virus: sex (4]

From: Walpurgis (walpurg@myrealbox.com)
Date: Fri Aug 02 2002 - 04:58:06 MDT

> [Walpurgis]My parents were good enough to leave accessible books on
> the shelf when I was a child
>
> [Mermaid]I wish more parents did the same with their kids. I have
> never believed that books bring any harm. Knowledge is Power.

[Walpurgis] Well, I'd have prefered some moving pictures too :-)

> [Walpurgis] Can most adults do this now? Many negative consequences
> necessitate outside help.
>
> [Mermaid]Hmm..probably not. But adults have access to more resources
> while children are more restricted in their search for solutions.

[Walpurgis] The problem illustrates the solution - children must be given/allowed access to resources and the tools that bring solutions. One of the main things that pisses be off is that children have few places to escape from stupid (or worse) parents. They're stuck with them for at least 16 years. Many children might well be able to look after themselves better than their parents can. This relates to issues of censorship (like with internet censors), or parents unreasonably saying "no". If one learns through experience, then children should have access to a wide variety of experiences. This begins with a wide range of tactile toys as a baby and hopefully continues with a broad education (ideally with exposure to other cultures an languages). But now I'm just getting into my own vision of utopia here...

> [Walpurgis] I'd rather think of them as symbiotic beings. Adults that
> don't learn from their children, who lives aren't enriched in turn
> (which parasites don't do for their hosts), have a very bad
> relationship with their child IMO.
>
> [Mermaid]True. Thats a very interesting pov.

[Walpurgis] Do you have children? Have they ever said or drawn or written or made an observation that surprised you, or interested you, or you hadn't even thought of before? Their lack of experience can allow for suprising forms of expression which are not bound by the rules they have not learnt yet. I've seen children's art that looks like Picasso's. And what of your delight at their delight when they discover something new, something enjoyable? I could go on, but I fear sentimentalising children. They people, and can be trying or even hideous to deal with too.

> [Mermaid]If children grow up with awareness and a respectable amount
> of caution, they will be wonderful as adults and parents themselves.
> Having experienced a less than cloistered childhood, these parents
> will be able to provide their children an enjoyable childhood. The
> truth is that any attempt to 'free' children have resulted in children
> behaving exactly like children. There might be exceptions, but the
> truth is there is , despite treating children like individuals,
> putting them on the pill or by distrubuting condoms etc, there is
> still a scary number of teen pregnancies, STDs, instances of date
> rape, violence and general ignorance etc. It is unacceptable to let
> children loose when they have proved again and again that they
> sometimes do not deserve the freedoms granted to them just as it is
> unacceptable to place them in a prison called home. However, every
> child is different. It is the responsibility of the parent to
> recognise what makes their child different from the rest and let their
> special freedoms trickle according to the natural ability of the child
> to experience and absorb the gift of free choice without abusing it.
> This is why its true that good parents make good children who in turn
> make good adults. Like you mentioned before, it is imperative to
> educate adults more than children.

[Walpurgis] this sounds good and expands on my point about legalism. Parents have to recognise the individuality of the child and her/his situation. So do courts, doctors, shrinks etc. This is why the Netherlands consent rules are good - children can consent at 12, but parents can sanction a sexual relationship if they perceive a problem until the child is 16 - then they can't legally interfer. This allows parents and children flexibility.

> [Mermaid]Meditation is good as long as it isnt instructed by cult
> figures.

[Walpurgis] The same is to be said for everything else.

> [Mermaid]I have never heard of anything like that, but I'll take your
> word for it. I have been talking to a couple of men since this
> discussion began and they all admit that there is a lot of horror
> stories about mastrubation.(it didnt stop them) Interestingly, the two
> women I questioned do not recall mastrubating as children and prefer
> sex to mastrubation as adults.

[Walpurgis] If kept away from their genitals enough, females won't even know about/be able to locate their own clitoris - the issue may well be one of knowledge again, rather than desire. I would expect girls and boys to masturbate (or not) in equal measure if they weren't kept away from their genitals. I think masturbation would come naturally if a child is let alone - they'll eventually find a way that feels good. Children probably don';t need to be shown how, unless they have been taught *not* to do it. It takes a lot to undo hands being slapped away, the "private parts" are always hidden, always referred to euphemistically, always treated as dirty. Wash you hands now, cos god knows those vaginal fluids are poison.

> [Mermaid]Allow me to narrate a theory I have had for years...There is
> a Jekyll and Hyde syndrome in parents. On one hand, there is this
> instinct to 'put their kids out there' because they are proud of their
> genes and want it to have the best chance to survive. I suspect that
> it is one of the main reasons we have so many mothers here who dress
> up their little girls like professional cocksuckers. On the other
> hand, there is also the fear that the very act of advertising their
> genes would attract inferior partners or rather..unworthy partnering
> genes which causes them to 'protect' their children.

[Walpurgis] This seems too simplistic and biologically deterministic. There are great many social reasons as to why parents want to pair their offspring up also - though I expect you realise this.

> [Mermaid] I have also
> wondered if parents secretly resent that the fruit of their toil and
> sweat is being tasted by someone else. Parenthood is complex. It has
> equal or uneven parts of powerplay, affection, jealousy, pride and
> entrepreneurship. Eventually, it all boils down to ownership.

[Walpurgis] Yes - these are the pertinent points. Ownership is certainly a big aspect. This sense of ownership begins immediately with verfied conception, and perhaps before when a couple form a relationship or get married. They own each other (or more typically, the man owns his wife). That the law enshrines the foetus as the mans possession (and indeed in many countries the woman is still considered a possession) is clear evidence that the ideology of ownership of offspring is widespread. I quote from Judith Roof's book "Reproductions of Reproduction" (Routledge 1996): "The statues themselves treat the woman as a medium rather than a subject with her own will, enforcing not a philosophy of maternal choice, but rather the authority of the state to perpetuate procreation..." (p107) and "In abortion laws, the foetus is treated as a kind of proerty right; aligned with the state and with the vastness of Social order, the foetus is inscribed not as the personal interest of what is not yet a personality, but rather as the future interest of the Law situated in the place of the absent father, whose "theoretical" right in genetic perpetuity is assumed" (p108). This is one reason why abortion is such a hysterical issue (especially in the US) because it is a matter of proptery ownership of the foetus and the woman (who should do as she's told and gestate for man and state!)

> [Mermaid] A parent
> feels that he or she 'owns' the child. Children grow by themselves if
> you feed them anything barely edible and sufficiently nutritious. It
> must be quite an anti-climax for parents who would rightfully feel let
> down. Hence parenthood is elevated and considered holy and downright
> divine.

[Walpurgis] And glorified in several well-known holybooks.

> [Mermaid] Sacrifice is a very important word in every parent's
> dictionary. It is only a thinly disguised term for 'you owe me'. When
> that message doesnt get through and guilt doesnt sprout as it was
> suppose to...parents begin to control their children. This is all, of
> course, a vague theory.

{Walpurgis] Many relations are built on debt and re-payment. For familial and loving relations however, I would argue this dynamic is entirely inappropriate (unless you're involved in some BDSM dynamic that intends such an exchange).

[Walpurgis] Children shouldn't owe their parents. Thier parents take a risk by conceiving the child - the risk is whether the child will love them enough to give them anything back. If the child does not, too bad - that's the risk you take (and the parents probably contributed to the failure anyway).

> [Walpurgis] "Means" for who? Different people define and understand
> parenthood differently (as we seem to). How would such advice be
> given?
>
> [Mermaid]A psychological profile of the would-be parents. A study of
> the family tree for at least three generations past. Their financial
> status to determine if they can actually afford to raise children.
> What are their expectations from their children..etc...I havent given
> it sufficient thought...now I will ponder over it...thanks.

[Walpurgis] This is pretty scary. Who draws the profiles/does the research? aside from the cost (who pays for it?) this would probably be the States job - giving them even more control over a persons life (how they reproduce and form a family). I doubt if genealogy will tell you anything useful at all (though genetics probably will). Financial status will leave a lot of poor people childless (having money isn't a virtue, there are poor people who have close loving family lives). This would probably result in more injustice and abuse than it would solve and prove a huge political issue which would have no chance of being implemented in this political climate.

[Walpurgis] I once liked this idea myself, but it is wrong headed. Instead of people being tested, the causes of poverty and abuse should be addressed, and rational and just ideas about families, consent, sexuality and children should be perpetuated and accessible to the public so they can make up their own minds. Laws which hinder single parents or a family with more than two parents, non-heterosexual and non-monogamous families and a move away from the ideology of ownership and misunderstanding over child sexuality as well as helping vulnerable and underprivalged persons would make good first steps.

[Walpurgis] here it is evident that the family is the result (as well as cause) of social interactions generally. You can't change the family (much) without big changes in cultural understanding, economic distribution and class structure and gender/sexuality equality.

Walpurgis

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http://www.noumenal.net/exiles

Take the following two scenes enacted in a shopping mall, say, or on the street or in the park: in the first an adult is striking a screaming child repeatedly on the buttocks; in the second an adult is sitting with a child on a bench and they are hugging. Which scene is more common? Which makes us uneasy? Which do we judge to be normal? Which is more likely to run afoul of the law? A society, I believe, which honors hitting and suspects hugging is immoral. http://www.tc.umn.edu/~under006/Library/Antisexuality.html



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