Infant and Child Sexuality: A Sociological Perspective - Ipce

suited to their tastes. They force adults to revise their behavior;
adults must deal with them on their own terms. Rather than cuddling
them, they must communicate and interact with them in other ways--smile
at them, speak to them, rock or roughhouse with them, and play with
them through the medium of toys. Whereas the cuddly child may have many
encounters that are of a directly physical, fondling, and potentially
erotically-stimulating type, the non-cuddler by choice does not have
these experiences. It may be hypothesized that the cuddly child by his
actions actively seeks sensual and erotic stimulation and response.
There is no clear dividing line, however, between relations which are
erotic in the restricted meaning of that word and those which are not.
Since the encounters with mother in the normal course of infantmother
relations are numberless and infinitely varied, each requires a
different adaptive response. Self stimulation in the form of thumb
sucking has been observed prenatally. The first somato-sensory encounter
of the newborn infant and mother is the birth experience itself.
Male babies are sometimes born with erections; whether this is due to
internal stimulation or the birth experience itself has not been determined.
It is reasonable to assume that it is in part due to the tactile
stimulation of the birth experience. It is now understood that the
birth experience may result in some pain for both mother and infant,
nevertheless mothers have reported erotic experience during the delivery,
including sexual climax. (Ziegler and Rodgers, 1968, p. 186) Hence
the birth experience has the potential of being an erotic experience
for both infant and mother.
The major tactile and potentially erotic encounter involving infant
and mother is, of course, the sucking relationship. The mechanisms
of sucking are simple. The infant is born with a sucking reflex
which is stimulated by the touch of an object on the cheek or lips. The
infant turns its head toward the object (in this case the nipple),
opens its lips, and starts to suck when the nipple is placed in the
mouth. Though sucking is a reflex action, practice helps. The mother is
likely to notice the infant’s increased skill in sucking that comes
with practice. As the control of neck muscles improves, the infant becomes
more and more efficient at getting into place and finding the
nipple for himself. (Sears et al, 1957, p. 64, 66).
The sucking encounter is a co-operative venture of infant and
mother. Success depends on the behavior of the infant as well as the
behavior of the mother. From the infant’s side, behavior problems can
occur because of inefficient sucking, apparent dislike of the nursing
situation, and lack of responsiveness. The infant can be fickle and demanding.
The situation has to be “right” or he may refuse to participate.
Robinson observed that many infants whose mothers fed them
strictly by the clock refused “point blank” to take the breast after
the age of three months and had to be bottle fed. (Robinson, 1968, p.
123). The breast was not refused if the mother was “easy-going” and fed
her infant by “instinct” rather than by the clock. On the other hand,
scheduling of infrequent feedings causes the breast to be overfull, so
that when nursing begins the milk may spurt out and choke the infant.
This interference with the infant’s breathing, although only temporary,
may instill fear or ambivalence toward the nursing process. Ejection-reflex
failures are also related to the infant’s dislike of breast
feeding, since the infant responds favorably to a consistent supply of
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