{"id":8614,"date":"2014-12-21T05:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-12-21T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=8614"},"modified":"2014-12-20T23:19:50","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T07:19:50","slug":"children-and-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=8614","title":{"rendered":"Children and sex"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eve took a fruit, Eve bit the fruit
\nJuice ran down her chin
\nBabies will put things in their mouths
\nNever heard of sin.
\n–Joan Osborne\/Lumina<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For me, sex and innocence are intertwined. <\/p>\n

All children are sexual. We Americans try our best to deny it, and make children sexless cherubs, but children figure it out. They figure it out innocently. They touch things. They put things in their mouths. It feels good. They keep doing it. Adults might label it as sin, but there really isn’t a single thing that exists that is more human or more natural.<\/p>\n

Then again, arsenic is also natural, so there you go.<\/p>\n

How people think about sex, how people treat sex and sexuality whether in children or adults, is entirely a cultural construct. There is not one correct way to view sexuality in anyone, either in children or adults. <\/p>\n

In some cultures, no sexual feelings are considered appropriate outside of marriage. Which seems rife with problems, since all humans have them from a very young age. Practically all humans. <\/p>\n

In some cultures, female children are mutilated to prevent sexual feelings. <\/p>\n

In still others, girls are married very young so their sexual feelings are channeled to a particular man. <\/p>\n

People don’t seem to be as worried about the boys. <\/p>\n

The curse of the uterus. Being the child bearer seems to give women approximately the same status as livestock in many cultures. I wonder how much of that is because of the value of the babies potentially being produced (more specifically the ability to trust their lineage) as opposed to the value of the woman herself.<\/p>\n

So what do we do with the baby who figures out that his penis is fun? The little girl who figures out that laying on her hands and wiggling feels good? The answer in most of the U.S. seems to be to teach the nippers that those things are fine, but should only be done in private. Which seems like a good thing to me.<\/p>\n

But…in other cultures, the answer seems to be that the ideas way to deal with sexual feelings in girls is to cut out her clitoris. In some cases, to sew up her vagina. To most of us, the idea is abhorrent. There are many other societies that think it’s better for the girls. <\/p>\n

So who is right and wrong?
\nAre there any sexual moral absolutes?
\nI don’t think there are. <\/p>\n

Other people would probably think it is OK to kill me for acting that belief out. Which in my mind is reprehensible but in theirs is normal. <\/p>\n

Humans seem to really like to fuck things up. That much is clear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eve took a fruit, Eve bit the fruit Juice ran down her chin Babies will put things in their mouths Never heard of sin. –Joan Osborne\/Lumina For me, sex and innocence are intertwined. All children are sexual. We Americans try our best to deny it, and make children sexless cherubs, but children figure it out. … Continue reading Children and sex<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-2eW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2512,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2512","url_meta":{"origin":8614,"position":0},"title":"The age of innocence","author":"Michelle","date":"November 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Eve took a fruit, Eve bit the fruit Juice ran down her chin Babies will put things in their mouths Never heard of sin. --Joan Osborne\/Lumina I don't really know how I would define innocence exactly, but I'm not sure I ever was innocent. Even when I was little, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9751,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=9751","url_meta":{"origin":8614,"position":1},"title":"The evolution of sexuality and self awareness","author":"Michelle","date":"April 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.--ee cummingsI was sexually precocious, I think. I suppose all children are, before they get corrected out of it. I don't remember a time where I didn't masturbate. There was the infamous episode in which I got caught doing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4159,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4159","url_meta":{"origin":8614,"position":2},"title":"Dream","author":"Michelle","date":"February 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"It is one of those dreams that is like watching a movie. I don't know any of the people in the dream, and I am not in it myself except as a sort of above-it-all observer. The feelings in the dream are not mine, but I am aware of what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1829,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=1829","url_meta":{"origin":8614,"position":3},"title":"You think I should do what?","author":"Michelle","date":"October 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 What the fuck is ladylike If ladies like to do What the fuck they like Just like you. --Storm Large\/Ladylike \u00a0 Huffington Post tweeted a link tease to an article the other day entitled \"6 things every woman should do.\"\u00a0 The article was innocuous, but \"every woman should\" is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5009,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=5009","url_meta":{"origin":8614,"position":4},"title":"NSFW: Blow jobs and magic","author":"Michelle","date":"April 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This post might be considered offensive by some people. 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But hand them a story told by a dozen women and suddenly it's the riddle of the goddamn sphinx. --Mark Harris As a young adult, I had always been a strong\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Random thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Random thoughts","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}