pervocracy:

While I’m at it, I’m really not happy with the way Tumblr is restoring “the innocence of youth” culture to 1990s-purity-ring levels.

It’s somehow transmuted a few good principles–adults shouldn’t have sex with underage people, underage people shouldn’t take part in porn, very young children shouldn’t be exposed to explicit sexuality–into bullshit like:

– All fiction involving underage sexuality, even non-sensationalized written descriptions of the kind of sexual relationships teenagers often have with each other, is child porn

– Sex education that talks about dealing with STIs and pregnancy and rape is okay, but teaching teenagers about sexual pleasure is gross and anyone who does it is probably a pedophile

– People under 18 all find sexuality frightening or offputting and don’t want to be exposed to it (I’m sure some feel that way, but if you think this is a universal or majority thing, wow, you must’ve gone to a very different high school than I did)

– Having adult content somewhere that minors could stumble across it is as bad as going to the playground and pushing it in kindergarteners’ faces

– Even acknowledging the existence of underage sexuality is suspicious, why would you be talking about this if you weren’t some kind of pedophile

It’s tough to talk about this because it immediately puts you in the company of people who really are being creepy about it, but I think it’s important to push back against these things.  Young people have sexualities, they aren’t “innocent” and many of them don’t want to be, and it is possible to acknowledge these facts without exploiting them.