I’ve seen a lot about little girls masturbating.  I’m talking about ‘little girls’ not pubescent ones.  Pubescent girls should, and need to masturbate (I’ll tell you more about this reasoning in an other post).  Little girls as in preschoolers.  This seems to be a concern due the embarrassment factor of the parents and worries about the child’s psychological health (Is my baby girl turning into a slut already?)  The standard reply is that this is a perfectly natural behaviour but that the parents should talk to the child and encourage them to partake in the privacy of their own bedroom, not out in public.

If girls this age are truly masturbating, then that means they are sexual beings, deserving all the rights and freedoms to explore and enjoy their sexuality.  As much as you want to deny it, this is a fully valid rationality and is often used by paedophiles to justify their behaviour (“She wanted to.”).  But if these kids are actually masturbating, then that means the paedophiles are right and their actions justified.  Adult/child sex should be legalized.  Don’t lynch me yet, keep reading.

The question is often accompanied by a comment about scratching an itch.  A vulval itch to an adult is a euphemism for sexual arousal.  What does it mean to a child?  Kids suffer from itches all the time.  Mosquito bites, rashes, healing scrapes and scratches, dry skin, athletes foot.  In other words, skin irritations.  The last is notable for this topic.  The warm, moist space between the toes, encased in socks and shoes for extended periods, is a great place for bacteria and fungus to grow.  Because your immune system easily defeats these intruders, the infection rarely penetrates the skin, but lives in it, just on the border of the immune system’s reach, irritating the skin and causing an itch.

I’m sure you can see where I am going with this if you think about it.  Uncircumcised boys have a similar problem.  If they don’t pull the foreskin back and keep the area within clean and dry, they suffer a condition commonly called ‘dick cheese.’  I’ve heard the clinical term somewhere but can’t find it right now.  Circumcision increased in popularity because too many parents were too squeamish to properly care for their very young boys genital hygiene or to teach them when they are older.

The labia around the clitoris is analogous to the male foreskin and I am sure is subject to the same hygienic needs (though I have not found any references to it - scary thought).  How many girls are taught to keep their clitoris clean and dry, or is hygiene limited to a washcloth over the outside of the vulva (the labia majora)?  How many of these little masturbating girls are actually suffering from ‘clit cheese?’  They have an itch and are trying to scratch it.  The satisfied expression afterwards is not from a little orgasm, but satisfaction from squelching the itch.

Back to the paedophiles being right.  They are not wrong because it is illegal.  Many long held laws are wrong such as those against homosexuality.  They are not wrong because it is immoral.  Cultures all around the world practice different forms of morality, some more conservative, some more liberated, with little to no harm to the children.  They are also NOT RIGHT because the child is a sexual being, because they are masturbating.  They ARE wrong because the child is asexual.  The child is scratching a genuine itch, not a euphemistic one.

A related addendum.  As a nudist, I’ve often seen children playing with their genitals in public.  If you look a their faces though, you won’t see sexual arousal, horny lustful desire, ecstasy.  You see boredom.  Fingers are restless.  They want to be doing things.  People do all kinds of things when they are not thinking about what their fingers are doing.  Twirling hair, picking at grass, twiddling thumbs.  Fingers, located at the end of the arms, are often is the area of the groin.  There is nothing sexual.  Genitals are simply in the fingers location by happenstance.

To protect children from sexual predators, we have to stop thinking of them in sexual terms.  We have to keep our minds out of the gutter to prevent theirs from entering it.

In the fall of 1997, child protection activists descended on Barnes and Noble stores across the United States to rip up books by Jock Sturges and David Hamilton, in an attempt to shame the company into discontinuing the sale of those books. The books include nude photographs of many people under eighteen years of age and the protectionist viewed them as child pornography. To those whom all nudity is pornographic, they would fit their definition of child pornography. But, there is no sexual activity, not intent in the photos, just nudity. This does not fit the legal definition of child porn. Barnes and Noble refused to remove the books from its shelves.

What did they accomplish? Bookstores across the country sold out of Jock Sturges and David Hamilton books. This is the opposite of what they wanted to happen. Who bought those books? Sure, some paedophiles did, having been apprised of ‘legal’ child porn. Instead of using perverted images of children, now they can use innocent pictures for their sexual gratification. Is this making children safer?

Other people buying the books are those that are curious. They can’t believe that a major bookstore can be legally selling child pornography. Because they are expecting perversion, do they look for the innocence in these pictures. No, they see the perversion that they are looking for. Why are they looking for perversion. Because they were told too. Some of these people will see the book as perverse and revolting. No problem there. Others will recognize the innocence even when looking for perversion. No problem there. But there are some that will look for the perversion and see it and even though they were not trying to be, will be aroused by the taboo value of it. Is this making children safer?

Some people buying the book are borderline paedophiles. They’ve had a disturbing thought or two but are a far way from molesting a child. As the people above, they buy the book for curiosity, but they have that disturbing thought at the back of their mind. Will they see innocence. No, they are looking for perversion so that is what they will see. Will looking for perversion dispel that thought. No, it will reinforce it. Is this making children safer?

NO! To all of the above. Infecting images of children with perversion does not make them safer. It puts them at risk. I know the child protection groups want to help children, but encouraging people to see perversion everywhere is not the way to do so. It is a reflection of their own perversion. This group is about infecting images and thoughts about children with innocence. That is the road to protecting them.

If we continue to keep enlarging the definition of child pornography, we will create an even larger market for infecting innocence with perversity. Only by seeing, and promoting, the innocence in images of children can we Turn Kids Back Into Kids instead of unwitting porn stars.