During our last class meeting, we discussed how disabled people are infantilized and, by extension, de-sexualized by society. I noted that the pipeline (??)) from infantilization to asexualization itself assumes that children do not have sexuality, which is clearly untrue. Although it isn’t the most comfortable thing to discuss, our culture places a lot of social and commercial value on sex, and it’s misguided to think that children aren’t also affected by this.

I can at least speak for myself in saying that child me did have some sort of sexuality. Growing up, I was lucky to have a mom who basically told me that it was ok to do things with my body that felt good, as long as I did it in private by myself. This was maybe a limited form of sexuality though, as at that point I wasn’t really connecting physical pleasure with specific fantasies or thoughts.

Now, I would say I’m a pretty kinky person, and it can be fun to look back at my childhood and pick out things that were a bit abnormal that, in hindsight, make a bit more sense. Like when I played pretend and the game involved someone (me) being tied up or restrained, I would want to get actual rope instead of just imagining the person (me) couldn’t move. I don’t remember playing house all that often, but I do remember pretending to be a dog semi-frequently.

I feel like if you were to poll a bunch of kinky / BDSM-minded people, a large quantity of them would be able to point out specific things from their childhood that “awakened” something in them. I can’t confidently identify anything that Awakened something for me, but I do remember certain things, like scenes from TV shows and movies, that I was Interested in. It’s kind of funny/weird/interesting looking back on my childhood and seeing which bits of content stuck in my head. And so, in no particular order, here are some examples of media that made younger me feel Some Kind Of Way…