according to environmental stimuli and conditioning, albeit sexual
orientation is generally fixed and hardwired in the body by the time of birth.
Prior to puberty and during infancy, the child will self-stimulate nipples and
genitals simply for the comfort provided by the pleasure, and will often
playfully attempt to pleasure another person in the same manner. This self-
pleasuring stimulates endorphins which are natural morphine like chemicals
that Allah has provided us with for this purpose. The activity is a naturally
normal manifestation of instinctive and morally innocent behavior. No one
need teach the child; the body accomplishes the instruction on its own. In
other words, the body exerts its 'right' to pleasure as is written in Al'Qur'an.
The challenge for the parent is to patiently and gently guide this self-touching
towards what is appropriate, and to do so without the imputation of guilt.
When puberty arrives, the sexual erotic-response system becomes consciously
initialized much like a rocket on a launching pad. The end-organs enlarge,
the body grows (thickens and lengthens), and the brain stimulates erotic
imaginations as a sort of prose or dialogue in the consciousness of the soul in
response to end-organ production of either testosterone or estrogen. This is
when sexual attraction appropriate to gender becomes a confusing reality for
the child, and it also announces the child's entry to the conscious world of
responsible behavior and accountability.^66 Often, it is a confounding
experience depending upon the bias, ignorance and/or taboos of parents and
community. This is because what once was the innocent pleasurable
experience of self-touching is now associated with an overwhelming desire or
curiosity to touch and be touched by the opposite sex. This is the perfect
time to re-introduce the halal reality of intimate relationship in terms of the
Islamic boundaries for sexual touching between the sexes. As you will come
to appreciate, there is a better time for this moral instruction, and this is what
is called childhood latency as discussed below.
If the baby / child has been deprived of self-stimulation or made to feel guilty
or punished for meeting its body’s right of self-exploration, its sexual
response system and self-image fail to develop in a healthy fashion
physiologically and psychologically. It’s as if a dam were built to hold back
the flow of these waters of experience for both mind and body. At the onset
66
“... the child is innocent until puberty.” - Aisha An-Nasa’i, Book of Divorce , Chap. 21