You're right and as a matter of fact, even litteral babies can masturbate.
I can understand how some people were uncomfortable with this scene but I thought it was done in a very tactful way, didn't feel like the boy was being sexualised at all.
Just because children do it does not mean it needs to be depicted. It was an unnecessary addition to the story. Children also have sex with each other; are you saying it's fine to depict that act as well, because it's 'just how things are'?
I'm not saying that the manga is bad, or the artist is bad, or that people who like it are bad. I'm not even saying that it shouldn't exist. I'm just saying that I personally felt it unnecessary and questionable at the very least. I am thankful that it wasn't explicit though. It could have been worse.
I guess the author depicted it because it had something to do with the story, maybe will be shown in the next chapters. And you saying that "Children also have sex with each other because blah blah blah.." has nothing to do and in no way connects to the act of masturbating. Masturbating is normal because it's a physiological response. I would think it's unnecessary to add masturbating of a child if he is thinking of absurd things while looking at his friend but the story is stating and it's clearly shown that the child himself is questioning why he feels his peepee going hard while looking at his friend, a child doesn't know lust as we adults know. And he is thinking why the kisses and stuff that those in the TV do can't be done to him and his friend, describing how the masturbating part is a kind of awakening of him falling inlove with Tamaki because he likes him in which he doesn't know.
The hole chapter is about the sexual awakening of the boy. Not only about desire but about sexual identification. Of course it was necessary. The scene is not sexualized at all (that it is why it wasn't explicit). The scene is there to state a no turning back point of the sexual awakening of the protagonist. I feel it very necessary to the story.
I understand if it was uncomfortable for you, but I do think it is out of the way some comments I have seen for this manga, saying that scene was "sexualizing" kids. The hole point of the chapter is about romantic and sexual awakening, so I think is wrong to see that scene as something "morbid".
This!!!!!
Yes, because the masturbation is a plot device. I think it's there to talk about the sexual and romantic awakening of the boy. It is a gentle scene about something normal that marks a "before and after" in the life of anyone. Actually this is the only manga so far I have seeing it using this plot device so smoothly and in such a sweet way. Thats is why it pissed me off a little that some people see it just as a "morbid" act done by a kid and as if the author is trying to sexualixe him :/ (╯°Д °)╯╧╧
Kids DO masturbate (not like when they are 5 but 10-12 is a really normal age for them to start exploring their sexual organs). Get over it, it is not "sexualazing" a child, it is how things are. Now if you get turned on by the scene of a kid masturbating... the problem in not the manga ╮(￣▽￣)╭