The History of Childhood Sexuality

The history of sexuality in the West provides an important lens through which to study human social and cultural behaviour; it is far more than the history of coitus. Scholars such as Edward Shorter, Jean-Louis Flandrin, and Lawrence Stone have used the study of sexuality as a central focus in recent works on the history of the family.' And now George Mosse, following the lead of Michel Foucault, has shown that the history of sexuality can be linked to a number of major historical themes; respectability, authority, nationalism, and even racism.2 Similarly, the 'history of childhood sexuality' provides an important means of examining the entire culture of childhood. Going beyond such obvious themes as sexual play, sexual fantasies, and masturbation, the study of childhood sexuality casts light into the entire arena of child-adult confrontation. It shows us the attitude of adults toward childhood sexuality, what they defined as 'normal' and 'abnormal' in children, and the authority they sought to exercise over the sexual lives of children. Of course, the study of childhood sexuality brings many other themes into focus: medical knowledge about children, sex education, and 'conventional morality', to mention just a few. This kind of study, however, creates some unique problems. As with the historical study of childhood in general, the principal subjects of such study are mute. Illiterate by virtue of age, barely audible in the bustle of daily life, usually ignored if not rejected, children have left virtually no historical sources of their own. We must rely almost entirely on adults for a written history of childhood. And if it is difficult to obtain evidence regarding the intimate affairs of the daily lives of adults, it is even more so with respect to children. Children themselves have always been less prudish and more forth-