That's interesting, I remember thinking teachers classmates moms were hot when I was in kindergarten and 1st grade. I didn't really know what to do with that feeling but it was definitely there.

Agreed and yeah that's the point.

Not being comfortable socially with girls/women and being force-fed masculinity made my life and the life of women around me so much more difficult in my teens/early adulthood. Social skills are so much harder to develop, and cognitive biases so much harder to correct as an adult.

I'm 54. Still zero interest in sex. I can't fathom why people have to be so obsessed with it, because life is fine without it, but that's probably just me.

We definitely make it hard on parents. I'm making no conjecture on such a societal difference would impact parental workloads. That's another conversation worth having though.

That said, i think it should be pretty easy not to tease or shame children for being friends with the other sex. And gender neutral clothing costs the same as gendered clothing so 🤷

Never said there was an overnight or one-stop fix.

I'm suggesting that with children developing socially together throughout childhood without being forced to conform to pink and blue norms we would be a lot better off navigating the social challenges we face during sexual development.

That opposed to the experience we had in my youth of peeking over the proverbial wall staring into the garden at what we had been told our whole lives were strange creatures that bore sex as their primary purpose rather than being people who had the same human experiences and emotions as us.

Also i disagree with your sentiment about training and breaking points. Children can easily understand consent. They do, however, need mentors facilitating an environment safe enough they can talk through feelings.

E: rewording some stuff to avoid binaries, assigning genders, etc

Besides what the other person said, it's much deeper than "boobs = sexy." It's a culture that blames young girls for boys and grown men finding them sexually attractive. Even in your "oddballs" example, we don't ban people from going barefoot because some people are into feet (probably the most common fetish in the world thanks to biology). If people have a problem with that, it's their problem, not the person that they're objectifying.

I agree that it's not a quick fix, but it starts with teaching boys to have some simple self control and basic empathy and not making the girls shoulder all the responsibility of boys being horny. But that also starts long before you ever get to a summer camp, and that's also an important part of the topic. Like I said, it's a deeply rooted cultural issue.