Debate Guide: Childhood innocence

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There are many arguments related to childhood sexual innocence, since it is a subjective concept. While innocence in its purest form (absence of sexuality in women and children - Victorianist Puritanism) is rejected by most modern child advocates, the "safeguarding" of "children" and "childhood" is how this myth survives. Nevertheless, the arguments addressed here are more likely to be found on American Christian bulletin boards than Science or Rationalism sites.

An "institution" of "oughts"?

"Childhood is a special time, innocent and uncorrupted by adult emotions such as sexuality. Children do not understand the corruption of adulthood, and require moral protection, as does the institution of childhood".

This is quite the antithesis of "let children be children", when one looks at the evidence. By asserting that your subjective romanticized vision of childhood must take precedence, you are perpetuating Cyclical Paternalism among other adverse consequences.

Take it from David Evans[1], Richard Yuill's supervisor:

"Cross-cultural and historical evidence demonstrates clearly that the customary separation of childhood and sexuality and the protraction of childhood well beyond adolescence is socially constructed, despite normative justifications expressed in absolute terms of "God"-given natural, physical and emotional maturation. As the data collated by Ford and Beach (1951) demonstrated, even in the most "primitive" and restrictive societies, some children engage in secret sex play, and where cultural values are less restrictive, children freely engage in various sexual practices, in some instances beginning coitus by the age of 6-8, with few virgins amongst those over the age of 10-11. Historians have presented extensive evidence that protracted innocent childhood is a relatively modern construct within Judaeo-Christian culture (Aries 1962; De Mause 1979; Hunt 1970; Currier 1981; Franklin 1986; Plumb 1972; Boas 1988). Most famously, Aries has argued that within the sociability of pre-capitalism, children were integral participants in adult life: "as soon as the child could live without the constant solicitude of his mother, his nanny, or his cradle-rocker, he belonged to adult society (Aries 1962: 331), likewise, "by the age of ten, girls were already little women" (Aries 1962: 332)."

Sexual contact ("theft") argument

"The theft of a child's innocence (molestation) is an unforgivable crime".

This argument relies on the vague assumption that sex automatically leads to complicated emotional reactions in the first place. It is also based on the assertion that "innocence" and "purity" are somehow the opposites of sexual experience, assuming that sex cannot be "pure" or "innocent". These are beliefs, and have no grounding in objective reality. Similar beliefs in relation to women have already been thoroughly discredited to the point of ridicule.

References