I read an article some months ago about allowing children to have autonomy over their bodies from a very young age. It sounds so basic when I say it like that, but the article talked about how forcing a child to touch/hug/kiss someone they didn't want to just reinforced that the child wasn't master of their body and left them easy prey to would-be molesters as well as harming their sense of identity.
I don't have a child, but I thought it was a great point. I didn't think much more about it until recently when I realized there was a corollary to that.
Just as a child should have authority over their body, so they shouldn't expect to have it over others. This obviously applies differently to parents vs everyone else in the world (tm), but children should not assume that someone wants to tough them/hold their hand/whatever.
It sounds like I'm over reacting until you try crossing out "children" and inserting something else.
Men should not assume that women want to be physically intimate with them.
>.<
It's the same concept. No human being should just assume that they can impose their body on another, whether they are 6 or 16 or 60.
