View source for Debate Guide: Childhood innocence

__NOTOC__There are many arguments related to '''childhood sexual innocence''', since it is a subjective concept. Innocence is a romantic term for naivety or ignorance. The opposite of ignorance is [[Debate Guide: Sexual inexperience|experience]] or knowledge, which contributes to growth and intelligence. 

While innocence in its purest form (absence of sexuality in women and children - Victorianist [[Puritanism]]) is rejected by most modern child advocates, the "safeguarding" of "children" and "childhood" is how this myth survives. Nevertheless, the arguments addressed here are more likely to be found on American Christian bulletin boards than Science or Rationalism sites.

==An "institution" of "oughts"?==

:''"Childhood is a special time, innocent and uncorrupted by adult emotions such as sexuality. Children do not understand the corruption of adulthood, and require moral protection, as does the institution of childhood"''.
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This is actually quite the antithesis of "let children be children", when one looks at the evidence throughout history. If a subjective, romanticized, postindustrial western vision of childhood must take precedence, we are perpetuating [[Debate Guide: Cyclical paternalism|cyclical paternalism]], not letting children be children. 

Take it from David Evans<ref>https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/brill/falling-angels-the-material-construction-of-children-as-sexual-PVNtWyO3Vs</ref>, [[Richard Yuill]]'s supervisor:

:''"Cross-cultural and historical evidence demonstrates clearly that the customary separation of childhood and sexuality and the protraction of childhood well beyond adolescence is socially constructed, despite normative justifications expressed in absolute terms of "God"-given natural, physical and emotional maturation. As the data collated by Ford and Beach (1951) demonstrated, even in the most "primitive" and restrictive societies, some children engage in secret sex play, and where cultural values are less restrictive, children freely engage in various sexual practices, in some instances beginning coitus by the age of 6-8, with few virgins amongst those over the age of 10-11. Historians have presented extensive evidence that protracted innocent childhood is a relatively modern construct within Judaeo-Christian culture (Aries 1962; De Mause 1979; Hunt 1970; Currier 1981; Franklin 1986; Plumb 1972; Boas 1988). Most famously, Aries has argued that within the sociability of pre-capitalism, children were integral participants in adult life: "as soon as the child could live without the constant solicitude of his mother, his nanny, or his cradle-rocker, he belonged to adult society (Aries 1962: 331), likewise, "by the age of ten, girls were already little women" (Aries 1962: 332)."''

==Sexual contact ("theft") argument==

:''"The theft of a child's innocence (molestation) is an unforgivable crime"''.
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This argument relies on the vague assumption that sex automatically leads to complicated emotional reactions in the first place. It is also based on the assertion that "innocence" and "purity" are somehow the opposites of sexual experience, i.e. sex cannot be "pure" or "innocent". These are just outdated quasi-religious ''beliefs'', and have [[Debate Guide: Profound and lifelong scarring|no grounding in objective reality]]. Similar beliefs in relation to women have already been thoroughly discredited to the point of ridicule.

==See also==

Useful literature reviews:

*[[Research: Youth sexuality]] 
*[[Research: Sexual repression]].

==References==

[[Category:Debate]][[Category:Debating Points: Sociological]][[Category:Debating Points: Child/Minor]][[Category:Debating Points: Adult-Minor sex]]

[[fr:Guide de débat: Innocence de l'enfance]]