Table Of Contents
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childhood ie
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contemporary issues and debates o
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allison moore and paul reynolds y
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Studies in Childhood and Youth
Series Editors
Penny Curtis
University of Sheffield, UK
Spyros Spyrou
European University Cyprus
Nicosia, Cyprus
Nigel Thomas
University of Central Lancashire
Preston, UK
Afua Twum-Danso Imoh
University of Sheffield
Sheffield, UK
This well-established series embraces global and multi-disciplinary schol-
arship on childhood and youth as social, historical, cultural and material
phenomena. With the rapid expansion of childhood and youth studies in
recent decades, the series encourages diverse and emerging theoretical
and methodological approaches. We welcome proposals which explore
the diversities and complexities of children’s and young people’s lives and
which address gaps in the current literature relating to childhoods and
youth in space, place and time.
Studies in Childhood and Youth will be of interest to students and scholars
in a range of areas, including Childhood Studies, Youth Studies, Sociology,
Anthropology, Geography, Politics, Psychology, Education, Health,
Social Work and Social Policy.
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14474
Allison Moore • Paul Reynolds
Childhood and
Sexuality
Contemporary Issues and Debates
Allison Moore Paul Reynolds
Department of Social Sciences Department of Social Sciences
Edge Hill University Edge Hill University
Ormskirk, UK Ormskirk, UK
Studies in Childhood and Youth
ISBN 978-1-137-52495-9 ISBN 978-1-137-52497-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52497-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017957220
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Childhood
and Sexuality 23
3 Law, Policy and Practice: National and International
Dimensions 59
4 T he Age of Consent 79
5 Constructing and Managing Risk: The Example of
Teenage Pregnancy 99
6 The Sexualisation of Childhood 121
7 D iversity and Difference 143
8 Sex and Sexuality Education 171
v
vi Contents
9 Sexual Literacy 197
10 Sex, Sexuality and Social Media: A New and Pressing
Danger? 225
11 Conclusion: Reconciling Childhood and Sexuality 247
References 267
Index 295
1
Introduction
It is commonly understood that people’s sex lives and sexual orientation
are private concerns, preferably and properly restricted to intimate rela-
tionships. Paradoxically, these supposedly private practices and rela-
tionships are simultaneously everywhere in the public domain, often in
fetishised forms: in advertisements; in the media, in film, television,
magazine and social media; in pornography, sex work and sexual com-
merce; in the representations of everyday life mediated through the cul-
ture industries and presented to us in what has been regarded as sexually
saturated societies.1 Most societies have prohibitive or regulatory laws
and policies with respect to sexual commerce and public and media
representations of sex. Yet at the same time, the interest in sexual plea-
sure, diverse tastes and appetites and expressions of orientation and
preference—even when strictly prohibited and so expressed in ‘under-
ground’ sub- cultures—are considered a feature of most Western societ-
ies in the twenty-first century. Religious and self-proclaimed moral
leaders—often politicians—may rail against the degree of interest in
sex, but there is no evidence that it is waning.
A second and related paradox is whilst sexual representations and
expressions appear to have saturated contemporary society in a diverse
array of forms, open discussion of sex and sexuality in a way that is
© The Author(s) 2018 1
A. Moore, P. Reynolds, Childhood and Sexuality, Studies in Childhood and Youth,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52497-3_1
2 1 Introduction
constructive and enabling has not developed in a similar fashion in the
public sphere. Sex and sexuality are shrouded in veils of ‘decency’ and
‘obscenity’, obscuring everyday discussion outside the cultural forms
of its commercial and media representations. Notwithstanding the
cultural saturation of sex in society, constructive dialogue about ethics,
politics and personal conduct in sexual relationships, for example, has
been limited, whether it focuses on sexual function, orientation, per-
formance, taboo or desires. What discourse there is often focusses on
issues of health or risk in such a way that does not reflect the passions
and pleasures of sex. Whilst these constraints have relaxed in some
respect in the twenty- first century, it is still difficult to strike up rea-
soned and careful, critical discussions about sex and sexuality outside
social and sanitised forms, whether in the seminar room, the public
organisation or wider society. This is particularly the case if the form of
sex and sexuality being discussed is not perceived as ‘mainstream’—
heteronormative and perhaps homonormative (Duggan 2002b)—and
if the discussion moves from identities and equality to practices and
pleasure.
These two paradoxes are central to understanding the terrain of sexual
knowledge and understanding in contemporary societies. Whatever else
the vagaries of rampant individuation as a feature of globalisation and
neo-liberal markets (for example the use of sex to sell and the prolifera-
tion of sexual goods for sale), they have opened up discussions about sex,
even if not in the forms and representations that we might wish. Agendas
for equality, recognition and diversity, both partial and unfulfilled, have
emerged in different forms and in different parts of the world, challeng-
ing conservative cultures of repression and constraint on sexual relations
and pleasures.
The exception to these general contours of change comes when the
words child and childhood are juxtaposed with sex and sexuality. Then
conservative voices are reinforced, amplified and embraced. The domi-
nant discourses are those of danger, risk and the need for repression, and
these discourses are not just articulated by conservative voices, but are
dominant in the voices for children’s protection and safeguarding. An
interest in childhood and sexuality is viewed with suspicion, and the
dominant and prevailing public discourses of disgust, shame and vilifica-
1 Introduction 3
tion are amplified. Common representations of childhood paint the child
as innocent and sex as a prime form of adult corruption. Even within the
field of childhood studies, the idea of children as sexually agentic subjects
is rarely considered and when sexuality is addressed it is usually within a
protectionist framework that positions sexuality as something that is dan-
gerous to children and something they should be protected from. As
Edward Ritvo observes, ‘childhood sexuality is like playing with a loaded
gun’ (cited in Grunbaum 1984: 256)
These various sensitivities come from the fear of the child as not con-
forming to the sexless, innocent, pure and unsullied representations that
hold such appeal, the notion that children might wish to incorporate
sexual pleasures into their interpersonal relationships with other children,
and the abhorrence of the idea of children being used and abused by
adults for sexual purposes. These three interlocking, yet distinct, areas of
concern feed into a protectionist agenda that regards the intersection of
childhood and sexuality as intrinsically dangerous and so necessarily
repressed in children and constrained in law. When children and sex
meet, the possibilities are potentially so catastrophic that there is no room
or need for debate.
The dominant paradigm that positions childhood and sexuality as
antithetical has also impacted on academic research and until relatively
recently there was limited scholarship in this area. Jackson (1982) pro-
vides one of the early critical expositions of childhood and sexuality,
questioning the constituent norms and taboos that constrained public
knowledge and questioning and challenging sex as an adult preserve,
before exploring the key sites of education, childhood expression and
youth initiation into sex. Adopting a feminist orientation, Jackson wrote
from a constructionist position, emphasising the value of the symbolic
interactionist work of Gagnon and Simon (1973). Whilst over 35 years
old and written at a time of limited companion scholarship to draw from,
it remains a valuable resource in its approach to understanding childhood
and sexuality.
Sandfort and Rademakers (2000) provide a digest of largely psycho-
logical and empirical studies on childhood and sexuality, focused on chil-
dren’s sexual behaviour in a way that does not simply reduce the child to
an object of abuse. Their preliminary observations are insightful. In
