Another Kid Rant

[quamp]

I was at A-Kon 17, Dallas' largest and America's oldest anime convention which was two weekends ago. One of the things I noticed was a small number of teenagers (none of which looked anywhere near 18) wearing t-shirts that read "Yaoi is my anti-drug" and "Will work for hentai." One young girl, she couldn't have been more than 10, had a button that read "Give me yaoi or give me hentai."

I may be a bit old fashioned on this, but I find this a bit disturbing. Is it a case of the kids don't know what they're advertising, are actually watching porn, or what? I'm really hoping it's the first case.

[Guest arora]

its a bit of both.

my youngest sister is 13 and is a raging fangirl of gravitation. she loves every thing about it and when she found out it was a yaoi she thought she would get more stories like gravitation if she read yaoi.

being her main supplier of manga and anime i calmly told that i was not going to send her porn.

she had no idea that yaoi was porn, only that gravitation was yaoi and therfor thought it was good.

not every one has a big sister that is an otaku like me. so i can imagine a 10 year old getting a pin that said that, thinking that it ment she was a fan of gravitation or whatever seires.

on the filp side, my bro disscovered playboy at age 15 and that is considered normal.

[Guest Serenanna]

To confess, I stumbled onto sailormoon hentai and tentacle porn on the net in 8th grade, meaning I was about 14. Prior to that, I'd found softcore porn on cable I think as young as 5th or 6th grade. So I'd say discovering sex around 10, about when I got the menstral lecture too, is the norm anymore. Finding someone with complete sexual innocence till the legal age limit with the internet around is like trying to find the last virgin in a brothel. Eventually, someone just 'knows' about it even if they never experienced it.

The difference between them and me at that age was that I didn't advertise it. My parents were good about that in teaching not to be ashamed of sex and nudity, just that it was a degree of maturity not to let the rest of the world know about it. Kids at those really young ages either don't know what they're getting into, or just has to talk about it with anyone, which is probably why they wear that stuff, hoping someone pays attention to them.

All I can do is shake my head, and pray for the younger generation and their parents.

Sere

[Guest Big Samurai]

Anime / manga fans already have a horrendous public image, so it would be to our benefit to keep the kiddie-poos as far away from the dark side of our hobby as possible. As it is, I ph34r the day when the feds decide that there are too many of us and send the FBI after us.

[Guest Melody Fate]

This completely does not surprise me, and rather than a cause, I believe it's a symptom.

We live in a world that pushes children into being adults. We marvel at daycare, even telling mothers that are stay-at-home, that they need to send their children to some form of daycare at least a few times a week so they can "learn more," and "Improve their social skills."

As our children get older, we arrange scheduals for them. We push them into activities. We buy them celular phones, not just so they can yap with their friends, but so we can keep them up-to-date on last minute schedual changes. The more "mature" a child acts, the more parents seem to wear it as a badge of honor. "Well, yes, Lindsey is twelve, but she's already taken a Pre-pre-PSAT test. The chances are good she'll get into Harvard."

But, when it comes to our children becoming sexually aware, we shake our heads and blame the media. If it wasn't for TV/movies/the net, our children wouldn't even think about sex!

Media plays its part, but you can't send a message to a child that says, "Please act older than your age. I know you are 10, but I would like you to act as if you are sixteen," and then amend that with, "But only mature in the areas we want you to. Be cute and innocent when it comes to sex."

I think that coming up with a lable called "Tweens" is ridiculous. I wasn't a "Tween." Between the ages of 10-12 I was a child I was pleased enough that being in the double-digits meant an extra half-hour to stay up before bed and that I was allowed to wear "Little Miss" cologne. (Smelled like a cross between roses and soap. But we all wore it, we all thought it was terrific) To come up with a special lable for those years, imply that now the child has to start showing even more maturity.

You can't expect a child to be a little adult only in the areas it suits you. If you're going to raise a child who needs a PDA to keep track of her various activities, a celular phone to be able to organize their days, if you're going to raise children that need to go to spas just because they're "stressed" you can't expect them to play innocent when it comes to sex.

To be blunt? I think what you saw was disgusting. A ten-year-old not only understanding sex, but understanding there are different forms of sex, and picking her favorites. When I was ten, I knew what sex was, just the basics, but I also knew it was going to be quite a few years before I indulged in it and that was just nifty with me. The biggest difference between me and that little girl though, was that while sex seemed rather oogy to me, I also knew it was something considered very special between adults. My discomfort with the idea didn't worry me, because I knew as I matured, it would become less disgusting. I knew once I met the person I loved, I would even desire it. She understand that sex feels awful good, but does she understand that love should play a part in it?

Children need to have time to be children. Instead of being disappointed at the child who acts like a child, rejoice in it. Humans are starting to live about a hundred years. We have about 80 of those to be an adult, and 20 of those to be a child. We should enjoy those years, both as children and parents. We shouldn't be trying to cut this part of our lives short.

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

Most of what Melody Fate says I agree with. I knew well before I was 10 what sex was and understood the basic mechanics. Did I want it? Fuck no! I was TEN! However, you also have to consider this: Some of the dirtiest jokes I have ever heard came from the mouths of babes. Given, I live in NYC and city kids tend to be rather jaded, so outside of the city it may be infinitly differant. Yet, it's been in my observation that it's likely those kids knew exactly what they were wearing and what it meant.

Also, I know a LOT of girls my age and older who look VERY young, even as young as 10 (most of them being from the far east). You can't judge age (especially in the teen years) off of apperance. How many guys get arrested for sleeping with a girl they THOUGHT was of age? And how many times do you see a couple walking down the street

So here is what you have to consider:

1) Where were these kids from?

2) Do they just LOOK young, or are they actually young.

There's also this: Just because they're LOOKING at porn, it doesn't mean they're having sex. It could just be on the level of a dirty joke for them.

Does this make any sense to anyone? It makes sense to me, but i also live in my head... so yeah...

[StoryJunkie]

When I was 15, I looked like an 11 year old. When I was 25, I looked 18. It took me a LONG time to bodily mature. Maybe the 10 year old was older than you think. Quamp, you may be showing your age...

[quamp]

Anime / manga fans already have a horrendous public image, so it would be to our benefit to keep the kiddie-poos as far away from the dark side of our hobby as possible. As it is, I ph34r the day when the feds decide that there are too many of us and send the FBI after us.

What do you mean "Until that day?"

At A-Kon, the police were all over the place. The feds are already cracking down on us.

Admittedly I discovered porn at age 11. I think it messed me up a bit (o.k., a LOT.) However, as noted, I am afraid that a few bad apples will cause the feds to remove the cart.

[Guest Agaib]

Hmm, yet another reason why I don't associate Myself with anime fans. Not to say that I don't like them. I'm just blessed to enjoy different hobbies that doesn't keep lawyer breathing down My neck.

[Guest Melody Fate]

When I was 15, I looked like an 11 year old. When I was 25, I looked 18. It took me a LONG time to bodily mature. Maybe the 10 year old was older than you think. Quamp, you may be showing your age...

Yes, but when you were 15 did you know so much about sex that you could decide if you liked Yaoi, Hentia, or both? At 15 did you know what oddities about sex would appeal to you and which ones wouldn't?

If my friend's 16 year old daughter came into my house wearing a T-shirt that said, "Give me Yaoi or give me Hentia" I'd be blunt. "So, how long have you been a sex addict and what form of birth control are you using?"

[Guest Big Samurai]

What do you mean "Until that day?"

At A-Kon, the police were all over the place. The feds are already cracking down on us.

Ah, right, I keep forgetting that I haven't been to a con since '03, and even that was a small one. (True to my forum, I was there more to check out import games than anime / manga paraphernalia.) Like Agaib, I find myself not associating with fellow Otaku in public for my own safety, though we always have the Internet for our domain.

[Guest Agaib]

Like Agaib, I find myself not associating with fellow Otaku in public for my own safety, though we always have the Internet for our domain.

That is until they start having internet police running around making sure that some stupid curious eleven year old hasn't dirtied up his mind. The internet is a haven, but for how long?

[Guest Serenanna]

Well, AFF could do like RPOL does, the mods read everything in their adult section and bans accounts if someone admits to being underage. Their account name is then added to a giant list in the Chamber of Lost Souls with all the other people that break the TOS. Sort of like prevention by public shaming/flogging/humiliation. It won't stop underage readers, but it'll work for underage authors (and cut down on badfics maybe).

Sere

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

Yes, but when you were 15 did you know so much about sex that you could decide if you liked Yaoi, Hentia, or both? At 15 did you know what oddities about sex would appeal to you and which ones wouldn't?

I know I did...

Okay, this makes me wonder where everyone is from. Like I've said, I'm a city brat, so i may just be jaded.

Then, there's also the question of age. Being 18, At the time I really started reading and watching porn it wasn't rearly rare for others my own age to be having sex. Hell, when I was 12 I was apart of a minority, being one of the few virgins left in the school. At the same time my school was right across the street from the projects, so that may have a hand in the heightend level of sexual maturity these kids where going through.

Now, looking at kids I'm seeing that theres an even HIGHER percentage of sexually active Junior High school kids then when I was 12, meaning that with every generation there's a younger age of sexual awareness.

I'm assuming that most of you are at least 5 years older then me, meaning that even if you lived in the same neighborood as me, you'd likely would have been apart of an age group that discovered sex at a later age them I did.

On top of that Melody Fate stated something about people expecting their kids to act older. There's also a little bit of medias hand in this. HOWEVER, here's something else I don't think many people are really looking at, and if they are, they're not saying it.

WE PUT GROWTH HORMONES IN OUR FOOD.

By doing this, we've managed to push human evolution back a few THOUSAND years. Think about it. Back in the time of Cro Magnon Man the life expectancy was like, 40. So, the age of sexual maturity was naturally much younger. As people started living longer, the age of sexual maturity got higher. Well, now we're living to be 90-some years old and we have 6-year old girls who are having to by pads. It doesn't add up in a normal setting.

In order to mass produce meat products animals are given growth hormones to make them mature faster. ESPECIALLY in the case of fast food. Look at the whole deal with KFC! The Mid-West (my place of birth), which makes money mostly from agriculture, livestock and meat produce, is notorious for this. Most kids I grew up with in Chicago had curves by the age of 10.

Does anyone else here see what I'm saying here?

Throw this factor in with an over-sexed society and you have the recipie for a bunch of elementry school kids sitting together reading porn during their lunch hour.

[Guest Melody Fate]

Well, AFF could do like RPOL does, the mods read everything in their adult section and bans accounts if someone admits to being underage. Their account name is then added to a giant list in the Chamber of Lost Souls with all the other people that break the TOS. Sort of like prevention by public shaming/flogging/humiliation. It won't stop underage readers, but it'll work for underage authors (and cut down on badfics maybe).

Sere

It would be really hard for the mods to read every single story and to go through all the comments.

However, they do ask that we, as users of the service, report any underage people we find using the site.

Site abuse

[Guest Melody Fate]

WE PUT GROWTH HORMONES IN OUR FOOD.

By doing this, we've managed to push human evolution back a few THOUSAND years. Think about it. Back in the time of Cro Magnon Man the life expectancy was like, 40. So, the age of sexual maturity was naturally much younger. As people started living longer, the age of sexual maturity got higher. Well, now we're living to be 90-some years old and we have 6-year old girls who are having to by pads. It doesn't add up in a normal setting.

The growth hormones affecting people is still a theory at this point, we don't really have 100% proof positive. I've seen just as many convincing arguments that say it's because of improved conditions in health care etc.

I"m betting the truth is that there are several reasons for early maturing.

However, I find it ironic that people first were going, "Wait a moment, she might not have been ten you know! She might have been 15/16/18 and just looked young!"

If the growth hormones are making everyone mature so quickly, then wouldn't that cut down on the instances of girls who look younger than they are?

Instead, we're willing to believe that every very young girl seen at this convention was most likely much older, just looked younger, and now it's being brough up, "But kids grow up faster because of growth hormones."

Besides, I don't believe the problem is that kids now are more horny than kids in my day because of growth hormones and all such. It's how we're expected to handle it. We were still children. We acted like children, we were treated like children. Yes, we tried to bend the rules, because it's a child's job to push the boundries as it's a parent's job to set down the limits. But our idea of pushing the limits was being allowed to go out on a school night. But yeah, when we got to be about 13, we were horny little buggers and masturbation was something we all did, it's just that girls didn't admit they did it and guys were proud they did it.

Compared to the kids now, we had very little responsibility. I remember when I was in High School there were two students who were so busy they needed organizers to keep track of their activities and we all thought they were really boring and sorta weird.

Now I see kids making dates to hang around with their friends, and then marking those dates in their PDA's. An aquantance I know has a ten year old daughter who has a standing appointment every single week to have her nails done and her hair styled. Once a month, mother and daughter spend a day at the spa getting seaweed wraps and cucumber face scrubs. Sorry, but that isn't behavior of a child, that's behavior of an adult. If your child needs trips to the spa in order to rid herself of "stress" and needs weekly visits to beauty parlors and nail salons just to feel "good" about herself, you're not raising a child, you're raising a tiny adult. You can't expect a tiny adult to be satisfied with an issue of National Geographic for sexual stimulation, they're going to want more. And they're going to feel they have every right to have it. And in a sense, I can't really blame them. If my parents had expected me to be half as "mature" as kids are supposed to be now, I'd expect all the perks too.

(And, since the subject of kids is brought up, can someone tell me what 10-13 year olds are getting for an average allowance? My friend gives her daughter 50 bucks a week. She also has a credit card for "emergencies" and apparently 500 dollars worth of clothing is a legitimate emergency. She tells me this is "average," I think it's ridiculously high. When I was a kid, I got 5 bucks a week and I had to buy lunch at school with it. I know prices have gone up, but minimum wage was 2.90 cents, so my five bucks was less than two hours of minimum wage pay. Minimum is 7.15, not 25 dollars. If indeed fifty bucks is an "average" allowance, I'll also put forward the theory that kids are more into porn because they can afford it.)

[Guest Agaib]

Fifty bucks for an average allowance? I know for a fact my little brothers get five. You must live in a really rich area, (at least compared to me).

[Guest Melody Fate]

You must live in a really rich area, (at least compared to me).

That's the irony.... we actually live in a very poor area. But we have these moronic people that will think nothing of giving their kids large allowances, and buying them 200 dollar sneakers, but won't put aside a dime towards a college education.

[Guest Agaib]

won't put aside a dime towards a college education.

That's just sad. Never in my life have I found myself with a large ammount of money I could spend on whatever I want. And to be honest, I like it that way. It keeps me thinking about things realistically. I know I have to pay things like rent or tuition and not burn it off on some damn pair of shoes.

[Guest atsuita_no_renkinjutsushi]

I think it depends on how a person matures mentally. I was searching for anime when I was nine and found hentai; it didn't really bother me, and I remember my first reaction being one of direct curiosity. I knew what I was seeing-- namely, that it was porn. I knew I shouldn't tell anyone about it, and I knew it wasn't something I should have been seeing, but I went ahead and rifled through the website. Pretty much, I wanted to know more. I've always had this thirst for information on new things. Because of that, I understood sex and sexual references (having already been exposed to porn before I found the hentai), and was a lot less naive at a young age. If we've got ten year olds and thirteen year olds, or whomever, who are reading yaoi and watching hentai, we can only hope they're mentally mature enough to handle it like we would. I don't think there's really a way to stop them, so that's all we can hope for.

[StoryJunkie]

Yes, but when you were 15 did you know so much about sex that you could decide if you liked Yaoi, Hentia, or both? At 15 did you know what oddities about sex would appeal to you and which ones wouldn't?

QWWWAAAaaaAAMP! Mel's Pickin on me!

[polywolly]

This would add an interesting twist to child discipline.

"Sweetheart, if you don't clean your room, I'm taking away your porn."

"But Moooooooom."

"No buts or you'll have two weeks to contemplate the ramifications of cross-species homosexual sex without any fanfiction to guide you."

"Ah man."

"Stop whining and start cleaning."

[Guest Soulsearcher]

My husband and I tend to stick to Canadian Cons. We haven't been to one in the states yet ... the thought of being watched by the police kinda takes the fun outta it, huh?

At Anime North this year security was tight in the main hotel, but that was only if you wanted to go up to the rooms. And because some idiots from last year decided it was a good idea to cram 25 people into an elevator and then when it got stuck, start jumping up and down. Yes, otaku are smart ... really. --;;; Otherwise though, it's a totally fan-run con. Even the security is filled in by vollunteers. It's worked really well so far!

We do have a couple of friends that attend cons in the states ... I'll have to ask them about security.

[Guest Melody Fate]

That's just sad. Never in my life have I found myself with a large ammount of money I could spend on whatever I want. And to be honest, I like it that way. It keeps me thinking about things realistically. I know I have to pay things like rent or tuition and not burn it off on some damn pair of shoes.

I have various theories on this. I'm sure people can shoot them full of holes, but from everything I've experienced and seen, they hold true.

Most of these parents who think nothing of buying Xboxes and expensive sneakers for their kids, but don't worry about college education, can't think that far ahead. They live in the today. Far-future is next year, maybe the year after. Most of them didn't go to college themselves, they just are lucky enough to have found somewhat decent jobs that don't need college education. (Where my husband works, its unionized and several of the people who've been there forever make in the range of 25 dollars an hour. Darned good money for a job that doesn't even demand you graduated from High School)

Also, college can seem so overwhelming too. You hear about the costs and I think some of these people think "I"ll never be able to afford even a semester!" So, they figure, "Eh, if the kid wants college that much, they'll get scholarships, or take out loans."

It's like the hole and the teaspoon theory. Someone takes you to a mountain and said, "Level the mountain and then dig a pit ten feet deep where the mountain was. But you can only use the teaspoon."

For some people that would just seem way too much. They know they'll never even be able to level the mountain, never mind dig the pit. So they just don't bother. When in truth, even if you can't level the mountain and dig the pit, if you can take away even an eighth of the mountain, then that will be an eighth less that your child is going to have to clear away when the time comes.

[Guest Big Samurai]

That, and, y'know, the amount of bang you get for your college buck just isn't as much as it used to be. Tuition costs go up as the value of that diploma goes down. So ... to many people, it's going to seem like more and more of a racket, and, really, I don't blame them. Just about everybody at the store where I work has a college diploma that they can't use, myself included.

As for allowances, the most I ever had was $10 per week, and it took me years to work my way up to that. Moreover, it stopped as soon as I graduated high school and had time to get a real job while I was at college. Momma done raised no fool.