I had crushes as a child. I definitely think there is a sexual component. My sexuality as a kid certainly wasn’t like an adult’s- I had not concept of any of that. But kids have the ability to…yearn?
I am absolutely certain that kids (meaning pre-puberty kids) do experience sexual attraction. They certainly dont understand exactly what it is but they do experience it.
Geez it makes me sad that someone wouldn’t know who Ryne Sandberg was.
This is really embarrasing to admit, but I was molested by a babysitter (for a couple years until we moved) as a kid so sex was on my mind A LOT. I had a dream about Shaun Cassidy (crush at the time) where we worked at a fast food restaurant (lol) and one day he asked if I wanted to go back to his place and “mess around” and I TOTALLY knew what he meant and was absoluetly titilatted by it. So I think under certain (unfortunate) circumstances the sexual aspect does apply.
I will regret posting this tomorrow.
Let me try to remember who I crushed on when I was five: Susan and Joanie from “Eight is Enough”, Donna Pescow, Bonnie Franklin (don’t laugh), the brunette from “Too Close For Comfort”. The funny thing is I totally remember being infatuated by these women but never even dreaming of meeting them. If you grew up in a small town in those days places like LA and New York might as well have been on Jupiter. At this age I knew there was something men and women did called “sex”, but knew absolutely nothing about the mechanics of it and also knew not to ask adults about it.
As far as real life girls there were a couple of classmates I though were cute, but at that age I was never attracted to them the way I was attracted to distant celebrities. I guess they were too “real” to feel that way about them.
I remember touching myself as a child to a mental concept of going up a staircase, with the understanding that the goal was to get to the top. I certainly didn’t understand the partner component or mechanics of adult sexuality, but the physical and to lesser extent emotional feelings were there. I also have distinct memories of being aroused by stuff related to what has, in adulthood, become my preferred kink. I didn’t understand it, but certain ideas or images would make me want to masturbate.
I don’t think any of this was ever connected to my crushes, however. By the time I started thinking like that, I better understood the mechanics of things.
I remember my childhood quite well, and while I had crushes, they were not sexual at all. Yeah, they were on girls. So what? I didn’t want to have sex with them. I didn’t want to touch myself after seeing them. I just wanted to be around them. That’s not inherently sexual.
As a kid, I just never associated liking girls with that feeling you get when you play with yourself. The feelings were just so different. And if I had to pick the one I would call sexual, I would pick that one, not the feeling of having a crush on someone. At least, not until I got old enough for my hormones to “kick in.”
That is, unless you are still calling someone a kid after they have started puberty. I was 10, and I hear most girls hit it younger than that.
I had, & to a degree still have, a crush on Mary Tyler Moore.
From age 3 onwards.
She’s so darn cute! And I love that smile.
Oh hell yeah. But Barry Manilow was first.
When I was on the younger end of grade school, I had a crush on Bonnie Tyler. Or, more specifically, Bonnie Tyler’s picture on the cover of the album “Faster Than The Speed Of Night”.
In retrospect, I have to wonder what my younger self was thinking but I seemed pretty content with the whole thing. I don’t remember any sexual thoughts though.
My earliest crushes were the guy who played ‘‘Tackleberry’’ in Police Academy and Bill Murray in Ghostbusters. I couldn’t have been more than four or five. Yes, my attraction to dorks has a long and storied history.
Kids can definitely have sexual feelings/thoughts though it’s not as comprehensible and straightforward as when you get older. But those boys made me swoon. Physical attraction is hardwired into us from a young age.
Question for guys that didn’t have sexual crushes: Did you ever get erections?
When I was in kindergarten and first grade, I had a crush on a girl in my class by the name of Tracy. (She moved away with her family to Florida at the end of first grade, and that was pretty much the end of that crush.)
I distinctly remember lying in bed one night, as a five- or six-year-old, and thinking about Tracy, and having this very strange (but very pleasant) feeling. It was only years later that I realized that I was experiencing an erection. 
Sure, but then so does my infant son and I’m pretty sure he’s not hiding a picture of Bonnie Tyler in his crib.
There is some evidence that this is the case:
(Emphasis added.)
This pertains primarily to gender nonconforming boys, and the correlation is much more attenuated for gender nonconforming girls (i.e., tomboys).
Anecdotally, I can add that my own childhood crushes and those of my gay friends’ were directed to men (usually male teachers or childhood friends’ older brothers and fathers).
Similarly I seem to have imprinted upon the 1981 BBC production of H2G2’s version of Ford Prefect. I saw it when I was very, very young, and since then I’ve had a special place in my heart for Ford in all his incarnations (barring the ghastly 2005 H2G2 in name only movie), not to mention The Doctor and all other British alien men a long way from home. Watching it again recently I noticed that if you add a few pounds, a beard, and an American accent, he’s almost entirely my husband. (my husband is color blind, which if you look at Ford’s costume you will understand)
Have I just been a slut my entire life? I remember being elementary school aged and feeling tingly around certain boys.
At around 8 years old on.. yeah… but I though that was the end goal. Like “fantasy fantasy fantasy”–erection. Okay time to go play with my GI JOES.
For me it was Sorsha from the movie “Willow.” Not necessarily Joanne Whalley (sp?) but her AS Sorsha. Ye-gods I had such a huge crush on her. I had the promotional magazine for the movie and I think I rubbed away the ink on her profile page from handling it so much.
One of my first crushes was on Donna Pescow too! I first saw her on a soap opera my grandma watched, then Angie. I just checked and she was on One Life to Live in 1977 so I would have been seven years old but I can still see her in my mind. I don’t know what it is that I found so attractive at the time. She later played a lesbian on All My Children and I assumed all these years she was one in real life. Nope.
Also Andy Gibb. I don’t think either was really sexual as much as romantic. I’m kinda still like that with crushes as an adult.
Wow, speaking of Angie I had a crush on the girl at 29 sec.
I was maybe 5 the first time I saw the ‘Star Trek’ with Teri Garr.
Stopped. In. My. Tracks.
“Whose that?” “I dunno.” “Is she new on the ship?” “I dunno.” “I hope so…”