The community, peers, parents, the school, the church, and others
(referred to as the generalized other) play a larger part in sexual encounters
of preadolescents than they do for infants and young children.
One method of controlling the sexual activity of preadolescents is
to separate the sexes and keep them under surveillance.
Among the
Abipone, for instance, boys and girls are strictly segregated at all
times and premarital chastity is said to have been universal.
A similar
situation exists among the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Papago, and Wapisiana,
all of whom keep the sexes strictly apart from childhood. Boys and
girls never associate in the absence of chaperones. (Ford and Beach,
1951, p. 183).
Among preadolescents in other societies, on the other hand, the
Maori, the Trobrianders of Melanesia, the Chewa of Africa, and the Lepcha
of India among them, it is common for girls and boys to be active
participants in full sex relations several years before puberty and in
some cases much earlier.
In permissive societies there may be active
instruction in sex matters by older members of the group. (Ford and
Beach, 1951, p. 174-177, 189-192).
In the United States, parents, the church, the school, courts, and
other agencies are influential in defining and controlling sexual behavior.
For example, the school-grade school, junior high school, high
school-is permissive in its attitudes toward heterosexual activity, in
that it plans dances and parties for boys and girls, but it is also restrictive
in that chaperonage is commonly provided and erotic behavior
is proscribed.
I remember one of the chaperones.... Whenever
she found a couple dancing a little closer than
she thought was proper, she would shove the
ruler between the couple and say, "Six inches
apart, children."
In the United States, the school takes a proprietary interest in
the total life of the student and is sometimes more restrictive than
are the parents.
The elementary school administrators were very
upset and concerned when they learned of our
boy-girl parties arranged by our parents.
Mixed Parties
Mixed parties are something of a new phenomenon added to the sexual
scene in preadolescence. They are a fairly common middle-class phenomenon.
Heterosexual parties are referred to in the literature as
"group dating." (Martinson, 1960, p. 73-77).
Such parties often precede
or signal the beginning of paired dating. These parties may be a
part of school activity, they may be planned by organizations of girls,
or they may be private parties planned by the young people themselves
or by their parents.
Many of our parents would arrange for boy-girl
parties in their homes, spending their evening
upstairs while we (age 10) were left quite
unchaperoned in the basement.
As far as I can recall, the initial party of
consequence was a mixed birthday party given in
honor of one of the girls.
This, more or less,
started the run of parties that began to take
place nearly every Friday evening during the
school year.
The kids attending these home parties
weren't ever paired off in couples but were
invited on an individual basis.