Circumcision is sexual assault; I wish that teacher who does not want any child's private parts touched will demand doctors who perform circumcision be put in jail.

Maybe the accused boy should just claim he is checking to see if the other boy has the sign of God's blessing or not.

I was sexually assaulted when I was 4 by cruel boys on my block that were 5 and 6. The propensity to violate another can start at a very early age just as does the practice of torturing animals, which is an early sign of sociopathy. Frankly, if this kid did have sexual matters in his mind, the principal was right to suspend him. That age is where all the trouble starts. Perhaps the principal was doing this kid --the perpetrator-- and his family, along with all those who he could negatively effect, a favor. Maybe at that age, treatment is possible. Letting it go simply because of the perpetrator's age, is definitely irresponsible.

I was a teacher. I can understand both points of view from the parent and the school. Schools are mostly afraid of two things: Lawsuits and being called racist. The parent may have jumped the gun hiring a lawyer before a sit down with school officials. The principal may have jumped the gun in not understanding the entire incident, if indeed there was an incident. At what age do kids become aware of their 'privates' and the need to 'check them out?' Lot of misunderstandings I am sure.

Come on, this story has nothing to do with circumcision or actual sexual assault - unless there is more than meets the eye it's just a typical kid's game. I think what happens is that a serious problem happens at a school because they are not on the ball, and they feel like they have to over-react the next time to make up for it. This happens at public schools where they may be following some rules from above that give them no discretion, and at private schools that are more concerned with their reputation for keeping order than for the welfare of their student body.

Thank god we homeschool. Public schools seem to be able to do everything but educate and turn out literate students these days. Not mention I was surprised they even have play ground time anymore.

Our whole society is confused about what constitutes sexual assault, and a lot of those determinations are influenced by politics. It can go in either extreme direction.

After spending the first thirteen years of my life being treated by a pediatrician who enjoyed humiliating little girls by doing crude things to them in the waiting room, I was told that my concerns about his behavior were groundless. He was a professional, people said, and if he did those things out in the open he couldn't have had bad intentions.

Actually, what the doctor was doing was exploiting the trust and misguided respect which parents had for his profession. He was a licensed pediatrician, and that meant he was right. He didn't have to hide his bad behavior, especially since every assault or lewd remark was in some way related to a medical procedure. Even when I was a small child, I could see that he found it self-empowering to be able to do those things in front of witnesses. The child who was hurt could recognize what was happening, but the adults couldn't.

But I digress.

Now, the trend is for school administrators to make a show of taking sexual harassment and bullying seriously. It's hard to know how often real incidents of inappropriate behavior are addressed, but if they have the documentation to show they've suspended a student recently, the public is supposed to feel assured.

I hope the school principal in Hercules will be equally concerned and prompt in his reaction if he learns that a pupil has been a victim of vicious treatment, and needs protection. That's what the anti-bullying activists are hoping for.

I'd love to have a world in which abuses of power are recognized, and kept in perspective. The six year-old boy mentioned in the above article shouldn't have been accused, but he was. Some other people aren't being accused, but they should be.

The only abuse here is a bunch of neurotic adults imposing their fears on an innocent child. They probably mean well, but their actions are far more likely to scar this kid than anything he or his classmates could have done on their own.

Oh come on people. If we note the opening words the boys were "roughhousing", not rubbing one another off, not checking each others parts out. What are we coming to? I am a mother of a 7 years old and boy did he figure out his little man parts at the age of 4 already. It is us sick adults with the warped sense about sexuality. A child knows nothing about sexual behavior at this age, it is us adults that turns it sexual. You will probably find the Principal may not have children themself, has in the passed possibly had bad sexual experience and has a bad view point about sex in general and is probably close minded and unaware of what children really do at this age. Roughhousing in no way demonstrates sexual behavior. It doesn't say the boys were sneaking around the corner pulling each others pants down right?

It is up to parents to lead children at this age, we are not to tell children they are disgusting for investigating their own private parts. This can cause a lot of underlying issues at a later stage. I think we as adults need to grow up, stop creating drama that is not there and realize we ALL went through this while growing up whether we like it or not, we ALL investigated our own bodies. We need to get up to speed on what us adults do and create children with issues.

It is all the corruption and pornographic images out there that makes us see everything as a sexual event. Seriously the principal needs a reality check and maybe see a Child Psychologist and learn how children develop.

Around 1994, while I was on the board of a small private school in the Upper Midwest, we had to address a report that one five year old boy in one of our kindergarden classes had fondled the penis of another five year old boy. Initially, the faculty hid this matter from the board. It leaked out and the board, which had three lawyers on it including myself, had to do something. Under the law, a school is a mandated reporter of child sexual abuse, in that state (it was not in CA, don't know the law here). We consulted a school law attorney and followed his advice, or, at least we tried to.

That school law attorney advised us to hire a school psychologist to counsel the kids and their parents, with confidentiality agreements all around, and an agreement that only our school administrator would talk to the psychologist. We agreed to revisit the issue in three months.

Three months passed. The board asked the administrator how was it going and she said "What do you mean? Did you want me to actually talk to the psychologist? Because I never did. I didn't know what to do."

We got rid of her at the end of that school year. Apparently she thought being a school administrator involved sitting in her office, dealing with late arrivals, kids with fevers but not actual responsibility. What a space cadet.

When my daughter, now age 30, was in a public grade school -- this largely contributed to why we switched to private -- in the first grade, a little boy in the first grade liked to chase her at recess, have his cousin help him hold my daugher down, and grab her crotch and press himself against her. Clearly that boy had witnessed sexual behavior he should not have seen at age 6 and it sure seemed like he was acting out some, no doubt, troubling home experience.

But my kid did not need this abuse. The faculty said there were too many kids at recess for the two teachers assigned at recess to meaningfully supervise. I asked if they couldn't, just for awhile, keep an eye on my kid to intervene if she were molested again. I did not really blame the kid doing this to her, I realized he was a damage kid: you just took one look at the poor little fellow and saw that no one was really tending to him. His hair always matty, his clothes never laundered, the poor kid looked like a walking time bomb. But my kid was entitled to feel safe at school.

I met with the principal, who told me she had made two appointments with the boy's family and both times she family stood her up. So she made appointments twice to go to their homes and both times no one answered the door. What did I want her to do, she exclaimed, shrugging. I said, "How about provide a safe environment for my child?"

Her only solution was to keep my child inside during recess.

And my solution was to transfer to a private school.

I don't think the behavior of the boy who bothered my daughter or the boy in that kindergarden of our private school were acting out sexually in the sense of adult sexuality. In both instances, I think the children behaving in what adults might see as sexual behavior were acting out some stress in their lives. The children behaving this way deserve love, nurture, help, not to have their behavior criminalized.

But it is very tricky. Schools usually are mandated reporters, which means they are legally required to report all instances of child sexual abuse that comes to their attention. Our school took a measured approach.

The families did meet with that school psychologist, who found no reason or explanation for the reports we got from the childen. the kindergarden teacher had seen one boy fondling the other boy's genital area, but like many Waldorf teachers, she was very reluctant to state bluntly that one boy had molested the other, she cared too much about both of the children. And the family with the problem kid left our school, solving our problem as a board and school but probably not solving whatever was going on in that family.

It is shameful that a school principal, presumably expert in child development issues, would treat any six year old acting out in what appears to be a sexual way would consider that behavior sexual or criminal.

My point: children acting out by touching genital areas is not new. Professionals who work with children should know this.

We so quickly forget our past. In regards to our sexuality it has only been the last 50 years that we have even put our culture’s view of sexuality into question. And there are many within our culture that haven’t put our culture’s views into question until much later (or at all). We are still climbing out of the sexual “dark ages”. And sexual liberation has yet to be achieved. The healing has only begun. It could take us a few hundred years more before we are truly free of the cycles of repression and abuse.

Often we criticize foreign culture’s attitudes and policies toward sexuality, but it was only “yesterday” that we were just as twisted as the worst of them. Women in many Western and Developed-world cultures were once (and still are to some degree) required to cover their hair, suppress their physical forms, not wear pants, not allowed voting rights, etc. In fact in France, the country often associated with sexual liberation, absolute woman suffrage wasn’t granted until 1958!

Are we to truly believe that all of a sudden we crossed the line into sexual balance, and that our biases are reflective of a healthy mind set? Take the mentioning of circumcision by Carol Sherman as a form of sexual assault, and Wayne Christopher comment, “Come on, this story has nothing to do with circumcision”. Well let’s look at circumcision for a moment; outside of the religious context, do we know why we circumcise our sons in America? Many will mention the “cleanliness” factor. Where does the concept of “circumcision equals clean” enter into our repertoire? Many of us just accept this as common sense.

But when did we start to show concern about foreskin and “cleanliness”? When did Americans start circumcising their son’s? In the late nineteenth century Dr. Kellogg suggested circumcision as a treatment and preventative cure for masturbation. In his own words, Kellogg stated circumcision as a, “treatment for self-abuse and it’s effects”. The “cleanliness” we unknowingly reference is actually in regards to what was once (and still is) society’s opinion of sex and masturbation in general, not “cleanliness” in terms of actual dirt. Dr. Kellogg’s assertions started a circumcision trend in the 1880’s, which continues on to this very day. Circumcision was actually the least of medical procedures inflicted on boys and girls to “cure” masturbation, which included sever genital mutilations.

So clearly, we have a semantic shift with the term “abuse”. Once, not too long ago masturbation was considered “self abuse”. For most in society today this paradigm has withered. But we blindly carry on the Victorian-torch. What other torches have we been carrying on? What was once considered abuse, and its cure as medicine, has been flipped on its head; now the cure is perceived as an abuse.

What is abuse and assault? From Wikipedia, “The term sexual assault is used, in public discourse, as a generic term that is defined as any involuntary sexual act in which a person is threatened, coerced, or forced to engage against their will, or any sexual touching of a person who has not consented”, and abuse, “Abuse is the improper usage or treatment for a bad purpose, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit”.

This article briefly mentioned an incident of a child (or children) suspended for “hugging”. Unless a child was hugged, and showed disapproval, how is hugging abusive? Seems to me in this instance the abuse was perpetrated by the administration, not the children. Sounds reminiscent of Dr. Kellogg’s era, no?

I quote the article, “Due to heightened concerns over bullying in recent years spurred by a public awareness campaign following several child suicides school administrators now feel pressure to act boldly in cases where students might face harassment”. And then I must ask, how much damage do we create by repression; how many of our children will be harmed, even commit suicide because they feel lonely, unloved? Don’t we need to be touched, hugged, kissed, and held? Are we creating an “aseptic” society, where despite large concentrations of population, as individuals we are isolated?

Within the body of this article and within the texts of the commentary that follows, there seems to be an effort to delineate the sexuality that children experience, and the sexuality of the adult realm. As if they were clearly two subjects obviously separated and different, naturally. But are we talking about two separate behavioral states, or is it more a matter of degrees of sexuality? Unborn male fetuses have been observed by sonographers to masturbate in utero. Are we to believe that children who engage in sexual play and exploration are somehow corrupted by adult sexuality, as if adult sexuality is inherently corrupt and shady? And are we to believe that children are pure and wouldn’t explore on their own, without the cultural catalysts of adult sexuality and examples in the media? It seems one can only come to dark assumptions about adult sexuality if there is shame and repression involved in their cultural perspective.

The article goes on to say, “Indeed, calling a matter “sexual” when a first-grader is involved seems at odds with California statutes that indicate that such intent can only be applied to children who are in fourth grade or older”. So are we to believe based on California law that at the age of nine, all of a sudden there is a shift from non-sexual intent, to sexual intent? As if to say that when our children are eight, they are innocent, but when they are ten they are corrupt? Sounds like some Kafkaesque, bureaucratic hogwash to me.

We must also ask what is a child. Scientifically a child is a prepubescent human, but legally in America the age of majority is eighteen. And in France (yes France again) if you are twenty-five years old and want to buy an automobile, you will still need your parents to cosign with you for a loan. And in many times and places women, working class peoples, and slaves have been treated (pejoratively) as children. It all sounds a lot more grey as opposed to clearly defined. Though if we are writing in sexual terms, which we are, post-pubescent minors fall into a strange purgatory, a world of adult bodies with the status of children. Are these adolescents being punished and expelled for displaying affection and sexual behavior? Yes, but by the time most children have reached middle school they have learned from the adult world that the public display of their sexuality is unwelcome and learn to hide it, furthering the cause of repression and shame. This is the true corruption of our children’s sexuality; it’s not the advent of puberty but rather it is the adoption of shame.

“He doesn’t know what he did wrong,” Subrata said. “I mean, he had just received an award from the school for being a good citizen.” Of course the young boy doesn’t know what is wrong with what he did, because there is nothing inherently wrong with what he did. Many of our ideas about what is right or wrong are culturally dictated, and vary from society to society. Here is a boy that is a victim of our culture’s shame of sex (for no good reason I must add).

Yes abuse and assault exists. Unfortunately certain adults in our communities see nothing wrong in engaging in sexual activity with children, and we must absolutely guard and protect our children from these deviants. But if the solutions put in place to protect our children only furthers the shame, repression, and loneliness we suffer from, we must ask ourselves what we are doing and hope to accomplish.

Protecting our children from the cruelty of other children is paramount, but please, let us differentiate the differences between exploration and assault. I would conjecture that most children that assault other children are victims of abuse, frustration, fear and loneliness themselves. The adults that raise such children should be held accountable to some degree, and we would likely find in their own childhood the answer to their parenting/teaching style; once victims, now perpetrators. Now the system that deals with the issue my be creating more victims than solving problems, and a whole new generation of repressed, lonely children are raised only to pass the sickness to their own children.

I pose this question, would young adolescent boys that exhibit ill behavior to other children and animals, be behaving that way if they were shown healthy physical affection from their families, taught the wrongs of cruelty, and allowed a certain level of intimacy with their piers? Isn’t a thirteen year old boy with a girlfriend (or boyfriend) be less likely to hurt others, and exhibit cruelty toward animals?

Schools seem to greatly prefer making a mountain out of tiny offenses while ignoring grotesquely large ones. It's easier to persecute, I mean prosecute, a child previously given a "good citizenship" award than an actual sexual bully who's trouble all around -- so that's what schools do. Same goes for police who'd rather arrest a pot smoker, or demonstrator, than an actual dangerous criminal, and when challenged over the crime rate, point to all the arrests they've made.

Though, I doubt if we can expect schools to crack down, so to speak, on traditional patting of other men's rear ends by football players or coaches. And junior high or high school wrestlers routinely put their arms between each other's legs as part of the sport.

Unless there is strong public pressure to do otherwise, anti-bullying laws will be applied by schools to everyone except bullies, because it's easier for schools to pretend they're doing something by "making examples" than to actually do something. The examples made will, all too often, be of children being bullied, not the bullies. My memory of junior high and high school is that administrations usually found a way to side with the bullies in their efforts to "cut down to size" kids who weren't athletic, were too good a student or participated too much in class.