the thing that get's me about these cases is that
i don't think these are necessarily just kid's playing doctor. children are capable of serious crimes, including rape and murder, and there is also the possibility that they can seriously hurt another child unintentionally, in the manner of play. if a child is displaying violent or controlling sexual behaviour, then adults need to act, but they don't need to brand the child as a 'sex offender'. also i think there is a particularly urgent need for clarity about the kinds of sexual behaviour it is a child's right to engage in, unmolested (so to speak) by the law. in this current climate, which is so irrationally and emotionally phobic about child sexuality, state agencies can't be relied on to make these decisions in camera. where i live there is a recent newspaper headline, focusing on underage crime stats for the year. it announces that there were 12 underage 'sex offenders' last year (it's not a big country), and that one was five, one six and two seven. i wondered if one of these 'sex offenders' was the five year old boy who caused a national crisis last year by pulling down the pants of consenting female playmates in a private spot in his school playground. there's so little reason displayed in society's approach to any of this stuff (witness the charging of children with sexting), that we need to be told more than that the child 'sexually abused' another child. i suffered serious abuse by adult authority figures in my own childhood, as a consequence of my sexual conduct with other children. in my case i was the younger child and it was natural, harmless play. also, the adult response was driven by homophobia rather than today's variety of moral psychosis, but it was devastating for me, and that's one reason i take the sexual liberty of children very seriously. |