You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (15 page)

A study of fourteen of these reassigned children found that by their teenage years half of them had declared that they were males.
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Remarkably, five of these did so spontaneously. Two made their declarations after the parents came clean about their true past. Of the remaining seven, one wished to become a boy, but accepted her status only to become irate when finally told the truth. Parents of the remaining six were determined never to tell their children the truth of their birth status. Three of these children were withdrawn, and a fourth had no friends. Most of the children in the study have discussed their sexual and romantic feelings, and all of those that have are attracted to females. In addition, all the children have exhibited masculine interests and behavior.

Despite all the evidence, religious forces still claim that homosexuality stems primarily from two sources. The first is improper parenting. Particularly with males, the culprit is a distant and cold father. As one proponent of this view put it, “Although he has ‘defensively detached’ from his father, the young boy still carries silently within him a terrible longing for the warmth, love, and encircling arms of the father he never did nor could have.”
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The second source is childhood sexual abuse that is so psychologically damaging to the child that their natural sexual attraction is distorted.

Both of these characteristics are more prevalent among homosexuals than their straight counterparts, but this does not mean there is causation. It has never been shown that fatherly detachment causes homosexuality as opposed to the opposite—the son’s homosexuality causes detachment in the father. It is a difficult adjustment for a homophobic father who is looking forward to playing sports with his son when his son prefers talking on the phone with female classmates.

Gay men have a higher rate of child sexual abuse than their straight counterparts,
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but this does not mean abuse causes homosexuality. An obvious explanation is that homosexual youth are targeted more frequently
because
of their homosexuality. A gay man is more likely to foster a sexual relationship with a homosexual adolescent than a straight adolescent. Due to the child’s sexual orientation, the child may be more likely to submit, and less likely to recognize and report the abuse. (Straight boys are relatively untargeted because women rarely sexually abuse children.)
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Another plausible explanation for the higher rate of child sexual abuse among gay men is that homosexual boys are more likely to seek out age-discrepant sexual relationships. (Age-discrepant relationships are when one partner is significantly older than the other.) In America any relationship straddling a state’s age of consent, which can range from sixteen to eighteen, can be labeled sexual molestation or abuse.

Considering that homosexual males account for only 2.8 percent of the population,
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it is understandable that they are more likely to reach across age groups to find partners. For example, if a fifteen-year-old homosexual male is in a high school class of five hundred, chances are there are only seven other homosexual males in his class. Considering some of the others are still closeted or questioning their sexual orientation, the boy is likely to willingly engage someone older and more comfortable with his homosexuality.
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Studies bear this out. Unlike straight pubescent girls, straight pubescent boys who have sexual experiences with adults of the opposite sex predominantly view the experiences positively.
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This may extend to gay boys’ experiences with adult men as well. Studies of age-discrepant homosexual relationships have found that often the boys consent to the sexual conduct with the men and in many cases initiate it. These consensual interactions are viewed neutrally or positively by the boy later in life.

If this sounds alarming, look at it as if they were straight. If straight people only made up 2.8 percent of the population and straight girls were closeted, would it be that disturbing if straight teenage boys would try to seduce straight women? And would it be child molestation if they succeeded?

Unfortunately, this nuanced reality is overshadowed by the nightmare repeatedly etched in the public’s consciousness of an old man forcing his will through
trickery on an innocent prepubescent boy. In the midst of a sensationalized scandal in London, Ontario, sixty men were arrested and police and social workers pressured teenage boys into saying they were victimized, despite the fact they were over the age of consent and willing. One of the boys told the Canadian Broadcasting Company:

Sexual predators of gay boys do exist, but categorizing all age-discrepant relationships as traumatic abuse is overly simplistic. The fact that these are often positive experiences instigated by the minors suggests that age-discrepant relationships are not a significant cause of male homosexuality. One study of these age-discrepant relationships found that all but one of the twenty-six boys were aware of their homosexual attractions before the incident occurred—three-and-a-half years before on average.
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With current American attitudes, it is almost criminal to even suggest that children are sexual. In 1997, Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders was fired by President Bill Clinton after answering in the affirmative when a sex educator asked if masturbation could appropriately be discussed in schools to combat sexually
transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancy.
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In 2004, for three-quarters of a second a distant shot of a woman’s nipple was televised. Despite it being imperceptible to viewers without replay, a Congressional investigation was launched, censorship penalties were tightened, and a congresswoman cried over the nipple’s effects on her fourth-grade son.
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Sexual desire in humans begins with the onset of puberty. Commencement of puberty varies widely by individual in both sexes, but the average girl begins having her period when she is twelve and a quarter years old and the average boy is capable of ejaculation at the age of thirteen and a half.
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Even before puberty, children are not completely sexless.
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The genitalia are pleasurable to the touch from birth, with males being capable of erection and females being capable of vaginal lubrication. In addition, sexual behavior is natural in infants and children. Masturbation has been observed in infants as young as seven months, and evidence suggests that children as young as two years old may even experience orgasm. In studies, parents have reported observing two six-year-olds masturbate with objects, imitate intercourse, put their mouths on sex parts, and rub their bodies against other people.

Parents and other caretakers also skew observed sexual behavior by quickly discouraging its existence and thus causing it to be hidden. One study placed children aged three to seven in an environment where only coercive sexual activity or insertion of any object was forbidden. Sexual play was very common, and included genital manipulation and attempts at sexual intercourse. In another study of college-age women, eighty-five percent reported engaging in sexual games with others during childhood, at an average age of seven-and-a-half years. Only fifty-six percent of these experiences were discovered by an adult. Excluding the sex play that was deemed coercive, participants largely reported the experiences as positive.

These positive descriptions reflect sexual mores found in other cultures. For example, Marquesan youth (inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia) have already had a wide range of sexual experiences by the time they reach puberty, experiences that can include homosexual acts.
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A boy has intercourse for the first time with a married woman in her thirties or forties, and a girl has her first time with an older man. The young enjoy the benefits of learning sex from those with experience. A daughter with a great number of lovers is a source
of pride to the Marquesans. While societies as sexually liberal with their children as the Marquesans are rare, cultures more liberal than ours are plentiful.

For example, touching of a child’s genitalia by adults is accepted in at least seventy societies. Some of the reasons behind cultural acceptance include pacification, gratification, teasing, greeting, and demonstration of gender-specific parental pride. Some European societies that have accepted this behavior in their recent past include Southern Italian and Danish groups. This behavior still accepted in Puerto Rican culture. The following collection of quotes describes behavior in Puerto Rico: