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My seven-year-old son started getting really into gauze, splints, and bandages when he was three, and by the time he was four it became very clearly sexualized. He gets a boner when he plays "broken bone" or just looks at bandages, and has expressed how much he loves to touch his penis when he does this. My husband and I (both happily vanilla) have been accepting and casual about this. We've provided him with a stash of "supplies," taught him the concept of privacy and alone time, and frequently remind him to never wrap bandages around his head or neck.

Dan, he spends so much time alone in his room doing his thing that sometimes I'm wondering... is it normal to be so kinky at such a young age? I know kinks generally develop from childhood associations. When he was 2, he...

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DAN.jpg

My seven-year-old son started getting really into gauze, splints, and bandages when he was three, and by the time he was four it became very clearly sexualized. He gets a boner when he plays "broken bone" or just looks at bandages, and has expressed how much he loves to touch his penis when he does this. My husband and I (both happily vanilla) have been accepting and casual about this. We've provided him with a stash of "supplies," taught him the concept of privacy and alone time, and frequently remind him to never wrap bandages around his head or neck.

Dan, he spends so much time alone in his room doing his thing that sometimes I'm wondering... is it normal to be so kinky at such a young age? I know kinks generally develop from childhood associations. When he was 2, he had a surgery to correct a common issue on his groin. Might that have sparked this? I want my son to grow up with a healthy and positive sexuality. Are we doing him a favor or a disservice by supplying him with materials, freedom and privacy to engage in a kink so young? Is there any danger in this?

Boy's Apparent Needs Doctoring And Gets Edgier

Your son's behavior isn't that abnormal, BANDAGE. It's pretty standard for kids, even very young kids, to touch their genitals—in public, where it can be a problem, or in private, where it should never be a problem. And lord knows kids obsess about the strangest shit. (What is the deal with dinosaurs anyway?) Right now your son is obsessed with bandages and splints and gauzes, his interests aren't purely intellectual, and it's easy enough to pin this on an early childhood experience that put bandages and gauze in his swimsuit area.

None of this means your son is definitely going to be kinky when he grows up, BANDAGE—not that there's anything wrong with being kinky when you grow up. There are lots of happy, healthy kinksters out there and your kid could wind up becoming one of them. But it's too early to tell, BANDAGE, and so long as his kinks aren't complicating his life (he's not behaving inappropriately with friends or at school), your son's whatever-this-is will become less and less of your business over time and ultimately it'll be none of your business.

But you aren't doing your son any favors when you slap the "so kinky" label on him at age seven. (Does your son even know what that word means? If he were to overhear you and the hubby using that word to describe him, does he have the computer skills to Google it himself?) BUT! I happen to think you're doing everything right otherwise, BANDAGE. You aren't shaming your son, you aren't making bandages and gauzes and splints more alluring by denying him access to them, and you're sending him age-appropriate messages about privacy and what he needs to reserve for "alone time."

Backing up: You ask if it's normal to be "so kinky" (a phrase we shall both retire, at least when referring to your son, at the end of today's SLLOTD) at such an early age. Probably not—but so what? According to SCIENCE, most adults have paraphilias, a.k.a. "non-normative sexual desires and interests," BANDAGE, which means kinks are normal—at least for grownups. So even if your son isn't normal now, he'll be normal someday. And this may set your mind at ease: most happy, healthy, well-adjusted adult kinksters can point to things in their childhoods that seemed to foreshadow their adult interests in bandages/bondage/balloons/whatever. Author, journalist, and spanking fetishist Jillian Keenan was fascinated by spanking in childhood—she likes to say she was conscious of her kink orientation before she knew anything about her sexual orientation. So while your son's behavior may not be "normal" for a kid who grows up to be vanilla, it could be seen as "normal" for someone who grows up to be kinky.

This comic, tweeted out by an adult kinkster, pretty much nails it:


Last word goes to Jesse Bering, author of Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us. Bering had this to say to the panicked parents of a teenage boy with a thing for diapers:

"Even if it turns out that his stepson is really into diapers, it's a pretty harmless fetish," said Bering. "As with any paraphilia, it would be next to impossible to 'cure,' even at his young age. It's just something he'll need to learn how to handle responsibly."

You're already there, BANDAGE—you're helping your son learn how to handle this (and himself) responsibly without shaming him. You're doing everything right. Keep it up.

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Vivamus dui velit, vehicula non sodales a, aliquet sit amet orci. In lorem nulla, porttitor a nibh ac, auctor sodales libero. Phasellus sit amet consectetur urna, sed congue neque. Mauris a commodo arcu, sed commodo libero. Nam vel orci sapien. Pellentesque ac magna hendrerit, efficitur purus dapibus, facilisis est. Maecenas tortor ante, lacinia eget ante vitae, aliquet interdum tortor. Suspendisse potenti. Morbi quis bibendum arcu.