On The Asexuality of Toddler Testicles.

I’m about to talk about something that may make some people uncomfortable. It may be something you’ve never thought of before. It may be something that may cause a knee-jerk reaction. If so, that means you’re challenging yourself. This is inspired by multiple posts over on Old Dirty Bastard, as well as some things said by Heather and Jill. As I have a lot of thoughts in mind that I wish to jumble into one post, I’ll start with something that isn’t my point.

Children are innocent.

A starting point we can all agree on, right? Children are clean slates, they are humans who are still growing, still not fully cognitively aware, whose bodies are not adults. Except there isn’t anything else I have to add to this, so I’ll move along.

Most of this started back in an entry Jill posted. She’s one of those evil mothers who posts nude pictures of her son. Some of them really are quite beautiful shots. And me with my sense of humor said something to the effect of, “Your son has beautiful testicles!” C`mon, it’s funny.

Now, I’m not naming names, but apparently a comment like this offends some people. Frankly, I don’t even remember what picture it was, so I can’t tell you how I thought beauty applied to his testicles. In fact, as we know, it’s a misnomer to say “testicles”, as testicles still remain an internal organ, and any admiration would be actually focused on the shape of the scrotum his testicles give. But I digress. Jill didn’t care. I didn’t care. Life goes on.

I’m reminded of an entry Heather posted recently featuring – feel free to gasp – nude pictures of Tempest, as well as a nude video of her toddler as well. Me, I think nothing of it. I think, “How nice of her to share such an intimate family moment!” Tempest + windowsill = beautiful picture time! Did I comment on Tempest’s vulva? Nah, didn’t feel like it. My first comment was rather simply:

You seriously make me want to reproduce so I can have my own little girl to spoil. I’ll be a good daddy someday. [Timmy™] [p]

Apparently, Heather got flake for this entry by more conservative elements. The rational seems to amount to “Well, some evil people could have naughty taughts fueled by nude pictures of your daughter!” I’ll come back to this.

For a moment, I considered this and a third example for why these people are offended. Why get offended over a comment to somebody else when either party was offended nor even thought it was offensive? Why worry over somebody else posting nudes of their children? The answer came to me quickly.

Like so many things in life, a black-and-white dichotomy of morality tends to pervade us a lot. We associate some things as good, some things as bad, and anything with the good MUST be good, and anything with the bad MUST be bad. Some of us are this way until we realize that the world isn’t so, well, black and white. It’s a great way for the insecure to operate. I’d like to consider it simply the “All-or-None Principal.” Either it’s good, and you do it, or it’s bad, and you never do it. This is how some people seem to act on some issues.

Except the real world, and practical morality does not exist this way. A simple example is murder. Murder is Bad, no? So all cases of murder are Bad, right? Except if everybody believed this philosophy, we’d all be pacifists. We are not all pacifists, therefore we realistically accept that there are times when we must accept this.

(Internal Addendum: I forgot the funnest part of this. The All-or-None is how politicians get into office. They convince the voting public that they are for some Good cause. A familiar example is Fighting Terrorism. Fighting Terrorism is seen as Good, so people assume anything related to Fighting Terrorism is Good. This is how the PATRIOT Act got passed.)

Now I bring up the third case, which will probably stir up more shit than anything else. Let’s imagine a programmer creates a realistic video game where adults could have sexual relations with children. Let’s call this “Pixelated Child Pornography”, which is more or less what it would be.

Don’t start asking “why” someone would create such a thing. It’s a toy philosophical construct.

There was an immediate knee-jerk reaction to this idea. What’s curious is attempting to find when and where this lapse of morality occurs. Let’s consider a number of circumstances.

A convicted child molester jerking off to pixelated child pornography prior to his next attack. I think we’d all agree that in this case, allowing a pedophile to have pixelated child pornography is probably a bad thing.

A potential pedophile jerking off to pixelated child pornography. This is the curious state, as some immediately jump to the conclusion that having pixelated child pornography would encourage a pedophile to “act out” his fantasies. This seems to imply that it’s not necessarily the mere act of watching the pixelated child pornography that gives it the negative morality token, but the fact that it caused future actions. Of course, in the abstract, there’s no way of knowing what pixelated child pornography would cause of a pedophile.

Your average joe viewing pixelated child pornography. Someone who is, in fact, not a pedophile. Of course, the argument comes back that viewing pixelated child pornography may “cause” someone to become a pedophile. Speculation I roll my eyes at.

A curious thing happens when you strip down the scenario. Let’s suppose an FBI agent is inspecting a computer and happens across pixelated child pornography. As a man of the law, he is obligated to inspect this program. Is he suddenly an immoral person for viewing pixelated child pornography? (Duh, no he isn’t.)

Some would say that the mere existance of such a program is a moral abomination. (Thank you Bertrand Russell for reminding me of that word.) But why? Let’s remember why real child pornography is immoral in the first place. Because there is a very real victim in the real deal. There is a real child who should not have had pictures of him or her taken in the first place, of acts that may or may not traumatize the person. With pixelated child pornography, there is no base victim. Nope, none.

You could trace it back to the programmer who wrote the program, but then it gets extremely fuzzy. You can explain away the programmer by imagining that a million programers worked on different part of the program, without knowing what it actually did. There, intend of programer explained away. : D

Of course, the funniest (well, not ha ha funny) argument is that it’s simply wrong that it exists. That there is something intrinsically wrong about pixelated child pornography. We watch movies where people are murdered, there are Lifetime movies about rape, there’s History Channel specials on the Halocaust. Does the mere mention of pedophilia make one a thought-criminal?

I should have stated that earlier, shouldn’t I? One of my objectives in the first place is to ensure a system of morality whereby you can not simply condemn someone for thinking something. Look at me! I’m thinking about pedophilia! OH NOEZ!! And so are you. It’s discussion, and as we know, simply not talking about pedophilia DOES NOT MAKE IT GO AWAY. Abstinence doesn’t work either, but I digress.

Let’s suppose I’ve convinced you enough that pixelated child pornography isn’t intrinsically bad. (Because I know some of you are still agast I’d even bring up such a thing.) What possible good would this have?

Imagine someone who has a sexual attraction to children, knows this attraction is wrong, and does not want to harm children. Okay? Got it? Don’t change this scenario. Imagine he uses pixelated child pornography to release the desires he knows he can NEVER have in real life. In this scenario, isn’t pixelated child pornography a good thing?

Ah, but then we have the retort, “Well, he shouldn’t be masturbating to those thoughts anyway.” And what exactly are those thoughts? Of pixels on the screen? His thoughts. To claim he shouldn’t be masturbating those thoughts is to accuse him of being a thought-criminal. People have many varied sexual tastes. Some are more accepted than others. What about the furries, or the leather fetishes, or those that do age-play? Heh. Age-play. Consenting adults pretending one is a child. Strange to some. Fine for consenting adults, in my opinion.

Let’s establish something we can all agree is wrong. Shall we? Adults having sexual interactions with children is wrong. By the All-or-None Principal, it’s possible to derive a number of things which one could fear “…Could lead to adults having sexual interactions with children!” This is Bad, therefore, we must smite any chance of this happening.

So, someone posts a nude photo of their children. By the All-or-None principal, this is wrong because somebody could think of having (as an adult) sexual interactions with a child. It should be obvious that I don’t buy this logic. Anybody can think a multitude of thoughts while you’re fully clothed. Look at that random cashier at the grocery. If you wanted to, you could picture her being spanked my a gorilla. You could imagine her killing the pope. You could imagine having Anal Sex with her.

Anyone in public who sees your children can think anything they want. Are we to start accusing people of being thought-criminals, “Hey, YOU THOUGHT OF MY CHILD EATING PORK ON SUNDAYS!” (Or whatever day of the week it is.)

No. This is silly. There’s a difference between thoughts, intents, and actions. (Oh boy, that could be a treatise in itself.) Moreover, there’s a difference between nudity and sexuality. Granted, this is not a nudist society. If it were, we’d gladly strut around naked, not giving each other’s bits a second thought. (And so what if we did? It would be in admiration, not in “EEWWWW, NUDE BITS!”) This is a society where a single nipple can cause mass uproar. How immature.

So when it comes to infantile testicles, why does it matter? Should we have to hide our toddler’s testicles from the world, out of fear that someone will think of his testicles? After all, seeing involves recognition. “I am seeing a toddler’s testicles.” Why not condemn every last parent that’s ever seen their child’s testicles? (Sorry, I just got so silly that I made myself laugh.)

Children are too young to be sexualized unless YOU sexualize them. The irony is that those who shout “OMG, SOMEONE COULD BE THINKING TEH BAD” is actually sexualizing them. (Though, that’s a stretch which I won’t build upon.) I know I am not attracted to children. Nope, I just have the massive desire to reproduce and care for children of my own. I want to be able to say, “Yeah, my daughter has ROCKIN` OVARIES!”

That is to say, I am confident in my morality. I am comfortable with myself. I know what I am and am not capable of. My brain may be paranoid about a great many things, but this is not one of those things. If nudity bothers you, by all means, wear clothes, or don’t look at me. If toddler testicles or foreskin bother you, by all means, don’t have children. I know my morality is strong enough that I can have a conversation about pedophilia without fearing I’ll become one. Are you confident in yourself?