Infant and Child Sexuality: A Sociological Perspective - Ipce

afternoons we would meet and lock ourselves in a
bedroom and take our pants off. We took turns
lying on the bed and put pennies, marbles, etc.
between our labia. The other two liked to pretend
they were boys and used a pencil for a
penis. As the ritual became old hat, it passed
out of existence. I enjoyed the sexual manipulation,
for it was stimulating. Yet, I never
wanted to pretend that I had a penis.
The following case is homosexual in that it involves two girls
rather than one child of each sex, but the activity is only mildly sexual.
The emphasis is on imitation of the friendship-companionship aspect
of adult heterosexual relationships.
For some reason we found that we enjoyed our
friendship better than those we had with members
of the opposite sex. From the time we met, up
until about the time of fifth grade, she and I
played a game which we enjoyed very much. We could
see older couples holding hands, lying on the
beach, swimming, picnicking, etc., and then we
would proceed to imitate their actions with each
other. She would always play the boy’s role and I
the girl’s. There was nothing physical about our
actions other than a caress here or there. This
game played a significant part in our friendship,
and seemed to provide us with security.
Children sometimes utilize homosexual fantasy as a part of the fantasized
milieu for an autoerotic act, such as masturbating. In such a
case masturbation in a very real sense becomes a homosexual rather than
an autoerotic act. The following case involves homosexual activity between
a boy and an imaginary partner of the same sex who is brought
into the “encounter” mentally both through pictures and through imagery.
Visual stimulation, from magazine pictures or
television, began to occur frequently at age
six. This period, lasting from age six to
twelve, was one of predominant homosexual stimulation.
A marked period of homosexual responses,
to both visual and mental imagery, is a major
part of my early childhood. Beyond the age of
twelve, when I entered the seventh grade, homosexual
response declined while heterosexual
stimulation increased.
In the second case, the homosexual other is visually present (in
the locker room), but there is no tactile contact. Any homosexual response
on the part of the informant is a fantasized response.
There always seemed to be a satisfaction gained
from the boys undressing in each other’s presence.
There was for myself a stimulating sexual
awareness in seeing the naked bodies. This
awareness was a kind of “choked up” feeling. It
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