I’m up late working, about to go to bed, and I see this item linked from cruel.com:
A couple is found guilty of “Neglect” for having sex in front of their nine year old daughter. They didn’t force her to watch, understand, but they didn’t hide it in any way. They get 3 years probation. (Link)
(First of all, it’s not neglect, in any normal sense of the word. But that’s beside the point, I think.)
I believe that sex is natural, ok, and generally a good thing. I also believe that knowing all about it does not lead to having it before you’re ready. I think it’s probably more true that lacking all the details leads to poor sexual decision-making.
So, taking culture out of it, is it harmful to a kid to see two adults in a loving relationship having sex on a regular basis? Is it damaging?
I could see how it could be scarring if the child didn’t know what was going on. But if she’s informed, then what exactly is the damage to her psyche? To me, it’s a lot better than pretending that it doesn’t happen and making the whole subject embarassing and awkward.
This is all assuming that there’s some education going on. Some explaining about why it’s an adult thing, and only for people who know each other and trust each other, etc. etc. etc.
But ok, we can’t leave culture aside. That girl has already mentioned to someone that she saw the adults having sex. In our idiotic culture, you just don’t talk about it like that, so she’s obviously outside the norm. And there’s no doubt that her peers will find her to be very strange. So she could very well be damaged in a way, because she won’t fit in, and she’ll be told that something bad happened and that her mom’s a criminal.
But I just think that’s kind of a shame. Because as far as being a human, I don’t think she’d be hurt by it. Only when she learns from other people that it’s WRONG will she be hurt. She’ll be hurt by being made into a weird kid. But if all the kids saw sex as an ordinary part of a loving adult relationship, then she wouldn’t be weird.
It’s sort of like women showing their breasts. You can’t do it around my neighborhood, but in other neighborhoods in the world, it’s normal. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it. And, as I’ve said dozens of times in the past, it’s bizarre that we can show the kind of violence that we allow, while screaming in terror at the sight of a nipple.
Having sex in front of the kid puts that kid in a position that is no good for her. I definitely agree that it’s not in her best interest to have that going on, and her mom shouldn’t have done it. But I can imagine a healthy society with healthy people who do allow it as a matter of course.
I there’s way too much fear associated with sex in our society, and that it’s damaging. But I also think kids are exposed to sexual issues way too much in our society, and that exposure is equally damaging.
Kids aren’t adults.
If they had the healthiest, most understanding, communicative parents in the world, they still wouldn’t be able to understand what was going on because they haven’t been through the stages that naturally progress toward sex.
I can imagine a society of healthy gorillas who allow it as a matter of course, but sex is waaay more than procreation to humans, and to ignore that would be naive.
Is exposure to something they don’t understand bad for them?
It can be.
That’s why I have child-proof medicine bottles.
Say it wasn’t sex, but some other activity that we don’t want kids to do. Let’s say they were making a bomb.
They invite the 9 year old in, and explain that making bombs is something that only adults should do, that blowing something up is an adult thing, with adult consequences, and not to be taken lightly. Mommy and daddy are going to blow something up, but it’s because we have decided, in a way that only adults can decide, that it’s the right thing to do.
And then they build a bomb while the child watches.
Do you think it’s more or less likely that this child will build a bomb before reaching adulthood?
Phil: Kids aren’t adults. But I don’t think you’ve shown why it’s bad for them to be exposed to sex, except that it is in our culture. I agree that it’s bad in our society, and we can’t ignore that.
But you seem to be saying that just because they can’t fully understand what it physically feels like, then they shouldn’t be exposed to it. That doesn’t make sense to me. Sex is more than procreation to humans, because it feels good. That’s it. The rest is social construct.
Kevin: Making a bomb is something that’s difficult to do, and something that the kid won’t hear about every single day at school. Yeah, if a kid watched you build a bomb he’d be more likely to know how to do it, and therefore do it. But I don’t think that knowing how to do it is really the problem when it’s about sex.
Let me tell you, I knew all about how to have sex long before I was 18. Just because I didn’t literally watch my parents doing it doesn’t mean I didn’t know how it worked. I didn’t think pregnancy happened from sitting on a toilet seat, or that you couldn’t get pregnant the first time you have sex. THAT’s what you get from hiding the truth.
If you think that it’s the most highly educated kids (sex-wise) who are getting pregnant and diseased, then we disagree. And when you take those two things away, then there’s even less reason to think that sex is a bad, scary, dirty thing.
Let me rephrase my “the rest is social construct.” I don’t think I can back that up. It’s possible that some humans (women?) are wired to think of sex as love, or intimacy, and that means emotions and pain when they’re taken advantage of.
But I don’t think anyone can back up the inverse either. It’s an open question.
Actually, I wasn’t trying to equate sex with bomb-making, I was trying to isolate what the difference is; why it is that we don’t want our kids to see people having sex. I hear your point about sex being easier than bomb-making, so for that reason the question doesn’t work as well as I’d like. (At least, us guys think that sex is easier. I’ve heard women argue that we think it’s easy because we don’t know how to do it right!)
The other example I thought about after I posted the comment is firing a gun. I hear gun-owners talk about taking their kids to these NRA gun safety programs so they can learn how to responsibly fire a weapon, and their expectation is that the children will be LESS likely to go fire the weapon irresponsibly later. Sounds a lot like the arguments in favor of sex-ed, too (and I’m sure they both talk about keeping your pistol clean!)
I ask the question as my way of trying to figure it out. Why do I react the the idea of my children watching me have sex with such repulsion? Is it really just that I have hang ups about sex? Or is there something else there?
You say you can imagine a healthy society with healthy people that allow their children to watch them have sex. Yeah, and I can imagine lots of beautiful women that don’t mind recruiting other women for sexual relations with their husband (in fact, I’m imagining it right now!). But for some reason, the societies where these things happen aren’t generally healthy. Why not? Where are the healthy polygamist societies? (No, really, where are they?) Where are the healthy pedarast societies?
Is it my definition of “healthy” that’s screwed up, or is it that our cultural aversion to certain sexual activities is inherited through some sort of Darwinistic process, where sexual “deviancy” led, through some mechanism we don’t understand, to the decline of certain cultures? I’m asking because I wonder, not because I think the answer is obvious.
We’re in an experimental time in our culture. We’re relaxing some of our inherited taboos on homesexuality, on sex outside of marriage, on sex outside your race, on sex outside your class. We’re learning as a culture which of these “social constructs” still have value and which are dead weight.
I can’t tell you the exact source of my revulsion, whether it’s socially constructed or an inherited biological imperitive, but I’m thinking the “no sex in front of the kids” thing might still have some value.
I thought about the gun thing as well. But again, there’s equipment involved. Without a doubt, the best way to keep your kid from firing a gun is to not have one that he can get to. If you’re going to have one, then I agree with the NRA that it’s probably better to educate the kids about how to respect it.
With sex, the kids have the equipment and they ARE going to use it. When I was 15, I’d have jumped at the chance, and it wasn’t because I knew how babies were made. The fact that I knew how babies were made was the reason that when I did get the chance, I acted responsibly.
By the way, I’m not saying that you have a hang up about sex. It’s the culture you and I were raised in, and I wouldn’t want to have sex in front of kids either. That would be a terrible idea. It would probably screw them up, as I said. By saying that I can imagine a healthy culture that allows it, I’m not saying that ours must be unhealthy.
You ask where the healthy polygamist societies are. Well, I guess you do have to define healthy, as you figured. Would you feel comfortable saying that our society is healthy? What’s the percentage of men who admit to cheating on their wives?
There’s a tribe that considers it a part of growing up for the boys to perform fellatio on the older guys. This is real (I’ll see if I can find a link). Are the boys damaged? Are the adults? How do you define it? They would be damaged in our society, because they’d feel ashamed and abused. But so far, no Darwinian process has eliminated that behavior.
No answers here. I know that you’re asking real questions (not rhetorical ones), and so am I.
Anyway, I will just reiterate that I ALSO think you shouldn’t be having sex in front of kids. Just because something’s cultural doesn’t mean that it’s ok to break it. Culture is powerful, and people finding themselves on the outside of it can be hurt badly.
It’s the Sambia tribe. Just looked it up.
Isn’t alcohol much more dangerous than this? I mean, if the argument is that monkey-see monkey-do, then obviously either parents should be locked up for drinking in front of their kids or the whole thing is bullshit.
If, on the other hand, the argument is something like “watching your parents have sex is creepy and will make you mentally ill” then that’s different and much more subject to argument, in my mind.