need your input: letter from a christian
Submitted by Chuck on February 14 1999 at 20:04:33
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How would you answer this person? This letter came amongst a few others that I got when I made a somewhat provacative post at a college web board that turns out to be a religious college (I guess). If anyone is interested in the URL of the board, see the link below. It takes a lot of energy for some of us to take "normal" people on. So, if none of you feel interested, I will understand. I just wanted to share this here in case someone had something to say that I didn't think of. Note, I've taken out the full name of this letter-writer for privacy purposes. -------------------------------------------------- Hello Chuck, I read your messages and looked at your links. I read the responses in the chat rooms and viewed what I believed were pictures of the young boys who had been "involved" with the adults in the chat rooms. The pictures struck me with utter sadness and disgust. You mentioned that "children" span the ages of 0-17 years old. The pictures of the children under discussion, however, couldn't be more than 9 years old. I have known a number of people who claimed to have experienced sex abuse as children. All have mentioned, in addition to sex involvement, horrors such as being threatened, tied up, beaten, etc. However, lets suppose that your point is true, that you are talking about "consentual, healthy" sexual relationships with children. How in the world can a mature adult claim to have a loving, sexual, consentual relationship with someone who plays with Star Wars figures? Children are interested in "sex" at a young age, they play House and Doctor and pretend to get married and may even kiss and hug each other. It is obvious that they learn about "sex" from society and parental roles. They know about Boys and Girls, and play games that pit the genders against each other. But that is the limit of a healthy child's knowledge about "sex". No healthy child engages in anything more than SOCIAL IMITATION of adults with their PEERS. An adult is not a child's peer and does not think in any of the range of cognitive function of a child! A child looks to you and I for SECURITY, stability, love. Children need these things from us as adults. They need to be able to trust us and know that we are aways there for them. They need to believe that the things that we do for them are really in their best interest--this makes a child feel secure. A child who is being used, abused (and unfortunately a great number of children are) by a selfish, reckless adult will always feel somewhat unloved and insecure. This is true even though there may be moments when a child confuses abuse with some kind of "special attention". This confused child will always seek abuse as form of experiencing love and security. I do not know how you can call sex involvement with a child "love." I can barely remember being 9 years old, but I know that "sex" as we adults understand it was thankfully not a part of my upbringing. Had it been, it would have horrified me, the same way that it would have been h orrifying to be alone in dark, chased by a snake, whatever. These things are terrifying to children. I hope we can all learn the truth about how to love and care for each other--children and adults. Unfortunately there are so many people who take advantage of others' neediness. I hope God gives you the strength to learn to love yourself and receive and give appropriate love to others. G |