I am tired of people saying my prepubescent son is their daughter’s boyfriend.
I am tired of people thinking it’s cute to make toddlers kiss each other and invade each others’ boundaries.
I am tired of people putting kids in tshirts that objectify them by calling them “studs” or “hunks” or “eyecandy” or referencing a “future hubby” or literally just printing patriarchal beauty standards on them by depicting them as a big muscle man or a curvy woman in a bikini.
I am tired of people just defaulting to assuming that all children will end up in a cishet marriage and then will have biological children, in that order, as if any deviation from that path is an unforeseeable aberration.
I am tired of people excusing literal pedophiles for religious or political reasons and then accusing queer people of being groomers.
I am tired of people creating and maintaining entire industries and sports which systemically sexualize, abuse, and exploit children with minimal oversight.
I am tired of being painfully aware of child sex trafficking happening in my area which has gone unpunished despite involvement from CPS and local authorities. And then watching people spread stereotypes about child predators which describe literally none of the people responsible.
I am tired of being looked at like a predator for being at the playground with my child, first as a man, now as a visibly queer person.
I am tired of people romanticizing my relationship while rejecting all the queer aspects of me and my partner that make our relationship healthy.
I am tired of being reprimanded for teaching my kids age-appropriate information about sex which protects them from abuse. I am tired of the person reprimanding me raising a son who will literally never understand basic female anatomy because he’s being taught it’s icky.
0.000% of Communism has been built. Evil child-murdering billionaires still rule the world with a shit-eating grin. All he has managed to do is make himself sad. He is starting to suspect Kras Mazov fucked him over personally with his socio-economic theory. It has, however, made him into a very, very smart boy with something like a university degree in Truth. Instead of building Communism, he now builds a precise model of this grotesque, duplicitous world.
I am fucking tired.
The paragraph about CPS reminded me of something that happened in my mom’s small ass town. The head of the county’s CPS retired, a new head took over, and suddenly the number of CPS cases drastically increased. Of course, a lot of the locals blamed the messenger as it were, but the actual explanation was obvious. The new head was brought in from out of the area, did things by the book, whereas the old head was a connected local who would look the other way when the abuse was being done by someone he considered a “good family.” And a lot of those rural clans hadn’t moved much since arriving there in the late 1800’s up from the south, so those were some large, extended families.
I feel this deep in my bones
Had a similar thing happen to me. When my daughter was 1 some of my wife’s friends and family members kept saying that one of the boys she would play with was her boyfriend. When I asked them to stop, they seemed to believe I was being a weirdo about my daughter dating, rather than the fact that they were trying to force the whole dating thing in the first place.
Chuds: “I don’t want my children learn about sex and sexual orientation at school at such a young age! That’s GROOMING!!!”
Also chuds: “Wow look at our toddlers dating each other! How romantic!”
I hadn’t even thought about the bullshit I’m going to hear over plainly explaining things to my kids. Fuck. I’ve got to remember to keep “Piss off,” at the ready so I don’t say anything more actionable
This is one of my personal crusades. There is no reason at all, whatsoever, not to teach kids how sex works as soon as they can talk. It’s 100%
. There’s just this pervasive unexamined bullshit belief that knowing sex exists " harms" children in some undefined metaphysical way. When really it’s just religious misogyny so deeply permeating society that it’s become written on the bones of the culture. And it’s enormously harmful, causing endless misery and suffering to children and adults alike.There’s one story I can remember where a six year old is explaining the symptoms of what turns out to be a uti, and the doctor’s main concern is that she knows the correct terms for her reproductive anatomy and can discuss it in detail. Her parent has to reprimand the doctor several times to get him back on task; the kid has a fucking bladder infection, and is able to describe the symptoms in detail because she wasn’t taught some bullshit like calling her whole reproductive system “no no area” or some shit.
There’s another story that stuck with me. I know the whole thread is CWed for CSA, but like… probably don’t read this if it’s a big trigger for you.
CW CSA
A student told her teacher several times, “my uncle keeps eating my cookie”. It was only after the teacher heard the girl’s mom refer to her own vagina as her “cookie” that she understood what had happened.
It’s completely unhinged. The Santa Lie is a weird tradition, but it’s honestly just abuse to do a Santa Lie about sex. No one should be taught to hate or fear their own body and everyone else’s. It is naked misanthropy, with plenty of misogyny in the details
I believe a lot of the aversion for girls (if they’re boys) or for boys (if they’re girls) come from adults teasing them about how they’re dating when it’s just basic playing. Not only is it forcing them to be in roles they never asked for, but it usually has some sort of negative connotation. Shit like “why AREN’T YOU playing with your GIRLFRIEND??” Parents see that as cute teasing, but now the children who don’t know anything about the world believe they’re being blamed for a situation other people put them in. Why wouldn’t you become hostile to the opposite sex when they seem to be the source of the perceived adults’ hostility?
I don’t have kids of my own so I can’t yet relate to a lot of this, even though I do agree with all of it and am infuriated for you. But one thing I can relate to is the assumption of creepiness as a man around children. I’m not visibly queer (even though I am) but I am visibly a large (autistic, which probably doesnt help) man. And Ive worked childcare and had outsiders make horrible shitty assumptions when I was being openly affectionate (in appropriate ways) with the kids I worked with. Its not my fault pedophiles exist and its definitely not the child’s fault, and robbing them of the benefits of having an adult male model positive masculinity for them by barring open affection sucks complete ass.
it’s pretty shit being on the receiving end of it as a kid. my parents and lots of people tried to push the “omg you’re dating how cute” thing on me so much and it constantly made me feel really weird as a kid
and then i grew up and got diagnosed as autistic and have been trying to shed decades of being made incredibly uncomfortable about relationships thanks to this cishet stuff
all the best, comrade
This shit right here made me incredibly awkward with femme people until like my late 20’s. This kind of thing can fuck people up and all the adults think it’s hilarious and cute and you call them out on it and suddenly you’re the asshole for bringing the mood down.
