There are many things happening in our society that we really don't want to think about and one of those things is the clash between our sexuality and what our society thinks is good and proper.

As I have said in previous blog entries as a society we tend to be in denial about us being animals. Yes we are animals. We are mammals just like cats, dogs, monkeys... we need food, sleep, affection... and part of being an animal is having sex.

Somehow the innocence of children has been totally idolized and sacred; hence children are shielded from all knowledge of sex; and instead we prefer to think that somehow they will find out at the right time all about it themselves or traumatize them with the reality of the changes in their bodies. Menstruation is hidden, adults having sex is hidden, ... from the children, like sex is disgusting, rather than children learning about it like it is normal, a natural part of life, therefore children are never exposed to it.

The problem with this is that children make easy targets for pedophiles with the child's absolute ignorance of what is going on.

One of the things we could do to ease the plight of the victims of pedophiles is to talk about the subject. And unlike this academic who doesn't think pedophilia is a crime, it is, but how it is handled should be carefully considered.

How we deal with people who perpetrate these crimes tells their victims how they should feel about what has been done to them. I imagine that children who have been the victim of pedophiles will somehow translate this disgusting thing that has happened to them as they are themselves disgusting, and hence because they have internalized this disgust go on to perpetrate these crimes on children once they grow up.

How we talk about pedophilia must impact how the survivors of these crimes will feel about themselves and what has happened to them. Because victims can be reluctant to expose the crimes they don't get any chance at receiving professional help with healing from these crimes - our society waits until they do these crimes themselves on other children and then they are punished, rather than being given help after surviving abuse themselves.

Again we see our society is punishment based rather than helping survivors of crimes. The economic argument is: we must have prisons to punish criminals but paying professionals to help survivors of crimes is a waste of money.

Another problem with shielding children from sexuality is that parents think their kids won't be curious about sex because they never openly talk about it. They assume their kids will never be interested in something their parents place a taboo on. The parents may require their daughters to take purity pledges or some sort of nonsense that this will somehow make their kids not want to explore until they are married. Well they are wrong and naive.

But hormones are normal and natural and again with kids not having enough information because of cultural context the kids are not properly prepared and they do explore and they often chose badly when they explore. They might explore siblings or neighboring children or even adults which can have lasting and bad consequences for all involved. And this is cruel. Kids may not know the threshold of normal hugging and affection and start acting sexually to siblings or others but don't really see the harm they are doing because they are kids themselves. They just don't get the consequences.

If we treat the subject as a huge taboo, if we treat the crime as totally repugnant - will impact how the survivors of these crimes will feel about themselves.

We as animals, and no I don't mean that derogatorily, thrive on touching and being touched and I don't mean 'touch' in a sexual sense. It is part of social grooming that many animals engage in. Many people enjoy petting cats and dogs and other animals or hugging other humans, a hand shake starts a business relationship or closes a deal. Touch is fundamental to us as human beings. Human babies need it for development. Research shows that teams that touch the most win more often, waitresses that casually touch customers get bigger tips, touch can give us confidence, makes us feel better, calm us... These articles all recommend we touch, or hug loved ones several times a day. Indeed, we should touch each other way more often than we do.

Again I need to reiterate that this is non-sexual touching.

There are safe places on unfamiliar people's bodies we can touch them socially which is non-sexual, such as hands, arms, shoulders and upper back. Any where else is unwanted touching unless there is appropriate intimacy, such as with an adult partner you consensually engage in sex with.

Despite all the benefits of non-sexual touching, we need to be reminded to do it, kind of like being reminded to eat our vegetables I suppose. But one of the things humans are very good at is confusing sensory signals, or, one thing for another.

For example, most of what makes food delicious is its smell. We anthropomorphize rocks and volcanoes into gods, we develop systems of rules and artificial structures and call them laws in religion, superstition, alchemy, language, law, and even algebra. We even lie to ourselves and call it rationalization. Sorting our way through the mess of mental constructions and coming to a truth will probably only make us eventually come to new realization of more self-deception. This is how knowledge evolves, and this is also another blog entry entirely.

Anyway this is where I come to the hypothesis that people who inappropriately touch others are doing so because they have confused the need for human touch with the adult activity of sex. Part of the delusion of the male stereotype is that men cannot need anything from others, yet they still need to touch and be touched. It is manly to have sex. It is not manly to need affection, or the need for the touch of another person's hand.

Another example is the lie (or rationalization) someone was 'asking for it'.

Also the male stereotype dictates men cannot touch each other yet there are these male bonding rituals of gang raping women, in other words, the woman/women being raped is a/are surrogate/s for these men being intimate with each other. We are fortunate more men don't feel the need to engage in such bonding rituals.

It is also manly to be violent. It is not manly to need to be hugged by your wife and kids. But how do you get your wife and kids to hug you after you've beaten them?

It may also be possible that men need to touch and be touched more than women do.

Touch is important, but is best kept to the safe zones. And all of us should remember to touch each other more often, and let's hope feminism can get the message out that it is safe for men to touch each other.