my@102, do you know the word "squick" was invented around 1994 in the alt.tasteless newsgroup as a response to the question "What is the sound of a good skull fucking?"

It soon came to mean a feeling of intense disgust from hearing about something super gross, like a skull fucking... or, you know, a couple holding hands... :-)

@99, for me, Erica, I would wonder if your kids ever see the dynamic go the other way, meaning you ask your husband to do something, say please and smile, and he does it. You and he are role modeling adult relationships for your kids, and if they only ever see you acquiesce, albeit with a smile, and never see you ask or him comply, then they are getting a really specific one-way message: men ask (demand), women comply. It's not so much about the sex life here as it is about how they will interact with their future partners and what their expectations will be of those partners.

@nocutename, but I think an interesting aspect that people didn't mention (at least up to your last comment) is that all kinds of sexual relationship 'spill over' onto non-sexual life.

In fact, that's part of Dan's claim that heterosexual couples can live and be accepted as such, doing things like holding hands or kissing in public -- while homosexuals who do the same thing are "jamming their lifestyle down other people's throats".

Likewise, when a vanilla couple shares a smile, which may well be (and probably is ultimately) sexual in origin (since even simply expressing the pleasure of being together as a couple implies what it is that typically makes a couple a couple in our culture, i.e., sex), this is accepted. Similarly for holding hands, kissing, words like 'baby' or 'hon' or even 'sweetheart'.

But if a kinky couple shared a little something of their happiness together -- the smile while loading the dishwasher -- some people might see this as "jamming their lifestyle down other people's throat" or "non-consensually forcing others to partake in your sex life".

A lot of 'appropriateness' has to do with expectations of vanilla (= non-kinky) and heterosexual (= non-gay) sex between couples. Within certain boundaries, het vanilla behavior that is ultimately sexual in nature or origin is still considered acceptable -- but not from other orientations.

@Erica - I did not! I first heard the word, hm - I'm going to go with 10 years after that? At least?

In 1994 I was... well probably colouring, mostly.

Hang holding/hugging doesn't bother me - but I don't consider that to be sexual? More friendly/platonic. Is there an opposite of voyueristic? I'm that. :p

@99 The thing about hugging, kissing, and winking is that they're only as sexual as the context the user applies them in and they can be applied to a wider range of relationships (friends, relatives & etc.). The key difference I believe is seperating the sexual aspect from the affectionate one. If something can be interpeted as purely affectionate and performed by someone in any intimate relationship (parent to child, partner to partner & etc.) than it's appropriate. Of course what you do when the kids aren't in the same room, are drooling infront of an electronic screen & etc is completely up to you and Mr.P. And I have to say kids learn how to interact with others based on your interaction with each other and it's hard to change their behavior once they start a habit. For example, an uncle of mine slaps his wife's ass. Because of that since he was 3 yrs old to present I have to correct my seven year old cousin for slapping me and other female relations on the ass. Really awkward.

Erica and Ank @82 and @89, thank you for the explanations. I'm afraid that the comparisons to religion do not make the whole thing much clearer to me. Your dom(me) is not actually a god and I'm sure that you know it.

I guess I just don't have the "sub" or "dom" personality required to understand this.

@102 exactly! I can't stand seeing major PDA, no matter who it's between. I even get annoyed at sex scenes in movies sometimes, no matter how vanilla they are. I believe it was Roald Dahl who said, "The act of copulation is like picking your nose. It's alright to do it yourself, but it's a singularly disgusting spectacle for anyone looking on."

Dan, great response to CWIA. Thanks for bringing in the big guns (Dr. Cantor). My heart goes out to CWIA as he attempts to find healthy relationships and avoid those that would be a bad idea. Stay strong, CWIA!

@113

I also dislike sex scenes in movies. I don't know if I love that comparison but Dahl was a funny man, I'll give him that.

My perspective on it is this: I like ice cream. I love ice cream actually. I could do nothing but eat ice cream all day and be perfectly happy. But I have zero interest in watching someone else eat icecream. Especially if I'm hungry. If you're a person who's always hungry? You'll never be a fan of watching other people eat.

@95(pushcraig), it's not per se disgusting, but the fact you thought so (as well as the fact you accused me of being/talking like a pedophile, despite the fact that I am not one) is part of what I was trying to say when I said it's nearly impossible to talk rationally about this. Just in case, I'll offer you a few comments on what you wrote.

Children don't have the emotional maturity to know better. Explaining sex to a kid, telling htem it's healthy and feels
good and selling it like a vitamin supplement
is still manipulation...

Children indeed do trust you pretty unconditionally (I think that's what is really behind what you call "lack of emotional maturity"), so you indeed have to be careful about what you tell them. We do tell kids that many different things are "healthy" and "feel good" and "sell it like a vitamin supplement" -- that's how we taught our daughter do exercise daily. We invented a name for every exercise or yoga position we wanted her to practice -- "that's 'the little fish', and that's 'the bird', and that's 'the little dog', and that's 'the mountain', and that's 'the bridge' -- and we came up with a story with all those characters she tells while doing the exercises. This fills her with glee, and makes out of exercising -- something she usually finds boring -- very interesting and pleasant.

Parents do things like this to children all the time. Is this manipulation? If so, then a lot of parenting (the part called 'education') consists of 'manipulation.'

Why would sex in principle be different from exercising?

An adult has the
responsibility to protect children from doing things before they're ready. Why not tell a 6 year old that didn't take a nap to do a line of cocaine to wake up?

Of course. But when are they ready? At 15? 14? 10? 8? 6?... Besides, they start playing with things they aren't "ready for" almost from the very beginning. My daughter already 'worked' (by imitating us and pretending to type on a computer keyboard) when she was 3, 4 years old and had absolutely no idea what 'work' was. Was this "wrong"? Should I have said "horrors! no! stop! don't do this! you aren't ready for 'working' yet, you're too young!"

Cocaine is obviously harmful to the health. That's a no-brainer. "When not abused and in small doses, it's harmless right?" It's not what I've heard or read. But then again, I've never used cocaine.

Sex, on the other hand, clearly isn't inherently harmful.

Your cocaine example suggests that you're thinking of sex with children as starting at the most complicated/dangerous/risky level. That's not how you teach children to play games, or sports. If you want to teach them to play baseball, you don't start with your wickedest curveballs; if football, you don't start with bone-breaking tackles. You do things that are at the mental/physical level of the child in question, and always bearing the child's interest and mental/physical development in mind. (And, of course, the idea that children should also have fun.)

I have read about people who had sex with a parent and still do, because they were raised with the logic you suggest. It's still brain washing. It's subscribing to a belief because you trusted someone who abused your trust.

It's interesting that you jumped from "sex with children" to incest as a matter of course -- it's another aspect of our culture, which sees sex with children as inherently incestuous. Still...

Some of them even 'got married' with their parents, and lead happy lives, if you trust what they themselves say -- judging by a newspaper article I read not so long ago about one such case. Are you sure they aren't? As sure as the conservatives are about gays being vile?

How is that in essence any different from any activity said children might continue to share with their parents well after adulthood? My wife, for instance, always went mountain-climbing with her dad. She still does, when she pays them a visit. Is she doing that only because her dad "raised/brainwashed/manipulated her to believe that mountain-climbing with daddy (a potentially dangerous activity! people can die!) is OK!" Revolting, right?

Please don't encourage people with diseased minds with your nasty ideas.

That is actually a good point, and it does concern me. But assholes and manipulative people can always use such arguments to justify their manipulative behavior.

All in all, either we want to find out where the truth lies (and in this case we have to speak openly), or then we recede in fear of those who do not want to converse constructively, but only seek rationalizations for harming others. I choose and support the former. But as I said, not without concern.

Life is dangerous.

@ank?

Did you miss my response to your post?

Hay Dan,

There is an option that CWIA should consider. Just find a good therapist and let them report him. Think about what will happen next.

The police won't get involved because there is no allegation of any crime.

If there is a child somewhere involved the Child Protection agency where they are will check to make sure there's been not been abuse and may follow-up regularly to make sure.

The worst case is that people with kids close to CWIA might discover he has pedophilic impulses, which might not be a bad thing.

It's super scary and puts your sexual preferences in some peoples faces you'd rather not but it's not like they don't have a need to know.

@73 et al:
I think that couples modeling affection in front of children is a good thing. And I think that unless the affection is of the "oh, gross; ick" variety (too much, too overtly sexual), kids actually are reassured to see that their parents have affection for each other. So from that angle, I would say that it's nice for your kids see you respond to their dad in an affectionate manner.

It is possible that kids would see the smile in response to a "request" to reload the dishwasher and interpret correctly to refer to a private joke, even if they don't realize that the joke is sexual in its origins. And while I think that letting the kids pick up on the fact that mom and dad have private jokes is in the same category as a little light PDA (appropriate to model), I'd be a bit concerned that in this particular behavior, what they APPEAR to be witnessing is a hyper-controlling, micro-managing husband (if the dishwasher was already loaded, they're seeing what looks like controlling for the sake of being controlling, which indeed it is), and an always-acquiescing wife, who doesn't question useless, work-making domestic demands.

Now it could be that they also witness plenty of times when the wife/mom doesn't respond that way or the husband/dad doesn't make those kinds of demands or does a domestic task himself or even does one at the wife/mom's request. And they could also be witnessing requests made with a "please," and "thank you," and also witnessing the husband respond to little gestures of submission the wife makes with gratitude.

But, as #108 said, I have issues with modeling submissive domestic behavior that breaks down along gender roles. I would be very careful to make those moments rare or to model a variety of other ways of interacting domestically to offset those moments. And I would find other, maybe even more subtle ways of establishing/acknowledging that D/s relationship privately, especially as the kids get older.

@100(mydriasis), it's a theoretical topic to me, since I have never tried it, nor have I ever seen anyone trying it. But I think it wouldn't in principle be different from teaching children how to swim (something I've done a few times).

How do you teach children not to be afraid of the water (in case they are), and actually to enjoy and have fun in it -- while keeping in mind that they're not adults and might still do stupid things and harm themselves if left unattended?

(Because they do like the water -- even the children who are afraid to swim will look with envy and those who do. Likewise, as you pointed out, with sex: children are clearly sexual beings, though not really fully developed ones in the sense adults are given the absence of hormones.)

A first step is to get the child to enjoy the water. Shallow water, up to the knees, where you can sit, splatter water around, play with floating ducks and other toys, etc. If you do it right (and it's not really difficult), they'll be having great fun. And this way you'll see what they like or don't like about being in the water. You keep that in mind.

Then you have a pretty good idea of where you want to go. Can we try to float a little? Look, that's how I do it -- fill my lungs with air, and I lie down in the water, and see -- I don't sink! Can you do that?... Then you hold them, lying across your arms, so they feel you're right there to help if something frightens them, then they inhale, and keep the air in their lungs, you're still holding them, but you slowly move your arms down... Children are usually afraid at this point, but you keep reassuring them until they can float well... and voilà: suddenly they love floating!

I have the impression something similar could be devised for sex. Again, starting with whatever the child already likes to do -- usually they enjoy touching themselves (though at this age it is difficult to speak of 'true' masturbation, since, as I understand, they get no orgasms).

The big difference is, of course, that a child can sompletely learn to swim -- s/he doesn't need an adult body for that. With sex, lots of things are only possible after the hormones come.

@112, if it helps, I don't feel like ankylosaur @89. My husband isn't an angel, and he isn't the center of my religion. The arbitrariness of human existence is more the center. I love my husband, and he's smart & nice & he was willing to be my dom. Those are pretty arbitrary reasons for obeying someone, but it's that very arbitrariness that gives it meaning to me.

Some people feel their dom is actually making better decisions than they would. That's not me. (I'm way too conceited :-) I feel that submitting to an ordinary (smart, nice, loving) human lends a certain flair to my life, that means I'm not "just a housewife." I'm a work in progress of existential art.

@89 But sex with kids is *inherently* wrong because they will never be able to give consent. They are too young to do things like sign contracts, do drugs, get plastic surgery and have sex.

I'm glad you understood the point I was trying to make about kink. I am not sure if it applies to other things of not, I guess it couldn't hurt to try.

BTW. I am a woman. The bane of Lord Domly Pants not Lord Domly Pants himself.(not a big deal, I just don't want to be called he forever.)

@112, in addition to EricaP (who does feel differently from me -- "existential art" instead of "haloed angels"; as you see, like everybody else, we're not all the same), I'll just say the following.

Of course we subs (or wannabee subs in my case) know that the Dom(me)s aren't gods or know the world any better than we do. But pointing this out is like pointing to a vanilla person that the person they're in love with, the person who seems so 'special' and 'lovable', is just a person like everybody else.

At some level, people who are in love "know" that the object of their love is just a person, no better and no worse than a million others, even with some irritating defects. And still they are in love, i.e., they see/sense "something special" about this person they're in love with, something that makes the word "love" meaningful. Not simply a sexual attraction (though that's a big part of it), but a feeling that makes this person more important than others -- even though there is no rational reason why exactly this person should be more important than others.

If you can love someone (see him/her as "special" for some mysterious reason) and at the same time see him/her as a person like everybody else (without this knowledge making their love meaningless) -- then why is it strange that a sub could see his/her Dom(me) as "angels" and submit to them, while also knowing that they are simply people, without this making their submission meaningless? As EricaP points out, the arbitrariness of it (which I read as meaning: the fact that it is our choice) is what gives it meaning, in D/s relationships and in vanilla love relationships alike.

I hope this helps! :-)

@108, 109, 111, 119, thank you for considering the question seriously. You all make good points, and I'm going to think about whether I can come up with a good way of phrasing this, for use with BDSM folks who are just figuring themselves out.

I hope you guys can see that I take feminism and gender roles very seriously, and I don't think our children are learning that women should be submissive and men should be dominant. We hang out with lots of working moms; know a couple of gay dads; feminism and socialism are serious topics at our house; and everything is always up for debate at the dinner table.

But (in case you can't tell), I have tendencies to be domineering, which I get from my mom. In fact, submission appeals to me in part as a tool for fighting my bossiness. Mr. P was raised by his own domineering mom, and our dynamic could just as easily have gone the other way, with him submitting to my dominance. But I think we're happier this way, and I know that I'm happier not passing on the bad model from my own childhood to my children. It's possible that I'm passing on a different bad model; but at least I'm also passing on the idea that you get to choose the framework for your life, rather than just repeating the patterns of your parents.

Also, for what it's worth, our D/s is a bit aspirational, and doesn't come easily to us. (I do ask Mr. P. to do things around the house, and I don't always do what I'm told.) But when it works, we share a smile.

Finally- the dishwasher doesn't get completely unloaded and reloaded - who has that kind of time?! It's more if I'm putting a dish on the bottom rack that he thinks should go on the top rack, he'll ask me to move it and I'll obey without a whole discussion of why my way is superior (although it is :-).

@122, "bane" as in "affliction or curse"? Cool, it's another new word, I didn't know it. (English is not my native language; I've just googled it.) By coincidence, "bane" sounds very much like the Irish word for woman, bean [b(y)a:n]). Sorry for mis-sexing you.

Children cannot give consent to things with lots of possibly bad/harmful consequences (contracts, voting, drinking, plastic surgery, etc.), but they do give consent all the time to all kinds of things -- and I hope they're taken seriously. If I ask my daughter (who is 9) if she would agree to play chess with me, and she says yes, I am sure she is giving meaningful consent. (She plays chess rather well, by the way. I can see she soon will play better than me.)

The point is that, in our society, sex is construed a Big Important Thing With Lots Of Consequences, so of course children aren't "prepared" for it. But is it?

Adults of course always know a lot more about everything -- not simply sex -- than children, so whenever engaging in an activity with them the utmost care and attention to their needs is necessary. This makes anything -- not only sex -- between children and adults inherently asymmetrical. But asymmetrical doesn't mean 'not fun', 'not meaningful', 'not consensual.' These things do become trickier, but they don't disappear.

@93

I don't want to distract from the seriousness of your son's abuse (it definitely was abuse), but the POS in question is, based on your account, absolutely not a pedophile. Technically, the POS is an ephebophile, or a person attracted to post-pubescent adolescents:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophili…
This distinction isn't particularly helpful to you, I know, but I do think it's important to distinguish between the two. Your son felt he was involved in a consensual "adult" relationship with this person--again, this does not mitigate the seriousness of the abuse; in some ways it makes it worse. All abusers manipulate their victims, but your son's POS did it by convincing him that he was an equal in the relationship--a pretty goddamn damaging position for the poor kid to be in. I hope your family can recover from this.

(Sorry, one more note: yes, we could just be egalitarian instead -- but that leads to wasting time arguing about how to load the dishwasher... I'd rather give in right away, and move on to fucking :-)

@111, the point you raise reminds me of the expectations some moderate conservatives had that children who grow up with gay parents may end up seeing gay relationships as 'the default norm' and expect this and acquire all kinds of habits (kissing people of the same sex, hugging or touching them more than is 'appropriate', etc) -- in other words, that, given their being raised by gay parents, their behavior will be different from 'normal' kids with heterosexual partners.

Usually this doesn't happen. True, children do imitate many of their parents' idiosyncrasies. But as they interact with others outside their home, they learn to stop with that (as you are teaching that child not to slap women's behinds). In fact, at some point children often even become very critical of their parents and the differences between them and the 'common norm/expectations' they get exposed to at school, with friends, etc.

I would expect the same to happen with children who see some D/s dynamics between their parents (of the kind EricaP described: the smile while loading the dishwasher). As they grow, one hopes their parents will explain things to them more and more (just as one hopes gay parents will also explain to their children that most people are not gay, and that the societal default assumption is heterosexuality).

@119(nocutename), which means, in principle, that you would feel better if the PDA went against "typical" gender roles -- i.e., if it was the sub hubby smiling after deferring to his wife's opinion on how to load the dishwasher?

So you wouldn't expect all other sources of influence (TV, school, friends, etc.) to counterbalance this? Plus, of course, the conversations parents have with their children about boys and girls and equality (a context in which an explanation for the sub spouse's smile might be embedded)?

Ankylosaur

Please put trigger warnings on the top of posts like that.

I am probably not the only one quivering in a ball of nauseated flashbacks now.

@130, we talk as if we are equals, but we're not equals. If I were in a room with Obama, he might be nice enough to treat me as an equal, but I respect the authority he has as my (elected) President, and I respect the authority my husband has as my (chosen) Dom. I try to defer to him, but I don't always succeed. But as I said at length @124, I think my kids know I'm strong-willed and don't see me as abused.

@133, I've seen egalitarian marriages waste a lot of time discussing stupid issues. I guess you've had different experiences. Maybe I shouldn't tell you that vanilla couples who have a lot of sex are probably often smiling about that, even in public, even when it looks like they're just chatting about some random topic. Sorry to be the one to break it to you.

Dan, you advised CWTA not to have children. I wonder why. I am attracted to adult men and I have 2 young sons. But I don't ever fear that when they become adult men that I will become attracted to them. I am also attracted to adult women. My daughter is becoming a beautiful young woman, but I am in no way attracted to her. Is it different for pedophiles in general (general enough to assume form a letter that makes no mention of it that he would be attracted to his own offspring)? Is incest not a block to any of them? I know it isn't a block for all of them, but is it a block to NONE of them?

Dan - I am in for supporting a fund for the very courageous CWIA. I am a survivor, along with nearly 10 other children who lived in my neighborhood in a coastal Oregon town during two years in the early 70s, who lives with daily fallout from having crossed paths with a pedophile. Who knows how many more children there were over the years? I have been in therapy and/or treatment since I was 15. I am highly accomplished and appear to be confident and well-adjusted. On the inside, I am self-loathing, "contaminated", and I fight constant urges to harm myself. I work very hard at my recovery and it's never enough. Your writer will save lives every time he can fight his urges and make another choice. He deserves support and encouragement. Please establish some means for us to help him fund the therapy he seeks.

EricaP, what strikes me about your marriage, as you describe it, is the same as what strikes me about all successful relationships: you're really, really, really committed to making it work. The successful D/s marriage might have superficial differences from its vanilla counterpart, but that's all it is--superficial. It's very generous of you to share so much of your experience with us, especially since people can get a little, ah, intrusive at times (last week springs to mind), but your input is very much appreciated. Enough fawning, though--whenever I tried to incorporate mild D/s elements into the humdrum household boredom of my recently deceased relationship, it never worked, because I kept trying to do things "wrong" so he would punish me for it, but his natural laziness as far as the state of the house (and as far as the state of my sexual satisfaction) would kick in, and I'd wind up unspanked and with a sinkful of dirty dishes. The whole thing really loses a lot of its spark when you have to keep reminding the other person what the arrangement is--even though he was theoretically totally on board and enjoyed beatings, etc, he never could commit to doing it more than a few times a year. We never did find a decent balance, although I was the only one who suffered because of this. I left him a few months ago for a lot of reasons, but the more I think about him the more annoyed I am that he made so little effort to satisfy my needs, especially since he enjoyed my kinks whenever we did engage in them. You're lucky to have someone who can make the same kind of effort you do.

@137 truth be told, he doesn't put in as much as I'd like. At the beginning, yes, but it faded away. Just like you, I got tired of begging for more dominance, and we spent about five years only actively scening about once a year (though I fixed him coffee every morning, and earned a nice smile for doing so...) The flip side of opening our marriage was that I get a lot more BDSM attention now. More from other people, and also more from him, since his competitive side reared its head. If people want to make a BDSM relationship work longterm, it's hard to figure things out by yourself. Books, and online support groups help immensely.

That last line was cryptic: I mean, these same issues come up in most BDSM LTRs, and it's good to see how other people have worked through them.

Dan could probably fill his column everyday with letters from submissive men and women who can't get their partner to be dominant enough.

@EricaP, I wish I could have tried opening up my last relationship, but my boyfriend was waaaayyyy too possessive for that. I prefer monogamy, actually, but I think our relationship might have stood a better chance if I'd not been so much at my wits end sexually. I'm fine with mostly vanilla sex, but when the vanilla sex is so boring I can barely stay awake, the D/s stuff is virtually nonexistent and I'm the only one making any effort on either front...! His refusal to even think about even discussing opening up the relationship on very, very, VERY strict terms was one of the things, I think, that made me just totally turn off sexually. Something about how possessive yet neglectful he was really hurt...like he was a five-year-old and I was some neglected toy that he wouldn't play with but wouldn't share.

That sounds really awful... So sorry...

Well, it makes freedom all the sweeter. Being back on the market and open to attention from guys again has made such a huge difference in my general state of mind--not to mention how exciting it is to fuck new people again! My ex was the only guy I'd ever lived with, and I really underestimated how fantastic it would feel to hook up with new partners after all that monogamous cohabitation. It's kind of making me question how much I really enjoyed the stability of monogamy...although I imagine I'll jump back on the monogamy bandwagon if I ever fall in love again.

@132 Ankylosaur is a very intelligent socially awkward person, that is my guess. Or a well spoken troll. Sometimes people get a feeling of satisfaction when they use rationality to "explain" horrifying topics. It's like "I'm speaking clearly and precisely, therefore your bad feelings are your problem" Which of course is bullshit. There are enough adults in this world who had pedophiles in their early life, who made them feel like it was all loving attention, who now recall the events as confusing and maturation stunting, to prove all of Ankylosaur's theories wrong. I feel sad for this person who is so cold and calculating or enraged at this person who is creating a "character" in a comments text box for the enjoyment of stirring up a reaction. Either way, you are going to be ok 132. Most people are good and trustworthy. I was not molested but Ankylosaur's comments made me shudder and most people do not agree with this point of view. I'm sad that Ankylosaur may have convinced some poor pedophile mentally ill person out there, that it can be done "ethically"

@128 Actually the cousin in question has a brother and there were some rather funny, but awkward moments were they did hug, kiss or engage in some kind of inappropriate affection with other boys they were friends with which they thought was ok because they did it to each other, their cousins & etc. Affection exchanged between men is very common even in the homophobic, hyper conservative environment that is my father's family. Still I just don't see sexually charged exchanges as something people do infront of kids, not because it's bad just out of place (like sleeping at a reception). Plus those akward moments could easily turn into something with the potiential to hurt others; for example it was funny to us in kindergarden to kiss on the mouth like adults and it ended a year later (cuties!), but if it had been touching or something of that sort the parent of the other child probably wouldn't be too interested in hearing any excuses, not to mention the weirdness on the receiving party's end.

As for kids seeing non het couples, I actually think that's healthy. Seeing another way of life is always an opportunity for them to learn, regardless of what kind of household they're from. Plus like you pointed out, you never know what kind of home they'll want to make for themselves later on, so showing them variety is critical for self exploration.

@128 Sorry, I just realized something when I re-read your post; I addressed you talking about non het couples when you were alluding to D/S. The key difference, which I think disqualifies them being compared, unlike non het relationships they can and apparently most even want to (see OK's letter) hide their participation in D/S from even their adult children without harming themselves or their partners (closeted homosexuality almost always ends with someone in a bad spot). But prehaps that's a gross generalization on my part, if it is I hope someone will correct me. Anyways, how is a child suppose to discern and scrutinize the reason behind the difference in their parents and other people's parents if they're never suppose to find out? Will they just think their parents are odd and/or dysfunctional? 'Cause I KNOW mine are, and it really ate at my confidence when I started my own romantic relations.

TRIGGER WARNING

@144: Social context matters - if ankylosaur is right that some forms of sexual contact between adults and children could be non-harmful in principle, then certainly part of what would be required for that would be for society as a whole to take a very different attitude, not just about that issue, but about the weight we give to sexuality in general.

I'm not sure if that's possible, and I'm not sure if it would be an entirely good thing even if it were. But the fact that a pedophile attempting to be nurturing (or merely portraying himself as nurturing) is largely doomed to failure in a society that condemns sexual activity on the part of children and labels it inherently exploitative, says little about the prospects for nurturing sexual relationships between children and adults in a society that viewed child participation in sexual activity like child participation in sports - somewhat risky, and with a potential for abuse, but also potentially rewarding and enjoyable.

I will reiterate: Whatever might be true of alternative societal structures, adult-child sex cannot be done ethically in the society we actually have, and pedophiles should not try. Also, while I'm making disclaimers, I'll note that I'm not sexually attracted to children, nor do I know of anyone I know who is.

As for why ankylosaur is making the argument he is, I imagine it's the same reason I'm defending him (although not necessarily his position), namely that he believes he's right, and he thinks it's an interesting topic to explore.

As far as trigger warnings go, given the horrific shit that sometimes is discussed in the column itself, I think the general assumption here is that this is not a "safe space" for people who are triggered by just about anything related to sex or relationships. That doesn't mean that trolling just to set people off should be tolerated, but it does mean there should be some space for serious discussion of ideas even if they have the potential to trigger those with PTSD.

@ Ankylosaur

Where are you from? I am mixing you up with someone and thinking you are from Denmark and from Brazil.

@Ankylosaur "Not even here in the Netherlands, or in Scandinavia, would this be a good idea."

Oh, are you Dutch or did you move there as an adult?

@145 The kids see me holding my own in our wide-ranging dinner table conversations; he doesn't tell me what to think, and we both enjoy our lively debates. Even if they're paying attention when we discuss finances, politics, etc., they wouldn't hear me being "overruled by daddy's will." That part is subtle, whereas the vigorous debate is vocal. I find it hard to believe that y'all see me as a docile submommy, but trust me, that's not what the kids see.

ankylosaur @123, the comparison to being in love with someone makes sense. But a expressing a feeling like that the form of actually, 24/7, wanting to submit to, let alone dominate, the other person, is alien to me.

By the way, are you familiar with medieval French poetry? It suddenly struck me that the way you describe your concept of submission in @89 is a lot like "courtly love" as first formulated in southern France in the eleventh century. My guess is that you will meet kindred spirits from 900 years ago in the writings of the trouvères.

@151 Awesome! Probably shouldn't worry about the other so much then. The idea is not to present an unbalanced relationship to the kids. Seems like you are doing fine.

@152, you mean the trouvères and troubadours? Oh yes, I am! :-) I've studied a year of Ancient French and Provençal, including modern (Félibrige) Occitan (especially Mistral). Since these guys invented romantic love as we know it today, the similarity is certainly not random.

Let's put it this way: if someone said s/he wanted to feel in love 24/7 -- that s/he never wanted to stop loving his/her beloved, but wanted to feel all the time the elation and the openness one feels when one is in love (instead of letting actual reality sour the mix), that would still seem, I think, overly optimistic and starry-eyed (and in practice impossible); but somehow it would 'make more sense' and be easier to understand than the desire to live a 24/7 relationship, right?

I think people imagine 24/7 relationships on the basis of D/s fiction (Literotica is full of them). In real life, lovers of all kinds (including D/s lovers) are people with real-life problems and difficulties and shortcomings that don't go away just because we'd like the glow of love to keep on forever.

We comprise. Romantic vanilla and BDSM people alike.

In fact (since I don't currently live in a D/s realtionship), here's a question to those aspiring to a 24/7 one (EricaP?): what do you do when your Dom(me) has a real-life problem that shakes him/her emotionally in a way really compatible with his/her dominat role (an accident, a death in the family, losing one's job, you name it) and now needs nurturing? Can you 'step into' the role of the nurturing parent/spouse, take an active role and offer consolation, while your Dom(me) cries his/her woes away? Does that 'break' the sense of a 24/7 relationship to you, to suddenly be needed as a source of consolation, human warmth, a beacon of light, etc.? As if you were 'superior'? (I think I know the answer, but since I've never been in this situation I'm curious about those who have.)

@132, I am truly sorry if this had such an effect on you (another problem with discussing these things openly). I'll refrain from further comments on the topic.

@135, indeed pedophilia and incest are often conflated as if they were logically the same thing, and yet (logically speaking) they aren't.

@156, I meant to add: without TRIGGER WARNINGS...

TRIGGER WARNING...

@144, I am neither (I'm a college professor in a well-known university overseas), and my point is not that your "horrified" feelings are your problem, but that they are not rooted in the actual problems of the thing itself -- which do exist but are not the ones people talk about --, but more on imagination about 'what it means' + social expectations, etc. You may disagree with me, I'm OK with that. But that's no reason to offend me. (That only shows how hard this topic is to discuss rationally at present.) There are also enough people in the world who as kids had sex with adults without getting traumatized (one is a colleague of mine); but, of course, such people don't really come out and say it (just as gays didn't use to, and non-monogamous couples today still don't).

@148, indeed, it is impossible in this society, which is the reason why my advice to CWIA above is not to defend his desires but to try to curb and control them to avoid harming children and himself. For all intents and purposes, pedophilia in our society is not going to work.

The philosophical question is whether this is pedophilia's fault, or our society's fault. Our society has changed about other things in the past; it might change with respect to that as well.

Whether this would be better or not, is a good question to debate. I'm afraid of what people here might think or do if I offered thoughts on the topic, so I think I won't. I'll only say that the sports analogy would apply here as well.

@150, I'm actually Brazilian, but I've moved to the Netherlands about eleven years ago (after five years in the US doing my Ph.D), where I met my wife (who is a Dutch citizen, though by birth she is Russian Ukrainian). I'm now a binational Dutch-Brazilian citizen.

@140, that's actually my current situation, and always was with former girlfriends (with one blessed exception). With my wife we've managed to incorporate certain elements that she feels comfortable with (who doesn't like back rubs and foot massages?), and she will walk the extra mile for me ever now and then, blessed be her heart. By and large this has been enough thus far; I don't feel really 'neglected.' I wonder if I might in the future, though.

@161, but the fact that kids are not stupid also leads to them understanding that things in other homes are not as in ours. Think again of kids with gay parents: are they going to grow up gay because of that?

Furthermore, is it really true that kids (or adults for that matter) would think that the way things go in the dishwasher is REALLY the important thing, as opposed to lively discussions about all kinds of topics? I don't think I've ever met a kid (or an adult) who thought that.

Besides, parents talk to their children as they grow up, and explain things, in an age-appropriate way. Growth is not all random; there's also parenting.

"Healthy" sex with children? Good lord...

It's not entirely a question of the sex itself. Children are sexual and will often engage in sex play between one another. There is a very, very big difference between this and sex between a child and an adult. To sum it up, the difference is POWER.

There's a reason statutory rape doesn't just mean adults+minors: even consenting adults can get in big trouble for this if they have a relationship of power over the other person. Adults having sex with children can be compared to therapists seducing their patients.

Yes, some of us get off on dominance and submission, but between consenting adults, power over one another is GIVEN, which means it can be taken back. ULtimately, the power in the relationship is equal.

Having sex with someone who has REAL power over you is, yes, very inherently damaging and unhealthy. Without equal power, there can never be real consent. A dependence relationship (such as children have with MOST adults in their life), in particular, makes real consent impossible; the instinct in children to preserve the relationship AT ALL COSTS will trump their desire to avoid sexual contact. This is a basic survival mechanism.

Without equal, informed, free consent, sex is rape. We define rape as a violent act because sex is deeply intimate and forcing that kind of intimacy where it isn't wanted is a predatorial act. It is not mutual enjoyment, it serves only the predator. Having sex with someone who only cares about their own fulfillment is a highly unpleasant experience in its own right, but when that person doesn't even care enough to respect your RIGHT TO REFUSE? It sends a message of, "you are a thing for me to use, worth less than I am," and it embeds that emotional message into a deep, vulnerable place.

Mr Ank - I don't know that it was the best idea using gay parents for your comparison in post 128. I've tried three times to compose a post about it and can't.

@135 - I believe Dan advised CWIA to not have children because of potential legal complications, not because he feared CWIA would abuse his own children. If CWIA has children in his care and then discusses his problem with a therapist, the therapist would be required by law to report him to the authorities even though he has committed no offense.

Ms Erica - Passing over the question of whether or not it's a little sad that knowing working mothers and gay fathers shores up anyone's liberal credentials, I do think you have more inherent challenges than your specious counterpart, the Stereotypical Christian Submissive Wife. You, based on history, are doing what you have learned to be best for you and trying to model Strength and Informed Choice. SCSW is living by faith and modeling what she's pushing as The One Right Choice. (I'll avoid a tempting sideline about the concept of Rumspringa.)

It does make me wonder about the differences between S-driven and D-driven relationships. Going by post 138, which seems in line with what you've said often enough before, your relationship does seem to be S-driven. Taking BDSM as three pairs of dualities combined - B/D, D/S and S/M, you seem almost like an interesting combination of a second-pair natural D and a third-pair natural M - not quite, but close to it. Although I am annoyed with myself because I shall now be contemplating dominant masochists and submissive sadists all day, I do wonder how the P marriage might be different if the parental relationship were instead D-driven, with Mr Erica wanting a more submissive wife rather than the other way around as it's said to be.

Now that I've fulfilled my Sincerity Quota for the month, I'll conclude by proclaiming that, regarding your wondering who has that much time, if you've even formed an opinion about the "superiour" way to load a dishwasher, you've already put yourself into Column B. As for role models, I'm primarily inclined to stick the Bad Role Model label on your gay friends, and I shall predict the following catastrophe:

Young Miss Erica (or Mr Erica fils will lose hir girlfriend to a bisexual friend whom everyone takes for gay but whose obsession with her breasts turns out to be not so par-for-the-course after all.

(Talk about tying new packages with old ribbon!)

Oh, bother - I noticed just too late that "(or Mr Erica fils)" didn't come out quite right.

Ankylosaur - on your triggering message.

No "healthy sex" is possible between a child and an adult, every survivor will tell you that.

I know no theory on that, but I know from experience that just this small thing : as a child, to understand that an adult is sexually attracted to you, even if the adult never acts on it - it's enough to scar a child for life.

Children need physical contact to be reassured that being alive, and actively engaging in the world is OK. They know these physical contacts are reassuring for them, and they assume that cuddles are a gift of reassurance to them, a one-way act of gentleness. If they come to understand that some adults derive deep pleasure from cuddles, though the child had no intent to give anything, and even less a thing much more intense that what it has ever experienced, the child feels taken advantaged of, duped, robbed, violated. And children like that won't ever seek cuddles again, even if they really need physical reassurance - because the possibility of cuddles leading to being trapped and used is more than they can handle. Physical contact with the outside world goes from being reassuring, to being a terrible threat, of being used against one's will, maskerading as reassurance.

It provokes an instant, intense fear that has no equivalent in the adult world - the fear you'd feel if you heard on the news that atomic bombs are headed approximatively to your place, and if you yell in fear, they'll spot you. And that fear can be so powerful and devastating, that it may even not be conscious, it may appear only in your dreams. Can you imagine not being able to sleep at night in peace, ever, because of your dreams, while not yet an adult ?

And if the caregivers do not react to this fear strongly enough to reassure the child, or if the caregivers are the source of this fear, then you get lasting trauma. The child is still technically alive, but its mind is dead. Its will to live is dead.

It's well known that parts of a sexually abused child's mind shut off. Even without violence or actual sex, children who have had the misfortune of feeling sexually desired by adults won't grow up "feeling normal". I didn't.

@155, of course if he has a problem I'm there for him, in whatever role he needs from me (adviser, confidante, driver, lover, shoulder to cry on...)

@164 it's not "fetch me my slippers," it's "oh, honey, could you get my slippers please?" But I'll talk to Mr. P. about toning it down in front of the kids. Only 9 more years until they're out of the house anyway, so...

@167 Sorry for any offense in mentioning our gay friends. And for your end question, yes, I assume my kids' hearts will be broken from time to time, as most people's are. Life is pain, highness.

Boom. I gotta say 163 has it. Very well said! The reason it is inappropriate is not so much the inherent danger/non-danger of sex itself, it is the power inequality that exists naturally in any child-adult relationship.

It is the same reason sexual offers between a boss and subordinate are inappropriate. There is nothing inherently wrong with a non-threatening sexual invitation from one adult to another. However, an unequal power dynamic has the potential to make any sexual advance threatening. Perhaps the boss really would be ok with rejection. Perhaps the subordinate would indeed choose to fuck the boss even if the boss were not the boss, but of course, perhaps he/she would not. The issue is not that having consensual sex with a boss is in and of itself "bad"; it is that there will always be the potential for duress or coercion within that interaction, given the framework. We have to err on the side of reducing those outcomes, so even consensual relationships between bosses and subordinates are inappropriate in practice.

Now I suppose we could have genuine discussion about what age at which adolescents start to approach adults in terms of equal footing in relationships. That doesn’t seem to have a clear-cut answer.

@WOW: Just like another controller, posing as a hip, "open", swinger.

@169 sissoucat
Thank you.

@EricaP
PDAs are problematic even when they fall into the hetero-vanilla-normative category. You need to understand that BDSM in all its variations is deviant. Therefore any BDSM related PDA is going to be ill-received indeed. Don't you know you're a pervert? ;-) Next thing you know two men will be permitted to kiss on TV and we don't want to see that do we? No one wants the gays shoving their sexuality in our faces. (this is sarcasm people)

@ankylosaur
I hate to put it this way but you're just wrong. Sex with kids is out of bounds and to even discuss hypotheticals is a mistake. You must know that this will never go anywhere so pragmatically it's a moot point while the discussion itself poses serious problems. It has consequences. I appreciate that you want to discuss this academically but it's too high an obstacle to surmount in a society that criminalizes certain kinds of sexual doodling. If you want to change attitudes start with that. Maybe you can work up to underage sex dolls if you can get that done first.

@171
It doesn't need an answer. There is an age cutoff for a good reason.

Normal adults can easily confine themselves to having sex with other adults. You don't need to fuck kids. What is the urgency to go below the age limit we've agreed upon?

TRIGGER WARNING...

@laurelgardner&ssioucat, on power imbalance.

Power is indeed an important element in any relationship between adults and children, because adults so obviously 'control' things. Which is why playing sports with children is certainly not like playing sports with adults. There's nothing a child can do to beat an adult in a sport: adults are bigger, stronger, react more quickly, have more resistence and stamina... If sports with children were about 'who wins' and 'competition' (as sports between adults only -- or between children only -- can be), then there would be no fun in it -- the adult would simply always win.

And yet we can engage meaningfully in sports with children, because, in this case, the motive is not 'winning' or 'defeating the oponent'.

On the question of 'meaningful consent': indeed, because sex is Such A Loded Topic With Lots of Baggage In It (Sex Is Dangerous) in our society, consent becomes a complicated thing, which you can only give if You Know Already Everything.

And if we stay behind the premises of our society, that is indeed the case. Again I reiterate -- this is the reason why my advice to CWIA is 'get help/therapy', 'find some way to control your urges', etc.

But if our society were to change...

If a child can meaningfully consent to a game, or to playing sports -- and they can: if they have the choice, and say "yes!" to playing chess, do we say their consent is meaningless because they don't Know Everything about the game?

I really do think that our attitudes about sex and minors -- and sex and children -- do reflect in the end our beliefs about sex itself. So if you feel like answering my question above, please answer this question first: what's sex to you? And what are its dangers?

Ankylosaur (and in a less direct way, EricaP):
Back @129, you made some assumptions about me, my thinking, and the way I raise my children that are wrong. You said:
"which means, in principle, that you would feel better if the PDA went against "typical" gender roles -- i.e., if it was the sub hubby smiling after deferring to his wife's opinion on how to load the dishwasher?

So you wouldn't expect all other sources of influence (TV, school, friends, etc.) to counterbalance this? Plus, of course, the conversations parents have with their children about boys and girls and equality (a context in which an explanation for the sub spouse's smile might be embedded)?"

First of all, I'm not that absolute, nor do I try to control the environment that thoroughly. Now that Erica has amended her original description to say that Mr. P occasionally asks her to replace a glass in the dishwasher, the scenario is less disturbing to me, but as a rule, I would have to say that I wouldn't want my children witnessing anyone micro-controlling another person's method of doing a household chore--whether the other person smiles or not. I know too many women who wish their husbands would help out around the house more, yet criticize every attempt to help with a chore that the wife somehow comes to feel is in her domain. She ends up hovering over, correcting him, or decides that he is incompetent and does the chore herself, while he likely doesn't appreciate his efforts being belittled and criticized. A generation of these women grew up in families and saw this dynamic enacted, and I'd like people to give up ownership of domestic chores and accept that different people have different ways of doing them, and that the goal is to share the labor/drudgery.

And the smiling at being told what to do is unnatural. The natural reaction would be to feel resentful. So children either get a Stepford Wife-vibe, or make assumptions in the way that OK's mother did, or they sense that there's a private joke going on. If it's the joke, that's one thing, but if not, I would be concerned that they either think mom's being abused or that mom is paying lip-service to her feminism, and is a believer in the subservience of women. They may also decide (for good reason, based on the evidence) that their dad is an asshole.

Still on Ankylosaur's #89 message. Still triggering.

"there are safe ways of indulging in it -- from pornography to sex with children under controlled situations"

Using child pornography, you think it's safe and ethic ? Watching a child being tortured to death by its internal organs ? Encouraging people to torture children for financial gain ?

Sex in a controlled situation - exactly who would control the situation ? Do you mean the pedophile, other adults, or the child ?

Other adults have no way to know how the child really feels. If asked, the child will say whatever will most probably let him/her survive the ordeal. That is : go along, and pretend that everything is all right. Have you ever seen how frightened children behave ?

As for a situation controlled by the child. Ask yourself : could a 6-year-old control a sexual scene ? A 5-year-old doesn't even understand time the way we do - tomorrow and yesterday are clear, but "in an hour" or "in a few minutes" are about the same, and the succession of the days of the week are still a trouble. A child those ages cannot cross the street alone - the brain can't evaluate properly the cars' movements. How could a child control a sexual interaction, something he/she has as many clues of, as how it feels to be sucked into a black hole ?

Ankylosaur:
There are times and/or subjects for having purely analytical discussions, but the subject of sex between adults and children isn't one of them, either now, or ever, for all the reasons of power-imbalance and the effect of knowing that you're desired sexually articulated very powerfully by laurelgardner @163 and sissoucat @169.

I also take issue with your "playing sports with kids" analogy, which rests upon your stand that sex is "Such A Loded Topic With Lots of Baggage In It (Sex Is Dangerous)," which you disagree with as an artificial socio-cultural construct.

Well, I'll put my foot in it and say that yes, for me, and many, many people, sex is different from almost any other activity. It carries baggage, not necessarily dangerous baggage, but emotional, mental, psychological baggage. Even those of us that have a ton of random, meaningless sex, put sex in a special category. It isn't just a physical act/sensation akin to scratching an itch, drinking a glass of ice water on a hot day, stretching after sitting for a long time, or any other analogy you can come up with.

I will refrain from bringing your own child into this, except to say that if you examine your own feelings, you would probably not think that if only we were all more culturally relaxed about sex, you would be fine with a 30-year-old having "consensual" sex with her.

I know you are on a crusade to take all the negative associations away from sex, but the way to do that is not to insist, theoretically and academically, that sex is just another physical activity. Sex *is* meaningful, in a variety of ways, differently to different people, and trying to rid it of all its accompanying baggage is probably not only impossible, but may well be undesirable.

With your 'let's-think-of-how-sex-between-an-adult-and-a-child-can-be-a-good-thing-if-we-remove-the-erroneous-idea-that-sex-is-a-BIG-DEAL' line of thought, in my opinion, you've crossed that undesirable line.

Ms Erica - I was hoping you would take it as a compliment. That bit was an afterthought - having been disgustingly sincere earlier, I needed something frivolous, and they fit the bill ideally. I shall henceforth be only too glad not to think of them again. In fact, I shall emulate Sherlock Holmes and let them occupy the position of the scientific fact that the earth revolves around the sun.

Mr. J - While I agree that there does need to be a cutoff, I was just pointing out that whatever age the particular cutoff is is by definition arbitrary. As such, I could see argument about what the cutoff should be, in the same way I could see argument that age 21 is too young/old a cutoff for legal drinking, for instance. But certainly the existence of a cutoff is indeed necessary and the one we have is fine, I was not suggesting otherwise.

@ 166. Yes, you may be right that the warning to CWIA not to have children was based on custody considerations rather than fears of incest. I know a good half-dozen same-sex-attracted or bisexual pedophiles who have raised children to full adulthood, as well as many others with younger children, and incest isn't part of their lives or their imaginations. That may seem hard to reconcile with all the family incest stories that dominated the literature of the 1990s, but most of those abusers would be classified as opportunistic, and in most cases their primary orientation was heterosexual. I do know one person who was abused by his father, who then later went on to abuse other boys, but this was a man who was equally aggressive as a heterosexual and would never have conceived of himself as a pedophile. I think we could write him in as a sociopath.

As dramatic as tales of pedophile-sociopathy may be in the press, they have nothing to do with the reality of most pedophiles' lives. Clearly CWIA is not a sociopath. My guess is that he has no desire to be a dad, particularly via the heterosexual route, but that if he were to find himself in that situation, he'd be very conscientious.

On the other hand, if he took his private sexual problems to a counsellor and got himself reported, he could be banned from seeing his kids unaccompanied. That is a very difficult situation to live with.

#89 ankylosaur's message - triggering.

"Given the current cultural scene, however, the chances of this ever being actually rationally discussed in public are the proverbial snowball's chance in hell"

Don't look into the future for acceptance of pedophily. Your considerations on pedophily as being the ultimate sexual barrier were shared by a number of "thinkers" of the 60s-80s in Europe.

At that time, a French national newspaper portrayed a pedophile who was found with a harem of 6-year-old girls in his house as providing for them, and as introducing them to their true selves. The journalist described the abducted girls as "happy and budding little women", whereas their incensed parents were labelled "patriarchal retrogrades". Many intellectuals signed an appeal for the pedophile not to be prosecuted, and for "free love (understand : sex) for children". Quotes from memory, I'm not reading that garbage again.

Since the 80s however, pedophily has been widely condemned - perhaps because people stopped focusing on the glorious accounts that the pedophiles make of their "love for children", and started to listen to the ex-children, recipients of the said "love".

You'll find reading material here (in French, but I know you read it) :

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologie_de…
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A9doph…

I hope it will open your eyes.

Having sex destroys children, the way it's done matters very little. If anything, "non-violent" could be worse psychically, because a child will often believe he/she is the sole responsible for what happened.

"I fought and I was not strong enough", "I was overpowered" - leaves one with way more self-worth than - "I asked for it", "I'm such a whore that I seduced an unwilling adult and lured him/her into having sex with me ; I'm worthless, I'm a predator, I don't deserve to live".

I love reading your column each week and really enjoy the direct way you deal with people. Can't tell you how many people at work say, "I ask you because I know you will tell me what you think". Though certainly not a shrink nor do I play one on TV but I think you have another avenue to offer this guy. Role play. There are plenty of guys/gals out there who enjoy pretending to be a child in a sexual situation. Perhaps that would be one for this man to release some of the pent up tension that comes from denying who you are and suppressing the feelings inside of you. Who knows, perhaps he might after awhile transfer those feelings to the adults who help him live out his fantasies over time. Just a thought.

Love your column can't wait for the Dallas Observer to come out every week so I can read it.

I am not a shrink nor do I play one on TV. However I think you might offer the gay pedophile another way to deal with his predeliction. What about role play? There are plenty of guys/gals in the kink world who enjoy pretending to be a child and going through sexually inappropriate behaviour. Perhaps in time "I can't wish it away" would be able to transfer his sexual desires to the adults he plays with who are pretending to be children. It isn't a great leap to think that after a year of playing with a person who enjoys acting out the child's role that the two would become emotionally attached to each other and perhaps explore other roles or give them up entirely. Just a thought.

@179, I got tangled up in the later parts of your post @167, so I forgot your sweet comment that I'm modeling "Strength and Informed Choice" - I do thank you for that.

Has CWIA looked into ballet dancers? Small, lithe things that tend towards looking young while not being young.

Dear CWIA,
I applaud your desire to do the right thing and your courage in coming forward.

I don't know what choice you'll make, but perhaps you would consider chemical castration while undergoing therapy and considering options. Chemical castration isn't permanent--it consists of taking drugs like SSRIs (Prozac, Zoloft) in large enough doses to significantly inhibit libido. But when you stop taking the drugs, your libido should return. Hopefully, you will have learned some combination of coping strategies in the meantime so you won't have to go a whole lifetime without having a "good enough" sex life that provides enough satisfaction.

Sometimes "good enough" is going to have to be enough. For all of us.

Good luck and I wish you well. If there were a support group you could join, that might be helpful. Maybe we here on Slog could be that support group.

As always, I'm deeply impressed with Dan's moral compass on #1. He's such a calm, compassionate voice in this field.

Anklosaur,

Pretty cool that you're a Dutch-Brazilian with a Ph.D!
I'm just an Anglo-mutt with a BA of Music!

@ Mr. J and others - thanks.

Triggering

@175 ankylosaur : sorry, slow writer, I didn't see your answer until after having posted. I hope my previous posts partially answer your remarks.

If you want to know how sex feels like for me, this is how : it feels like I'm millimeters away from a time warp where I'll wake up seeing my father happily pounding away between my legs.

I need to be seriously aroused not to think at least once of being raped by my father, while having sex. I need the lights on to check on my partner's face. Sometimes it's not enough, I need to hear him talk - because it not being my father's voice helps bringing me back. If what's in my head wins - I can't have sex. I can't be touched for a few days.

The least thing that anything sexual with an adult does to children is, forever ruining sex for them as adults.

Would you like that ?

And my case is but a mild one : sometimes I can enjoy sex. I've had orgasms. I guess it's because in reality, I've not been penetrated, and the only reason I wasn't is because I stood firm on my ground.

Nobody helped me out. There were a mother and an older brother in the house, but I was the one to insist on my father wearing underwear when we were both nude-wrestling on his bed and he was doing frottage on me.

Ever been sitting on an male adult's lap as a child, ankylosaur, and he opens up largely his legs, which opens even more your short ones, and you feel his junk touching you ? Think it's nice ?

Surely every girl in the world locks her door at night from the inside to keep her father out ?

But what my body and my mind have felt tens of years ago, in reality or in rape dreams, will never go away. And when it comes back, it doesn't come back as something that happened, it comes back as something happening again, now.

sissoucat, I'm deeply sorry that you had to endure such abuse. I hope you heal a little more with each passing year.

sissoucat, I'm so sorry for your suffering...

Ankylosaur-- Nocutename and others have said it better, but maybe I have something to add. Imagine an experiment, a scientific or social one, that should work. It makes sense that it should work. There are others that can be compared to it that have worked. In theory and in computer models, it should work. But when it's been tried, over and over again, in many models and with many variables changed, IT DOES NOT WORK.

You can compare sex with children to sports with children. You can posit that under different circumstances, with different cultural expectations, under a different paradigm, maybe it could work. Then look at the reality that there are no instances where an adult had sex with a child from an early age, and the child is happy, or mentally healthy, or even functioning at full capacity.

Ah, you counter, how do we know that? How do we know that there aren't now-adult children out there who are happy and well adjusted despite adults in their lives having had sex with them? What if we just change the definition of having sex with them to include things like relaxed attitudes towards nudity which is considered a terrible thing in the west but ordinary in parts of Africa where no one ever wears clothes?

Answer: Nudity is not sex. Sex is not like anything else. Some kids come through the abuse better than others, but no one survives at an advantage; no one is better off for being abused. While you may be able to come up with a story somewhere of someone who says the sex with an adult was okay, it is not a documented case. If it is a documented case, it's a one in a million, and that still doesn't prove that the victim wouldn't have been better off without the sexual activity.

Back to my experiment. If there were a possible good end, if this was like finding the formula that would prevent polio though others have failed, it would be worth it to keep looking, to keep experimenting. But it isn't. There is no good end. So it doesn't make sense to talk about under which circumstances it would be alright for adults to have sex with children. There aren't any.

Ankylosaur - so, let me get this straight: your entire argument, here, is predicated on the idea that sex isn't inherently emotionally different from/more significant than playing chess or baseball?

At the risk of having you sneer at me for not engaging in the same veneer of respectability you are in this argument...that's insanely fucking stupid.

Chess and baseball are not intensely physically and emotionally intimate. Sex is. This isn't a social construct, though we create plenty of social constructs to try to pretend that certain sexual activities DON'T come with a high degree of vulnerability.

This isn't something subjective and it's not something you can sit and philosophize about. It's science. It's psychiatry.

Example: we don't feel vulnerable after orgasm because of social constructs about the meaning of the sex act, we feel vulnerable because orgasm causes dopamine (reward hormone) production to plummet and prolactin (negative, depression, fear hormone) to spike. Someone MIGHT connect this feeling to a social construct (e.g. Catholic guilt) but it's folly to assume that therefore, Catholicism created the bad feelings that are really the result of a natural prolactin surge that's too high.

Chemically, it's not possible for a child with a still-developing brain to experience sex with an adult in a manner that won't have a negative impact. This is an extension of the fact that children are negatively affected whenever they sense that they are being used by adults to fulfill a need they are not yet mature enough to fulfill. It's accurate to say that this stunts a child's emotional growth because it prioritizes the needs of an adult over those of a child while the child has no ability to seek out other avenues to get developmental (nurturing) needs met. The adult, in this situation, is taking where they should be giving. This makes the child less a child, and more like prey or livestock. Rightfully, the child ends up with a deeply-ingrained sense of fear as a result.

The more profound the nature of that "taking" is, the more damaging it is to the child. Asking a child to display age-appropriate maturity, age-appropriate sharing and giving, is not damaging because more basic desires, needs and pleasures are something a child can understand, navigate, communicate about clearly and express personal boundaries regarding. The more complex the needs and desires, the greater the potential for damage.

Sex isn't the only example of too much taking, as I see it. Another common example is adults who use children emotionally as if they were grown-ups. You see this commonly in women who divorce, then use one of their children as emotional replacement for the spouse. Frankly, I think that's just as fucked-up as sexual abuse of children, though it effects them in a different way.

@ankylosaur,
I usually enjoy your posts, but 89 and 120 have horrified me out of my usual lurking.

Children are taught to swim, first, to protect them. So they are less likely to drown. They don't need to learn how to have sex in case they fall into a situation where this would prove handy.

There is, with swimming, the pleasure of mastering a skill with your body, but again, that doesn't mean children must do it, the earlier the better. Keeping them away from sex doesn't mean making it dirty: it means acknowledging that some things are for adults. Many things take adult judgment to participate in, that natural progression from crossing the street without supervision to driving a car, as one's ability to make good judgments increases. Sex is something where individual choice and judgment are critically important.

I talked to a man who loved baseball and coached kids' teams, and he felt the trend toward younger and younger teams was a mistake: kids who started at 9, when their mental and physical development was ready, could play in the same way as the kids who started earlier. Baseball is complex. I see it with math and the push to introduce algebra earlier and earlier (and I love math and have children good at math): the brain development needs to be there for them to handle the abstract symbolic manipulation. Back off and introduce variables when they're closer to 11, rather than deciding if 8 year olds have trouble with the concept maybe we should introduce it at 6 so they get earlier exposure. (Language is symbolic manipulation that works to introduce early, and writing between speaking and algebra--humans are symbolic manipulation. It does not mean we need to drill our toddlers in calculus to prepare them.)

Children are not just short adults.

@183 - I actually just started work as a phone sex operator. One of my specialties is pretending to be a little girl for pedophile callers.

They know they're really talking to an adult, of course. Many of them are really scared and embarrassed when they're telling me what they want me to do, so I always make it a point to tell them that fantasy isn't right or wrong, but having healthy outlets for desires is a good thing and they should be proud of that. I get the impression many of them have never had the experience of being able to be open about their pedophilia and be accepted by anyone who isn't also a pedophile. When you think about it, that's a real problem because it isolates these people from anyone who could really help them. Their only outlet for understanding is people who are the most likely to enable them.

What I also think is interesting is that it does seem to genuinely turn them on when I say something like, "I may be all grown up, but I still think of myself as a naughty little girl. There's a horny 11-year-old inside me who's desperate to come out and play with you." It's true, albeit in a creative/professional sense and not a personal one.

@171

"It is the same reason sexual offers between a boss and subordinate are inappropriate."

I always find this comparison to be severely strained and borderline offensive. But that's me. I don't know what your life experiences are but I assure you that the boss-subordinate sexual experience is nothing like the child-adult sexual relationship.

@187

Did you consider the ballerina when you made this comment? How would you like to be pursued because you are a simalacrum of prepubescence?

God, this is like a 24-hour news cycle. Spend a few hours outside and you miss a thousand complex and fascinating conversations. I would like to address a bit of the stuff being said about child sex abuse.

Ankylosaur: Sometimes, as an intelligent and critically thinking person, it's hard to turn off the part of your brain which questions every quick gut reaction the public has about something. You believe that somehow, the majority of people could be wrong about sex abuse; that if we all thought differently and changed that it would not be the tragic, viscerally disgusting act people all respond to so quickly.

In many situations, it is the right thing to do--to question public outrage over something, because often when people are very emotionally charged, they're not thinking clearly; furthermore, they usually don't know the specifics of the case they are so passionate about. In this case, however, you are wrong. Public outrage towards pedophilia is fully merited, as the results are so far-reaching and all encompassing in the victim's life. The majority are right here, and even if we could somehow "change" as a society to be accepting of child sex abuse, that does not mean the child would suffer any less--or would it? Such an experiment is obviously not worth doing.

I suspect you are only playing the devil's advocate to test your ability to do so; to craft an argument that is detestable but from your brain, defensible. Hearing a predator discuss their acts, in their own words, or seeing a victim whose ability to have a happy healthy life has been greatly diminished would make you come around and end this nonsense, I think.

Regarding chemical castration: it is no cure-all. Many pedophiles don't just want to abuse children, but also to have relationships with them. Having state-mandated injections allows them to perversely enjoy the company of children while feeling "safe" from acting on their urges. Behaviorally, nothing changes for long. Once they don't have to be injected anymore, guess how many guys voluntarily decide to cut off their sex drive? I have no hard stats, but the answer is very few.

And lastly, regarding required disclosure: So far in my education, I have learned that a therapist does not disclose unless there is a specific, immediate threat to someone's health or life. CWIA ought not be afraid to tell a therapist about his attraction to children. If a client said to me "I just feel like killing someone," I don't call the cops to have him followed to see if he follow through with it. If he said "I'm going to kill my roommate," then yes, I'd need to call. I would guess it'd be same with child abuse, but I'm also thinking it varies from state to state.

I actually hadn't read #120 before, but now that I have, I'm kind of sick to my stomach.

Let me say, ankylosaur, that while I am in favor with taking away the negative, shameful, aspects of sexuality, I don't think it is even possible to turn sex into just another physical activity, like swimming or yoga, or a game like chess--and even if it were, that might not be what we want. (I happen to want my sex to be a little dirty. I recently had sex with a guy who stayed bright and chipper throughout, who couldn't make it dirty at all, and it was No Fun.)

Many of us want our children to grow up to have vibrant, happy, satisfying sex lives--part of my upset at my daughter's having been brutally raped at age 16, before she'd had any sexual experience whatsoever, is the thought that she may forever associate sex with feelings of terror, horror, brutality, and pain.

I want her to love sex, but it isn't my job, as her parent to teach her how to love sex (even if she hadn't been through her particular trauma). There is nothing comparable about teaching a child to swim or to play chess or to do anything else to having sex. Kids will figure out what they like sexually, all by themselves, or with peers, hopefully when they're old enough to make free and informed choices, and hopefully with enough psychological health and self-knowledge to navigate those aspects of sex. Parents or other adults can help kids achieve this by talking openly about sex with kids, by answering questions honestly, by not projecting their own issues during discussions, by not imbuing sex with shame or guilt or a sense of sinfulness. They can help a young person acquire birth control, or help get rid of an STI by steering them to a doctor. They can remain loving, supportive, and non-judgmental when they talk to the kids and when they are confronted with the reality that the young person (not a child, btw, but a teen, and hopefully one past the mid-point of teenager-ness, say, 15 or older, preferably older, for my comfort zone, although I realize that that arbitrary age is my bias.)is having sex.

But that's all they need to do. They do not need to introduce the child to actual sexual activity to set the stage for the child to have a wonderful sex life for the rest of his/her life. To talk about how an adult could baby-step a sexual situation with a child, even though I'm pretty sure you meant it only theoretically, is beyond repulsive, and no amount of utopian hypothosizing about that day when all taboos are eradicated masks that.

Also, sex *should not* be just another physical activity! It is an intimate act that ideally, two people give to one another joyfully and without shame. It can bond people together in a way that other things simply don't do. It's thrilling and deeply personal. Not that all sex has to be that way, but am I crazy to think that we should still have things that are special and private in this world? Things that are, in an ideal world, contemplated somewhat maturely and entered into as a personal choice?

On the contrary of what Ank is saying, sex is one thing we ought to have little involvement in as parents, physically speaking. Answer their questions, guide them into a healthy mindset about it, help them make good choices but don't make the goddamn choice *for* them about what sex will mean to them by actually introducing it at a young age.

The more I consider this discussion, the stupider it is.
HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE GRAZY?!

Also, sex *should not* be just another physical activity! It is an intimate act that ideally, two people give to one another joyfully and without shame. It can bond people together in a way that other things simply don't do. It's thrilling and deeply personal. Not that all sex has to be that way, but am I crazy to think that we should still have things that are special and private in this world? Things that are, in an ideal world, contemplated somewhat maturely and entered into as a personal choice?

On the contrary of what Ank is saying, sex is one thing we ought to have little involvement in as parents, physically speaking. Answer their questions, guide them into a healthy mindset about it, help them make good choices but don't make the goddamn choice *for* them about what sex will mean to them by actually introducing it at a young age.

The more I consider this discussion, the stupider it is.
HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE CRAZY?!

DOUBLE POST IT'S THAT CRAZY

@ ankylosaur re: sex with kids

You're basing your reasoning on an erroneous premise: in a sex positive world, sex is harmless for children. That is simply not the case.

Children are not autonomous. And the younger the child, the less autonomous they are. They must rely on adults to provide for their basic needs, and that creates an imbalance of power. Children cannot give consent because their consent will always be coerced (intentionally or not). If a child's caregivers are involved in OKing the proposed sex act (and that would be necessary in order to provide the child with an adult advocate) the child, in denying consent, would always risk negative ramifications. Would a sex positive society ever say that it is okay to have sex with someone who is unconscious? Of course not, because an unconscious person is unable to give consent. And even if we view sex as 100% positive, sex without consent is always rape. Therefore, sex with a child is always rape and cannot be emotionally benign.

Sex with a child also cannot be physically benign. Children are much smaller than adults. Even if we assume that their bodies are fully capable of stretching in the required areas in the same way that an adult's body can, we must aknowledge that in order to be the non-insertive partner with an adult their bodies would need to stretch substantially more (relatively speaking). Certainly you could condition a child's body over time to allow for intercourse, but you would be subjecting a child to a painful process for the benefit of the adult. And that brings us back into the realm of psychological harm. By conditioning a child for the benefit of an adult, we are treating the child not as a human being but rather as a means to an end. You are proposing that children be used for sex.

Additionally, there are certain logistic aspects to consider as well. If girls are to be used in this manner at all once they begin puberty, there is a risk of pregnancy. Since condoms are much less effective than the pill, the pill would likely be the contraceptive of choice. But hormonal birth control causes a wide range of unpleasant side effects and has even been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer. Despite this, it is not 100% effective. So what would happen in the event that a young child becomes pregnant as a result of being used for nonconsensual sex? Would you force her to give birth? If so, who would raise her child? Alternatively, would you put her through the emotional trauma of an abortion? She likely wouldn't be able to fully grasp the ramifications of the procedure as a 12 year old but she most certainly would a few years later.

What you have proposed isn't about a "sex is bad" mindset. It is about cost benefit analysis and a basic grasp of morality. The child would bear the brunt of the costs (any potential benefits derived from sex are not lost if the child begins to have sex at 16 rather than 6 so they are irrelevant to the discussion) and the adult would reap the benefits. A nonconsenting child (remember, children are not autonomous so they can never consent) would be used as a means to achieve an end: the pleasure of an adult. And that is immoral. It is immoral in a sex positive society and it is immoral in a sex negative society.

@Miss Kitty

Yes.
Thank you for making the points I was too worked up to. :/