Interesting Article - Teaching Little Kids About Rape

[Brittany15]

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/simcha-f ... asket-case

Anyone have an opinion? I

[tayste1]

Wow. To start with anything titled "What My 10-Year-Old-Son Knows About Rape So Far" shouldn't exist. Why would anyone in their right mind tell a ten year old that sometimes boys get drunk and rape girls? Then to continue and use that as a reason why he shouldn't drink! I agree with the author of the article, this poor kid is going to live in a world of sexual confusion for the rest of his life.

[ILoveJellybeans]

That is so sad :( You dont need to educate a 10 year old about rape. All this is doing is messing him up sexually.

All you really need to teach a child about stuff like this isnt sexual at all-reinforce from an early age that their bodies belong to them and other peoples bodies belong to the other person. That they must respect other peoples bodies and not touch others without their permission, and when someone tells them to stop (whether it is playfighting too roughly, or tickling someone...) you must stop straight away.

[mypsychoticself]

That is so sad :( You dont need to educate a 10 year old about rape. All this is doing is messing him up sexually.

All you really need to teach a child about stuff like this isnt sexual at all-reinforce from an early age that their bodies belong to them and other peoples bodies belong to the other person. That they must respect other peoples bodies and not touch others without their permission, and when someone tells them to stop (whether it is playfighting too roughly, or tickling someone...) you must stop straight away.

I would also add that kids should learn about good touch and bad touch, but otherwise I agree completely.

[ILoveJellybeans]

Very good point, forgot about that one :)

[hollyandivy]

This is just wrong on so many levels - why would you tell your 10 year old such nonsense????? My son is 9, it would NEVER occur to me to tell him stuff like that.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I remember seeing the original article on Kveller.

One thing that struck me was the way that she mentioned that what the penis does is pretty much the same action, whether it is rape or consensual sex. Someone with more first-hand experience is welcome to chime in, but wouldn't so many aspects of it - what is said, how someone is held, how someone moves, responsiveness to your partner - be different where you are forcing yourself on someone vs. engaging in consensual relations? Isn't it sort of like comparing a hug with physical restraint?

That mother lived near Steubenville. I understand that sometimes, the world does not allow us the luxury of introducing hard subjects to kids on our preferred timetable.

At the same time, I really don't like to project negative expectations on kids. I don't like to hear parents tells girls, "don't you dare get pregnant while you're in high school", and "don't you dare rape anyone" is just as bad. It's not that parents shouldn't want their kids to avoid doing these things - it's that it sends the message "my parent thinks so poorly of me that they believe that I'm going to do this." This mother is essentially saying, "I see you as a potential rapist". [i realize that sometimes as a parent, "don't do this" is something that you are going to say. I just get concerned when the message is primarily "don't become this bad thing" instead of "we expect you to do good things".]

Now, conversations are important. Kids DO need to be taught the importance of respecting your partner, of understanding that someone always has the right to control what happens to their body. From a very young age, kids can be taught that touch must be "gentle, wanted and appropriate". Consent can and should be discussed - if someone hasn't freely agreed to something, it's not okay. Lack of forceful objection isn't enough. Since my kids now have phones, we've discussed our strict rule against posting pictures of anyone without their consent (I don't care if the photo is fully clothed but just silly - if the person doesn't agree, it's not okay). I'm generally pretty relaxed in my parenting, but this is an issue that they know will make me ballistic, and I'm deadly serious that all unsupervised phone and computer privileges will be lost if they ever do it. You can't consent to something if you don't know or understand what you are doing, so someone needs to be old enough, they need to be sober, they need have enough mental function to understand, and they can't feel pressured as a result of the circumstances or a power imbalance.