More and more authorities on child development are accepting intimate and even sexual encounters as a normal part of the maturational process. (Katzman, 1972). Child sexuality is being seen in a broad context. No longer do we feel that early discovery of genital differences, child-child sex play, or even a single occurrence of sexual molestation will have lasting ill effects on a child involved in a stable pattern of ongoing family and community experiences. Healthy children are not as easily upset by sexual experiences as some theorists would have us believe.
Feeling the genitals of another child, getting a
glimpse of the parent undressed, or a look at a "girly" magazine does
not seriously disturb the average child. (Finch, 1969). The child that
is traumatized by the sight of a nude body, or by learning that intercourse
occurs, or by learning that babies grow inside of the mother has
previously developed a background of experience such that sooner or
later, in one context or another, he would have been unable to cope
with sexual stimuli. (Gagnon, 1965).
There is no one universal reaction to the discovery of genital differences
of the sexes, for instance. There exists varying degrees of
acceptance, and the emotional tone accompanying the discovery is frequently
one of serenity. (Conn, 1940). Children generally accept the
differences between the sexes with composure though some have a feeling
of strangeness, surprise, curiosity, disappointment, or humor.
My father when undressed was a source of awe;
hair all over his legs, on his chest and genitals,
a penis much larger than mine, and absence
of foreskin on the penis. The fact of circumcision
troubled me somewhat, for my father and
most of my friends were circumcised, while I was
not. Though I was curious, I never asked anyone
about it.
There are children who are somewhat disturbed, of course. They feel
that something is "wrong" with what they have seen, something that
should not be. Acceptance is mingled with the feeling that reality has
somehow not come up to expectations. Some boys, thinking in terms of
the presence of external genitalia in the male and absence in the female,
assume that girls have lost an existing penis. Some girls also
think that "something is wrong" with what they see. (Conn, 1940).
Young people today generally recall their childhood sexual encounters
including their sex education, as having been almost totally inadequate
in preparing them for experiences with the opposite sex during
adolescence and adulthood. If the child received any formal sex education
at all from parents or from the school, it usually has consisted
of a certain amount of information concerning anatomy and the mechanisms
of reproduction.
Kinsey could say of such instruction in the mid-
forties that it "has a minimum if any effect upon the patterns of sexual
behavior, and, indeed, it may have no effect at all." (Kinsey,
1948, p. 443). But a young person reflecting on the sexual experiences
and education of his childhood is not necessarily a reliable source of
information. Positive encounters of childhood may have no conscious impact
upon his life at the time, and hence he does not remember them.
But socio-sexual attitudes are acquired whether the child is aware of
them or not and long before the child knows of their significance for
his own socio-sexual maturation and experiences. This is in no sense
intended as a defense of the sexual upbringing of the child in the
United States today. It is patently inadequate made up as it is of
large elements of secrecy, repression, anxiety, and isolated negative
encounters with adults.
From the time I was old enough to know anything
of what was going on I was told to keep my hands
away from my genitals, even if I had an itch. I
really didn't understand why, but I took it for
granted that my parents knew what they were
doing.
The first real scolding I received for touching
or playing with my penis was when I was four
or five years old. I was in the bathtub and my
father walked out of the room for a few seconds.
When he came back I had worked up a soapy
lather all over my crotch.