Just a few days ago, one sannyasin wrote me a letter saying, "Osho, You have created a trouble"
- because I had said some time ago that many people, almost the majority of people in the world, men and women both, are untrained lovers. No training has been given to them. In fact everything has been kept from them, they have been kept ignorant. What does a virgin mean? Someone who has been kept absolutely ignorant.
So I had said that the best way to introduce your children to love will be that, while you are making love, children should be playing around. Let them be there. And in fact it is one of the most significant things because every child sooner or later discovers what you are doing to his mother. First he thinks that this father seems to be a barbarian, doing pushups on the poor woman. He wants to kill this man, but the child is so small... so he represses the desire, and he is not even allowed to admit that he has seen it.
And the child will never be able to forgive you, that you were secretive about things. You were not open, even with him. You talked about love, but love means many things: openness, honesty, sincerity. And about one of the most basic things in life you kept the child absolutely unaware.
Children are very intelligent, every child is born with a tremendous energy of intelligence. It is the society and the education and the religion-they start destroying his intelligence, so by the time he is a young man, he is just a fool. But the small children are very perceptive, you cannot deceive them.
So I had said that it is perfectly good - because the child has to learn and it is better he learns from the very beginning.
Now this woman wrote to me, "A problem has arisen: we allowed our child to be present while we were making love; now the child wants to make love to me. He says, 'If father can do it, why can't I do it?' Now we cannot say that this is sin, because if it is sin, then why is his father doing it, and why is he being allowed to commit sin?"
In a really human society there will be no sexual abuse of children. Such abuse exists only because children are kept in the dark; and they are curious, very curious, "What is it all about?" Then they get caught in somebody's net.
But children are very understanding too. The mother, the father, both should make him understand, "This is your training to see how love is made. The time will come when you will be a young man and you will be making love - then don't make the same mistakes that we have made."
Make your lovemaking a deep understanding for the child. Make him also aware that he is not your age. Make the place of your lovemaking a temple, so that the child from the very beginning starts feeling love is something sacred. And if he knows everything about it nobody can abuse him.
Now the question arises: who is responsible for sexual abuse of the child? You are responsible. You are keeping your children in darkness, and they are feeling that there is something that is being kept secret. They become curious; the more you hide it, the more curious they are.
If it is open and is made available so the child can understand it - yes, there will be a few problems, like the child wanting to make love to the mother. The mother can hug the child, the mother can help the child to understand: "Just look at my size and your size. Just grow up and you will find a beautiful woman, far more beautiful than me."
But every mother wants the child to feel that she is the greatest and the most beautiful woman in the world, not knowing that she is creating a tragedy for the child for his whole life because now he will be looking for her all around the world and he will not find her. No woman will come up to the standard of his mother. No woman is going to give him satisfaction.
The same is true about small girls. They should be made absolutely aware - not just verbally in a classroom. That does not help, they become even more curious.
Make it very honest. And when the experiment is happening every day in the house, where is the problem? Let your girl, your boy, be present. Let them see the beauty of it. Make the whole phenomenon as sacred as possible. And these children will always respect you because you were so honest with them, so sincere with them; you never kept anything secret from them.
And any problems like this - boys asking to make love to their mother - can be explained to them, that they are not yet ripe. One day they will be ripe; for that day we are preparing them. And children are very receptive, very understanding.
There is sexual abuse of children because they are kept in darkness by their parents, by their teachers. Love is something like a sin which has to be done in darkness, and nobody is to know about it. You are doing something ugly. In your own mind it is something ugly, something that should not be done. You are not rejoicing in it.
Rejoice! Make love a festive moment.