Infant Sexuality
Babies Have Sexual Feelings
I reluctantly present the following not to shock much less to offend but because some of us need strong evidence before conceding that babies have sexual feelings. Without this awareness, protectors fail to grasp how vulnerable normal children are. Even when survivors of past molestation become adults, an ignorance of infant sexuality can cause them to continue needlessly tormenting themselves, thinking they must be perverted for feeling what they did when they were sexually interfered with. Also, those who wrongly believe it is their fault are unlikely to bring the real offenders to justice, thus leaving molesters free to harm others.
Okay, Ill admit it: this webpage turns my stomach. The page exists solely because my heart breaks for all the countless thousands entrapped by sexual predators who exploit the fact that children and their protectors rarely understand that normal little children are sexual beings.
Ultrasound pictures have revealed erections in male fetuses as early as the seventeenth week after conception. Since baby girls are capable of vaginal lubrication and there are significant similarities between the male and female genital systems, it is logical to assume that females have the capacity for vaginal lubrication before birth.
Pelvic thrusting movements have been observed in babies as young as eight months of age. Generally, these events appear to be reactions to such stimuli as touching or brushing of the genitals. Such thrusting behavior has also been observed in rhesus monkeys beginning as early as the eighth week of life. Thrusting is most characteristic of adult mating behavior.
It is not possible to know what little babies are feeling, but many adults remember consciously enjoying masturbation from the age of three.
Adequate hand and arm control for masturbation by rhythmic manipulation with the hand does not seem to occur before a child is about two and a half to three years old. However, it is thought that as early as six to twelve months of age babies may discover the pleasure of rhythmic genital sensation through rocking.
At about seven months of age a girl was observed to press her body against a large rag doll and make rhythmic movements. By one year of age she would from time to time throw the doll on the floor, lie down on top of it, as in the sexual act, according to her parents description. Attempts to distract her during these episodes caused screaming. She would cling to the doll until she felt satisfied. The parents thought this practice resulted in orgasm.
Kinsey et al. (1948) reported orgasm in boys of every age from five months onwards and in a baby girl of four months. This was not self-induced, but instigated by adults.
Writes Lynn Blinn Pike, from the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Missouri-Columbia, All babies touch their genitals. It feels good and is comforting to them.
There are cultures covering large numbers of people in which it is regarded as normal parenting for mothers and fathers to comfort and pacify their infant children of both sexes by manual and oral genital stimulation. This practice is abhorrent and utterly unjustifiable. Of relevance to our discussion, however, is that the wide experience of these people indicates that normal infants respond calmly and positively to what I can only call sexual molestation from a trusted person.
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Related Pages
Why it is common for children to mistakenly suppose they seduced sex offenders
Sources:
(Not necessarily recommended. They were used not for their views but for certain factual information they contain.)
The Sexual Life of Children by Floyd M. Martinson www.home.wanadoo.nl/host/martinson/chapter1.html and http://home.wanadoo.nl/host/martinson/chapter2.html
Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors: Childhood Sexuality by David L. Weis with Paul Okami www.www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/IES/USA08.HTM
Lynn Blinn Pike http://www.classbrain.com/artread/publish/article_34.shtml
Child Sexual Development by Loretta Haroian, Ph.D Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality, Volume 3, Feb. 1, 2000 www.ejhs.org/volume3/Haroian/body.htm