Bonobos, nubility and the dreaded 'P' word

And it's not piss!

Someone left a comment yesterday asking me to comment on something. :) Trouble is, I don't know if I've picked up on the right thing. So if this isn't what a certain somebody wanted, well, be clearer next time! Genius? I may be, but clairvoyance is not my strong suit! Spades is, but only if I can draw trumps in two rounds and cross ruff from dummy. Rare bird that, the bridge playing penguin. No-one else here can be fagged to learn, I have to play with a computer! Interestingly my partner goes by the moniker of ‘Big Bird’. (His bidding, however, leaves much to be desired, very conservative. The slams I’ve missed!)

Not a pleasant subject paedophilia. However you dress it up, it sticks in your throat, doesn't it? The problem I have is that I don't know what it is. It's not that I don't know that it's kiddy fiddling (and worse, much, much, much worse), it's that I don't know when being a kiddy stops.

You see, penguins do not have this problem. Females are simply off the agenda until they become sexually mature. Approach a juvenile penguin with amorous (or sexual) attentions and you'll like as not get a beak in the eye. For us, you see, and for most of the non human kingdom, sex only happens at quite specific times of the year and in response to certain stimuli, mostly visual or scent based, caused by hormonal changes. Juveniles don't have those changes. I say most non humans because there is one exception, the bonobo chimpanzee.

To be fair to you, bonobos make you lot look like abstinent priests, sex for bonobos, in positions that will make your eyes water, is all part of the daily social routine. Instead of going to work, saying hello to your colleagues, maybe popping out for a pint and a pie and then going home to watch TV, bonobos have sex! No really! They even use sex to say hello! (Try that down the Slug and Aardvark tonight and see how far you get – with your gonads still attached to your body, mind. If they’re on the floor or coming out of your mouth, it doesn’t count!)

So bonobos aside, you are the only animals that are active sexually all the time. There is no brake on males (or females for that matter). Attraction is not just influenced by hormones either. There is an enormous number of other factors involved which probably accounts for the incredible range of sexual practices you engage in. The other problem you have is your sexual/physical development is becoming increasingly out of kilter with your mental and emotional development and for humans the latter plays a large part in how you form relationships, view the world or develop a moral code or way of living.

You see for us, as soon as we get to sexual maturity we've pretty much developed mentally. We'll learn a few things as we grow older (in my case, quite a few :) but our basic attitudes, behaviours and instincts are all there. Just as importantly we've spent the preceding three years fending for ourselves, being independent, not in any way reliant on our parents.

But humans reach puberty so much earlier in their mental development, most haven't even started their senior school (high school) before they're already well on their way to sexual maturity. And they are still so dependent on their parents. Now quite clearly we say, a 10 year old girl is not old enough to form any kind of 'adult' emotional bond with either another child or an adult and you should probably avoid allowing them to get involved in sexual practices which may lead to emotional or psychological issues further down the line.

However that is a fairly recent view. The legal age on consent was raised to 16 only a hundred years or so ago in LetsfollowBushintoastupidlandwarwecan'twinland when parliament breathed a collective gasp of horror on hearing of a women selling her 13 year old daughter's virginity to the highest bidder. It's only around the same time that any kind of regulation was done in relation to child working, which you applaud now, but which must have been a serious financial blow to families at the time. “Ay, what we gonna do now, lass, now that Charlie (8) will longer be let to push a coal truck in't mine for 16 hours a day? Where’s his 3d (about 1.5c) a week gonna come from now?”

Ah, but we live in more enlightened times, do we not? And children are to be protected, yes?

But it used to be quite common, and in places still is, to offer up girls for marriage at sexual maturity (sometimes before). There is no doubt, in general, males of any age favour sex with nubile young females. No really! :) For a very good reason. If as a male you want to donate the maximum number of your genes to posterity, the best time to start is AT female sexual maturity not 20 years later when they may be better conversation and a lot better in bed ;) but you won't get the opportunity for as many offspring, ergo less genes swimming around in the pool.

But, on the other hand, when are they old enough? Is that 22 year old female, face down in the gutter, pewking her guts up after one too many Bacardi Breezers, old enough? The law says yes, but her emotional/psychological age? Is that also 22? Or is she still stuck at 13? Unable to comprehend that she has just stuck a great big sign on her back, saying “Rape ME!”

It seems to me that we're back on the old 'covering your boss' arse and gassing Jews' continuum. Where do you draw the line? 21? 18? 16? 14? 12? Sexual maturity? I honestly don't know.

Paedophila doesn't make an enormous amount of sense to me, even though I'm male, although I suspect that like rape, it actually has very little to do with sex or emotional attachment and an awful lot more to do with control, power and ego. After all, even if you find little Molly down the road cute, what’s the point of having sex (for pleasure) with a body that is (a) unresponsive and (b) quite simply too small. And let’s be blunt, it’s not restricted to small girls either. In fact, in Ireland, girls don’t even enter the equation. Ask the 'Brotherhood'!

It is certainly something that women seem to fail to engage in, although I don’t think that has anything necessarily to do with ‘maternal instinct’. There are enough of you out there trying to knock down the lounge wall to make the living area, “brighter, bigger, more a sense of space” with the baby’s head for me to think that women of that ilk just exercise their control in a different way. For men it’s always sex! They are, after all, just a penis with a brain attached. Pity that in most cases, both are way too small.

It is however sad that someone becomes twisted enough that the only power they can wield is the sadistic torment of helpless children not just at the time but, in the main, for the rest of their life. At least Stalin tormented adults who potentially could fight back.

As the lowest of the low, those who abuse the most defenceless creatures of your society, what do you do? Those who specifically target the most innocent? String them up? It's been suggested. Chemical castration? Real castration? I don't know. They are quite clearly ill. Does a humane and just society not take care of its sick?