Comments on: On Talking to Children and Adolescents about BDSM and Sex

By: Stillearning

Stillearning — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 11:37:28 +0000

So inspiring…

You know how children literature is a powerful way to not only teach but also to reflect the culture. Here’s a challenge: try and write a children’s book… Targeted, say, to 9-10 years olds, covering these “hard to explain issues.” do this, I suggest, not to profit by publishing it (although, if it’s good enough, the buying public will judge.) but primarily to honestly find a way to offer inquiring young minds an empowering, healthy, safe and informative avenues to experience and learn, as you suggest to grow naturally.

I find this a fascinating challenge to create a whole new ground where your ideas about adultism and sexual freedom and diversity are not only legitimate but cherished and respected, by creating children’s literature. Just imagine the process of finding the words, not only worthy and adequate, but balanced and considerate of existing views…

Something like that would have the potential to start a civil war, I am afraid… But then again, aren’t we at war already?

By: The Beautiful Kind

The Beautiful Kind — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:55:27 +0000

I found this post in a timely fashion – my 9 yr old daughter is asking questions I wasn’t expecting! The tween stage snuck up on me! At least she knows my paddle is for grownups and not kids. :)

By: earthquakepixie

earthquakepixie — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:42:05 +0000

“Just as different people love people with different bodies, different people love others with different wants” – here here!
That’s a really clear way of explaining how it works without graphically describing kinky sex.

I’ve been running into similar issues trying to explain what it is we do to my parents. If the discussion gets too graphic they freak out and stop listening, but if I’m too vague they don’t understand it.

from my experience kids are a lot easier to talk to than parents and adults. if it gets too graphic for their comfort level, they just get bored. adults, on the other hand, freak out.

By: mohn

mohn — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 02:00:38 +0000

> Hell, alot of adults struggle just to understand that bdsm is about consent and not about abuse.

Yeah, but I think some of them can’t get used to the thought because they got told as a child that “beating someone is bad” and maybe did not learn what consent and abuse actually are. So I’d say that explaining these things to young people is important to get rid of these misconceptions that are existent in society. Moreover, explaining it can help them understand their own (sexual) desires.

I do have to say that I have little experience with children, I guess it can be hard to explain things sometimes, but it’s worth it. I like that “If they are old enough to ask, they are old enough to get an honest answer” sentence.

By: Olivia

Olivia — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:46:34 +0000

Well said. I was raised in a very religious culture by a reasonably devout but very sex-positive mother, and I’m only just now beginning to understand how strange a combination that was. Still, talking sex with kids is a tricky thing. I like the way my mother handled it with me. She always said, “If they are old enough to ask, they are old enough to get an honest answer” and she lived by that. You’re right that details aren’t necessary. Most kids won’t ask the follow-up questions if they sense the parent is uncomfortable with the topic.
I’m very grateful that my mom was as relaxed about sex as she was. How she got that way in the religious/cultural environment we were in I have no idea. When she walked into my room one day and found me tying up my naked and blindfolded G.I. Joe (I could not have been older than 12) I thought I might die on the spot. Her eyebrows fluttered up a little, but she just handed me my clean clothes and left. Later, I asked if I was in trouble, and she said, “You can do whatever you want in your room, honey.” After that, she had learned to knock, and I think any more discussion at that point would have been uncomfortable for me. I think she was right not to jump in and start labeling things. She gave me the privacy to explore my emerging sexuality without interference, in that way.

It’s only with adulthood and exposure to other people’s families that I realized she was probably the only parent in my peer group who would not have immediately tried to cast a demon out of their child if they’d been caught doing such things. She passed away in 2004, but things keep reminding me of how lucky I was to have her.

By: James

James — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:43:39 +0000

May, this is fantastic. I’ve been reading what you write here for some time now and this is, in my opinion, by far the best post you’ve written in the last year. On a topic which you and I have, offline, discussed and often disagreed about, I find myself agreeing with you almost entirely. In this post you take the time to slow down, point out exactly what the issues you see are and connect with a large range of the ideas surrounding those issues in your response. If this is the kind of quality that you can produce when you don’t have a full time job looming over your head then quitting was obviously the right thing to do.

You asked in your post “why do you distinguish between BDSM and the many other sexuality issues … that billions of adults also struggle to understand in the most basic of terms?” and I’d like to try to answer that, even though I don’t draw the distinction I’m about to describe. Many people, arguably even the society we live in as a whole, make a categorical distinction between “not violent” and “violent” and between “not injurious” and “injurious.” BDSM (though, I recognize, not always kink) falls, in the public imagination, and often in reality, into the “violent and (at least potentially) injurious” category. If one believes that things which are “violent and injurious” are a separate category of activities, the distinction between BDSM and other sexuality issues becomes important and meaningful. Also, because the “violent and injurious” category is typically understood as something which sane people avoid (self harm and overly aggressive behavior are classic symptoms of mental disorder) the idea that someone would willingly submit to, much less desire, such a thing is typically seen a symptomatic of psychological unbalance. Those who take the dominant side of the coin are, interestingly, less often (though still commonly) seen as unbalanced. This is likely because our society values domination far more than it values subordination, having, as a culture, failed to grasp the importance of having not only both but also the full spectrum of in between areas (something like our hang up on male and female). To reiterate, because BDSM (as distinct from the broader kink) is unique from other sexuality issues in its violent and potentially injurious nature it can be, on that basis, set aside as a separate issue.

Naturally, this argument ignores the complicating factors of consent and mutual desire, but this is my best understanding of why and how the distinction is made. That you sidestep this issue and rather focus on the underlying questions of power dynamics is brilliant and demonstrates your deep and profound understanding of kink and BDSM.