Sexual experiences in early childhood: 18-year longitudinal data from the UCLA family lifestyles project - University of California, Los Angeles

Journal of Sex Research, Fall, 1997 by Paul Okami, Richard Olmstead, Paul R. Abramson

A tension exists between the need for data on child sexuality and the absence of such data. For example, Martinson (1992) recently completed a detailed analysis of American and European popular guides to parents regarding the sexuality of their children. These guides were all authored by persons explicitly or implicitly claiming to be "experts" on child sexuality. However, the texts varied quite widely in content and conclusion and rarely gave credible rationales for the advice they offered. According to Martinson, this problem is unavoidable because the data do not exist in sufficient quantity to warrant authoritative pronouncements. Therefore, commentators are often tempted to make claims that cannot be supported by evidence.

Without doubt, work in this field has been hampered by a traditional reluctance--particularly in Anglo-American societies--to admit the existence of child sexuality, much less examine its nature (Money, 1986). Whereas the source of this reluctance may be debated, it has had its effect. Although some tentative research has been done in the United States (cf. Janus & Bess, 1981), most investigations have originated in Northern Europe (cf. Langfeldt, 1990), and the only nominally systematic look at sexual development in early childhood remains the work of Ernest Borneman, only one of whose many volumes has been translated from the original German (Borneman, 1994). This book reflects many years of research on a large number of young children. Nevertheless, his report remains problematic because Borneman drew conclusions without reference to any empirical procedures for data collection. It is therefore impossible to evaluate his many claims. Moreover, the entire volume reflects a strong psychoanalytic orientation, making the data still more difficult to appreciate for those outside psychoanalytic disciplines.

That the Borneman (1994) book, despite its disappointments, remains "the first comprehensive examination of sex in childhood development between conception and the end of the eighth year" (Bullough, 1994, p. 11) is testimony to historical resistance to the study of childhood sexuality. This resistance should not be underestimated. In a brief earlier summary of some of his work, Borneman (1990) described frequent arrests of his field interviewers as they attempted to tape record children's sexual rhyming games in playgrounds (they eventually trained children to do the tape recording). Similarly, Goldman and Goldman (1982) recounted how they almost abandoned plans to include a North American sample in their cross-national study of children's sexual thinking as a result of intense resistance from school administrators and parents.

To compound these problems, U.S. research ethics and cultural norms have generally precluded the collection of sexual data from children. Therefore, the few existing North American empirical investigations of normative childhood sexuality are limited to retrospective cross-sectional studies of adults (cf. Haugaard & Emery, 1989; Kilpatrick, 1992; Lamb & Coakley, 1993; Leitenberg, Greenwald, & Tarran, 1989. See Janus & Bess, 1981, for an exception.) Because problems of retrospective recall and reportage of sexual data are prodigious and well documented (Berk, Abramson, & Okami, 1995), a pressing need exists for longitudinal data on outcome correlates of peer sexual experiences in childhood. The current study is the first attempt to provide such data.

"Childhood Sexual Rehearsal Play"

Childhood peer sexual interactions are usually referred to as sex play or sexual rehearsal play--phrases that to some degree beg explanation of the events as well as evaluating them. Play sets the stage for a nonpathological activity whose motivation might be similar to that for playing Star Trek, Monopoly, or hopscotch. This reflects the prevailing view in the social science community that sexual activity in childhood differs radically in quality and motivation from post-pubertal and adult sexual behavior. Although this view is predicated in part on assumptions firmly grounded in knowledge of developmental processes (Gagnon & Simon, 1973), it also reflects the more dubious notion that childhood sexuality is somehow not really "sexual"--a notion that in turn expresses the view that sex cannot be considered apart from reproduction (see Abramson & Pinkerton, 1995, for extensive discussion). Childhood sexuality is thus distinguished from adult sexuality, whereas theorizing about supposed child-specific functions and motivations of sexual behavior remains at a primitive stage largely because of the absence of relevant data (Lamb & Coakley, 1993).

On the issue of outcomes of sexual experiences in childhood, commentators tend to be polarized. On the one hand, warnings have been issued that sex play masks peer sexual abuse (Cantwell, 1988; Johnson, 1988), serves as a breeding ground for future pedophiles (Crewdson, 1988), or deters normal sexual adjustment in adolescence (Deutsch, 1987). On the other hand, lack of sex play has been indicted for delaying normal development (Gadpaille, 1981), causing sexual pathology in adulthood (Currier, 1981), or indirectly resulting in social violence, as some have concluded from the work of Prescott (1975, 1979). Unfortunately, data in support of any of these assertions are very scanty, and writers rarely specify the mechanisms by which supposed effects are mediated.