3 ms·

I have questions about when sex became taboo for children to learn about. Look at historical dwellings and family sizes and try to imagine how they kept kids fr

I have questions about when sex became taboo for children to learn about. Look at historical dwellings and family sizes and try to imagine how they kept kids from figuring it out from firsthand observation.

bombcar 5y ago
Probably with the advent of industrial infantilization of children. In a world where many children were married by 16 and before that lived in a farm and assisted with birth (both human and animal) it would be hard to keep it a mystery.
- irrational 5y ago
  16? Must be a spinster.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    This longstanding claim that age-of-marriage was historically that low is silly. Typical pattern in Western Europe was women married at 19-22 in the 1500s. You can find outliers like Tuscany in the 1400s where it looks like that number is 17-21. Typical ancient Roman marriage patterns were for women to wed at 20-25, it seems. There's outliers, of course. Especially with elites: where political and other concerns often created pressures for early marriage. Looking at the outliers in today's world, you can find e.g. in Sub-Saharan Africa about 35-40% of women wedding before age 18. So there's really only tiny pockets of the world in space and time where it seems that the average marriage would be under age 18.
    - irrational 5y ago
      Perhaps this came from the age of consent rather than the age of marriage. I just did a quick search and found that for women the age of consent in the USA in the 1800s was typically down to 10 years old, except for Delaware where it was 7 (yes! 7!) years old.
ummwhat 5y ago
There's two facets of sexual behaviour that are unique to humans. The first is we're the only species that sometimes gets aroused on violence or gets violent on arousal. This is an accident of neurology, both feelings a processed close by. The second is we're the only species that cares if anyone's watching. This observation seems to hold across cultures and time periods. So the answer is, it was always taboo for kids or anyone else to watch. People may not have always been able to hide it effectively, but they were always at least trying.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > The first is we're the only species that sometimes gets aroused on violence or gets violent on arousal. Not sure why you think this. Plenty of other animals become violent during marrying seasons, it's often an explicit part of their sexual behavior, at least for males. For example, most horned mammals (deer, buffalos) have violent conquests in the mating season.
  - ummwhat 5y ago
    I learned it from the Stanford Neuroscience lectures available on YouTube. The ones with Dr. Spolansky. I'm not sure how to discern the subtle difference between "a brain liable to conflate sex and violence" with "violent behaviors tangentially related to sex" either. I'm just trusting the scientist telling me the difference is there and they've studied it.

bombcar 5y ago

Probably with the advent of industrial infantilization of children. In a world where many children were married by 16 and before that lived in a farm and assisted with birth (both human and animal) it would be hard to keep it a mystery.

irrational 5y ago
16? Must be a spinster.
- mlyle 5y ago
  This longstanding claim that age-of-marriage was historically that low is silly. Typical pattern in Western Europe was women married at 19-22 in the 1500s. You can find outliers like Tuscany in the 1400s where it looks like that number is 17-21. Typical ancient Roman marriage patterns were for women to wed at 20-25, it seems. There's outliers, of course. Especially with elites: where political and other concerns often created pressures for early marriage. Looking at the outliers in today's world, you can find e.g. in Sub-Saharan Africa about 35-40% of women wedding before age 18. So there's really only tiny pockets of the world in space and time where it seems that the average marriage would be under age 18.
  - irrational 5y ago
    Perhaps this came from the age of consent rather than the age of marriage. I just did a quick search and found that for women the age of consent in the USA in the 1800s was typically down to 10 years old, except for Delaware where it was 7 (yes! 7!) years old.

ummwhat 5y ago

There's two facets of sexual behaviour that are unique to humans. The first is we're the only species that sometimes gets aroused on violence or gets violent on arousal. This is an accident of neurology, both feelings a processed close by. The second is we're the only species that cares if anyone's watching. This observation seems to hold across cultures and time periods. So the answer is, it was always taboo for kids or anyone else to watch. People may not have always been able to hide it effectively, but they were always at least trying.

tsimionescu 5y ago
> The first is we're the only species that sometimes gets aroused on violence or gets violent on arousal. Not sure why you think this. Plenty of other animals become violent during marrying seasons, it's often an explicit part of their sexual behavior, at least for males. For example, most horned mammals (deer, buffalos) have violent conquests in the mating season.
- ummwhat 5y ago
  I learned it from the Stanford Neuroscience lectures available on YouTube. The ones with Dr. Spolansky. I'm not sure how to discern the subtle difference between "a brain liable to conflate sex and violence" with "violent behaviors tangentially related to sex" either. I'm just trusting the scientist telling me the difference is there and they've studied it.