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We remove children from anything that is sex related, including talks and photos. When I think about it, it seems deeply and morally wrong to not do it.

When I first thought about that, I thought that it might be because we don't want to encourage them to become sexual. But we also don't want them to be violent, and no one thinks it's wrong to send a 5 year old to a martial arts class. For any other aspect of life, we let them, to some degree, experience.

That made me think that it might be something more than cultural. Of course the definition of "child" may vary depending on the society, but not the moral code of that ruling.

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  • $\begingroup$ Related question: cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/4229/… $\endgroup$
    – Arnon Weinberg ♦
    Commented Nov 29, 2015 at 18:29
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    $\begingroup$ I feel you are making a bit of gross generalisation, and yes - culture is a strong player. I'm going to point you a BBC4 documentary on Daniel Carleton Gajdusek - a nobel Prize winner who was imprisoned for child molestation. Child molestation is impossible to justify (spoiler alert: doubt you'd reach a different conclusion after watching the documentary), but he does argue against the taboo on the topic in question, controversial as it may be (and obviously far less credible given his actions). $\endgroup$
    – Izhaki
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 0:48
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    $\begingroup$ Also of interest: Long-term US study finds no links between violent video games and youth violence. If you do a bit more digging, you'll find quite a few studies that point out to the observation that children comprehend the difference between reality and 'play' - so it is possible to infer that attending a material arts class may have an opposite effect on 5 year olds - making them less violent. $\endgroup$
    – Izhaki
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 0:56
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    $\begingroup$ We do not prevent children from everything sexual. To the contrary, we train children in sexual and gender roles from infancy (sometimes in too draconian a manner). We tend to restrict sexually explicit materials until mental and sexual maturity, when we hope they are ready to absorb such information in a healthy manner. $\endgroup$
    – John Yetter
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 22:27
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    $\begingroup$ Are you sure the "moral code of that ruling" is universal across all cultures? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_ancient_Greece $\endgroup$
    – Chelonian
    Commented Dec 5, 2015 at 18:45

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If I were to guess, the reason is probably something to the effect of: because children would not understand since they lack the same (or same level of) sexual urges that adults have. Another thought that comes to mind is maybe parents are afraid (or even ashamed) of their children seeing them (the parents) acting essentially like non-human animals. Sexual intercourse activities are usually very animalistic compared to most of the things we do in everyday life of modern society. For a similar reason, many parents probably would not want their kids seeing the parents drunk or otherwise acting uncivilised. In a way, it is like the parents are trying to hide from the kids the fact that adults are in many ways just big babies who are good at hiding it. The idea that humans are supposed to be civilised and clean is somewhat unnatural, yet common culture seems to view this idea as highly important.

On the topic of war and violence, my guess as to why these are often considered okay for children to see is because awareness of danger and the threat of violence are necessary even for a child, while knowledge of sex and sexuality really is not that essential at a young age.

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  • $\begingroup$ I agree about not presenting children with things they do not need to know. But old-time "fairy-tale stories" have shocking violence in them that children seem to not be phased by. In fact, the violence to "bad guys" at the end of the story seems to reassure children that there is justice. So, in the context of a clearly made-up story, children accept violence. They also are relatively helpless, so actually pondering their plight would probably be overwhelming. Sex, though, is something complex that they are not socially or emotionally ready for, like driving a car, so we don't involve them. $\endgroup$
    – user9634
    Commented Jan 23, 2016 at 1:42
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It is based around the age the average human goes through puberty.The body transforms and certain chemicals are increased causing the brain to induce thoughts of breeding involuntary.The human female is now able to produce offspring after puberty and at this stage the birth of a healthy child is at its climax.Sex is now a normality in lifestyle.Every human goes through this stage and knows the typical age when this occurs.A parent knows after their child forgoes puberty adulthood soon follows and all information and knowledge of how to produce life through breeding is now accepted and no longer suppressed but now taught.If puberty took place during the ages of 3-5 yrs old in humans,information related to breeding to a 3-5 yr old child would be accepted.Certain behaviours in humans are involuntary kept private and less likely to be performed in public due to the programing of the human brain and sometimes what is considered norm in the society the human is raised in.

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    $\begingroup$ i did not downvote, but I have to say, that in past times and perhaps even now, there are parents who do not inform their children about sex at all, and it used to be very common for young women on their first night of marriage to "be taught about sex" by a clumsy and nearly clueless husband who knew little more about it than she did. I don't personally know anyone whose parents actually taught them anything about sex. $\endgroup$
    – user9634
    Commented Jan 23, 2016 at 1:45

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