The special category of minors whom it is okay to sexually groom doesn't exist
There is no magical group of people who need to see porn to continue living
None.
Not the “gifted” children. Not the fictional “mature for their age.” Not the kids who say or who you think are GLBT+, 1000% not the kids with DSDs and may I kindly recommend jail if you think that the kids with visible severe trauma are this?
Alternative title is “If you think “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe is an appropriate memoir for kids then you are the kind of person who would misread “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov”
Minors having a curiosity about sexually does NOT mean it is appropriate for adults to give them graphic imagery. Telling a group of minors that the people who want to expose them to graphic content are their allies is setting them up for a lifetime of abusive dynamics. It is encouraging them to accept such things into their core identity of the self. It imparts the notion that the most important thing for them to be developing is their sexuality at an age that is critical for personality development.
When adults see a minor who is questioning things, it is not an invitation to attempt to sexually coach them or to tell them that their REAL community is makers of highly graphic content. It is not an invitation to tell that graphic self exposure is the highest form of truth telling. (Such as the argument that Maia drawing graphic Greek Urn scenes is somehow an essential form of truth telling which dare not be censored in anyway, shape or form.)
Even conservative parents can conclude in this narrative. I’ve heard parents talk as if there is some mystical class of children who need this grooming but it certainly isn’t THEIR children. They might see the issue being that transgender children are a minority, so why devote time to them? As opposed to seeing the issue being that the category of children whom it is morally noble to sexually groom does not exist.
If a person is so utterly desperate for emotional needs to be met, that they must get it from highly graphic imagery then something else is very wrong in their life. That something else can not be resolved via looking at graphic imagery. It is therefore not justifiable or appropriate to try to fix that issue via graphic imagery. The idea that you can only save certain people via exposing them to indecency is extremely similar to the logic of *Rowe Culture. (See my post on “I said I went to a summer camp…”) If not the exact same as Rowe Culture logic. It also conditions teens and younger minors to internalize this logic as reality. When the “cool” adults tell them this, they are more inclined to believe it. Teens who may be disillusioned via society or parents are more likely to deeply internalize what “cool” adults tell them. Convincing them that they can only get their basic needs via very strange art and displays of extreme vulnerability is essentially conditioning for a lifetime of cultic abuse.
Teens and children often do not have the best assessment on what their needs are. Exposing them to pseudo-mentally-adolescent adults presented as knowing guides is setting them up for a lifetime of extremely maladaptive patterns. Tying this into a larger biopolitic is downright evil. There isn’t a dichotomy between teens who are “ready” for this content and teens who will naturally walk away from this stuff. The dichotomy is between teens who are more able to protect themselves vs teens that need protection against the type of adult who thinks porn is vital to adolescent self actualization. (No, traumatizing your teen via abusing them if you catch them watching porn is not protecting them. That is a surefire way to turn it into a potentially lifelong psychological complex and make the “cool” adults seem safer in comparison)
The idea that an interest or curiosity about sexual topics must mean that teenager is going to grow up into a sex positive queer lifestylist who could only be benefitted in the long run by early exposure to such a culture is absurd. It is putting very heavy adult projections on a young person. The sex positive scene is also an extremely dysfunctional place. What could have been a decent movement was thwarted by the intense inclusion of BDSM, the shunning of critical research and the complete hatred for child safeguarding. The last things we should want to be culturally passing onto teens are somehow seen as the most important things to pass on. Being GLBT+ does not mean one needs to adopt a libertine sex of sexual mores.
*I’m coining this now to mean this exact type of thing.