Sexual” is ambiguous. Christians may use the term to describe our sex: male or female. We may use the term to describe our procreative nature. But Alfred Kinsey, SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S.) and others like them refer to children as being sexual” which, to them, means “capable of sexual activity.”
We are disregarding God’s created order when we say that “children are sexual.” Children are not “sexual” in the sense of being capable of sexual activity nor do they benefit from early libido. God does not mock His little ones by creating them with tendencies that would be harmful both physically and spiritually.
Kinsey wanted society to accept pedophilia as a natural act and believed that sex with children is a problem only because we have laws against it. The crimes of Kinsey who gathered data for his research from the sexual abuse of 317 infants and young boys by known pedophiles were exposed by Judith Reisman, Ph.D., in Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences (also: Stolen Honor, Stolen Innocence). Kinsey used his fraudulent statistics to convince the world that “children are sexual from birth.” This opened a Pandora’s Box of illicit sexuality.
Forms of sex education, based on Kinsey’s research, worked their way into state and parochial schools with the purpose of helping children learn about sex. Children began experimenting with sex at earlier ages with sure and certain consequences. By the 1980s, schools that didn’t have sex education welcomed it out of fear of AIDS. More recently, pro-sodomy groups have gained entrance into classrooms to encourage fellow “sexual beings” to express all manner of “sexuality” without fear of bullying. Slowly but steadily, attempts to break down the walls guarding children have been made since those with Kinsey’s worldview settled onto university campuses.
Anne Hendershott is a distinguished visiting professor at The King’s College in New York City. She writes,
It was only a decade ago that a . . . movement had begun on some college campuses to redefine pedophilia as the more innocuous “intergenerational sexual intimacy.”
The publication of Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex promised readers a “radical, refreshing, and long overdue reassessment of how we think and act about children’s and teens’ sexuality.” The book was published by University of Minnesota Press in 2003 (with a foreward by Joycelyn Elders, who had been the U.S. Surgeon General in the Clinton administration), after which the author, Judith Levine, posted an interview on the university’s website decrying the fact that “there are people pushing a conservative religious agenda that would deny minors access to sexual expression,” and adding that “we do have to protect children from real dangers . . . but that doesn’t mean protecting some fantasy of their sexual innocence.”
The redefinition of childhood innocence as “fantasy” is key to the defining down of the deviance of pedophilia that permeated college campuses and beyond. Drawing upon the language of postmodern theory those working to redefine pedophilia are first redefining childhood by claiming that “childhood” is not a biological given. Rather, it is socially constructed—an [sic] historically produced social object. Such deconstruction has resulted from the efforts of a powerful advocacy community supported by university-affiliated scholars and a large number of writers, researchers, and publishers who were willing to question what most of us view as taboo behavior. (Excerpt from “The Postmodern Pedophile” by Anne Hendershott in Public Discourse [A publication of The Witherspoon Institute], December 20, 2011.)
Public opinion that pedophilia is deviant behavior still remains. We should take note that even SIECUS does not currently promote pedophilia or incest even though its early officials did. However, as we see the barriers protecting childhood innocence removed in classrooms and society in general, groups such as NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) will push for “boy love” in every community claiming that child/adult sex is acceptable intimacy among generations.
So, the question arises: Does sex education help protect children from sexual abuse and predators? Lynette Burrows writes, “The increase in talking graphically about sex to children is essentially pedophilic in nature.” Lest anyone think her remark too sensational, let’s hear her out. She continues,
It is increasing the number of people who are allowed to “talk dirty” to children, and so to breach the protective armor of their innocence. Thus it is widening the scope for pedophiles to target children. Warning children with slimy disclaimers about “inappropriate touching” is simply token and meaningless to a child. How can they recognize the danger signals from those who wish to exploit them if such a large number of adults are implicated in the same “dirty talk”? (Excerpt from “Worst Sexualisation of Children is Happening in Schools” presented by Lynette Burrows to the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children [SPUC] Safe at School “Sex Education as Sexual Sabotage” meeting in Westminster, London, 2011.)
Sex education in any classroom encourages children to talk about sex and sexually-related subjects in explicit terms with adults who are not their parents. This strips them of natural embarrassment and modesty which play an important role in protecting them from sexual abuse. Let’s also bear in mind that many of those trained or certified to teach sex education or family living have themselves been stripped of embarrassment and modesty in postgraduate degree programs developed by Kinsey followers and using Kinsey methods. The Christian should remember that embarrassment was a new emotion for Adam and Eve after their sin, but it was for their protection in a sinful world.
What does God say? Does His Word tell us that children are sexual from birth and that child-adult sex is normal? No, it does not. The culture desperately needs the Church to stand on the solid ground of God’s Word about children, the act of sex, and marriage.
For the sake of precious souls, we must resist evil even as we shed light in dark places.
This post is taken from Chapter Three of
The Failure of Sex Education in the Church:
Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity
(Amazon) by Linda Bartlett.
Amen again.
Something else the Bible doesn’t talk about is the “innocence” of children, or how they must be protected from anything sexual. The Bible doesn’t say children are incapable of sexual feelings or expression, there is no Biblical “age of consent”, children are not prohibited from marrying or being given in marriage (Numbers 31:18, Judges 21:20-23, Ezekiel 16:4-9), which is said to be “honourable in all, and the bed undefiled”(Hebrews 13:4). If sexuality is so dangerous for children, then why did God not say something about it? And why did He give children sexual feelings at the earliest age? I can attest to this from my experience, having been a sexual youngster even tho I never had any sexual contact with adults. So it was also for my peers.
Much could be said in response to you, Bible Scholar, but let me offer something brief. A friend of mine and true Bible scholar (indeed, the author of a 1300 page commentary on the Song of Songs) writes that an ancient Jewish tradition specified that only those over the age of thirty should read the Song. Some Christians in the early church recognized the wisdom of that tradition . . . The age of thirty may have been specified because by that time most people would have married. Jerome counseled a mother, Laeta, about her daughter, whom she wished to raise virtuously. The church father Jerome said that Laeta should first teach her daughter the Proverbs, then the patience of Job, then the Gospels, then the Acts and Epistles. Once she was more grounded in faith, then should could safely read the Song of Songs.
Supposed “signs” that a girl or boy might be responding to touch in a sexual way should not be presumed to mean that the child is experiencing sexual feelings or that they can benefit from sexual activity. Dr. Judith Reisman notes that a girl infant’s lubrication or a boy infant’s erection have more to do with natural mucosa (in girls) or vascular reactions responding to biological stimuli (in boys) such as urinary buildup, friction, infections, and even fear or terror. It is true that sexual abuse and pornography can prematurely disturb, emotionally arouse and physically traumatize children.
I can’t speak for you and your experiences. But I know that the Creator of life, the God who wants the little ones He loves kept from harm, would not give them feelings or emotions that would put them in harm’s way physically, emotionally or spiritually. What a cruel God that would be! On the other hand, after the Fall, our sinful nature corrupts what God has made. For that reason, God continued to instruct fathers and mothers to “not arouse love before its time” (Song of Songs). Dr. Reisman writes, “To sexualize an infant or child before developmental maturity and reproductive readiness is criminal–a cruel torment that interferes grotesquely with children’s natural developmental sequence and produces unnatural behavior, psychobiological, and psychological deviance.”