Re: No kidding?

Having just watched the Republican convention, I think we can safely assert that adults can't tell when adults are intentionally lying or misinformed, either.

Ha! But people do tend to believe what they want to believe. Funny how antis can hold that kids are easy to manipulate but difficult to "read"--which is really just their way of saying kids cannot be trusted with their own views. In fact, most of us are good at "reading" other people despite what they actually say (as I've said before, about 75-80% of communication is nonverbal, which we developed over centuries--it's genetically ingrained in us because our bodies have a much more difficult time lying to others than our mouths do.) And kids, who haven't been in any degree practiced at lying in the same way that adults have, are the easiest of all to read.

The truth is, many people are simply appalled at the very idea that a child might enjoy sexual contact to any degree, and so they (ironically) convince themselves the child is deluded, that the child must deep down really hate the sexual contact, but that the child convinces him- or herself that they like it in some convoluted self-directed Jedi mind trick. (Remember the pedophile who was attacked in the media for admitting that the way he got kids to behave was just to tell them that he would stop the sexual contact if they didn't behave?) Occam's Razor suggests that if a child displays signs that they enjoy something, they probably do. Rather, it is adults who learn to lie to themselves. Kids, who have a much harder time lying effectively, either to themselves or to others, betray an essential truth that confounds both right-wing religious types and left-wing pseudofeminists: sex is neither inherently spiritually corrupting to children nor projected onto kids by patriarchal males to control females; it is a natural activity that we are all capable of enjoying, given a safe and comfortable environment, lack of coercion and pain, and an attentive and caring partner.