Infant and Child Sexuality: A Sociological Perspective - Ipce

oys. They were not markedly different from black girls on any item except
attitude toward marriage and, in fact, showed a higher level of
heterosexual interaction at twelve and thirteen than the girls did.
This high level of preadolescent heterosexual interest involvement
among black boys, together with an apparent progressive disenchantment
with marriage, suggests that the pattern of socio-sexual development in
the black subculture may differ from the dominant white culture. There
were differences in fathers’ occupations and in family structure as
well, however.
In sum, sociological and anthropological data cast serious doubt on
the universal applicability of the concept of preadolescent sexual latency.
There has been a change over the years both in the attitude of
boys and girls in the United States toward heterosexual involvement and
in their experiencing of it. There has been a marked change toward
greater heterosexual experience of preadolescents with their peers.
Studies done in the twenties and thirties report unequivocally that the
percentage of friendship choices extended across the sex “barrier”
dropped to near zero in about the third or fourth grade and remained
there through the eighth grade, after which a slight rise was discernible.
In 1930 Furfey summarized his careful and systematic observations
of boy-girl relations at this age concluding that girls were
rigorously excluded from participation in masculine activities. “The
girl, however, does not feel the affront very keenly since she has the
same negative attitude toward boys that they have toward her.” (Furfey,
1930, p. 101). Furfey noted that from the time boys were age eight
to eleven years old until they reached puberty there was a strong distaste
for playing with girls, and only 20 percent of the boys did so.
Lehman and Witty (1927) found that from six to twelve years there was a
definite tendency for one-sex play, and games at this age were sexlinked.
This is not to say that there were no exceptions. Romance has always
been an experience of some preadolescents. For example, Furfey described
Max, a twelve year old boy, who openly and ardently declared
his affection for his sweetheart. In commenting on the situation, Furfey
wrote, “Although love affairs are common enough among twelve year
olds in fiction, a case like Max’s is very rare in real life.” Furfey
believed this devotion to a girl before adolescence to be uncommon and
a distinctly precocious trait. (Furfey, 1930, p. 28).
Campbell, in 1939, in describing the typical twelve to thirteen
year old girl wrote, “She would not admit that a certain boy is attractive
to her, though she begins to take a covert interest.” (Campbell,
1939). This picture of generally disinterested boys and covertly interested
girls contrasts with the situation of recent decades. Empirical
evidence reveals, as in the study by Broderick and Fowler (1961), that
the majority of children in each grade claimed to have a sweetheart,
and most of these expected reciprocation. Moreover, the majority of
them did not keep their feelings to themselves. That these children, in
fact, did discuss their romances with others is borne out by the ability
of their classmates to list the sweetheart pairs in their schoolroom
with considerable accuracy, especially in those cases where the
relationship was reciprocal or believed by one member to be reciprocal.
Hollingshead, reporting in 1949, stated that the most adventurous
youngsters began to date at the age of twelve and among the thirteen
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