. Obviously, if we do not understand a child’s boundaries it is because our own parents did not model proper boundaries.” Then, without further explanation or justification, the authors list what they have divined are “proper boundaries” through their vague and mysterious “work” with victims of abuse.

“1) Touching the buttocks or future erogenous zones. Some parents touch and kiss their child’s buttocks. Most likely this happened to them as a child. They are confused about this boundary. The buttocks should never be touched. The area of the breast of young girls is a future erogenous zone and should not be touched.”

We are not informed as to why the authors specify the buttocks or breast area, or why this evidently important prescription is given first place on the list. Aside from the pretentious claims of probability (“most likely”), are there careful unbiased studies published in peer-reviewed journals demonstrating causation of harm, which are so widely known that there is no need to cite any references? Quite the contrary, the lack of references indicates the absence of valid evidence to support such claims.

In addition, the very concept of “erogenous zones” is suspect. Are not the lips, ears and other parts of the body “erogenous zones” that are not to be touched? Is there careful research published in which children whose buttocks and breast area were “touched” and suffered mental or physiological injury (controlling for the possible influence of other variables), compared to children whose ears or lips were “touched” and did not suffer mental or physiological fallout? The wise “professionals” see no need to address that inconvenient question, and instead move right on to the next prescription on the list.

“2) Putting medicine on a child’s genitals. It is not appropriate to put medicine on a child’s genitals. At about 2 years of age, the child is capable of applying medicine to his/her own genitals. The parent should put the medicine on the child’s finger and then ask the child to apply the medicine him/herself.”

Here I’m tempted to assume that the authors were joking. When I told two friends about it (a husband and wife team of pediatricians), they both laughed. There is no “medicine” that a two-year-old should be entrusted to apply to his own genitals. Antibiotic, anti-inflammatory or steroid creams are not intended for a two-year-old to apply to his or her own genitals. Do the authors consider sun-block a form of medicine?

The authors seem to be expressing their own confusion about the supposed importance of avoiding manual contact with a child’s genital area. A traditional treatment of pediatric phimosis (excessively tight foreskin in baby boys), is precisely for the parent(s) to exercise the foreskin of the child’s penis regularly (daily) by using the fingers to pull (stretch) the foreskin back so that the skin will grow new cells rather than become even tighter with age and necessitate eventual surgery (partial circumcision). These “professionals” seem unaware or strangely silent about the supposedly widespread “abuse” of countless baby boys traditionally prescribed by pediatricians for decades.

“3) Bathing a child and washing his or her genitals. Some parents continue to bathe their child well up into adolescence. The parent feels as if the child cannot clean himself/herself correctly or they feel that it is an act of love to give their child a bath. For opposite sex parent and child, between the age of 4 – 5, the parent should stop bathing their child. The child is perfectly capable of washing himself/herself. If the parent must wash the child’s hair, the child should wear underwear in the tub. By age 8, the child is fully capable of washing his/her own hair without the parent’s assistance. For same sex parent and child, between the age of 4 – 5, the parent should stop bathing their child. The child is perfectly capable of washing himself/herself. If the parent must wash the child’s hair, the child does not need to wear underwear in the tub. Again, by age 8, the child is fully capable of washing his/her own hair without the parent’s assistance.”

No evidence or logic is provided for this prescription that contradicts generations, centuries, or millennia of parental practice. Nor is any evidence or logic offered for the specific ages cited or for distinguishing between what is supposedly appropriate for same-sex vs. opposite sex parents. Such precise prescriptions have been established by the “professionals” without any need to cite or describe their careful research.

I was bathed by my mother until I was 12, and I challenge anyone to demonstrate any causal link between that experience and any later mental or physiological symptoms. How could any causal link be known in such a complex set of possible variables? As far as we know, the very opposite of what the authors claim may be the case: Failing to allow children past age 4-5 to be seen by their opposite sex parent may lead to toxic body shame and stress over sexual functions. This prescription dictates simplistic moral philosophy disguised as “professional” advice.

“4) Disregarding the child’s privacy. Some parents feel that they have the right to walk in on their child whenever they please. Parents must get in the habit of knocking on doors before they enter a bedroom or bathroom. Children should be taught to close and lock bathroom doors and to always knock whenever they see a closed door. This will create future good habits and the child will learn to respect another’s privacy.”

Yes, parents should not barge in on children in the bathroom without knocking, and children should learn to respect other people’s privacy by knocking first. I agree with this purely moral prescription as long as no health claims are connected to it, except for the prescription that children should be taught to “lock” bathroom doors. Closing a door should be sufficient to ensure privacy, without an excessive concern about locking the door as well. Why not advocate bolting bathroom doors and installing an alarm as well? Or how about a video surveillance camera outside the bathroom door to discourage violators and ensure a peaceful, stress-free environment for toilet functions???

“5) Walking around the house half dressed or completely unclothed. Some parents feel that there is nothing wrong with walking around the house unclothed. They may dress and undress in front of their child and step out of the shower while the child is in the bathroom. For opposite sex parent and child, between the age of 3 – 4, the parent should stop dressing or undressing in front of the child, and they should not walk around the house unclothed. For same sex parent and child, between the age of 7 – 8, the parent should stop dressing or undressing in front of the child, and they should not walk around the house unclothed.”

Here the authors seem to assume the classic fallacy that nudity is sexually arousing, and sexual arousal is a bad thing – especially at an early age. But in reality visual arousal is an effect of hiding the reproductive organs, not exposing them. These “professionals” seem to have no experience of family and social naturism (nudism), and they seem unaware that fixation is caused by deprivation, not satisfaction.

Where is the evidence or logic in choosing any specific age after which the sight of the unclothed mature body becomes a risk factor in any problems then or later? I not only feel there is nothing wrong with nudity at any age, I strongly believe that nudity is conducive to mental and physical health by promoting comfort with the appearance of the human body rather than promoting mystery, fear and body shame.

One difference between the authors and myself is that I’m not arrogantly claiming all parents “should” walk around unclothed. I’m willing to admit it is a matter of personal opinion and personal preference, until such time as valid evidence (rather than unsubstantiated claims) clearly demonstrates a health risk.

“6) Undressing the child in public. Some parents undress their child at the park, at the swimming pool or at school in full view of other children and adults. Between the ages of 4 – 5 the child should be instructed to change in a bathroom.”

Why isn’t the child given a choice as to whether and at what age he or she prefers to be undressed in public or not? The authors here are contradicting the moral prescription they stated in 4. I agree that if a child prefers not to be changed in public, then the child’s preference should be respected. On the same token, if the child is indifferent or does want to change in public (e.g. for convenience), then the parents should not command (“instruct”) the child to change in a shame-room, I mean bathroom. The authors themselves are crossing a child’s boundaries by failing to ask what the individual child prefers.

“7) Allowing the child to sleep in the parent’s bed. Sleeping in a parent’s bed is not appropriate. Between the age of 3-4 this practice should be discontinued. The child may be invited to crawl into the parent’s bed in the morning for hugs and kisses.

This apparently arbitrary prescription is the most arrogant one so far. What is dangerous about sleeping in the same bed? Why a universal ban on all families with no exceptions? No need to explain anything, just trust the wise “professionals” who “work with” abuse victims.

There is a book that features an extensive discussion of children sleeping with parents, and the book’s authors argue convincingly that children can be allowed and encouraged to sleep with their parents if the children want to. If siblings are available at about age four or later, children themselves usually choose to sleep in a separate bed with siblings instead (2). Cases are cited in which children who sleep together have warmer personalities, fewer nighttime problems, and better relationships with other family members. Although there is no hard statistical data, I suspect that careful research would confirm the benefits of voluntary family sleeping rather than forced isolation.

“8) Being sexually intimate with a partner while the child is asleep in the same room. Some parents share their bedroom with their child and engage in sexual intimacy while they believe the child is asleep. Often times, the child is wide awake and listening. This can create confusion, fear, and arousal in a child. Therefore, always wait until the child is out of the room to engage in any form of sexual intimacy.”

Aside from the unsupported claim that “Often times, the child is wide awake and listening” this prescription seems to assume that all children are unaware of what sexual intimacy is, or else all children have been indoctrinated to believe that sexual intimacy is “bad.” But that is not the case. Some parents do provide their children with accurate, balanced and comprehensive sexuality education, so the only reason such children might feel confused or afraid is if they wonder why the parents are apparently attempting to hide sexual intimacy.

In those cases where some children have been kept ignorant about sexual intimacy, or have been taught that sexual intimacy is “evil,” dirty, etc. in some sense, then perhaps those parents should be consistent and abstain from sexual intimacy altogether for the good of the child as well as the parents’ own good.

In a previous post I addressed the claim that sexual arousal or “overstimulation” is somehow dangerous or unhealthy for children (3), but here let me add that our closest relatives – chimps and bonobos – don’t hide sexual intimacy from youngsters, and despite extensive observations by scientists from the U.S., Europe and Japan, there are no reports that our closest relatives suffer from sexual “addiction” or sexual dysfunction.

“9) Talking about a child’s genitals while the child is listening. Some parents talk to other parents about their child’s genitals in front of the child. ‘My son is well endowed. He sure is going to make a lot of women happy someday’ or ‘I just know Becky is going to have large breasts.’ This can create embarrassment and confusion in the child since s/he does not comprehend the full nature of the conversation. Therefore, there should be no mention of the child’s private body parts while the child is listening.”

Again, the authors seem to assume that all children have the same education and experience, which is not the case. In many cultures adults joke about sex in front of children, and the children are clearly aware that the adults are only joking. As far as we know, instead of creating “embarrassment and confusion” in such cases, sexual talk may prepare and inoculate experienced children for possible discomfort when interacting with peers in school or other places where the parents are not present.

The authors also seem to assume that certain body parts are inherently “private,” when in reality it is the parents themselves and other misguided teachers who indoctrinate children to label and define certain body parts as “private,” a morally prescriptive label of religious origin (4). In moral terms, every child’s whole body is private. No child has any “public” body parts.

“10) Using inappropriate names when referring to private body parts. Using profane words or calling private body parts inappropriate names such as “weenie”, “winkie”, “boobs”, and “booty”, communicates a profane view of the body that feels icky and which causes confusion in the child. The parent should only use anatomically correct terms for private body parts.”

The authors here reveal a superficial understanding of the nature of language and communication. Using “profane” (rather than sacred) words for body parts may be motivated by different reasons depending on the speaker, and may be interpreted in different ways depending on the listener. The authors see no possible confusion in referring to children feeling “icky” ???

In some languages a little girl’s genital area is called “little flower.” I interpret that choice of words as an expression of affection, and possibly an attempt to reassure children that the female genital area is beautiful rather than ugly, and I believe that most children who hear the phrase “little flower” interpret it positively rather than becoming “confused.”

My belief could be tested by surveying children about how they interpret that choice of nickname. It would also be interesting to ask children why they think some parents use the morally prescriptive label “private parts” rather than anatomically correct terms – which the authors advocate inconsistently.

“11) Telling dirty jokes, leaving provocative magazines about, allowing the child to watch movies of a sexual nature. Exposing a child to material of a sexual nature is sexual abuse.”

This dangerously arrogant prescription creates a class of criminals by definition, without the slightest scientific support or logical justification. Informal sex education, entertainment or exposure to cultural norms is a serious crime, we are told, period. In reality, it is reasonable and plausible to suspect that failure to expose children to sexual information, formal and informal, at an early age may result in future customers for psychotherapy. How convenient for these “professionals.” Discussing sex openly and humorously is an expression that sex is a normal and healthy part of life.

“12) Communication to the child that sex is dirty, evil or nasty. Some parents tell the child that the genitals are dirty and that sex is evil and nasty. They shame the child if the child touches himself/herself and may even punish the child for masturbating. Parents should never insinuate that sex or the human body is bad, dirty or nasty. If the child asks questions about the body or about how babies are made, parents should answer questions thoughtfully and appropriately. The explanation given to a four year old will be different than the explanation given to a ten year old. A number of books on the subject matter have been written. Parents can consult the books and be ready with age appropriate answers. As regards to masturbation, it is a perfectly normal practice as long as the child does it in private. On ultra-sound, male fetuses have been observed masturbating in the womb.”

Yes, childhood masturbation is normal, and parents should never insinuate that sex or the human body is bad, dirty or nasty. But doesn’t this prescription contradict the others? Are we not insinuating that sex is evil and nasty by avoiding the sight of adults nude or contact with the child’s genital area? It is true that there are “a number of books on the subject,” but they don’t all agree on what is appropriate for parents to tell children. Like many authors, these “professionals” advocate telling children about how babies are made, but avoid explicitly discussing sexual desire and sexual pleasure, which is the very crux of the matter (5).

“13) Touching, kissing or hugging the child in a flirtations way. Some parents are confused about how to express affection to the child. A mother may nibble on her son’s ear and kiss him on the neck. She may push her breasts into his face and call him ‘her little lover boy.’ A father may massage his daughter’s leg or look at her in a desirous way. Parents should show affection in appropriate ways and avoid treating their child like a sexual object.”

This prescription is more in line with conventional views about child sexual abuse, and reveals only superficial familiarity with children. These “professionals” apparently “work” primarily with adults who rely on their fallible memories of childhood experience, rather than having extensive experience with children themselves. Children are very perceptive of emotions and moods. They may not know the names of emotions, but they perceive when someone feels positive or very positive, etc. toward the child. There is no sense in hiding or exaggerating the adult’s expression of feelings for the child.

What does “flirtatious” mean anyway? I don’t see any reason why a kiss on the neck should be considered less appropriate than a kiss on the cheek or the hand. I have seen a mother kiss a little boy on his neck in full public view and I didn’t feel it was inappropriate. Many parents kiss their children on the lips (including President Obama), and I don’t think that’s inappropriate.

These pretentious authors claim to be able to precisely calculate the appropriateness of a kiss depending on the location of the body, as if all children are the same, all kisses are the same, and all areas of the neck are the same. What measuring instrument did the authors use to arrive at that calculation? Many authors assert that massage of a daughter’s leg (as part of a full-body massage) is wholly appropriate; and what does “look at her in a desirous way” mean? What measuring instrument was used to determine that commandment of mental health?

Granted, parents should not exploit a child as a sexual object, i.e. as a means to satisfy the adult’s sexual needs. But children may benefit from watching adult models being “flirtatious” with each other, and adults looking at each other in a “desirous” way. Children may also benefit from engaging and participating in similar behavior as a form of play. That is how children learn to feel comfortable about their appearance, normal body functions and reactions, and normal behavior in mature interpersonal relationships.

“14) Staring at men or women in a sexual way while the child is present. Some fathers stare at women’s’ breasts or buttocks and some women eye men’s crotches or chests while in the presence of their child. This behavior is not appropriate around children. “

This prescription clearly contradicts 12, and may be a direct result of hiding the breasts and genital area. When kids grow up seeing nudity every day, they feel no desire to stare at those familiar body parts.

When parents refrain from modeling sexual interest or desire, are they not communicating to a child that sex is dirty, evil, or nasty? The authors claim that many parents are “confused,” but the authors’ contradictions seem to express their own symptoms of schizophrenia.

“15) Using poor judgment when taking a child into a public restroom. Some parents use poor judgment when taking their child into a public restroom. A mother may take her 3 year old son into a men’s restroom while other men are standing at the urinal. Not only is she violating the privacy of the men who are standing at the urinal, but if she is married, she is also violating her husband by looking at other men’s genitals.”

Is this another one of the authors’ attempts at comedy? The authors go on to elaborate this silly prescription, writing in bold type that a mother “should never go into a men’s restroom,” as if that would be extremely dangerous! The mother “should wait outside” [sic].

As for fathers and daughters, a little girl should “never” be taken into a men’s restroom. “There may be other men using the urinal which would expose her to seeing their genitals.” Oh my God, how tragic would that be? These “professionals” seem unaware that in Japan it is traditional for fathers to bring their daughters with them into public baths, where they are exposed to seeing their father’s and many other men’s genitals. No wonder traditional Japanese women grow up to become sex addicts???

Throughout the Western World there are thousands of naturist (nudist) families and hundreds of naturist resorts and beaches where children and adults see each other completely naked all day every day, but there are no reports of mass insanity from so many children seeing normal human anatomy.

I’m much more concerned about the epidemic of emotional incest today, in which many parents try to control a child’s every thought, word, and deed, keeping children under constant surveillance, prisoners in their own homes, for the parents’ own enjoyment of absolute power.

The authors state in conclusion that crossing “any” of the so-called boundaries listed is “sexual abuse,” that children should be reminded every 3-6 months to report if anyone touches them – “especially their genitals” (so children won’t feel that sex is evil or nasty???), and when in doubt: “It is always better to refrain from doing something than to do that something which can cause harm.”

I would conclude that there is enormous room for doubt about almost everything these authors have written, and to follow that last bit of superficial and self-contradictory advice: Refrain from actively terrorizing your children against sex, and instead allow them to satisfy their natural curiosity and love of learning through play if they so choose. Respecting children entails allowing them to choose their own boundaries, whenever there is no obvious or verifiable risk of imminent harm, rather than dictating arbitrary boundaries that poorly informed “professionals” choose, as if there is verifiable scientific data to support such arrogant claims.

1)   When Are We Crossing A Child’s Sexual Boundaries? (1999) By Blythe Daniel, M.A. and David Daniel, M.A. http://www.wethechildren.com/boundriesenglish.htm (last accessed 1 December 2012) I attempted to contact the authors at the email address provided, but my message came back marked: “This mailbox is no longer active.”

2)   The Family Bed (2002) by Tine Thevenin.

3)   Overstimulation: the Devil in Disguise? http://sexhysteria.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/overstimulation-the-devil-in-disguise/

4)   Forbidden History: The State, Society, and the Regulation of Sexuality in Modern Europe. (1992) by John C. Fout.

5)   It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health. (2009) by Robie H. Harris.

Overstimulation: the Devil in Disguise?

The word “overstimulation” is sometimes used to frighten parents against childhood sexual experience, and implies that sex education is dangerous because (if) it leads to sexual experimentation or exploration. But “overstimulation” is never explicitly defined, and there is never any specific explanation of what exactly is dangerous or unhealthy about it, and how can we know and verify that (1). This post considers what the word “overstimulation” might refer to, and what there is to be frightened of, if anything.

The concept of “overstimulation” entails the assumption that there is a normal (in the sense of healthy) level of stimulation, otherwise we could simply call the culprit “stimulation” without the “over” prefix. There may possibly even be an insufficient level: under-stimulation. In general there is little doubt that some stimulation is harmless or beneficial to the body and brain, and it’s difficult to overestimate the benefit of regular exercise to physical and mental health.

A normal amount of sexual stimulation may be considered that which an individual tolerates without ill effects or may even benefit from. Stimulation that doesn’t upset the person’s equilibrium or interfere with homeostasis may be considered normal. In some cases other internal or external conditions may upset equilibrium (provoking anger, fear, sadness or anxiety), and as far as we know some sexual stimulation may help restore equilibrium.

Some research on task performance indicates there is an optimum level of general arousal: neither too much nor too little. The same may be true of sexual arousal. A person may be considered over-stimulated when the resulting level of desire or arousal is a distraction from more important immediate needs. Note that there are many non-sexual distractions in daily life, such as music, sports, and scholastic competition, but we don’t outlaw them with threats of draconian penalties. Conversely, a person may be considered under-stimulated when the resulting desire or arousal is insufficient for a sexual response (in an appropriate time and place).

The amount of stimulation that can be considered innocuous or healthy may vary among different individuals, depending on prior experience (e.g. sensitization or desensitization), or possibly even genetic factors. As with inflammation and other well-known physiological processes, there may be a few individuals who are “hypersensitive” and overreact to what most individuals find an innocuous level of stimulation.

The most likely effect or symptom that indicates overstimulation might be stress and the subsequent fatigue after stress. During a stress response cascade due to a perceived threat (real or imagined) glucose is diverted to emergency uses and away from organs that are not essential in an emergency (e.g. sexual organs). Hence one possible sign of stress is a lack of sexual response when there should be one (in response to stimulation). Although sexual arousal is commonly considered a form of “tension” that is “released” through orgasm, we now know that sexual arousal requires calm, and in contrast tension or stress actually inhibit sexual arousal.

Stress can now be measured easily and non-invasively in the saliva (levels of cortisol or alpha amylase), so it is possible to monitor the effects of children’s spontaneous sex play. Lower levels of cortisol have been found in sexually functional women during arousal compared to women who are sexually dysfunctional (2). It is reasonable to predict that children’s stress levels may be much lower during and after sex play than in classrooms or other potentially stressful situations. (I have witnessed children literally scream upon exiting school.)

While overstimulation may cause stress, habitual normal stimulation may prevent or reduce the possible damage of chronic stress such as impaired development, immune-suppression, and (in mature individuals) infertility. Under-stimulation may possibly cause eventual dysfunction of the sexual organs due to the well-known mechanism of neural atrophy of relative brain areas after an organ has been under-stimulated during early development (see Clitoral Erectile Dysfunction). If under-stimulation leads to sexual dysfunction, it may be considered a risk factor in eventual self-destructive or socially destructive behavior.

In the final analysis the question of how much stimulation might be “too much” is an empirical question and can only be answered empirically. As far as I know the laws of most states don’t prohibit children from deep kissing or even tongue kissing, which is probably sexually arousing, so researchers could measure stress levels or other possible effects (if any) of sexual arousal without going near the genitals and running afoul of laws that treat the genitals as sacred. Nonetheless, theologically-minded members of research ethics committees might oppose such research (see below), though it might be enlightening to hear and confront the objections.

Aren’t children’s bodies extremely delicate? The skin covering the genitalia is unusually soft and smooth, lacking the pronounced friction ridges common on other areas of skin. So the genitals can tolerate a lot of contact and rubbing without the risk of discomfort, irritation or abrasion, compared to rubbing other areas of skin characterized by more pronounced friction ridges. Although immature skin is vulnerable to laceration and infection, it has an exceptional capacity for repair (see Learning about Love) compared to the skin of mature people or the aged.

The nerve endings in a baby’s genital area (even the testicles) can tolerate a lot of pressure and even impact without feeling pain or sustaining injury. That seems to be a built-in way to protect infants from the rough handling of their parents or siblings as well as possible falls. But a child’s genital area eventually becomes highly sensitive to both painful and pleasurable contact. The ability to experience pain is a way to warn the body to avoid harmful kinds of contact (e.g. temperature extremes). Why do the immature genitals have the ability to experience pleasure?

The nerves of the genitals respond to stimulation differently from other parts of the body. If you suck hard on your fingertip, the sensation will be irritating: the more you suck on your fingertip, the more irritating it feels. But if someone sucks hard on the tip of your penis, the sensation is very pleasurable: the more it is sucked, the more intense the pleasure until the ecstasy of orgasm. The body reacts similarly (favorably) to some harmful drugs, but unlike harmful chemicals, sexual stimulation is not characterized by tolerance (larger and larger doses needed to achieve satisfaction), dependency with withdrawal syndrome if you stop (vomiting, etc.), or overdose.

Babies usually receive a lot of stimulating contact from adults and siblings, but as some babies reach toddlerhood they go through a period in which they tend to resist handling. Some time after toddlerhood most children become receptive to skin contact again, but parents and other adults become inhibited about physical affection with children. A common response to a little girl wanting to sit on her father’s lap is “But you’re a big girl now.” A doctor has written that when she was a child she became furious when her father told her that 12 is “too old” to sit on his lap anymore. Young children derive satisfaction from sitting on a teacher’s lap, but some school policies now prohibit that (3). Eventually many older kids conform to cultural expectations and resist or reject physical affection themselves, or at least they pretend to reject it in public.

One of the most common expressions of irrational fear of stimulation is that parents and other adults have no qualms about a child hugging, caressing and kissing furry toys or pets. But if a child attempts the same contact with another child or adult the parents react with upset and even anger. Although pets may be dirty carriers of parasites, and children risk scratches or bites, such physical affection with non-human animals is widely considered perfectly acceptable. We are reminded of the cruel experiments with a baby monkey isolated and thereby having no alternative but to clutch a wire-model covered with soft cloth.

A young child sometimes engages in self-stimulation by rubbing his genital area against the edges of furniture, open doors, etc., and some parents are tolerant of that. But if the child attempts self-stimulation by rubbing his genital area against another child or adult, the parents usually react with some degree of hostility, ranging from mild disapproval all the way to outright horror. Interestingly, some parents caress their children’s buttocks, but strongly disapprove of other children or non-parents doing the same. That is apparently an expression of parental jealousy rather than a fear of overstimulation.

By maturity an aversion to touch is usually entrenched, and attempts to excuse and justify touch aversion often boil down to: “I have no qualms about stimulating contact; it’s just that I only want to be touched by my mother or Prince Charming.” Hence the endless search for “romantic love” as the only legitimate justification for enjoying stimulation. Some suggest that sexual activity is often an expression of the need for stimulating skin contact rather than a need for sexual satisfaction (4).

A possible benefit of overstimulation is desensitization. Once I was on a long-distance bus and had the pleasure of observing a girl (about 11) interacting with her brother (about 9). She continuously touched, hugged, squeezed and kissed the boy, with no objections from him. Quite the contrary, he seemed to be actively provoking her to do so. About once every minute or so the boy kissed their mother, and the girl responded by kissing him (on the cheek, ear, head, neck, back, arm), so it’s hard to imagine that he didn’t know he was pressing his sister’s button. Was she expressing love, or just playing? Older sibs often act as teachers for the younger ones, and it seemed to me that she was instinctively trying to build up his resistance to overstimulation through practice.

I won’t consider theological theories about demons and the devil being involved in the child’s desire and capacity for genital pleasure, but such theories may very well be the origin of traditional cultural taboos and 100-year-old laws against early genital stimulation and the supposed “trauma” of overstimulation (5). We should note that aversion to touching a child’s genitals (even possible indirect stimulation through clothing) is actively taught and passively modeled, as well as being prohibited with threats of draconian penalties.

It’s difficult to explain such a ferocious attitude without a theological origin. We may concede that the pleasures of the flesh certainly threaten to distract humanity from spiritual concerns. But when some individuals have a fanatical attitude against touch, advocating laws against as many forms of touch as possible, with government enforcement and severe punishment for “inappropriate” or “shameful” stimulation (as if the future of civilization depends on everybody keeping their distance), that should be considered touch phobia or touch hysteria.

Although there are obviously many different kinds and degrees of stimulation, most state laws make no such distinctions. Characteristically of phobia or hysteria, any and all contact with immature genitals, even the most brief and superficial, is feared as a kind of trepass on sacred ground.

Some authors have convincingly described the importance of skin contact, citing the benefits of touch to health and happiness from birth through old age (4,6). Nonetheless, there is a strong current in Western culture to be suspicious and fearful of innocent forms of stimulating contact, such as full-body nude massage, and the possibility of supposedly dangerous sexual arousal or unspecified “overstimulation” resulting from them.

Several authors have attempted to cultivate more acceptance of skin contact by specifically promoting baby and child massage (7,8,9). We know that massage reduces cortisol. Regular full-body massage of young children is also useful for early diagnosis of solid tumors like neuroblastoma, which has a dismally low survival rate if diagnosed late – as it usually is. Unfortunately, we are being viciously attacked by opportunists in the rescue business who profit by persuading people to believe any skin contact children may experience during childhood is probably a form of harmful “sexual abuse,” neglecting to mention the counter-evidence (10).  

Like magic, the age difference of playmates is claimed to be highly relevant: same age playmates, bad; 1-3 years difference, very bad; more than 3 years difference, “messed up for life.” (See Sex Play, Sex Acts, and Sex Abuse.) Hence a steady supply of potential customers for paid “counseling” and other forms of rescue services that have never been demonstrated to be effective or safe according to the standards required of medical treatment.

1. See my review of “The Courage to Heal…” http://sexhysteria.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/the-courage-to-heal-a-critical-review/
2. Hamilton, L.D. et al. Cortisol, sexual arousal, and affect in response to sexual stimuli. J Sex Med 2008;5:2111–2118.
3. Tobin, Joseph (ed.) Making a Place for Pleasure in Early Childhood Education. Yale, 1997.
4. Montague, Ashley. Touching: the Human Significance of the Skin. 1986.
5. Fout, John C. (ed.) “Forbidden History: The State, Society, and the Regulation of Sexuality in Modern Europe.” Univ. Chicago Press, 1992.
6. Atkinson, Mary. Healing Touch for Children: Massage, Acupressure and Reflexology Routine for Children Aged 4-12. (Gaia, 2009)
7. Auckett, Amelia. Baby Massage: Parent-Child Bonding Through Touch. William Morrow, 2001.
8. Jelveus, Lena. Swedish Child Massage: A Family Guide to Nurturing Touch. Swedish Health Institute, 2004.
 9. Adamo, Frank. Real Child Safety. www.books4parents.org
10. Rind et al. A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples (Psychological Bulletin 1998, Vol. 124, No. 1, 22-53); and Rind et al. The Validity and Appropriateness of Methods, Analyses, and Conclusions in Rind et al. (1998): A Rebuttal of Victimological Critique From Ondersma et al. (2001) and Dallam et al. (2001) (Psychological Bulletin 2001. Vol. 127. No. 6. 734-758).