Hey Marc!
Good topic to think about. I agree both with Dakota and Blackstone. Of course BLers are going to read more into a boys actions because that is what we want.

But I think age is important here too. One of the little guys that I absolutely adore from my church was walking out of the pew section of the church with me and I had a hand on his sholder and he had his hand around my back. But as he was short, his arm slowly progressed to my butt. If that boy was 14, then ya, I would be safe in saying that something is up. But this little guy probably could've cared less (and he was short, so what else was he going to do ... jump?). Anyways, the point of that little story there was that we have to take into account a boy's innocense to interpret his actions (and generally, innocense is related to age, but not in a fixed manner).

For me, it kind of falls into 3 categories: 1) the boy is oblivious to the effect of his actions and doesn't really know better 2) the kid is doing it because he gets some kind of response out of us (even if it is just attention) and 3)the boy's motives for those actions are similar to those portrayed by those actions. And the last one does happen - despite society's efforts to ignore it. Although I must say, we are coming along (anyone ever see the squid and the whale ? that movie I think was quite a leap in the american portrayal of young boys).

But yes, like Blackstone said, it is the same thing that happens with hetero's and women. Except I see it as coming from different causes. Well, kind of. In a way, both with children and with women, the misinterpretation of their actions is caused by a certain form of innocense. But with women it could be more closer to nievety.

But then again, in both cases, there is also the very prominent possibility that the person interpreting the actions is just a horn dog wanting some action and is interpreting things his or her own way.

Really, it could be any of these ways. I guess this post was fairly inconclusive, but i thought I would raise the issue of innocense.

Graces of God,
Deliverance