Sexy children

Apparently several people were disturbed by Rachel Moseley’s recent show at The Crux Artist Collective because much of Moseley’s work depicted very young and blatantly sensual women. I think young, blatantly sexual women are always disturbing. So are old, blatantly sexual women.

A lot of people are upset by even the thought of sex with children, however you define “children.” Fourteen-year-old girls are nearly always advertising their sexuality and readiness for some male’s genetic material. That seems to be what adolescence is all about: I’m ready !

The prohibition against anything sexual to do with children is as widespread as patriotism and just as mindless. I don’t advocate sex with children; I just don’t want government goons involved. No matter how or why children develop into sexual beings, they’re usually ready for action no later than their early teens, even without drugs. That seems to have been the case forever, and advanced cultures accept that. So whether you think it’s God’s plan or nature’s way or blind evolution or whatever, people reach sexual maturity in the early double digits. Do you suppose there’s a reason for that? How about intelligent design?

Now, 14-year-olds are not emotionally mature, but neither are 30-year-olds, and that doesn’t seem to bother anybody. The fear and loathing around child sexuality in the United States seem to be part of the general craziness surrounding everything sexual. It reminds me that many of the first Europeans on this continent were twisted religious fanatics. Their neurotic philosophical heirs are still running the show.

There’s no line between childhood and adulthood, between immaturity and maturity, except artificially via legislation. There’s no clear division even for an individual, much less for people in general. People change and mature erratically—at fits and starts, back and forth in rapid succession, and in all combinations, depending on the season of the year and their family of origin and the phase of the moon and sunspot activity and their astrological sign and birth order and the people they hang out with and where they live and their diet and how they think of themselves and maybe the speed of their Internet connection.

Nonetheless, some of us insist on subjecting all of us to the same extreme restrictions and prejudices and foolishness—extreme because laws tend to cater to people with the most fear and the greatest desire to control others.

Last year I read that in the Netherlands the Charity, Freedom, and Diversity party proposed to lower the legal age for sexual relations from 16 to 12 years of age. The thought of all those hairless pudenda rendered me speechless. Well, maybe not entirely.

That particular political party also wanted to permit sex with animals, although they opposed legalizing the abuse of animals. The animals would have to want it.

Lowering the age of consent from 18 to 12 would never fly here, of course, but 14 …