Erikboy,

You don't consider forced sex with an adult, which happened to me molestation.. just another event???? What an odd statement you are making..

Milkman (imported) wrote: Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:55 pm Erikboy,

You don't consider forced sex with an adult, which happened to me molestation.. just another event???? What an odd statement you are making..

I have to apologise for my poor ability to explain myself. English is not my first language. I try to put my thoughts into simple sentences.

Forced sex with anybody is simply rape. Rape of any form is not acceptable.

As I said I do not know the definition of 'molestation'. Is molestation considered as a rape?

I am not familiar with your molestation case. If you liked to reveal details, it would be interesting for others to learn of your experience. Including me.

It is always easy and safe to say that I am against any rape and molestation. No further discussion of the problem will follow.

Constant and repeated abuse is the worst kind of abuse. No matter if sexual or not. Think of bullying in the school or of a perverted grandfather.

Single episodes are more easily recoverable. But very traumatic events, like death of a loved parent or divorce of parents can be as traumatic to a child as sexual abuse.

In that sense we can not say that sexual abuse is worst of all abuses. Or most traumatic.

I don't think that children sexual abuse is only a western countries problem. It seem to be global. Only we speak more openly about that.

In countries where child labour is everyday life and child trafficking is widespread, child molestation simply can not be uncommon.

There is an interesting article about child sexual abuse in wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexual_abuse

There are some definitions too:

sexual molestation – a term defining offenses in which an adult engages in non-penetrative activity with a minor for the purpose of sexual gratification; for example, exposing a minor to pornography or to the sexual acts of others

sexual exploitation – a term defining offenses in which an adult victimizes a minor for advancement, sexual gratification, or profit; for example, prostituting a child,[115] and creating or trafficking in child pornography.

sexual assault – a term defining offenses in which an adult touches a minor for the purpose of sexual gratification; for example, rape (including sodomy), and sexual penetration with an object.[112] Most U.S. states include, in their definitions of sexual assault, any penetrative contact of a minor’s body, however slight, if the contact is performed for the purpose of sexual gratification.[113]

sexual grooming - defines the social conduct of a potential child sex offender who seeks to make a minor more accepting of their advances, for example in an online chat room[117]

Protecting our children is good. Only keeping them in sterile environment makes them much more vulnerable when they need to start to make their own decisions. We should teach them to recognize problems early and teach them how to seek for help. I understand, that this is problematic when one of parents is a molester. But somehow we need to make our children stronger.

E.

I wish to talk about my own experince as a child.

I remember that I had sexual feelings at very early age. Before puberty. I had some sexual fantasies. They were quite simple and not very strong but they were there.

I started to masturbate at age 7 or 8. Regularily. I found it out how to masturbate by my own. I didn't know even how to call that act.

I felt it to be pleasureable, thats why I did it regularily. Still at the same time I was not sure if it was right what I was doing. So it remained my big secret until I learned that most boys masturbate.

I wish I was more educated before I started to masturbate. I wish I was aware of my sexuality. I wish I knew that it was nothing wrong with my sexuality.

As a child I played games with other children that had sexual agenda.

Also we discussed sexual issues with children too.

I remember that there was an issue if one should show his or her privates to somebody he or she really likes. If other person asks. We were 2 boys and 2 girls between ages 8-10

I never discussed any sexual things with any adult. As we, children, were considered to be sexless. Somehow we knew that without asking.

Once there was a man in our playground who liked to show us his privates. He came there quite regularily for a short time period. As there were many of us around at any time, we felt quite safe and had a lots of fun of him.

Now I think that there should have been at least one adult who I trusted and who would have been a reliable source of answers to my simple but very private sex related questions. no matter if it was my father or just a friend. We, children often did not know correct answers and we spread rumours instead. Like masturbation is a bad habit. Only fools or queers do it etc...

This topic confuses me greatly. Though the main reason I want to post is because erikboy's posts make some sense to me (though, admitedly, we're veering off topic...).

Nothing traumatic happened to me before my whole identity crisis started in sixth grade. Yeah, I went all that time with only one functioning eye (in itself not at perfect power), but I think that contributed to the fact that nothing really bothered me until the twenty-first century.

My parents never really hid anything, but at the same time never explicitly discussed supposed deep meaningful stuff. Death was something I just accepted early on. I knew about unhealthy habits like smoking and alcoholism and drug abuse and theft and lying and all of that, and somehow the way it was handled around me made it easy to just look at those sorts of things as obviously stupid. I came up with this "it doesn't matter what the crowd says; just do your best" mentality (which later pushed the limits of "Now I'm intentionally flipping off social norms", but I digress...).

But with regards to sexuality, I knew absolutely nothing until... when? In third grade I had a friend who had apparently learned something about it and would jokingly mention it in the same vein as bodily humor, but I didn't pick up anything about what it was. There was something about the penis, two people, and at some point I heard mention of sexual intercourse on some court show... (I think it was "We the Jury", if I remember correctly... just one line that revealed that sex could involve man atop woan in bed).

I'm not entirely sure how much I put together before sex ed, though. But then we get to Junior High, and it's one of those things you can't get away from because of hw eighth grade boys tend to talk about things...

So I come out of all of that and am starting to get frustrated by the fact that apparently in this "new amazing adult world" peple won't shut up about something that, for all intents and purposes, didn't exist for over half my life. And then I learn about sex abuse of childrn, and how people seem to believe that sex has something to do with affection or relationships and I'm all confused.

And I think what leaves it bothering me so much is that out of nowhere comes something completely new and bizarre, that somehow relates to things that interested me before (In the "I'm bored before falling asleep at night and imagine random ye non perverted adventures involving large amounts of nudity" way... and the fact tat I am in no way comfortable with the way my body has changed since, oh, around the same time...). And yet, it's something so completely different from that... almost antithetical to everything, and adds an unnecessary layer of complexity that won't leave me alone.

I guess that ties in, somehow.

Mortal Kombat never bothered me. And yet sexuality in general bothers me immensely. Why?

Violence is straight forward. Darth Vader slashes Luke Skywalker's hand with a lightsaber, Luke's hand goes flying into the distance, and he screams in agony. Nothing hard to understand about that (though admitedly I never thought about the psychological impact of losing a hand... mainly because there's always a replacement or something in stories like Starwars and Peter Pan...).

Sexuality... isn't. It's something that needs either explaining, or discerning through experiences that are less universal than death. No matter what age you are, where you're from, or whatever... death still happens. But sex is something else entirly... it happens everywhere, right? What with the population and all. And yet, what has it ever had to do with me?

You can't ignore the existence of death. You can try to sidestep it by covering up the disappearances of friends and family and animals, or by inventing ideas about the afterlife forcomfort... but death is still there. Pain still happens.

But it's easily possible for one's only exposure to sexuality to be their own creation. I understood pregnancy rather promptly... but I never particularly cared to inquire as to what caused it.

And apparently sexuality is more than just conception.

I don't know what to make of any of this.

But how does introduction to the concept through sexual abuse or other experiences impact one's views on it?

I wonder if I'm not confused purely because I didn't know about it for over half my life.

(And something I keep noticing, and is reenforced by some experiences I've read here... the presence of "big brother" type figures--friends or relatives that are older, but still kids--seem to have quite an impact on people. Whereas I was an only child for five years, and still act(ed) like it in many instances after my sister was born... I had older cousins, and all, but I never spent a good deal of time with most of them--I was born kinda late, so most of them were at least ten years older than me. Mostly I was around girl cousins if anyone, or my parents or grandparents. And even then, the most extent of any adventures with others would have been... Hmm.).

I'll end this before it turns into something I'd consider publishing if asked for memoirs. -_-. But I do have to wonder how my relative isolation compares to the apparent opposite for others?

I also want to bring up another cultural thing. Mainly the apparent differences in what is acceptable between American and Japanese children's entertainment. Take something like Dragonball, which is most certainly a show for a younger audience in Japan... and there are plenty of breasts, exposed boy genetils, and characters whose noteworthy traits are their pervertedness. (Oh, and plenty of violence).

In Japan, noone particularly cares that we have a twelve-year-old boy (who acts and looks more like five, who we see naked quite a lot) walking in on a sixteen year old girl taking a bath (and said character has been living in the woods for al of his life, so doesn't particularly get the whole sex thing either). Actually, this kid only learns the difference between boys and girls by accident, and for the more lighthearted parts of the series there's a running gag where he makes a point of finding out the gender of new people he meets.

... but when we try to bring that to someplace like the U.S., all kinds of sensorship goes down. (I'll also mention we had that "Nakey" episode of Rugrats in the nineties on Nickelodeon... and nowadays US cartoons are getting away with a lot more, but... why the difference? I genuinely don't understand any of this stuff, and this thread really just hits my confusion switch very hard... which... I guess explains the novel post.).

Ur... yeah. Sorry about that mess. I hope I'm not rambling off in my own little world again... (then again, my own little world might be less confusing if I could just distinguish what's real and what's balls-related. o.o. ).

This is a fascinating, necessary discussion. If we with our fantasies and determinations cannot accurately define some of these terms and actions then it's a conversation that will always stumble.

It is of concern that the media and "interested parties" have appropriated these terms and ideas and made them flash points to the public while completely ignoring the realities of the victims and the offenders. Certainly I do not support the latter but they are a factor. Is an offender a child who may be only slightly older than the victim? And there's the uncomfortable thought that the young can and do seduce older persons: I speak from experience. I took my first lover when I was 12 and he was 37. I will grant you that when I was twelve I was physically akin to a 25 year old and I was very much the predator. But in the eyes of most that changes nothing. We dismiss "children" as blameless in many, many things. If a person under, say, 15 commits murder every effort is made to show that the guilt for their deed lies elsewhere. Do we always know that's correct?

Not everything can be easily and simply codified in law or in our frames of reference. For example, rape and molestation are not necessarily the same. Rape is a violent, physical act. Molestation can vary from the subtly psychological to the overtly physical. How each of us defines that is necessarily personal but we must always be willing to hear other versions from other persons.

Things sexual of all stripe are the third rail of life. That I will be castrated is a horror to many I know. However, here, it excites no comment other than encouragement. I would suggest that we, here, have the broader view as we can see and consider far more sides than those who withdraw in disgust that any human might tamper with the imbued right to procreate.

Each of us needs to consider what constitutes molestation but not totally define it. We need to retain an open definition for, I assure you, once we think we've now heard it all, that's precisely when the "worst" we've ever heard occurs.

Considering (imported) wrote: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:06 am This is a fascinating, necessary discussion. If we with our fantasies and determinations cannot accurately define some of these terms and actions then it's a conversation that will always stumble.

It is of concern that the media and "interested parties" have appropriated these terms and ideas and made them flash points to the public while completely ignoring the realities of the victims and the offenders. Certainly I do not support the latter but they are a factor. Is an offender a child who may be only slightly older than the victim? And there's the uncomfortable thought that the young can and do seduce older persons: I speak from experience. I took my first lover when I was 12 and he was 37. I will grant you that when I was twelve I was physically akin to a 25 year old and I was very much the predator. But in the eyes of most that changes nothing. We dismiss "children" as blameless in many, many things. If a person under, say, 15 commits murder every effort is made to show that the guilt for their deed lies elsewhere. Do we always know that's correct?

Not everything can be easily and simply codified in law or in our frames of reference. For example, rape and molestation are not necessarily the same. Rape is a violent, physical act. Molestation can vary from the subtly psychological to the overtly physical. How each of us defines that is necessarily personal but we must always be willing to hear other versions from other persons.

Things sexual of all stripe are the third rail of life. That I will be castrated is a horror to many I know. However, here, it excites no comment other than encouragement. I would suggest that we, here, have the broader view as we can see and consider far more sides than those who withdraw in disgust that any human might tamper with the imbued right to procreate.

Each of us needs to consider what constitutes molestation but not totally define it. We need to retain an open definition for, I assure you, once we think we've now heard it all, that's precisely when the "worst" we've ever heard occurs.

My friend,

You are 'blaming' the VICTIM, (You) for the commission of child molestation.

This is WRONG... you WERE the victim, regardless of who initiated the encounter...

Regardless of how you may feel, the 37 year old that you 'victimized' as a child, (that even types out more ridiculous that is sounds spoken), WAS AN ADULT!

IT is the responsibility of ADULTS to reject such an overture from a child and the person who 'succumed' to your 'so-called' advances did you a disservice by going along with you. They DID, in fact MOLEST YOU. While you cannot reject a bullet from a gun weilded by a child or an adolescent, you CAN reject a sexual advance. There IS a difference. Understand?

Regardless of how you feel about what I just told you, if you govern your adult life by this philosophy, you can get in a lot of trouble because I can assure you that anybody that hears this will judge the adult as the one at fault and so will the criminal justice system.

Here! Here!

A-1

You have unintentionally proved my point by immediately assuming that the adult had to be the aggressor. That I was molested and only because of my age was I not able to recognize that. Let me put this a plainly as is possible. I saw this man whom I did not know, plotted how to attract his attention-through things other than sex-and then in a very direct way explained to him precisely what I wanted to to do him. You might argue that since he agreed that makes him the predator but I think otherwise. That he may have ultimately been complicit is a given. But never did I make any effort to stop the situation which continued until his death, at the time I was 27.

How often do we hear disastrous stories of children who make the basest and emptiest of accusations at an adult for revenge or because they think it will get them out of a situation. If you don't know that these things happen you'd best learn for you may be the next target. Children have a certain level of cunning that they can and will use to intimidate adults. The most common threat is to say, "If you don't do X, then I'll tell you touched me in a bad place." Sound familiar? I hope not to you but that child is not victim, they are in a sense a molester. It is a function of their greed and intent to get their own way with no understanding of the consequences to others that allows them to make this sort of threat. Sadly, the overwhelming accusations are real and knowing when to disbelieve is difficult.

But please, do not take the attitude that all children are of necessity the victim and all adults the victimizer.

Considering,

So, are you then telling us that in YOUR case, there was no victim, no crime?

It certainly sounds like it to me.

I have to respectfully agree with A-1, however.

Even if you as a twelve year-old initiated the contact in that particular case, I imagine you did because you had been previously sexually abused. Otherwise, I can't imagine a twelve year-old coming on to a 37 year-old.

Still, he was the adult, and just because a twelve year-old came on to him, it didn't mean he had to respond. Ultimately, the adult, who has reached the age of consent, has the responsibility for the act. He is he one that has comitted child abuse. The child, no matter what his actions, can't be the abuser.

Most abusers place the blame on the victim. "I couldn't help myself. He/she came on to me."