Children are not Innocent
Okay, fuck it. Because I keep seeing this again and again, even from people who are technically arguing for generally the right things.
But, babes, I am gonna hold your hands now, and ask you to repeat after me: Children. Are. Not. Inherently. Innocent.
Children are not inherently asexual. They are not inherently sex repulsed. And they also not inherently truthful, or inherently non-violent.
Children are generally worse at lying than adults (as lying needs some complicated brain things to happen), and often will just spout out what they think (because their prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed and it is generally the area of the brain that does impulse control). But they are not inherently more truthful because of it.
They are also not non-violent. And you know that. Because you and I we all have seen little kids punch, and shove, and kick each other, or adults, when they were getting annoyed and fed up. Heck, kids often are more violent than adults, because again, they have less impulse control than adults do, and also often do not yet fully understand that when they are violent in those ways that it necessarily hurts others. That is a connection they have to learn. Their violence is not evil. It is just is.
And if a kid is not taught this (be it because the kid is a boy and parents looked away with "boys will be boys", or be it because the adults were neglectful or even abusive themselves) it is not their fault, and them being violent does not make them less of a child, or an inherently evil child. Same goes with children who either due to genetics or trauma have neural differences that makes them more violent or less truthful. They are not "evil children". They are disabled children. Disability is not evil. It also does not make them more or less of a child.
But also: yes. Children are already sexual. This goes doubly so for the weird child category that people on tumblr assume these days (everyone under 18, very much including youths), but even for those humans who most people will agree are children - let's say 12 and under. Those are not inherently asexual or sex repulsed.
Yes, I know, a lot of you might have this idea in their head where a kid gets told about how sex works and goes "ick!" and some kids react to it this way. But... not all of them do, and this does not mean something is wrong with the child.
It is actually fairly normal that kids have curiosity about this, and about their bodies, and how this works. Kids "playing doctor" and looking at each others bodies and touching them is perfectly normal. And yes, some kids will engage in actual sexual activity among themselves. And not informing children about sexuality will not prevent that - it will just make it more unsafe.
I will forever remember: when I was going to my rich-people conservative Catholic school, there was a case where an 11yo girl got pregnant from a 12yo boy. And what had happened between those two kids had been 100% consensual. It was just kids who were not fully informed on what this was, but having some vague notion from romance media, fooling around and... well, finding out the hard way.
And how much drama there was about how this clearly meant those kids were abused and what not.
But... from all anyone ever found. No, those kids were not abused. They were uneducated. Because adults around them had assumed that because they were children they would be inherently sex-repulsed. Which they were not. And it ended up with a whole drama of getting this one kid an abortion, because she was too small to carry, but also because she had never had her period before, the pregnancy was not noticed at first.
And this is an example that was just 100% because they were not educated. Because people had assumed an inherent asexuality of children.
Even over here on tumblr I see queer leftist people argue that actually, if you expose children to any knowledge about sex, let alone about sex outside of maybe words for the body and the general idea of "this is a thing adults might do", you are abusing them and are clearly a predator.
But... like, people. Can you please understand that it is actually this behavior - keeping important information away from children - that is actually at the very least neglectful, if not abusive? Because it is.
This idea of childhood innocence (with innocence being defined as an inherent aversion to sex, lies, and violence) is propaganda that you have been taught and that is part of the context that is used to further abuse children - especially those children who do not get afforded the assumption of innocence (notably Black, and Arab children, but queer children, disabled children, and other marginalized children as well).
Adults should not be having sex with children - especially not actual children. Partially because of the fact that children are the most legally oppressed class of people there is.
But (some) children and especially youths will have sex with one another. And there is nothing you can do about it. If you do not allow children and youths access to information about sex, they just will do it uneducated. And also, if you just assume that they will not look at porn, or try to prevent it, all you will likely create is a scenario, where they will look at porn on the really iffy websites that just do not give a flying fuck about any age restriction guidelines.
And let's be honest here: you and I both know this. Because chances is that you, as a child or youngster, have looked at porn, and at horror movies, and at violent things, because you were curious, and even if you were forbidden you found ways to do it. Because I did. Most kids did and still do. And you telling yourself that it is actually not the case and it was different for you because of [empty justifications] is not doing shit to keep actual kids safe. Instead it creates a fictional class of people, who do not exist in reality, and safes the concept of childhood, no matter how far it is removed from the reality of it.
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