Another Kid Rant

[Guest atsuita_no_renkinjutsushi]

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."

That's got to be the funniest thing I've read all day.

[StoryJunkie]

Yeah, that Pol, what a gas.

Anyway, about the allowance, my kids know that if they work, they get it, if they don't, well too damn bad. If they want something, they have to save. (Usually its Christmas or birthday money, but that counts) I just hate supporting the local candy store. If they need money for clothes, the older kids get enough for a pair of jeans and 3 shirts, they have to budget themselves, cause I don't go with. (I may embarrass the hell out of them by my mere presence.) I also let them go to the pool or the theatre upon occasion, but that's about once every two months, more in the summer.

When I was growing up, I got whatever I asked for, but I had to weed the lawn or take care of the back 40

[Nanaea]

Yeah, Polly's always good for a laugh or two.

My kids don't get any allowance. Now, before ya'll start shouting at me about how unfair that is, let me say that they have generous grandparents and get plenty of money for just about every major holiday and their birthdays. Anything they need we buy for them. We shop cheap. No $200 shoes here. Of course, they're 11, 8, & 4 so they really don't need much and since we homeschool there's no peer pressure.

They're also awfully innocent and I'm damn proud of that fact. It's hard to find an 11 yr. old as naive as mine these days. That said, the other day I left a book of erotic art and literature lying on my bed and when I came back later it was gone. Guess where I found it? Yup. Hidden under the covers at the foot of the 11 yr. old's bed. When I asked him how it got there he said he didn't know. I had to get thru to him that he wasn't in trouble before he finally admitted to taking it. Then we had a short talk about respecting other people's property. The next day we went to the library and checked out some books on puberty and sex for him to read. Curiosity is natural. Sex is natural. It was bound to happen at some point.

I'm older than prolly most of you here and I remember what I was like at that age and it wasn't naive! I was masturbating before I knew there was a word for it. I lost my virginity at 14 because I was tired of it, but I was the first of my friends to do it. Yeah, perhaps it's starting a bit younger these days, but not much. Blame it on the media, parents, hormones, or what you will but it's just another fact of life.

[Guest Agaib]

Meh, no matter how much work I did. I was never sure to get anything. We were poor, and to think of it.... I still am poor. Crazy that.

[StoryJunkie]

Well, that's right, I am using hindsight in the "they gave me anything I asked for" statement. Back then, I didn't ask for much. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs and thankfully, my elder sister had good taste. We grew our own vegetables and were not allowed to watch very much TV (no cable!) The games we played were with cards, or we kicked around in the snow, leaves, sand or whatever the season brought. And I read alot of books. Alot. Yet, I could not afford to buy them. How odd. I didn't feel poor.

(very scary avatar, btw)

[Guest Melody Fate]

Well, that's right, I am using hindsight in the "they gave me anything I asked for" statement. Back then, I didn't ask for much. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs and thankfully, my elder sister had good taste. We grew our own vegetables and were not allowed to watch very much TV (no cable!) The games we played were with cards, or we kicked around in the snow, leaves, sand or whatever the season brought. And I read alot of books. Alot. Yet, I could not afford to buy them. How odd. I didn't feel poor.

(very scary avatar, btw)

You and I are about the same age, I'm gathering. And it was the time before advertisers realized the power they could have over kids.

Growing up, the best sneakers you could have were Keds. If you were a girl, you fought for the white, pointed toe keds, because the rounded toe ones with the rubber on the top were "baby shoes." The style never changed from year in and year out. We would go to a sneaker outlet and pay three dollars a pair. Yes, that was probably like ten or fifteen dollars now, but that's a lot better than two hundred.

I didn't think they had TV durring the day when I was a kid, unless I was sick or it was Saturday. My parents didn't tell me that, but that's the conclusion I came to, because no one I knew watched TV durring the day. When I was sick, I thought my parents would call the station and have it turned on for me.

"Fads" for us were started by neighbor kids having something. Chances are your neighbors were in a similar financial situation as your family was, so chances are the fads were affordable.

[Guest Agaib]

Chances are your neighbors were in a similar financial situation as your family was, so chances are the fads were affordable.

Yea, that's too bad it isn't true any more. Now the TV and celebrities invent fads. They supposedly tell you what to wear, what's cool, what music you should like. It's all very sad. Growing up fairly poor made Me realize that it's useless to try and keep up. I dress however I damn well please (usually a simple jeans and t-shirt) and I happen to like that.

[Guest Agaib]

(very scary avatar, btw)

Avatar? Try clicking on My name. Now that's a scary picture.

[StoryJunkie]

That IS scary! Reminds me of that orc and human game, what the heck was it called?

What about the chick in the tree on mine? She looks half dead to me....I found her at deviantart.

[Guest Agaib]

I think it's supposed to be a vampire of some sort. I found it looking for good bits of erotic fantasy art.

[StoryJunkie]

yeah, he looks as if he could do damage...

[Guest Agaib]

The original picture was even bigger. I was using it for the background for my desktop for a while. Now it's been replaced by a model of a neutron star. (I'm such a nerd )

[StoryJunkie]

yes, but you're a DOMINANT nerd!

[Iggy_lovechild]

I've noticed this as well. At another site's forum they have a shounen-ai/shoujo-ai discussion catagory and one of the thread asked at what age did you get into that sort of thing. When I replied to it out of boredom one day, I was reading the previous replies and was shocked to discover that I was the latest starter of the bunch. The average age of discovery for these posters was 13. (I had started reading yaoi/shounen-ai at 17)

Now I know that shounen-ai and yaoi are slightly different, but this thread just made me recall that.

I wouldn't say that it shocks me. As a teen-ager, I was pretty much a perv as well. But it does bother me a little bit. I feel bad sometimes, knowing how old a lot of my readers are when it comes to my boysmut....

[StoryJunkie]

We're sexual beings when we are born.

I remember doing stuff and imagining sexual situations when I was five.

Nobody abused me or showed me anything inappropriate.

My TV influence was Disney for 1/2 per week, I listened to "The Lone Ranger" on the radio for crying out loud. I just knew that touching myself down there felt good. It soothed me. Nobody in my family interfered nor, when I was caught, was I stopped or lectured or punished.

Little baby boys reach into their diapers, for crying out loud! "Hey, I discovered something new today!" The look on their faces is priceless, and is not something uncommon.

However, exploring our bodies and our sexuality is something society views as a private thing. Most adults are more cautious and protective toward younger ones because they know that there are predators out there, and the little ones probably aren't watching the 10 o'clock news. They still veiw the world as a relatively safe place, and to protect them is the feeling we all get when we see sexual "displays" on younger children. (Don't they know what happened to that little girl that disappeared?)

The lessons we learn about the messages we project are sometimes the most important lessons. For me, I do not like any sexually blatant t-shirt my 13 yr old daughter wears, but I've had to shake my head at my 15 yr old as well, although I don't find her t-shirts as alarming. I don't know why. It could simply be their personalities. The 13 yr old is very much a little barbie doll, and my 15 yr old has never worn make-up in her whole entire life (no, not even alloween) So, even when my 15 yr old was 13, I never worried about her. God, life is so damn complicated! I start an arguement on the one hand, think of several influences as I'm writing my arguement, and end up on the other hand. I'm such a flim-flammer!

Anyway, glad to have my little say, even though it resembles a game of teeter-totter at the playground.

[Iggy_lovechild]

Don't worry. I feel the same way, only sort of the opposite. The order I get (sad since I'm only 24), the more the younger generations shock me. And yet I struggle with the sensation that surely I'm being a hypocrite for experiencing such emotions.

Perhaps it is my fear that they don't understand what they're getting into or writing. When I first became aware of slash and yaoi, I understood what and why I liked it. For me, there's always been a certain special romance to male pairings that I can never quite duplicate within my het stories. It was all very personal.

(And maybe that's just another reason the shounen-ai/yaoi fad pisses me off. All these little fangirls talking about how hot a couple is and wondering who's "seme" and who's "uke"...It fucking makes my blood boil....)

[Guest Helluin]

I was very pleased to be blissfully unaware of the finer points of sex (or even how gay sex worked) until I was in college -- I liked having an age of innocence.

And I think it is disturbing how young folks are that into sex. Goodness, have a few years of sentience before you get yourself all wrapped up in hormones and heartbreak!

However, to put things in perspective:

As recently as a few hundred years ago in Europe, families were all living in very close quarters, children were treated as miniature adults, and it was very common to have discussions of graphic and violent sex around them, or to hear loud and clear what mum and dad were doing in the next room. Read Shakespeare. Read the unprettied version of fairy tales, where Sleeping Beauty was not kissed but raped, and ditto Red Riding Hood.

Or read Nisa, an account of a girl in the !Kung tribe. There are cultures where it is utterly normal for kids to be in the room when adults are having sex. They find it a little gross and inconvenient (will they shut UP I'm trying to SLEEP here!!!), but they aren't scarred for life.

Buuuut.

I think our culture manages to put SUCH an obsessive and morbid emphasis on sex, like drinking, that we teach them it's "cool" without teaching them how to handle it responsibly, sanely, and in a celebratory rather than degrading fashion.

[Guest ChibiShiva]

Our culture is bend on protecting the oh-so-pure and innocent minds that out children have *slightly sarcastic*. They're afraid they'll turn out "bad" and won't have a good life. To them, it's either black or white - there's no middle.

There's one, and I'm probably in it. My parents never really cared for what I watched or listened; they taught me, however, to be responsible and mature while facing these. I think I turned out okay. It's not like I'm a whore or that I'm going to ruin my life by writing gay erotica, although some people out there believe so.

From what I see, being too sheltered and such induce the complete opposite later on. They didn't experience before so when they do, they'll find it so damn amazing that THEN they're gonna ruin their lives because they can only think about this. About sex, drugs etc etc. I'll compare this to drinking - you can enjoy a drink every now and then, hell maybe even get drunk, but it shouldn't happen too often or it's gonna be your downfall.

I've said this a lot in IM conversations, and I might be making it my sig.. but I hate society. I hate the whole conservatism thing because they shelter too much and in the end, they get the opposite, then they blame who? The media, the web, the kids...

[Guest Vamp468]

When I was 16 I was one of the few virgins left in my class and found it fairly unnerving (them not me). The girls that insisted that they'd gotten 'the best lay of their life' over the weekend in the lockeroom. These being the same girls that had been sitting at the lunch table in the sixth grade trying to figure out which brand of condom was best. Or asking which of their friends would go with them to the corner convience store to buy a pregnancy test, because their period was late. The point is that by the time I reached middle school, sex was pretty much unescapeable, due to the other students at school and the media when I got home.

I discovered shounen-ai/yaoi at around age 16 and yuri even after that.The reason I liked yaoi/shounen-ai and the reason I still like it is because it didn't make me want jump out of my skin, if that makes any sense at all.

Similar to some others, I'm really having trouble dealing with the 12 and13 year olds who choose their favorite pairings based on how attractive the characters involed in a pairing are.

[Iggy_lovechild]

Similar to some others, I'm really having trouble dealing with the 12 and13 year olds who choose their favorite pairings based on how attractive the characters involed in a pairing are.

I also get rather frustrated over the inexplicable pairings. There's gotta be something there before plotting out the hot, hot boylove.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with girls writing shounen-ai/yaoi. One of the best writers for SO:3's popular AlbelxFayt pairing is a friend of mine and she's 16 (and yes, she's written a bit of smut though she prefers gen-ish, introspective peices) . Rather, I have a problem with ingnorant fanbrats who OOC characters and don't have the courtesy to research a little bit before writing a lemon between two men (if I read one more peice of gay erotica in which there is penetration without a single bit of lubricant, especially if the one being penetrated is a virgin, i'm going to go ballistic).

[Guest Mike256bit]

(if I read one more peice of gay erotica in which there is penetration without a single bit of lubricant, especially if the one being penetrated is a virgin, i'm going to go ballistic).

I'll go there with you.

I once wrote a Here is Greenwood choose-your-own-adventure lemon and even for my first (and only?) yaoi, I was screaming at myself: LUBE! LUBE! LUBE!

There's nothing more disruptive that reading what some uninformed 14-year-old girl thinks is comfortable (let alone hot) sex.

[Iggy_lovechild]

There's nothing more disruptive that reading what some uninformed 14-year-old girl thinks is comfortable (let alone hot) sex.

Yeah, and it always comes from out of nowhere. The action can be fine up until that point and then out of left field "So and So turned so and so onto his belly and drove his throbbing member into his ass." The first time I read something like that I think I winced. No preperation? No lube? Not even rimming? Uhhh...Last i checked things don't work that way.

*twitches*

I swear, I'm going to track down a nice informative site regarding gay sex and start e-mailing the link to fanbrats who can't write proper boysmut.

[Guest Evil_Labs]

It can work that way, but it'd hurt like hell for both parties involved, I'd wager.

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

Not to mention some of the positions they have a lot of these guys in. I'm always expecting there to be a "and then he snpped in half!" in many of these stories cause, dude, unless you're a contortionist, that's what'll happen.

Let's not get into the femmifacation of male characters. Last I checked, Draco was a BOY, not a girl with a penis.

[Guest Evil_Labs]

Indeed, and in the fan fic genre, particularly things based on Japanese stuff (or HP cause of magic), if you want a girl with a penis, it's really pretty easy, isn't it?