Children and Sex — Real Sex
We don't think of them as sexual, particularly.
But children are sexual persons, it's clear when we see them innocently touching themselves. Parents respond differently, some with anger, maybe a sharp “Stop that!” Others gently inform the child that even if it feels good, touching one’s self in front of others isn’t nice.
Some even say it’s not nice ever, that it is a sin.
Most know, however intuitively, that sexual feelings in childhood are natural. Freud founded an entire discipline on it. In modern psychology we prefer to think of sexual arousal as biological, not born of jealousy for one parent over another.
Freud got it wrong. We’re made this way. It is natural that if touched in certain places, in certain ways, that the normal response is pleasure— perhaps as nice as ice cream on a hot day. Better.
In sex therapy we lecture that having an appetite for sex, even daily, is as natural as breathing, eating, or defecating. It is a basic human drive, and the pleasure a basic, human response.
By adulthood many of us have lost it, feel it fading fast; the loss of sexual arousal a common complaint in marital therapy. We blame fatigue, anger at a spouse, a poor understanding of the mechanics, not enough emotional intimacy. Our work, aging parents, money problems, ill-health—all turn-offs.
And depression, surely, short circuits the three basic appetites— desire for food, sleep, and sex. Features of depression also include hyper-somnia, sleeping too much, or a heightened appetite for food.
When it comes to sex, however, it’s usually, I just can’t.
So if the lack of sexual feeling defines pathology, if sexual feelings are so normal, even healthy, why are we appalled to read that second-graders are having sex with one another in a classroom in Oakland?
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