There is something decidedly dirty and wrong with an adult wanting to have sex with 10 or 12 year olds, regardless of sex. There is something dirty and wrong with feeling sexually attracted to little children. A marriage certificate and a blessing from one's religious leaders does not make it any less dirty or wrong.
My point is that someone who finds children sexually attractive.. a man who gets a hard on when looking at a child and a woman who gets aroused when looking at a child.. when that child becomes the object of desire to an adult.. that is sick. Imagine you have a 10 year old daughter and a 45 year old man tells you that he finds your daughter sexually appealing and attractive and he gets turned on by her. Would you feel proud or disgusted?
I'm going to, um, take one for the team here and be waaaay too honest.
I'm a teacher. Parents entrust me with the care of their children every day. And I would never, ever, ever do something to break that trust. But any young male who says they've never gotten aroused by something that in society is deemed "sick" is most likely lying. Keep in mind, getting aroused is not the same as doing something about it.
I'm 22 years old and my penis still seems to think I'm sixteen. If I'm riding on the bus, or studying or just sitting in a fucking chair long enough, I'm bound to get an erection. It's just the nature of my penis and has almost nothing to do with my current actions or surroundings. Girls or no, I will get a hard-on several times a day at least.
Given that staring at sheets of Chinese characters apparently makes me aroused (I still don't know why), is it so surprising that young girls do? I have some students who are 14 or 15 years old and have smoking hot bodies.
Now, if you think what I just said is sick, you're totally missing the point. There are some girls who at 14, 15, hell even 13 years old have big boobs, round curves and a pretty face. If you showed me a picture of the girl and didn't tell me her age I wouldn't be able to guess. The minute I know she's thirteen years old, my mind immediately erases any desire to have sex with her. But my penis doesn't listen to my brain. And I frankly would be surprised if any youngish male's penis listens to his brain 100% of the time. If I'm playing a game with my students that happens to have them jumping up and down, or whatever, and there are five sets of beautiful breasts bouncing in my face, I don't really feel ashamed that my penis enjoys that. (N.B. For exactly this reason I've learned to play fewer bouncing games with teenage students.)
And I'm not the only teacher who feels this way. Not by a long shot. Of my colleagues only one has not admitted to finding surprisingly young girls hot - and he is a 25 year old virgin, so I'm not so sure he's being honest with himself about anything. This is also a guy who thinks homosexuality ought to be outlawed. In fact, it's kind of a common locker-room type joke around here: "I should come back here in 5 years and find all my old students!"
My point is that it's actually 100% natural. Women are best at child-birthing when they are young. Biologically, you and all other males are programed to like the features of young women. Some girls exhibit those features at 12, 13, 14 years old. And your penis and hormones would love to get a piece of that. That you've been socially stigmatized (and I argue for good reason) to lean away from that is certainly true and effective. But your penis is not as easily swayed by social norms as is your brain. And neither is mine.
Compounding this always difficult feeling as a teacher are the facts that (a) in China, large age gaps are not frowned upon at all in a couple (b) teacher-student relations are much more common here (c) students are very touchy with their teacher. This last one is most difficult to adjust to. As well, I'm the only young and, ahem, somewhat good looking teacher at my school (the only other young one being the 25 year old virgin... you do the math...), and everyone likes something exotic and I speak Chinese so the female students are quite fond. When you have a group of 14 year old girls who are quite developed wanting to sit on your lap and jump up to hug you, it's a force of will power to deny yourself any pleasure from it. And I honestly don't believe any young male would feel any differently, except that social stigma keeps us away from it.
The most difficult, by far, was dealing with young children. Girls under the age of 10 are especially prone to this behaviour. (Between 10 - 13 they seem to get shy about themselves, the same as in Canada.) When I first came to China I would do everything in my power to avoid even touching a 9 year old, out of fear that the parents would find it inappropriate, as Canadian parents would. Over time you get use to it and learn there's nothing wrong as long as the culture doesn't think so. If a nine year old grabs onto my leg, now I just keep on with whatever I'm doing. If the parents see, they'll just laugh and comment that their child is quite precocious. (This extends to hitting naughty children as well. It's a common refrain when we have teacher-parent interviews. "Your child is misbehaved in class and stops other kids from learning." "Well did you hit him?" "No." "Well that's your problem. Hit him, he'll smarten up.")
What do you think? Do you think it is sick that an adult male gets aroused and turned on at the thought of a 10 year old boy performing oral sex on him.. so much so that he ejaculates into the boy's mouth? Or do you think it is normal behaviour?
Normal. Totally normal. By the way, you're aware 'normal' is a subjective term relating to cultural and social practices, right? So if there's a culture where this is common and not frowned upon than it is, a priori, "normal".
It's also "natural" - which I think might be the word you're looking for. Yes, humans use sex for pleasure rather than purely for reproduction. That is one thing that seperates us from insects; though not from a few other animals (dolphins, chimps, etc.). And like those few other animals that have sex for pleasure, homosexual and pedophilia sex are quite natural events that have happened since the dawn of man in every culture in the world. And therefore are natural.
You realise the concept of "childhood" is a western one? It doesn't exist in the east. Children are little people. They work for a living or starve. If no labour is available they become prostitutes. Marriage is also common. Its only in societies where people have the privilege of living comfortable lives [mainly at the expense of these "backward" countries], that such luxuries as childhood are available.
Wrong. While it's true that children in China worked - as they did everywhere else in the world until the last 80 years or so - Chinese culture has always placed special emphasis on children and had a defined notion of childhood.
For that matter, so does Jewish culture - which you probably know. In Jewish culture you are a child until 13 or so, when you can begin studying the Torah.
For that matter, what you said is complete crap! Most cultures in history have had some "right of passage" and they are well documented. Every group of people has had some ceremony to celebrate the passage into adulthood. And if the person wasn't an adult before the passage, what were they? A child. And were in childhood. Which was distinct from adulthood.
