- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226811383
- eISBN:
- 9780226811376
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226811376.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Ethical Issues and Debates
Contemporary Western women—especially nursing mothers—inevitably at times experienced their contact with their children as sexually pleasurable. Maternity's destabilization of sexuality and sensual ...
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Contemporary Western women—especially nursing mothers—inevitably at times experienced their contact with their children as sexually pleasurable. Maternity's destabilization of sexuality and sensual pleasure opened endless questions beyond mother-infant relations. This book presents reflection on what children learn about sexuality and physical affection from relationships with their parents and caregivers. It illustrates why the obvious reaction to abuse, forbidding sensual nurture, is as destructive as abuse itself. Exploration of maternal sensuality and women's sexuality indicated that male pedophilia is only partly about the perversion of sexuality. Western liberal culture as a whole, and not merely the ostensibly archaic sexual culture of Roman Catholicism, must bear the blame for the Roman Catholic pedophilia crisis. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in this book is given.Less
Contemporary Western women—especially nursing mothers—inevitably at times experienced their contact with their children as sexually pleasurable. Maternity's destabilization of sexuality and sensual pleasure opened endless questions beyond mother-infant relations. This book presents reflection on what children learn about sexuality and physical affection from relationships with their parents and caregivers. It illustrates why the obvious reaction to abuse, forbidding sensual nurture, is as destructive as abuse itself. Exploration of maternal sensuality and women's sexuality indicated that male pedophilia is only partly about the perversion of sexuality. Western liberal culture as a whole, and not merely the ostensibly archaic sexual culture of Roman Catholicism, must bear the blame for the Roman Catholic pedophilia crisis. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in this book is given.
