Most sexual encounters of preadolescents with their parents are not
directly or intimately erotic in nature. The preadolescent observes
that his mother is pregnant, or he observes his parents kissing and embracing,
for example. The parent answers the preadolescent's sex questions
or fails to answer them, moralizes, and admonishes.
The parent
sometimes observes a sexual encounter involving the preadolescent and
one or more of his peers-not as frequently as in childhood, however,
since the preadolescent learns to be more discreet, discriminating, and
secretive in his sexual behavior.
Among the Chewa of Africa parents believe that unless children begin
to exercise themselves sexually early in life they will never beget
offspring. (Ford and Beach, 1951, p. 190). Preadolescents build
little huts some distance from the village, and there, with the complete
approval of their parents, they play at being husband and wife.
Such trial matings may extend well into adolescence, with periodic exchanges
of partners until marriage occurs.
The Ifugao headhunters of
the Philippines maintain a similar attitude toward the sex play of preadolescents
and adolescents. In this society unmarried children live in
separate dormitories from early childhood. It is customary for each boy
to sleep with a girl each night. Boys are urged by their fathers to begin
sexual activity early, and a man may shame his son if the latter is
backward in this respect.
Turning to the more characteristic preadolescent-parent sexual encounters
prevalent in our society (verbal exchanges), Conn ("Sexual Curiosity,"
1940) reports that American preadolescents ask remarkably few
sexual questions. Of 200 children, the average child from the age of
four to the age of twelve asked his parents less than two questions.
More than one-half of the entire number of questions were offered by
the child by the time he was eight years of age.
Of the questions that preadolescents ask in the area of sex, Hattendorf
(1932) found the following categories to be in descending rank
of interest: coming of another baby, origin of babies, organs and functions,
relations of father to reproduction, process of birth, physical
sex differences, marriage, and intra-uterine growth.
The following cases dealing with parent-adolescent encounters and
interchanges are arranged according to the age of the preadolescent.
The first case involves transvestism; the preadolescent enjoys wearing
the mother's clothing. The case does not involve direct sexual encounter
of mother and child.
Starting later than masturbating which started
as early as at least age nine but running concurrently
with it was a period of excitement I
found when putting on my mother's undercloth
ing.
This pattern continued on to junior high
school. The following three cases deal with the preadolescent coming to the
realization that the parents have a life of their own as a married cou
ple apart from their roles with the child in the family. This would
seem to be an important cognitive sexual experience for the preadoles
cent.
I think this occurred when I was in fifth or
sixth grade. I realized that they probably
didn't take naps together on Saturday and Sunday
afternoons just because they were tired, and
besides they always locked the door and were
displeased if disturbed.
At night, when we all
went to bed about the same time, I remember
hearing their voices (not words) and they
sounded different than they usually did when
they talked.