Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9
Update: I have decided to take the text of this post down until I have a chance to revise and repost it. The comments I have received–and thank you to all who have posted them–have convinced me that, as I said in comment #19, my words are both conjuring things I do not intend and failing to make distinctions that I do intend, and this weakness in the writing means that what I want to say, the questions I want to ask and explore are not only not getting across, but are being misrepresented. It’s not so much that I think the revision will change the mind of anybody who has posted a critical comment, but that, at least, the criticism will be directed at what I actually mean to say, not the unintended implications of my having said it not as well as I should have. Hopefully, I will have that revision up within the next week or so.
Not that there’s even the hint of anything inappropriate in the way she touches him, and not that I have any fear about her crossing the line into inappropriateness
If she’s snuggling and kissing his penis, I’d say that’s inappropriate.
Read the essay again, Robert. You misinterpreted.
[Edit: Actually, you didn’t — I just checked the first couple paragraphs that make a distinction which is no longer drawn later. Sorry.]
It may be that my reaction to this is entirely a social construct, but this crossed the line for me as well. I’ve read the entire series with interest, sometimes disagreeing but mainly appreciating the candor of the author. But this goes off the deep end for me.
It isn’t that I think his wife is intentionally doing anything sinister with the boy. I think it is just different cultural values. I have two boys of my own, 3yrs old twins. And I’ve always tried to keep in mind and teach them that their body is their own and they have a say in what or how much touch and affection I offer them as a mother, and where. I do not force them to give me hugs, kisses or otherwise or to anyone else. Yet, throughout the day they ask for and recieve hugs, kisses and cuddles from me. We talk openly about their penis (and even my lack thereof), and of course I help them wash their genitals and assist with bathroom and dressing, etc. But never have they ever asked me to touch them there for pleasure or comfort and never have they sat on my face hoping I would kiss their penis or put it in my mouth.
So I don’t do those things, partly due to societal norms that tell me not to, but mostly because it is their body and they have control of it. They decide the level of intimacy they want. And they have never come close to asking for or expressing a need for anything like this. I’m seriously wracking my brain to think of some time they might have done this and I rejected it, and I honestly can’t think of any. They ask for their feet to be tickled, they ask for owies to be kissed, including one time when one of them got a scrape on his bum, and I complied. But I really don’t feel that theyve ever expressed a huge (any) need to have their genetalia fondled or touched specifically. And it is their body. I need to respect that.
I’m sorry, but with all due respect…this lost me totally.
Your essay raises some interesting points, in terms of cultural norms and expectations. However, the image of your son sitting on your wife’s face in order to bring his penis closer to her mouth is disturbing. It’s an odd game, at a minimum, one which most of us would find rather disgusting. The whole “I am your superior” complex comes to mind, making me question how he will behave as an adult with a woman. Freedom of expression, comfort with one’s own body, and ultimate/unconditional love from a parent…just don’t match up cleanly with his comfort level here.
Caution is a good word to use.
Caution…
“However, the image of your son sitting on your wife’s face in order to bring his penis closer to her mouth is disturbing.”
Well, the idea that the goal of the game is to acheive penis-in-mouth is RJN’s interpretation of his son’s behavior. It is not necessarily the son’s intent.
Personally, I think this is attributing perhaps more adult agency to the child than is probably warranted. I don’t think that’s unusual, though. I have a friend who believed her six month old daughter was “probably straight” because she “flirted” with male people more than female people. To me, that’s just overinterpretation.
L:
Am I reading you wrong, or is there the implication in what you wrote that my wife is somehow imposing herself/her affections on our son?
It also occurs to me, reading your responses, that I need to think about the verbs “kiss, fondle and snuggle.” By using them without qualification, they may give the impression that the activity was a good deal more prolonged and intense and focused on my son’s genitals than it actually was.
Inappropriateness, for the most part, is subjective. There’s nothing in this installment of RJN’s essay that could lead anyone to believe this was inappropriate, or that his wife conducted herself in a manner that was uncomfortable or beyond boundaries.
The comments here seemed a bit critical, whereas, to me, that seems unfair and unjustified in this type of forum. RJN has opened up some extremely private experiences to us and criticizing the appropriateness of his experiences seems wrong. This essay, from the beginning, has been provocative… I am glad for the lack of censorship in Robert’s writing and, in my opinion, there seems to be no reason to be critical of the subject matter.
Thanks, Jamie, but it’s Richard, not Robert. ;)
RJN:
Possibly not that your wife is imposing her affections on your son. It could be that I’m reading your words in a way that you did not intend. I do think it is possible, as someone stated above, that you are atributing more to your son’s actions than he is. As they say, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a kid is going to roll around and cuddle (or whatever) and place his genatalia near someone (that in adult would be considered probably sexual) and he is not even thinking the least bit about it. I do think you may be reading too much into his actions.
It may be that in a different society it would be perfectly appropriate and healthy to show this kind of intimacy between parent and child. But in our current society, with all of the connotations that go into such actions, and the parent-as-athority structure we have set up (maybe not in your family, but in general) these kinds of actions are not appropriate and need to be handled with great care.
Oops. Richard, not Robert. My apologies. =)
Any touching of the child’s penis or vagina is a bad touch, unless it’s explicitly for cleaning or medical purposes.
I’m not one of those Victorian (literally) cold fishes who doesn’t believe in touching children at all is acceptable, but you have to draw the lines at that. Showing affection to children is fine, but there’s absolutely no need to touch those parts to show affection. And sexualizing pre-pubescent children with the same standards as adults is at best, misinterpreting physical pleasure of masturbation as eroticism, and at worst, is excusing pedophilia as saying “that’s what the child *wants!”
Well, there is a great deal here for me to respond to. Unfortunately, though, I will be away and won’t have much computer access, but I would, quickly, like to note a couple of things:
1. The “game” I spoke of, in which my son sat on my wife’s face was intended, very specifically, to get his penis next to her mouth–though I do admit my prose makes it sound like I am interpreting it that way. He sat with his genital suspended directly over her mouth and sort of moved himself up and down. Now, whether we think the game is appropriate or not, what we read into what it means for him to do that, is one thing–and I am not suggesting that I think it is a “good” game that my son, or any child, should be encouraged to play–but I also wonder, seriously, how different that game was to him, in his interior experience at two years old, from the one he played where he would hold his hand close to her mouth and try to pull it away before she could catch it; or from the one he played where he would stick his belly out for a raspberry. And it is this wondering that is at the heart of this section.
2. It does seem to me that many of the responses here largely illustrate my point that we project adult anxieties about sexuality onto the bodies of children, that we see as sexualized and sexualizing touches that might not be so simply because they involve a child’s genitals.
3. I am perfectly willing to take responsibility for the fact that my prose might be provoking those anxieties more than the piece otherwise would have. It occurs to me, for example, as I suggested in an earlier comment, that it might have been better actually to describe the kissing, snuggling, tickling scene than to let those words do all the work. It might be that, to borrow that old creative writing workshop sawhorse, showing rather than telling would have made the scene less problematic for some of the people who responded here. I am also aware, though, that it might not have.
Okay, that’s all for now. If you are celebrating a holiday at this time of year, I hope it is a wonderful one for you. And happy new year, as well!
This is a very deep post. I must catch up as i haven’t read parts 1-9.
I can feel you on your interpretation of touching and reticence with your child. I was abused and feel the same way with my child sometimes. Oops, try not to pat his but too much! don’t want to give him a complex. I definitely limit myself to only cleaning his penis or potty training. We do not play with his penis–I was uncomfortable showing him how to hold it when he went to the bathroom. At 3, he is aware that I do not have a penis but daddy does, that I sit down to pee while he stands up. But he never asks me to touch or play with his penis. Though he likes to try and play with me–he likes to poke my belly and these days, he is always grabbing/pinching my nipple. I say stop! that hurts! but I think he does it automatically–he was breastfed until he was a year.
It is a very thin line we walk, wondering if we are being appropriate with our children after having been exposed to sexuality too early.
But I have to agree, your wife fondling your son’s penis is … just about inappropriate. And the penis in mouth game is WAAAAAY inappropriate. It could be my own abuse rearing it’s ugly head, but I don’t think that’s cool. I would ask if she (your wife) has a history of abuse. Regardless, I would let her know the feelings you’ve expressed here on this blog. I would hope she would understand your fear that her behavior may color your son’s life in some way, and curtail that particular expression of love for your son–out of respect for you. I mean, if he was still an infant, okay. But it is known that children at two or three receive pleasure from manipulating their genitals (masturbating) and I don’t think it’s a parents job to help them in that–game or no game.
My son tries to put his penis into his toys while in the bath sometimes. I find it funny, and tell him, don’t do that, it’ll get stuck! He knows what he’s doing, and gives me that guilty look before smiling it away at being caught. But I won’t be helping him put it into holes, including my mouth.
As a follower of Trish Wilson’s vicious attacks on Warren Farrell for his exploration of the very same topics, and for crossing the very same lines that are being crossed here according to some comments, I make it my New Year’s resolution to read through all installments of this book.
Basta!:
I am intrigued by your comment, since I do not at all consider myself someone in Warren Farrell’s camp. I’d be curious to read what Farrell has to say about what I have written about here. Can you supply some links?
Richard, he’s referring to an unpublished book of Farrell’s, I suspect. You can read about it here and here.The parallel between your work and Farrell’s seems weak to me.
I have only skimmed through the material at those links, Amp, but oy, Farrell is a scary man. I thought so when I read The Myth of Male Power, but if even half of what is written at the links you provided accurately represents what he thinks…I am, actually, left speechless. God I hope no one reading what I have written here thinks I am approving of incest or suggesting that anything even resembling what Farrell is talking about is potentially a good thing.
(note: I am L. above, I’ve been liking hanging around here lately so thought I would give myself a more substantial moniker.)
I’ve been thinking about what I’ve been trying to say on this topic and I don’t think I said it well. I think I have a better grasp of what my problem is, now. So I will try to write it again.
Okay, I don’t think you are like Ferrell, I think both you and your wife’s intnt here is largely innocent. Here is the problem I’m having, though. It seems like you are blaming your uncomfortable-ness with your wife’s ease in interacting with your son in regards to his genital area on your sexual abuse. As if you weren’t sexually abused, you would be as comfortable with interacting with your son in this way (and even a daughter, who you might kiss her genitalia so as to show her she is beautiful everywhere), as your wife is. And you seem to imply, like everyone should be.
I think you are cringing about it, like we all cringe about it even if we haven’t suffered sexual abuse, because it is just plain wrong to interact with your children’s genitalia in that way. Maybe your wife is not motivated by pediphilia, and maybe your son is not motivated by anything other than playful stimulation (much the same as he might play a game of raspberries on his stomach), but it is still wrong. If my sons were to somehow encourage me to stimulate their genitalia in this innocent way, I wouldn’t think them bad and I wouldn’t shame them or scold them in any way. But I also wouldn’t comply. I would gently redirect them to something else. Or, if needed, I would say something like, “mothers don’t play with their little boys penises that way, so lets play another game.” And then I would leave it alone.
Maybe in some kind of utopia, where men and women always come to each other (sexually and otherwise) in completely egalitarian ways, where no children are sexually abused, and where there is no rape, the way your wife is interacting with her son would be fine. But we don’t live in that world. Children need to be taught that certain parts of their bodies (well, all parts–but especially their genitals) belong to them and only they get to decide when they should be touched and how. But even if they decide at 2 or 3 that they want their mother to fondle their genitals, the relationship between parent and child will never be free from authority. So there is no possibility of the parent and child coming to these decisions from equal points of consent. Even if both parties are innocent in their motivations, like apparently your wife is, the power differential is unfair to the child and thus unethical to cross these lines. You can say that hugging a child and kissing his penis are the same, but they just aren’t. I’m sure you have probably been hugged by someone, a crazy uncle or something, where you really didn’t want to be hugged. But the ramifications of that unwanted hug were not the same as the abuse you suffered at the hands of your neighbor. Children need to understand that there are lines that parents won’t cross.
The other thing I had a bit of trouble with, is when you discuss the possibility of kissing your hypothetical daughter’s genitals in order to show her how beautifutl she is everywhere, I think it is misguided. I don’t know that girls (and people) would have such a strong benefit from a parent expressing their admiration/love for the child’s beauty by kissing them or otherwise showing them affection everywhere. I think it is much more important to find ways to show your child that you find them beautiful on the inside. Sorry for the cliche, but if a child knows that they have a wonderful heart and soul, that they have inner strength and beauty, then it really doesn’t matter what people (even they) think of their outsides. Sure, it is nice to hear that others find you beautiful, but I don’t know that I need anyone to kiss/fondle every part of me to prove it. Especially with all the implications noted above regarding parent power. Like, I don’t know that someone needs to kiss the space inbetween my pinky and ring finger or the spot three inches down from my armpit on my left side to think I’m beautiful there. If someone finds me beautiful as a whole, that is enough. (I know that pinky fingers are not as loaded as vagina’s as far as getting insults flung at in our society, but still don’t think it justifies the need to be physically fondled in order to show appreciation for overall beauty and love.)
Bottom line? I think the action between your son and wife was misguided, even if their motivations were purely nonsexual. I don’t think the fact that you were sexually abused has anything to do with the cringe factor in that, I think it is just wrong because of the power/boundary issues noted above.
Leora:
Thank you for this. I don’t agree with everything you have written, though it does affirm for me one more time that I need to think hard about revising this section, since it is clear that my words are, for you and some others, both conjuring things I do not intend and failing to make distinctions that I do intend.
Not even 1% of what is written at the links Amp provided accurately represents what Warren Farrell thinks, and it is extremely dishonest of Amp to “report” Warren Farrell’s views by linking to what seems to be the very anti-Farrell character assassination pasquinade by Trish Wilson I mentioned. The most objectionable thing Farrell has ever actually said is no more eyebrow-raising than your testimony about your son sitting on his mother’s face, or than Eve Ensler’s “good rape” for that matter – YES, I am now deliberately taking things out of context and distorting your and Ensler’s message in order to show you how such character assassination is done. The difference between the treatment you and Ensler receive from feminists and that which Farrell receives, the contrast between Amp inviting you to publish on his blog and Trish Wilson writing pasquinades against Farrell, the difference between Amp’s choice of seeing you as sensitive-inquisitive and Trish Wilson’s decision to portrait Farrell as deranged, these differences are not because he did something essentially worse than you did. These differences in treatment are because you are a (pro)feminist and Farrel wrote “The Myth of Male Power”. If Farrell were a feminist, what he had written down of his thoughts about the physical aspect of parent-child relationships (and it was “the seventies, the. beads, the fluffy pillows, the mood lights” when he wrote it, to quote Ensler) would meet just the same sympathetic reception here as your and Ensler’s writing does. Plus, Farrell actually WAS a feminist back then.
Basta!:
I read The Myth of Male Power from cover to cover, and I think it is a scary book, but this is not the place to argue about that, nor am I really able to, since I read the book a long time ago and I have neither the time nor the inclination to dig it out of storage and reconstruct my critique of it here. I do note, though, that you still have not provided any links to what Farrell wrote or that give what, in your opinion, would be a fair representation. So I will ask again: can you provide links? I would like very much to read what Farrell has said.
I have some issues myself, and I think I understand what you’re getting at, but this is a hard sell around here. I think the post explores the way shame gets reflected around in a family environment, the way shame looks and the way that even years after abuse, it has a profound effect on the way we teach children about their sexuality, but it squicked me. Having just had a son and having been the mother of two daughters, as well as having abuse related issues myself, I have also had to introspect on my own discomfort, on the way I can barely bring myself to help them wash (the girls don’t need it anymore and the boy isn’t old enough to do it himself, yet) or how hard potty-training was. Trying to be responsible has sent me back, over and over, to try and deal with my feelings with the hope that I teach my children to love themselves and not to feel alienated, frightened or disgusted by their sexuality the way I was encouraged to.
In the end, though, I have decided to tell them that those areas are theirs, and the times I have caught a daughter masturbating, I have reminded her that the activity is fine, but to remember to shut doors and to be considerate of the small space we’re in. And then I learned to knock. I don’t think we live in a society that will allow that kind of innocence, even in children; but especially not in adults. We are constantly projecting our sexuality onto everything, and I’m not sure we can help it. Because of that and because my children have to go and be in the world, I am raising them to be private. If I did not, we live in a culture that would send a harsh message to them for non-compliance (the girls, especially.) I usually don’t advocate compliance on anything, but this is one area I don’t mind butting out of. I basically don’t have anything to teach them that cannot be done productively (and I think respectfully) without touching that part of their bodies. And I want them to learn to be very careful of who gets to touch that part of their bodies. Ownership of one’s own genitals is very important.
Basta: I really don’t see a tremendous amount of feminist support for this particular series of posts. It would be nice if you could separate out your dislike of feminists from Richard – a man who builds his own story of manhood on his daughter’s figurative body. I guess it’s never too early to start pimping a female’s body.
There is nothing remotely feminist about a man exploring his manhood and sexuality on the back of his daughter’s body.
My mother was from the Spanish Honduras, where it is common practice to fondle (and sometimes orally copulate) the son’s penis. I do not feel that I was ever abused. But I never tried to put my pito in anyone’s mouth.
I think that if a stranger comes off the street and starts fondling a child, that is abuse. But when a loving mother is just trying to calm you down during a loud thunderstorm, that is just love, just mi familia.
Jopseh,
Thanks for this comment. It makes me want to go back, finally, and finish the revision.
I would like to see this series finished, old as it is.
Lesath,
I am probably not going to come back to this series per se. Rather, I think you will find, over time, that a lot of the material here and what would have ended up here will end up in the Fragments of Evolving Manhood series I have been working on. Thanks, though, for the encouragement. It means a lot to me.
The attitudes shown in the comments here are the reason why reporting of female sexual abusers is so low. Had this been about a man molesting his son, you lot would be angry as heck and giving no quarter – yet because it’s about a woman, you make all sorts of excuses and attempts at rationalising. There’s a reason women hardly show up in statistics on abuse – it’s not because they do it less (research shows it’s the same amount and that boys are actually more at risk from women than from men) – it’s because it’s difficult to get reports treated seriously when you get attitudes like the ones shown here.