Why creative works for kids shouldn't contain anyhing, related to sex?

[Jenny-Toons]

Ideally, parents should be able to sit down and talk to their children about sex and love bit by bit. You don't overload them with details (especially when they're small because they're too young), but you also don't completely censor them or lie if and when they ask questions.

Ideally, schools and media shouldn't have to be the one teaching kids sex or putting restrictions on what they see.

Realistically, it's not that easy.

As @Merle hinted at -- there are a large number of parents who don't ease into the sex and love talk it with their children. They either shut it out, discourage them in a way that makes the topic shameful, or they don't teach their children that it's something they should do when they're older and those same children end up doing something no child should be doing.

The last one I've seen growing up. I went to grade school with children who tried mimicking sexual acts because that's what they saw around their parents or guardians. And at the same time, I went to high school with children who were shamed into not masturbating and were completely in the dark on consent and telling people "no" if they were uncomfortable.

Realistically, some people just don't know how to teach children about sex and love. I'd also argue some people just shouldn't be having kids in the first place, but that's another topic.

I'm another advocate of "letting kids be kids". While my father and aunt did give hints and answered my questions when I was small, it was never full on details, and it was insisted it wasn't something I should be worried about. However, when I became more mature, my folks sat me down and began to elaborate. I didn't find out about the details of sex until I was 10,11 years old, and it was introduced to me when my aunt sat me down to talk about menstruation.

It was gradual and more close to when I was pre-teen, teenager. I was able to still be a child and think like one but also learn to understand the importance of sex, love, and consent when my folks thought I was old enough to understand that.

Now, as a creator, I won't censor myself. If I feel I need to talk about a topic or show an explicit sexual scene, I will do so. But I still have a duty to put up warnings and some blockades because I know there are parents out there who aren't doing their duty. So I can see why there's a censorship -- if a minor sees my work, despite me putting up a blockade, it turns the responsibility on the parent, not me.

It's because realistically, some parents aren't talking to their kids that media has to step in and do it for them. Which is BS, it is. But if we want to reduce that censorship, we kinda have to turn our attention to how people talk to their children when it comes to sex.

But that's only half the battle.

[unknown_user]

Kids from the ages of 1-12 usually can't have kids (although kids seem to be hitting puberty earlier and earlier which is kinda sad) and shouldn't be thinking about sex at that age at all, but when kids hit 13, they begin thinking about the opposite sex a lot more and begin to have sexual feelings

I'm sorry, but I had some sexual feelings at about the same time when I've learned to talk, maybe in 3 y.o. ( yes, I've started to talk late ). Sometimes I... you know, touched myself in some places and liked it. It was something completely normal to me, until mum have noticed it, shamed me with a disgust and yelling and "explained" that I should never do it again. I suppose, that I wouldn't even remember anything about it, if I wouldn't get that scandal, which upsetted me and made me feel strong shame and guilt.
Bedides... even full lack of sexual feeling doesn't mean, that one "shouldn't think" about it. Sex is the important part of humans relationships. Without understanding it's place in culture, you will not understand a lot of things about people's behavior and how society works. And I always was curious about such a things. Also I'm deeply convinced that people should think about everything they are interested in, and mental barriers, set in childhood, may hurt free thinking - even in the future.

I'm also an advocate of just letting kids below the age of 13 just be kids. They shouldn't have to worry about getting a boyfriend or girlfriend at that age, or getting their first kiss or what have you, they should be playing Super Mario and messing around in the neighborhood park--playing on the swing sets with their friends.

I agree with you about this point. Kids should be informed, that sex-related things are good only for mature people and will cause hurt if you'll start to do it in too young age, for a bunch of reasons, including pure physiological.
And at the point, that they shouldn't overestimate romantic things, too. But this will be much easier, if adults will stop overestimate romantic relations, as well (I know, it will not happen, just dreaming...). I.e. if people will understand, for example, that if someone hasn't find a love in any age, it doesn't mean anything bad about this person.

1. so that they understand it's okay to remain a virgin until eighteen or however long they want.

Yes, agree in this point, too. For some reason, teens associate losing virginity with becoming adult, which is surely not adequate.

[vothnthorvaldson]

I'm sorry, but I had some sexual feelings at about the same time when I've learned to talk, maybe in 3 y.o.

Same. But I know it's not the case for everyone (or at minima the comprehension of what it means is not at the same age for everyone). Thinking of it, it's only retrospectively that I can consider these feelings as sexual, and the only reason I remember them is that they were somewhat linked to my gender identity issues, and that these gender identity issues, contrarily to sex, were already socially relevant at 3 years old).

And that's also why both the school and the parents are important in an ideal situation.

The school sex ed can only guess the best time for a majority to be ready for whatever material is discussed. It may be a bit too early for some, a bit too late for others, but globally the right time if the material proposed is properly thought.
But only the parents can have hints that they need to discuss things earlier. Sometimes way earlier than they are prepared to.

[unknown_user]

I think what comes as the most problematic to me, is avoiding sex at all costs instead of simply adapting the way we speak about it depending on the public. Yes, it's not a good idea to put porn in a child's book, but why avoiding all allusion to sex when the book (or other media) speaks about a couple? It's part of what most couples do.

Yes!

But I also do think it may not be a good idea to speak to small children about sex without love, because it's based on something they cannot understand (you need to be at the age when you actually feel and understand physical desire to be ready to understand this type of sex in my opinion).

I think, that for a small children, such a things may be explained just in basic level, not detailed, and they will be satisfied with basic explanation for a while. They likely can understand that most of the long-established couples, who love each other, have some intimate moments and then probably have children. But does sex imply love or not, is more subtle matter. I'm not even sure, if small child can come up with such a question. But from the other side, I'm not sure, does understanding of such a things strongly requires reaching physiological matureness or not. But it surely require certain intelligence level for understanding subtle emotions.

[unknown_user]

Now, as a creator, I won't censor myself. If I feel I need to talk about a topic or show an explicit sexual scene, I will do so. But I still have a duty to put up warnings and some blockades because I know there are parents out there who aren't doing their duty. So I can see why there's a censorship -- if a minor sees my work, despite me putting up a blockade, it turns the responsibility on the parent, not me.

Yes, this sounds reasonable.

[ratscout]

Haha, well I wasn't saying that schools should cancel sex ed, because I do realize that some parents just don't give their kids the talk, but like I said, I think it's just kinda dumb that a school should be forced to teach things that a parent should be able teach their kids on their own time

Whoopsie, did a quick google search and found the statistic I was thinking of. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3752789/ it says that, while there was no significant relationship between number of partners and depression/anxiety, there is a relationship between substance abuse and number of partners. Of course, I believe this is all correlational, so it could be that some other behavior is responsible for the substance abuse--like a general recklessness of the person--but there we have it. I'm just extremely in favor of monogamy, so I was biased there shrugs. no judgement about people who aren't, though. Y'all should feel free to do what you want with your private love lives.

I agree that it is a very taboo subject, and if kids ask their parents questions about these things, even from a young age, that parents should answer and use words that kids understand to explain things and educate them about things that are relevant to them at that age, but otherwise, just let 'em be kiddos.

[Cavechan]

Definitely, kids mature at different rates. I was more of a late bloomer myself. It was about 7th-8th grade when we started having sex ed, but I don't think there were any pictures of things. Just a more basic understanding of it. I found at that age, some of my classmates were already sexually active! Meanwhile, I didn't even know what a D looked like. I ended up learning a lot from reading fan fiction lol and then I started watching pr0n/hentai. XD

So, for me, I could have easily waited until that age, but the other people definitely should have had this type of education sooner. Supposedly, a girl in my 8th grade class was pregnant. Looking back on it now, I think she was just lying for attention. e_e There was a whole kids drama around that.

I also found out that one of my classmates in 8th grade was even doing drugs!! How does a 13-14 year old get caught up in this stuff... I don't even know.

I still feel pretty cheated though that everyone else around me knew so much more than me at the same age. My parents were just terrible in talking about any kind of stuff and they just almost never did.

In terms of creative works, I just don't feel there's much of a place for it unless the work is specifically trying to be informational. Or maybe it could be done in a more subtle or kid-friendly way? I think it would be pretty challenging to pull off.

[ble]

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[ISNEKO]

I'm a parent of education and not obfuscation. My ten and twelve year old girls were both given the talk and they basically shrugged them off because the subject matter isn't important to them yet. They simply wanted to know because my little family of four have no filter (as you may have noticed) and their mother and I believed their maturity and intelligence were up to par for the information.

They don't look for sex, talk about it, and they don't curse either, but now they understand 100% of the way their parents talk.

It is always funny when the number 69 comes up somehow and my kids do this stupid-ass face and say "nice." Or when some lady cuts us off in traffic and I hear, "this bench." I'm sure this might sound a bit horrible from the outside but people don't know my kids so negative opinions on that is meaningless to us.

In media, I feel like the presence of a baby should be sufficient to plant some curiosity for knowledge, but I feel there's no real way to make sure you're doing it the right way for every kid. Some kids may never ever think of this shit on their own and it would be up to the parent(s) to step in when they think it's time. The weight of sexual education for a child should absolutely be on the shoulders of a good parent. But something made for kids definitely shouldn't just outright include sex, LION KING. Lololol.

I never got a talk from my mom. One day in high school she was just like, "you know what sex is, right?" 10/10. I learned from porn wtf sex was in 7th grade. Can't remember how old I was. Never went after it until sophomore year of high school. Banged my first girlfriend, got married to her after we graduated, two little smart asses came, figured we worked better as friends, and called it quits romantically.

And I went back to porn! Full circle! Been single for 7 years.

What was this topic about again?

[indagold]

Little kids shouldn't be learning about sex, unless its about assault or abuse which should be talked about because many kids don't know whats happening. As for teenagers/kids hitting puberty sex ed is enough. Having porn designed for pubescent kids sounds like it's one step away before we're going into Shadman territory. Also porn isn't for everyone, especially for developing minds who are very ignorant about sex, willingly showing them that with an intention to help them would screw them up.

Like just... promote sex ed before we get into moral and legal quandary.

[nessiefynn]

I feel like it's a good thing to shield younger children from explicit topics of sex simply because they aren't mature enough to engage with it. Younger kids imitate what they see in media, they often aren't old enough to really make the distinction between fiction and reality. Exposure to sex in fiction can have bad effects on kids, and it's a fact pornography is often used in child grooming. Kids really don't need to know anything more about sex than it being where babies comes from, it doesn't concern them and they frankly have no use for the information.
I think it's more appropriate to tackle issues of sexuality in works aimed at post-pubescent audiences, readers who will actually have some relevant experiences with the subject and need to engage with it. Unlike children, I think for teens it can be good for fiction to engage the topic of sexuality because it can be a weird and scary experience, and going through it with fiction can help audiences make more sense of it.

[unknown_user]

I feel like it's a good thing to shield younger children from explicit topics of sex simply because they aren't mature enough to engage with it. Younger kids imitate what they see in media, they often aren't old enough to really make the distinction between fiction and reality. Exposure to sex in fiction can have bad effects on kids, and it's a fact pornography is often used in child grooming. Kids really don't need to know anything more about sex than it being where babies comes from, it doesn't concern them and they frankly have no use for the information.

I've talked very detailed in my main post about the consequences of such a "shielding".
More info in "More detailed story about my childhood experience - long read, NSFW".
By the way... between the moment, when I've seen porn at first time, and the moment, when I've lost virginity, 10 years passed. 10. YEARS. Because it doesn't work that way, that you just see porn and go fuck everything immediately.

Also, as I've already said:

Bedides... even full lack of sexual feeling doesn't mean, that one "shouldn't think" about it. Sex is the important part of humans relationships. Without understanding it's place in culture, you will not understand a lot of things about people's behavior and how society works. And I always was curious about such a things. Also I'm deeply convinced that people should think about everything they are interested in, and mental barriers, set in childhood, may hurt free thinking - even in the future.

[DiegoPalacios]

After reading about your story, i can understand that seing that sex wasn`t a disturbing and unsettling thing was a liberating experience for you.

Also, is completely understandable that you asked all these questions out of cuiosity and the desire for learning.

While porn can show the body proccess, is not a recommended tool to teach about sex because it was designed to arouse the viewer and not to teach what is normal and what is right about sexual acts.
is important to point out that you were lucky that your first exposure to porn was not some hardcore violent and/or non-consensual porn, or it would definitely have scarred you about all the sex stuff.

About why not to expose kids to sex content, is for the same reasons they are not exposed to alcohol, drugs and cigarretes in media. The mirror neurons of kids, toddlers and babies are more active during these stages, so they are more prone to imitate such behavior even if they don`t fully understand the consequences of these. That mixed with a not fully developed judgement can lead to terrible consequences.

I second @Jenny-Toons on this:

Ideally, parents should be able to sit down and talk to their children about sex and love bit by bit. You don't overload them with details (especially when they're small because they're too young), but you also don't completely censor them or lie if and when they ask questions.

Also, i completely agree that demonizing sex is unhealthy.

[Rosso]

...but just a usual part of adults people's life

kids like to imitate what adults do regardless of consequences.
you tell them not to play with fire unless they wanna be burned, and what do curious kids do...?

and quite frankly, kids have absolutely no use for these kind of info that only matter to consenting adults. and speaking of consent... everyone must consent to learning these kind of sensitive topics on their own terms, which kids cannot do.

(btw this is assuming we're talking about teens/early teens.)

[beta1042]

hmm I havn't read all the replies in this thread, so I may be repeating some things, but here are my thoughts on the matter.

I'm usually a pretty big advocate for not demonizing sex, and not avoiding the topic of sex, and having healthy real discussions about it, etc etc... but that to me is VERY age specific. To me this topic should not be glossed over and ignored, but there is definitely a time and place for when it should happen, and young children are not part of it. I see literally no gains in talking about actual intercourse to children. Explaining where babies come from with less detail is fine, but beyond that it is really unnecessary.

In fact I actually can see benefits to some demonizing of sex to young children... because honestly, at their age sex IS wrong. Young kids should not be having sex. If they are, then its some abusive situation. There are plenty of things that kids are initially taught are "forbidden" or "wrong" when they're a child but they can grow into. So I think approaching it from this angle is fine(within reason).

[vothnthorvaldson]

I have the feeling a lot of people don't understand what OP meant in the first message. (tell me if I'm wrong @tired_programmer).

I do not see anything like encouraging people to show porn to kids; rather encouragement to be more honest and less biased on this subject, so the kid won't need to look for potentially harmful material. I cite her:

I know that explicit porn is not suitable for everyone, because people in general are too sensitive to explicit things, and different people may perceive them very differently - from excitement to rejection. But... there are a lot of shades between the porn and full lack of sex.Is there really no way to show non-explicitly and unobtrusively in a creative work for all-ages, that sex exist and it's not something to worry about, but just a usual part of adults people's life?

What I see, is someone who has not be traumatized by porn (but she could have been), but has been traumatized by the negative vision of sex in her family (and the negation of the need for a kid to know about it).
I think it's interesting to note that if people had not refused to answer her questions, she would not have needed to search for porn, and would not have taken the risk to find something disturbing.

I also find a bit weird to see people saying that kids have no business knowing about sex. If they don't ask, obviously it would be weird and maybe prejudicial to them to tell them anything if they are very young; but if they ask, how can it be good to not tell them? By not telling, we prepare them to think it's something dangerous or wrong, and, because kids are not stupid, also something attractive that they are denied the knowledge of. Which is creepy. It's totally possible to teach kids that it's only for adults without refusing to discuss it altogether. It's also great occasions to do prevention while having the kids' attention. I know that in my case at least, all the prevention messages I got (the earliest very early, to warn against abuse) were understandable because I understood how these behaviors were deviating from what healthy sex was and why. Not a comprehensive knowledge, but I had the info that was corresponding to the questions I was asking myself.

When I was a kid, a questioning about sex could come between "Is the orange called after the color or the color after the fruit" and "what is there in the sky behind the last stars we can see". You answer everything, all answers are equivalent to the kid. You've just fed their curiosity and educated them. You refuse to answer one... well, you already teach your kid there is something wrong with some of their questions.. and this specific subject, without explaining to them why.

Having a good choice of media adapted to each age to help answering the questions seems like a good idea, because you're able to go through them beforehand and choose something that is a good compromise between what you are ready to tell and what the kid is wanting to know.

[beta1042]

isn't the question, according to the title, about putting it in creative works aimed for children? I imagine most kids wouldn't even ask about it if they aren't exposed to it in the first place. And the argument most people are making is, that up to a certain age, why do they need to even know about it?

I do think part of this may also have to do with what age group is everyone talking about. We may all have a different idea of what age kid.

[vothnthorvaldson]

Well, I had very little exposure to any sexual topics until my late teens (no TV, no pop culture material, no one around me taking about it unless prompted to) and my first conscious questions were around 6 (or earlier in the specific context of gender identification as I was explaining earlier). I think people have these questionings coming naturally, out of simple curiosity (everyone has at least seen animals mating or something similar. It's even a common thing - we would call that a trope now - in classical literature, the rural kids know, the city ones do not).

But I know it's different for everyone, and I would not suggest to answer to every 6 years old the questions I was asking myself at this age. But having fiction material to answer them to help parents would have been nice. Non-fiction is also important (and probably a good first step) but it often make it sound so serious and clinical. One fun thing: in our school, sex ed and fire evacuation was done the same day. One after the other. Seriously.

Edit: I forgot something super important. If kids ask incongruous questions about sex it also may mean they were subjected to some kind of abuse, or have seen something they should not have. And then, it's super important to not close the dialogue on the subject to have a possibility to understand what happened and help the kid. Maybe somewhat away from main topic, but imo a excellent reason to never put off answering sex-related questions to later.

[unknown_user]

I do not see anything like encouraging people to show porn to kids; rather encouragement to be more honest and less biased on this subject, so the kid won't need to look for potentially harmful material.
...

What I see, is someone who has not be traumatized by porn (but she could have been), but has been traumatized by the negative vision of sex in her family (and the negation of the need for a kid to know about it).I think it's interesting to note that if people had not refused to answer her questions, she would not have needed to search for porn, and would not have taken the risk to find something disturbing.

Yes, this is like that.

While porn can show the body proccess, is not a recommended tool to teach about sex because it was designed to arouse the viewer and not to teach what is normal and what is right about sexual acts.is important to point out that you were lucky that your first exposure to porn was not some hardcore violent and/or non-consensual porn, or it would definitely have scarred you about all the sex stuff.

Yes it's true. It was a good luck, that this video didn't contain violence, humiliations or too weird fetishes. If this were so, I would get an even more inadequate view of the subject and it could really scare and mislead me even more.
So, yes, I totally understand, why it better to not watch such a videos for kids. There are a lot of extreme, cruel, weird or just inadequate videos of this kind, which can easily shock or mislead, if they become first sourse of information about sex. I agree that they are too random and often sacrifice any realism just to arise viewers desire in more degree. So they are not the best way for learning about it.
By the way, I've REALLY met people, who had strong delusions about sex, just because their first information about this subject came from random weird porn, which was too far from reality.

[unknown_user]

isn't the question, according to the title, about putting it in creative works aimed for children? I imagine most kids wouldn't even ask about it if they aren't exposed to it in the first place. And the argument most people are making is, that up to a certain age, why do they need to even know about it?

and quite frankly, kids have absolutely no use for these kind of info that only matter to consenting adults. and speaking of consent... everyone must consent to learning these kind of sensitive topics on their own terms, which kids cannot do.

Sex plays noticeable role in humans culture and interactions. I remember, that I was very confused, when I've started to learn classic literature in middle school, just because I didn't understand the role of sex in life of people. There was a great gap between my child books, which didn't contain any info about sexual relationships between adults, and these classic novels, where the significant part of conflict is based on sexual relationships sometimes!
Of course, they didn't contain sex scenes, but they were partially based on implications of sexual relationships. There was no chance to understand the basis of the plot and conflict without understanding sex. First and second kinds of books were like from different worlds... and there was NO smooth transition between them.

For example, I didn't understand, why in these novels the wife is upset, when her husband cheat on her. And sometimes in such a degree that it leads to tragedy! NOBODY explained me, that in monogamic couples sex plays a role of something, which makes people in couple feel unique and especially close for each other. And that's why if the husband cheat on wife, she feels betrayed.
Of course, I just couldn't understand how can sex make people close and unique to each other, since I was told that sex is like a going to the toilet! So I couldn't understand any conflicts, based on cheating, either! But when I've asked about it, everyone looked at me, like I'm stupid and it should be understandable by everyone by default. Or said that I should grow up, to understand. So I felt strongly inadequate.
I'm still angry about this situation. First people told me inadequate things, and then the same people pretend that I am inadequate! ¯_(ツ)_/¯ It was really humiliating and absurd.