So you said you thought that minors shouldn't engage in kink and I'm kind of curious about that, can you elaborate? It sounded like you think minors can/should be allowed to have sex, just not practice kink but I could be misunderstanding. I don't really follow how minors can have sex, just not kinky sex (good faith question, I swear!). Thx :)
No worries! I enjoy answering good-faith questions. I wasn't saying that minors should be having sex but not engaging in kink, there was just an acknowledgement that minors are going to explore their sexuality whether we want them to or not (including kink), and teenagers do routinely have sex with other teenagers anyway and it typically doesn't cause long-term damage to their psyche. Young children also routinely masterbate, and that's not automatically a bad thing, nor should we pathologize it as anything other than the innocent act of curiosity it really is. Doing that can give people trust and shame issues even well into adulthood.
My point was more or less that people who have not fully matured yet may not have the capacity to give informed consent, regardless of the specific activity. This can apply to many things, including alcohol and gambling, or even riding a big scary rollercoaster. The conversation can be completely removed from sex and still apply, though sex is definitely in the conversation too. (Kids can consent to some things though, like hugs. Children should be taught about consent as early as possible because it's important for them to feel like they're in control of their own bodies, and it can protect them from accepting abuse as normal.)
Think about it this way; Lots of parents spank their children for misbehaving. Children who have been spanked by their parents show similar signs of PTSD as children who were sexually abused. And yet, adults spank each other all the time as a kink and it's not nearly as associated with abuse as spanking children. Even though it is definitely possible to abuse an adult by hitting them and that's still very serious, it's not abuse if that adult gave ongoing consent to be hit. (If you're confused about why it makes a difference, it's because requiring consent gives the adult the ability to control the narrative. If they say their safeword and the hitting continues, that's no longer a kink activity and it crosses the line into abuse. Knowing you're in control of the situation is the very thing that makes it not abuse, because the harm of abuse comes from being controlled by someone else so your autonomy is eroded.)
In this way, kink and sex are a similar conversation; Young children don't have the capacity to give informed consent to be spanked, which means it's always wrong to spank them. However, in a similar vein, children may be developing kinks as they grow up and they may explore those feelings by looking up written stories about vore, and that's not considered harmful on the same level. It's like how adults fully giving porn to children is wrong, but a child looking for porn on their own out of curiosity is just natural.
I understand how my wording may have been confusing because I made a distinction between sex and kink, but all I meant to say was that the conversation is multifaceted. "Kids are going to explore things that interest them even if they don't know why." and "Adults have a responsibility to not take advantage of that curiosity for their own selfish benefit." are ideas that should coexist. We have a responsibility to care about abuse without insulting the intelligence of young people. That's all.
