As someone who was exposed to a lot of problematic fic and porn very young, you are absolutely right and anyone who wants to hide all Bad Things™ from kids has (a) never met a kid and (b) is setting kids up to fail.
Yeeeeah. I’ve mentioned working with a lot of young Christian adults lately? And honestly, fandom’s purity culture is still only a pale echo of what churches teach all the time. Forget qualifiers like “deviant”--they’re teaching all the incredibly vulnerable children in their care that thinking about sex AT ALL under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES is a TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD SIN.
Pastors will fend off suggestions that we, uh... educate them about sex in any way, shape, or form, since that makes them less vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation, by saying, “You might as well give them instructions on how to rob a bank!”
Like, my dudes and ma’ams... that would only be an apt comparison if you raised your children with the belief that their highest happiness in life was one day finding the perfect bank to rob and committing the perfect heist.
be gay do crime
In a system where marriage is set up as the highest goal of most people’s lives, teenagers are VERY ANXIOUS about learning how to succeed at it, and so many churches and parents feed them absolute HORSESHIT instead of concepts like... “If you’re not enjoying the sex you’re having you should probably talk to someone about it” and “It’s not your partner’s job to make you feel happy at all times and it’s a bad idea to get mad at them for failing to do this.”
And meanwhile we have so many fucking stories about people who did EVERYTHING RIGHT in this system and got absolutely robbed of any sort of healthy sexual relationship. I’m seriously not kidding when I say this is a system that routinely produces adults who are like, “I’m so ashamed... sometimes when I’m driving or working or whatever... I get aroused at the thought of tenderly making love to my husband/wife... I’ve asked God to take away these terrible feelings but I’m afraid I’m just tainted forever... My spouse would be so disgusted with me if he/she found out.”
And I’m sitting here like “Am I REALLY going to have to help someone come out as straight for the SECOND TIME THIS MONTH? Oh my god, I wanted to work in a Christian environment because I wanted to help LGBTQ+ Christians, but at least THEY fucking know their churches are full of shit on this topic! Somebody get in here and advocate for the sexual rights of cishets, Jesus help me.”
