5434a
16hr ago
Maybe you misunderstood the question. That doesnt explain why you think they already have those feelings.
I don't think I do understand the question, I thought "All common behaviours in my experience" explained why I think they had those feelings. I saw other kids in primary school behaving in ways that were motivated by a special affection that wasn't normal friendship. Add to that that some people are shy and there were probably other people who had those same feelings but didn't openly express them.
those attributions where made up on the flimisiest of pretexts and really just exist for the sake of the teasing
It was made up for the sake of teasing but the effectiveness of the teasing relies on its plausibility. We didn't tease each other about being bad at driving.
Outside of those kind of inferential observations there were the open admissions. You'd tell a friend that you liked a girl, or he'd tell you, or one of the girls would tell her friend to tell you that she liked your friend, and there was no confusion about what was meant by "liking" someone. All of those likings were directed at their opposite sex. All that together suggests to me that many kids can intuit which sex they are attracted to before reaching puberty. Without seeing these kinds of discussions on the internet I would have thought it was rare not to.
Out of interest, when you were a kid what internal response did you have when you happened upon risque images?
5434a
1d ago
Let's say puberty begins around 12, that's plenty of time to pick up on the memeset around sexual attraction and compare it against what does and doesn't resonate with your own feelings.
The only thing I can think of that would make it confusing is if, like the writer, somebody found their own sex more attractive but the whole of society was prompting them with expectations to be interested in the other sex for whom they felt very little. In that case I can imagine the person wondering whether their feelings will change when they grow up and then getting hit with the elevated production of hormones at puberty and realising that there's no room for doubt; they like what they like even more than before. Or maybe if a kid had grown up with only siblings of the other sex and mistook their lack of fondness for them as extending to all members of that sex.
in what sense would you "like" them?
At its basic level in the undeveloped puppy-dog love sense. "Girl A <3 Boy B" written on a pencil case, or having a favourite pop singer who you like solely because of how nice they look instead of what their music is like, or wanting to play a pretend grown-up relationship role with one particular playmate, or childish jealousy/envy that that one particular person is playing that role with some other boy/girl, or focusing on one person and following them around and wanting to be involved in all their activities despite having no inherent interest in those activities, or kids teasing each other about who they "like". All common behaviours in my experience that can be seen as expressing the same instincts you see in adult attraction and relationships. I expect Desmond Morris has written on the subject in more detail.
5434a
1d ago
A fully developed sexual consciousness no, but I think a rudimentary sexual inclination is expected, at least the bare minimum of knowing whether you "like" girls or boys. I think the alternative that you wouldn't know until you've reached puberty is harder to imagine.
Or is it the "before I could spell my name" part? I mean, her name isn't that hard to spell but we're hearing stories about people who leave higher education with minimal literacy so it's not impossible that she was a slow learner, although I'm guessing most of those don't become writers. It's probably just a turn of phrase.
5434a
3d ago
Alerting you that it's running out of power instead of leaving you unaware that it has silently failed is the alarm functioning properly.
Removing a smoke alarm is practically the same amount of work as replenishing or replacing, more if you have to patch and paint any holes. They're not expensive, the first place I checked sells a twin pack for £15.
I can say from experience it's better coming home to the news that you'll have to clean up smoke damage in the kitchen than whatever the outcome might have been if we hadn't had a smoke alarm.
5434a
3d ago
Over on DSL, someone stated that the first thing they did when they moved into their house was to remove all the smoke detectors so the damn things wouldn't annoy you in the middle of the night with battery beeps
So they didn't say that they removed the smoke alarms because the pencil-pushing bureaucrats at city hall are trying to dictate how to provision their home, it was merely to defeat and negate the proper functioning of the alarm. I expect they'll be replacing their fuses with scrunched up tinfoil next.
Assuming your childhood was free from the internet did you never experience any degree of internal response to seeing a flash of nudity in a film, an underwear model in a clothing catalogue, or some other intrusion into your awareness?
More options
Context Copy link