Volume XII Number 2, November 1983 ISSN:0091-3995 Sex Information and Education Council of the U.S.

PROGRESS IN EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON CHILDREN’S SEXUALITY

Ernest Borneman, PhD President, Austrian Society for Research in Sexology President, German Society for Research in Sociological Sexology

[Throughout my years of attending local, regional, national, impossible in most countries of the western world. The result is and international conferences, I have rarely heard a paper that not only ignorance but a plethora of false information. provoked such intense and prolonged discussion as did Dr. When my first research team began its work some 40 years Ernest Borneman’s presentation at the Sixth World Congress of ago, we believed, for instance, that a boy’s first pollution (emis- Sexology he/d in Washington, D.C. in May 7983. For days after sion of semen at times other than during coitus) indicated that his talk, wherever conference participants gathered, someone his semen had become fertile. We believed, too, that a girl would invariably ask; “Did you hear Borneman’s paper!” and could not be impregnated before she had her menarche. We thus trigger engrossed interaction. Both the methodology and accepted these assumptions because they seemed obvious. It the interpretation of his findings prompted heated reaction never occurred to us to question or test them. pro and con. I a/so had the opportunity of using Dr. Borne- Then we heard of a nine-year-old girl who had been raped man’s paper with our New York University international and had borne a child prior to her menarche. Naturally, we Seminar in Human Sexuality he/d in the Netherlands this assumed that the girl had simply failed to comprehend her first summer, and again was intrigued by the provocative discus- menstrual symptoms. Then we heard of a second and a third sions it stimulated. I am particularly pleased that the SIECUS case of premenstrual impregnation. Gradually we came to Report has been given the opportunity to make this summary wonder whether the psychosomatic shock of rape might not of Dr. Borneman’s research available to our readership.- cause premature ovulation. Having looked into a dozen cases Deryck Calderwood, Chairperson, S/ECUS Boardof Directors.] of raped minors, we now believe this to be true. Apparently girls can be impregnated prior to their first natural Anyone old enough to remember public reactions to the first menstruation. Kinsey Report and professional reactions to Masters and John- This experience led us to wonder how many of the son’s first attempts at measuring and filming human sexual unquestioned tenets of children’s sexual physiology were activities will know how difficult it is to introduce new tech- really valid. We found that polluarche (onset of seminal emis- niques of sexological research. No field of sexology is beset sion outside coitus) was by no means a dependable sign of with more objections of this sort than research into children’s fertility. Many boys are still infertile after months of nightly sex life. Such objections reach the height of absurdity with the pollutions, and others have fertile seed long before their first denial that there is such a thing as children’s sexuality. pollution. Of course, pedologists mean something else by children’s The next point we were curious about was the orgas- “sex life” than laypersons. We don’t limit the term to a conno- marche (onset of orgasm). We had read of close to a hundred tation of “having intercourse.” In our vocabulary, children’s reports of orgasms among infants and preschool children. We sex life encompasses the child’s entire existence as a sexual found six children under two years and seven under four who being. In this sense, it may even be permissible to speak of seemed to be able to produce bodily states which we would prenatal sex life. have termed orgasmic had they occurred in a grown-up. Our In any case, we believe that the study of children’s sexual difficulties began when we told the parents that we wanted to activities provides salient clues to questions of adult sexuality film their children’s masturbation activities and were eager to that cannot be answered by the study of adult sex life itself. But measure their bodily reactions. It then turned out that even the our work is extremely difficult because adults, as a rule, feel most “progressive” parents were not willing to let us proceed. obliged to protect their children against any sexual inquiries. This meant that we had reached the limitsofwhat was permissi- Although they have begun to acknowledge nowadays that ble in physiological research on children’s sexuality at that adult volunteers may agree to be questioned on all aspects of time. So we began to look for otherways of getting at the truth. their sex life, they still refuse to let their children be ques- We set out on a series of interviews with male and female tioned. To film and measure children’s sexual activities is prisoners sentenced for incest or for intercourse with children. We found, to our own surprise, that these people were not only Since we were unable to prove or disprove these asser- willing but eager to talk to us. We visited 12 prisons and spoke tions, we turned to secondary material: We asked all child to 18 persons sentenced for incest and to 16 sentenced for analysts known to us to let us have their notes on children’s intercourse with children and juveniles under 14. We also dreams, and we copied from the literature of psychoanalysis all spoke to I2 male homosexuals sentenced for intercourse with published dreams of children, hoping to extract information boys under 18. Since we were not able to check the correctness on children’s sex life from them. Some of our findings are of their statements, they are summarized here without com- quoted in the summary at the end of this paper. ment or evaluation: The last stage of our research began in 1960 and consisted c of taped conversations with 4,367 children and juveniles. The 1. Boys are capable of full erection from birth on. task we had set ourselves was to devise a system of questioning 2. Boys and girls are capable of orgasmic satisfaction long prior which would not be recognized as sexological and should to menarche and polluarche. therefore give no offense to parents. For this purpose we 3. Boys’ ejaculatory discharge develops prior to polluarche employed children’s “forbidden” riddles, songs, verses, and and masturbarche. games of the sort represented in England and the U.S.A. by 4. In contrast to the many testimonies cited by Florence Rush items of the following kind: and other adherents of the “children are always victims” school of thought, these offenders maintained that children Miss Big Tits, Superstar, were generally the initiators of intercourse with grown-ups. Wears a dirty look-thru-bra. 5. The use of force in sexual activities between adults and Shirley Temple, curly hair, children is as harmful as any other use of force against Pulled her drawers up to there. children (for instance, hitting them). 6. Where sexual intercourse takes place as a result of the I am a mechanical rocket, child’s initiative, and where’no one gives the child a bad My tail goes bang, conscience, the sex offenders believed that intercourse My balls go clang, between adults and children causes no mental harm. And now I explode in your pocket. 7. Where negative effects have been observed, they are not Penicillin says the doctor, the results of intercourse itself but of adults’suggestions that Penicillin says the nurse, intercourse is evil and harmful, according to the sex offend- Penicillin says the lady with the alligator purse. ers interviewed. Jack and Jill went up the hill To fetch a pail of water. Jill forgot to take the pill And now she’s’got a daughter.

Little Miss Muffet Volume XII, Number 2 November 1983 Sat on a tuffet, Drawers all tattered and torn. The SIECUS Report is published bimonthly and distributed to It wasn’t the spider SIECUS Associate members. That sat down beside her- Associate member annual fees: Individual $40; Student (with It was her old man with his horn. validation) $20; Organization $90; Benefactor $150 or over. These rhymes are characterized by the fact that children Library and Institutional subscriptions: $40 annually. use them only in the presence of other children, not in the Outside US.: Canada and Mexico, add $5.00 per year to the presence of adults. Another characteristic is that their circula- above fees; other countries, add $10.00 per year. tion is limited to a specific age group. Each type of verse Single copies of back or current issues of theS/ECUS Report may apparently appeals to a given child at a certain stage in sexual be ordered for $4 each, prepaid. development. The moment this stage is over, the child’s inter- All inquiries should be directed to the SIECUS Publications est turns to another typeof rhyme. We found that each verseor Office at the address below. riddle has a particular line on which the message depends, and S/ECUS Report is available on microfilm from University Micro- each of these lines contains a particular word on which the films, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. whole structure rests. If you find this word, you have the clue to the power that it exerts over the child’s imagination. We were Editor-Anne Backman, MA able to isolate three major points on which the meaning Editorial Board hinges. Robert Selverstone, PhD, Chairperson The first point deals with food, sweets, eating, drinking, Michael Carrera, EdD Jane Quinn, ACSW sucking, swallowing, and internalizing in any other manner. It Ann Welbourne-Moglia, RN, PhD corresponds roughly to Freud’s oral phase, but it occurs oneto two years later than the period deemed by modern analysts to Copyright 0 1983 by The Sex Information and Education Coun- cil of the U.S., Inc., 80 Fifth Avenue, Suite 801-2, New York, NY be “oral.” 10011. The second point deals with dirt, dirty words, dirty activi- Library of Congress catalog card number 72-627361. ties, dirty animals (pigs, bugs, fleas, etc.), excrement, enemas, farting, and so on. It obviously corresponds to Freud’s anal No part of the S/ECUS Report may be reproduced in any form phase, but again it occurs one to two years later than predicted. without written permission from the SIECUS Publications Office. The third point deals with genital activities. We have recorded an inordinate number of verses about brother-sister

SIECUS Report, November 1983 incest and a fair number about parental intercourse-all of ties. The experiences were painful, and so we began to train them appealing to children between agessix and seven, again a children in handling tape recorders. This worked extremely year or two after Freud’s phallic-Oedipal phase. well. Most adults underrate the technical intelligence of child- We were unable to find evidence for Freud’s thesis of a ren and tend to patronize them. From then on, we left the latency period, and we found that verses with outright genital entire field work to the children and youths. themes occurred both before and after puberty. Regardless of whether we conducted the questioning our- My friend, the late psychoanalyst lgor A. Caruso, sug- selves or whether we left it to the children, we concluded each gested that the two years’ delay in oral, anal, and Oedipal recording session with the question: “Is there anything else rhymes might be explained by the fact that children learn to you want to tell us?” It turned out that these open-ended speak between the first and second year so that the child voices sections provided the real dynamite. Although the word “sex” its sexual obsessions with a retardation effect of 12 to 24 never occurred in our questions, the kids understood the tenor months. of our research and volunteered more sexual information than Now to our methods of recording, transcribing, and inter- we had dared to hope for. preting our samples. At the beginning we made many mistakes. I come now to a summary of our findings during the 30 We tried, for instance, to ask grown-ups whether they could years of research. It includes my own observations as a child recall any “indecent” or “obscene” rhymes which they had psychologist in various children’s wards, my team’s inquiry into known during their childhood. For reasons which I will explain the orgasmic potency of infants, our investigations into the when I come to our findings, this endeavor turned out to be fertility of raped minors, and our research on the fertility of wholly abortive because adults unconsciously censor such boys prior to their polluarche. It also includes the findings of verses and reproduce them in mutilated form. The method also our talks with men and women sentenced for incest and for yields false information about the first and last occurrence of intercourse with minors. It sums up our analysis of close to a the verse in the course of the informant’s childhood. thousand children’s dreams and our interpretation of oral, Our second method was to ask parents: “What rhymes anal, and genital rhymes of children. It also draws on the does your child know, and which of them does it try to hide open-ended sections of our taped conversations with 4,367 from you?” This didn’t work because parents misinterpreted children and juveniles. their children and tried to protect them. It also failed because The age groups and numbers of these latter informants children succeed very well in bluffing their parents and keep- were as follows: ing their knowledge of such verses strictly to themselves. Age 2-3 175 Age 8 275 Age13 337 Our third method was to gain access to children through 4 199 9 284 14 345 nursery schools and school teachers. This didn’t work because 5 222 10 299 15 358 the children took us to be spies from the enemy camp and 6 246 11 302 16 361 treated us with suspicion and distrust. 7 268 12 323 17 373 At last we dared to turn directly to the children-in play- grounds, at swimming pools, in parks, and on the streets. But Since we started this stage of our work in 1960 and main- here, too, we made mistakes by asking foolish questions such tained contact with about 8% of our test group (399 infor- as: “DO you know any rhymes or riddles that you wouldn’t use mants), it was possible to carry out longitudinal studies on in your parents’ presence?” This made the children clam up, of informants representing groups from age 5 to age 25. course, and got us nowhere. For a while we gave up asking any Since it would be impossible to sum up 30years’ research questions and limited ourselves to recording snatches of child- in a few pages, we have selected I4 points to represent our ren’s games from a distance. But this led to poor sound quality findings in concentrated form: and raised more questions than it answered. 1. Human sexuality differs from that of other primates in One day, when we were sitting in a park playing back our that it consists less of bodily activities than of mental ones- last tapes, we found the answer: The kids gathered around us desires, fantasies, disappointments, anxieties. In this specific and wanted to hear what we were playing. They laughed them- sense, the child’s sex life resembles that of the adult human selves sick. I asked: “Do you know this one?” And one of the much more than adult human sex life resembles that of the boys said: “No, but I know another one, and it goes like this!” adult ape. We switched to recording and were in business. From that day 2. Freud’s theory of the oral phase as the first and original on we always opened the conversation by playing back old one in sexual development is almost certainly erroneous. We tapes. agree that sexual development in the human is a process based Another trick we acquired at approximately this time was on libidinal concentration in specific erogenous zones-first to take domestic animals with us to the parks and play- the oral, then the anal, then the genital area. But we insist that grounds-a dog, a cat, a tortoise, a rabbit, a little lamb. The prior to the oral phase the entireskin surfaceofthe newly born kids would gather at once and ask questions: “Is she yours?” is a single erogenous zone. We believe that this pre-oral phase “What’s his name?” “ How old is it?“Then we would play one of is of far greater importance than the oral one because it pro- the countless rhymes about cats, dogs, lambs, or rabbits, and vides explanations for a number of neuroses and deviations the children would tell us all the variants they knew. never so far classified. It allows radically new methods in the Sooner or later, of course, the adults intervened, called the therapy of psychosomatic skin disorders. We have called this police or the park attendants, and asked what in the world we initial phase of infant sexuality “the cutaneous phase” (from were up to. Most of us were arrested at least once and got used the Greek word for “skin,” kytos, and its Latin derivative cutis). to carrying thick wallets full of documents identifying us as One of the implications of this discovery is that Freud’sthesisof members of a research team. Despite the fact that we were in the genital phase as the terminal one may also be false. We have no way conducting a participant observation study, and were come to doubt whether genital primacy, Freud’s synonym for merely attempting to understand children’s sexual thinking, it sexual maturity, has ever existed as a provable reality. We tend was very difficult to communicate this distinction to authori- to think that it was a fiction right from the start, since we have

SIECUS Report, November 1983 3 observed that the sexually mature person of our day is a thing horrible. Result: The child either becomes impotent or cutaneously oriented person whose entire body surface is li- frigid or neurotic or sadistic or masochistic. Generations of bidinally sensitive. Such people are not genitally fixated nor are analysts have swallowed this without ever asking themselves they obsessed by the need for orgasmic performance. The how many people all around the globe can afford to have embraces they seek are not exclusively of the genital kind and separate bedrooms for parents and children. The majority of are not limited to partners of the opposite sex. We call such human beings, from the Stone Age to the present, would have persons “trans-genital” because they have left the genital become neurotic if the primal scene theory werevalid. Freud’s phase behind them and have now moved intoastateof mature fallacy is that he presents a segment of the event and pretends cutaneous receptivity. We believe, in short, that Freud’s model that it represents the whole. Children can very easily be trau- of an oral-anal-genital sequence is only a segment of libidinal matized by their parents’ intercourse-but only when the child development. It is erroneous because it overrates the princi- discovers the truth belatedly and by accident. Most children ples of primacy and of dominance. It shuts its eyes to the have seen their parents cuddling, embracing, and kissing-but possibility that an equal distribution of rights and duties may they have never been allowed to see that the cuddling, exist between the erogenous zones just as it exists between embracing, and kissing leads up to genital stimulation and human beings or between human societies. The cutaneous pleasure. Thus, what traumatizes the child is not the sight of the phase, the only one free from the dominance of one eroge- sexual act but the fact that the child has never seen it in its nous zone over all others, may therefore be assumed to stand proper emotional context. What causes the shock is not that both at the beginning and (on a higher plane) at the end of the child has seen too much, but that it has seen too little. human sexual ontogenesis. 6. The ancient question of why mammals’ rate of repro- 3. We have become convinced that today’s predominant duction in captivity is only a fraction of what it is in the wild has view concerning the grave consequences of parental absence long been answered: Mammals can only reproduce effectively during the first year of life is defective. In our investigations of if, during the imprinting stage of childhood, they can observe close to a hundred children in nursery schools and children’s their elders mating. Undoubtedly the human species is biologi- wards regarding relationships with their parents, we found the cally programmed in the same manner. If our moral laws pre- children to be stable, confident, and cheerful in spite of tem- vent us, during the genetically prescribed period of imprinting, porary separation from their parents. We also found that in from observing the mating activities of our elders, we suffer a each case the child was lov.ed and accepted by its parents who, number of irreparable displacements in the choice of our however, were quite frank in expressing priority for their mari- sexual objects. One of them is addiction to pornography. If tal life. If, as happened in a number of cases, the father was children, during the imprinting stage, are not allowed to use tranferred to a post in another country or another city and the their five senses in observing the mating procedures of their wife followed him to establish a home, the child seemed to species, and if they are encouraged to acquire their sexual accept the parents’ temporary absence without depression, knowledge belatedly via words and pictorial images (graffiti in despair, or shock. Bowlby’s well-known observations of sepa- school toilets, sex education at home and at school, sex photos ration anxiety seem to apply only to children of parents that are and sex films in their leisure hours), they inevitably develop a insufficiently in love with each other or have given the child, fixation on words and pictures. They no longer strive for an from birth on, the illusion of having to come first in the affec- active partner with desires of his or her own but learn instead to tions of both parents. We therefore believe that separation prefer a substitute for the real thing. This is the etiology of anxiety is not produced by the separation itself but only by the addiction to pornography in restrictive societies. separation from parents with insufficient affection for each 7. The child has no natural sense of “obscenity” and no other and excessive devotion to the child. The better the par- natural sense of “shame.” It derives its knowledge of these ents’ mutual relationship, the greater the child’s ability to do matters from other children who have learned it from other without them for a while. adults. It infers what it is supposed to feel and think not only 4. We have become convinced that Freud’s Oedipal theo- from the spoken words of its elders but primarily from their ries are founded on a reversal of the cause-and-effect relation- unconscious expressions-face, body, gestures, stance. ship. The Oedipus complex is a product of the nuclear family 8. Human infants are born with the gift of communicating and goes back to parental rivalry for the child’s affection. We without words. That is why they understand their parents’body found next to no evidence of Oedipal leanings among children language long before the parents begin to learn the body raised in kibbutzim or extended families. Where the male role language of their baby. Children begin to forget this innate in propagation is unknown or is being ritually denied, Oedipal knowledge only when they learn to talk. Most children, how- leanings between daughter and father (or between father and ever, retain a rudimentary knowledge of body language up to daughter) cannot develop because the father does not know adolescent age and can therefore read adults’ secret thoughts which one of the community’s children is his, whilethe daugh- and feelings very much better than adults can read those of ter does not know which one of the men in the communal their children. men’s house is her father. 9. Our restrictive attitude to sexuality produces two peri- 5. We have become convinced that Freud’s theory of the ods of traumatic repression-the first during the third year of “primal scene” and its traumatic effect is wrong. Freud’s many life (Freud called it “infantile amnesia”), the second during descriptions of this scene follow the same pattern: The child puberty (we have called it “pubertal amnesia”). The first blocks hears sighs and groans from the parental bedroom, gets wor- most memories of sexual activities prior to the third year of life. ried, opens the door, finds dad lying on top of mom or kneeling The second one reduces the recall of prepubertal sex acts. In behind her while she’s on all fours. Dad obviously is doing her both cases, the repression of sexual memories is so powerful some kind of violence. Mom groans. The child is shocked. A that it sweeps away a good many non-sexual memories as well. few days later the child discovers mom’s blood-stained sanitary One of the results of the first amnestic period is that few people napkins in the bathroom and knows for sure now: What mom can recall anything that happened prior to the third year of and pop are doing when they lock the bedroom door is some- their life. The most significant result of the second amnestic

4 SIECUS Report, November 1983 period is that parents can turn to their children and tell them in person). Responsible sexual behavior is not governed by gen- all honesty: “When / was your age, I never used dirty lan- erative maturity, but by sexual maturity-and sexual maturity is guage. ” Or: “When I was young, I’d never heardof such horri- a wholly psychological process without any counterpart in a ble rhymes.” Or: “When I was young, I never did such wicked physiological matrix. Morphological, endocrinological, and things!” Even the children themselves, the moment they have other somatic phases of generative development-for instance entered puberty, begin to deny that they have ever taken part pubarche, menarche, polluarche, or seminarche-cannot be in pre-pubertal sex acts. Among our test persons were four proved to exert a direct influence on the psychosexual pro- who had been photographed by their parents during infantile cesses of maturation. With the exception of pathological phe- sex games. When the children, in their teens now, were con- nomena, physiosexual processes exert no measurable fronted with these snapshots, they furiously denied that they influence on psychosexual ones. were the kids depicted. Only under hypnosis did they recall the acts, and then, of course, in great detail and with remarkable References precision. Neither infantile nor pubertal amnesia occurs in societies that erect no taboos on children’s sexual activities. In This paper is a summary of the following research reports published in cultures where parents make no secret of their sex life, no Switzerland, Austria, and Western Germany between 1973 and 1981: infantile amnesia can be traced. In societieswherechildren are Borneman, E. Unsere Kinder im Spiegel ihrerLieder, Reime, Verseund allowed to experiment sexually with one another, no pubertal Ratsel (Studien zur Befreiung des Kindes, Vol. 1). Olten (Switzer- land) and Freiburg (West Germany): Walter Verlag, 1973. Second amnesia develops. ed., Berlin: Ullstein Verlag, 1980. 10. Children who develop manual skills at an early age also Borneman, E. Die Urnwelt des Kindes im Spiegelseiner “verbotenen” masturbate earlier and more efficiently than their more back- Lieder, Reime, Verse und Ratsel (Studien zur Befreiung des Kindes, ward contemporaries. We suspect that nature has invented Vol. 2). Olten (Switzerland) and Freiburg (West Germany): Walter infant masturbation as a bonus to reward manual efforts-just Verlag, 1974. Second ed., Berlin: Ullstein Verlag, 1980. Borneman, E. Die We/t der Erwachsenen in den “verbotenen”Reimen as sexual intercourse among adults probably serves as nature’s deutschsprachiger Stadtkinder (Studien zur Befreiung des Kindes, incentive to encourage communication between individuals. Vol. 3). Olten (Switzerland) and Freiburg (West Germany): Walter Some later forms of masturbation are veiled accusations against Verlag, 1976. Second ed., Berlin: Ullstein Verlag, 1981. parental indifference and emotional starvation. They seem to Borneman, E. Reifungsphasen der Kindheit (Sexuelle Entwicklungspsy- chologie, Vol. 1). Frankfurt (West Germany): Verlag Diesterweg, argue: “If you don’t care for me, I’ll have to care for myself!” 1981. Aarau (Switzerland): Verlag Sauerlander. 1981. Vienna (Aus- 11. Children’s sexual activities, especially their attempts to tria): Verlag jugend und’volk, 1981. show their genitals to each other, cannot be explained as In addition to these four books, the following research reports by the quests for genital satisfaction-as infantile substitutes for adult author and his team have been partially summarized above: coitus-but must be understood as a search for identity: “I am Borneman, E. Verbotene Kinderreime und das Geschlechtsleben des not like you. I am not a boy. I am a girl. I am 1.” These attempts Kindes. Betrifft Erziehung, 1976, No. 3, 38-40. to discover one’s sexual ego are of great importance in stabiliz- Borneman, E. Busenneid bei Knaben. Pid. Extra, 1976, No. 23/24, ing the growing child. 19-25. 12. During the last decade we have observed a marked Borneman, E. Ausbruch aus dem Kifig der Kindheit. Psychologie und Cesellschaft, 7977, I(2), 7-30. tendency toward sex role reversal in children’s play behavior. Borneman, E. Die Urszene. Das prigende Kindheitserlebnis und seine Games traditionally played only by girls are now being played Folgen. Warum, 1977, No. 3, 34-37; No. 4, 34-37; No. 10,8-13. increasingly often by boys, while traditional boys’ games are Borneman, E. Erziehung und Sexualerziehung. Betrifft Erziehung, 1977, being taken over by girls. Traditional boys’ rhymes are being 70(4), 32-37. adapted by girls, girls’ rhymes by boys. In intersexual games, Borneman, E. Von der Einsamkeit des Kindes in der Welt der Erwach- senen. Sexualpidagogik, 1977, No. 3,11-15. Discussion, 1978, Nos. where boys used to take the initiative, girls are now the initia- 1, 3. tors. Where we had massive evidence of penis envy only a Borneman, E. Oben und Unten im Kinder- und Jugendreim. Musik + decade ago, we now find frequent evidence of bosom envy. Medizin, 1978, No. 11, 35-44. More and more boys of school age show themselves to be Borneman, E. Zur Frage eines Lehrbuchs der sexuellen Entwicklungs- psychologie. SexualpBdagogik, 1979, No. 3, 38-40. jealous of girls’ ability to bear and nurse children. Borneman, E. Analytische Entwicklungspsychologie. Disput, 1979,2(7), 13. Although the process of accelerated growth, earlier 27-32. menarche, earlier pubarche, and earlier polluarche hasslowed Borneman, E. Puberale Amnesie. Psychoanalyse (Salzburg), 1980, 7(l), down during the last decade, it still creates sexual problems 62-76. because it is accompanied by a process of delayed mental Borneman, E. Die Zirtlichkeit des Kindes. Zu einer klassenlosen Sexu- alitat. Neue Sammlung, 1981, No. 1, 36-44. maturity. In Europe we call this process “neotenia,” a term Borneman, E. Leibfeindliches Lernen. WestermannsP;idagogischeBei- coined by the anthropologistJulius Kollmann in 1885. This does triige, 1981, 33(6), 238-240. not mean that the mental powers of the human species are Borneman, E. Lehrer und Schule im Spiegel von Bank- und Wandkrit- dwindling, but it meansthatthetotal quantity of human knowl- zeleien. Erziehung Heute, 1981, No. 11/12, 30-32. Borneman, E. Psychohygiene in der Schule. KirntnerSchulversuchsin- edge grows so rapidly that each generation needs more time to formationen, 1981, No. 2, 17-24. Also in: Kindheit, 1982, No. 4, master it. This also applies to the growing difficulties of sexual 131-146. orientation in an increasingly complex world. While our body matures earlier from generation to generation, our mind [Ed. Note: Dr. Borneman studied with Bronislaw Malinowski in matures later. Almost all sexual problems of our day arise from London, with Vere Gordon Childe in Edinburgh, with Melville this growing gap between physiological and psychological /. Herskovits at Northwestern University, and with CCza maturity. R6heim who was also his teaching analyst. In his youth he 14. My team and I have therefore learned to distinguish worked for two years with Wilhelm Reich in Berlin. During the between generative maturity (the ability to beget and bear last decade he has taught at the universities of Bremen, Mar- children) and sexual maturity (the ability to satisfy another burg, Salzburg, and Klagenfurt. For 23 years he has been in human being and to be sexually satisifed in turn by the other charge of one of the most ambitious research projects on

SIECUS Report, November 1983 5 childhood sexuality ever conducted in Europe. More than stating the nature of the research and then enumerating con- 4,000 children and adolescents have been interviewed by him clusions and hypotheses drawn from it, in the absence of the and his associates in Austria, Switzerland, and West Germany. research data or, more importantly, the conceptual steps and The results have been published in five voluminous reports. Dr. supporting studies leading from the data to the conclusions- Borneman is the author of 27 books and more than a thousand limits objective professional evaluation. This isall the moretrue articles. He lives in Scharten, Austria.] when some of the 14 enumerated conclusions are contrary to (different) solid research data, or make statements of fact that are contradicted by other data. This is not the forum for a critical review of Dr. Borneman’s work and conclusions-indeed, that is impossible without access to all the substantive work itself. Commentary on: But a few examples (out of quite a few more) may illustrate the dilemma that I perceive. (1.) The assumption that separation Borneman’s “Progress in Empirical Research anxiety reveals parent/child psychopathology does not seem on Children’s Sexuality” consistent with psychophysiological research showing certain concomitants of anxiety (e.g., heart rate) accompanying Warren /. Gadpaille, MD, Associate Clinical Professor stranger response to be part of normal and healthy cognitive Division of Child Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry development in the capacity to distinguish mother from non- University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver mothers. (2.) One of the major cultural anthropologists who has studied kibbutzim first hand for 30 years (Spiro, 1982) quotes studies indicating a strong and typical Oedipus complex Dr. Borneman’s and his colleagues’ monumental research on in sabras. In the same study, Spiro presents exhaustive anthro- children’s sexuality could well become a major breakthrough pological documentation contradicting the theory that the in the understanding of psychosexual and sociosexual devel- Oedipus complex does not and cannot arise in non-nuclear, opment, particularly in terms of the conscious awareness and non-patriarchal family constellations. (3). There is no evidence the viewpoint of the child. The sheer size of his study popula- for the avian phenomenon of imprinting in humans. And Harry tion would serve to lend credibility to those conclusions that Harlow’s research has demonstrated that it is theexperienceor could appropriately be drawn based upon the nature of the deprivation of juvenile sex play, not the opportunity to observe data he has amassed. The full value and impact of his research copulating adults, that determines reproductive function in cannot be assessed until his many books and papers containing adulthood, at least in rhesus monkeys as representative all the detailed findings are readily available, preferably in primates. translation, to non-German-fluent professionals. Dr. Borneman is obviously a very sound researcher and Although he does not (and cannot in so brief a summary) scholar; it is likely that he effectively addresses many of these specify the nature, quality, and progression of sexual knowl- seeming dilemmas in the full body of his works. But without edge and activity in children of different ages, his presentation knowing the bases for his conclusions and hypotheses, it is clearly implies an early, complex, and evolving sexuality in difficult to assess their impact where they would count the children. It is interesting that his postulation of a two-year delay most: on childrearing philosophies in general and on physi- of (verbalized) concerns corresponding to oral, anal, and phal- cians and other child development professionals who are in a lic stages also seems to imply considerably earlier conscious position to counsel parents and teachers. Unfortunately, I sus- awareness of sexual issues and facts than that found in the pect that the impact will be minimal until the full body ofwork Goldman and Goldman (1982) recent research. One explana- is widely available. Conclusions alone cannot persuade anyone tion may be his discovery that children do not answer adults’ to believe or behave differently regarding emotionally charged questions honestly commensurate with their degree of knowl- issues. They will either be ignored or each person will choose edge. Dr. Borneman’s work strongly supports the growing whatever is personally congenial as support for his/her own body of evidence both that children are sexual beings and that views. I consider this likelihood to be unfortunate-very much the denial and suppression of their sexuality exacts an inhu- so-because I assume that the major impact of Dr. Borneman’s mane toll of constriction and dysfunction in many areas of life. unparalleled research will be its irrefutable documentation of One of the most congenial points for me was his sugges- the rich sexuality of children of all ages, and the implications of tion that the earliest erogenous zone is the whole body, espe- that fact for all parents and adults who deal with children. Just cially the skin, of the infant, and that the most mature sexuality what those implications are-which conclusions may be justi- is also a total body (total person) involvement. This understand- fied, what kinds of personal and educative interactions are ing of infancy is certainly consistent with Montagu’s (1971) appropriately indicated-is secondary to the importance of examination of the overriding importance of touch, Bowlby’s the fact itself. Given the understanding of children’s sexuality, (1969) work on attachment, and the current understanding of the other issues will sort themselves out with time and thought. mother/infant bonding. The adult dimension is implied in Dr. Borneman’s research helps to provide part of the factual Erikson’s (1950) sixth stage (intimacy vs. isolation); Freud basis on which to build future policy. understood it too, as evidenced by his definition of maturity as the ability to love and to work, and his definition of mature References sexual love as fusing both tender and genital components, Bowlby, j. Attachment and loss. New York: Basic Books, 1969. despite his choice of the misleadingly narrow word “genital” to Erikson, E. H. Childhood and society. New York: W. W. Norton, 1950. denote psychosexual maturity. Dr. Borneman’s recasting and Goldman, R., & Goldman, J. Children’s sexual thinking. Boston: Rout- extension of the psychosexual developmental stages pulls many ledge and Kegan Paul, 1982. Montagu, A. Touching: The human significance of theskin. New York: of these concepts together in so clear and concise a manner as Columbia University Press, 1971. to make one wonder “Why didn’t I think of that?” Spiro, M. E. Oedipus in the Trobriands. Chicago: University of Chicago The very necessity, however, of so brief a presentation- Press, 1982.

6 SIECUS Report, November 1983 /SPEAKING OUT

. . . On the Sixth World Congress of Sexology

Barbara Whitney, RN, MS Executive Director, S/ECUS

Like most professionals, I make an effort to attend the major three honorary co-presidents (Mary Calderone, Harold Lief, human sexuality conferences. I do so for a variety of reasons- and Wardell Pomeroy) have all held leadership positions within to find out what’s new in the field, to have an opportunity to SIECUS, and many of the presenters have been orcurrentlyare listen to and perhaps talk with some of the leading thinkers, to members of the SIECUS Board of Directors. renew old acquaintances and make new ones-all of which l The opportunity to meet with many persons from other hopefully will stretch my mind in new directions. parts of the world-people who are open to sharing their work, Anticipating the usual conference activities, then, I eager for what they can learn from us, at times frustrated by its headed for Washington, D.C. in May 1983 for the Sixth World lack of applicability to their culture, bold in their desire to Congress of Sexology, the first such international meeting I had develop new techniques and research for their own ever attended. If this meeting of over 1,000 people from around countries-and being offered the chance to learn from them in the globe was indicative of what a world congress can be, I their unique solutions. hope I have the opportunity to attend others during my career. I am certain my account varies from the ones you may have As in many such undertakings, there were snafus and prob- read in the newspapers. If you were (or had been) there, you lems, but my own memories of the event are dominated by might also report differently. But my bias is in favor of continu- exciting, positive images. Among them: ing such world congresses. The next onewill be held in India in l A sense of the history of our profession. Every confer- November 1985, and in 1987 it will meet in Germany. Perhaps ence participant received a publication highlighting some of by then more of the works of outstanding foreign researchers, Erwin Haeberle’s thorough research into the extensiveworkof such as the books authored by the writer of our lead article, Magnus Hirschfeld in pre-Nazi Germany, and the meetings of Dr. Ernest Borneman, will have been translated into English, international groups interested in the scientific study of sex and we can move toward a more comprehensive international prior to World War II. The exhibit area included a display sharing of concepts in the human sexuality field. focusing on this research, and Dr. Haeberle provided further documentation of this period in a plenary address. That, together with the moving “Pentimento of the Sexologist,” choreographed by Leah Schaefer at the Eastern Region SSSS YOU KNOW THAT. . . meeting in Philadelphia last April, has been humbling to me. At times we become puffed up with a sense of our own impor- tance in the new areas we are exploring, busily carving out turf, 7th World Congress 1985 forgetting the bold and courageous work of some of those who preceded us. The 7th World Congress of Sexology will be held November l The unifying theme provided by the life cycle perspec- 4-9,1985, in India, under the patronage of the World Associa- tive. With a conference extending over six days, it made possi- tion for Sexology and organized by the Indian Association of ble continued anticipation of “more to come.” Sex Educators, Counsellors, and Therapists. The theme for this l The presence of so many of the leading sexologists in Congress will be “Sexuality in achanging World.“Those inter- this country in one place. Their visibility lends strength to our ested in participating are asked to write to: Dr. Prakash Kothari, joint efforts. VII World Congress of Sexology, 203-A, Sukhsagar, N.S. Patkar l The cooperative efforts of the sexology organization Marg, Bombay 400 007, India. comprising the U.S. Consortium (including SIECUS) which overcame many differences of opinion and created a confer- ence with both diverse and controversial presentations that Sex Therapy Seminar hopefully challenged us in new ways. l The efforts of the fledgling World Association for Sexol- A seminar on “Sex Therapy for the Office Practitioner” will be ogy to establish a policy on “female circumcision” in many held February 7-12, 1984, in Acapulco, Mexico. Qualified par- Third World countries, highlighting the complexities of global ticipants will be eligible for 20 CME credits in Category I. For concerns within our own field. further information, write to: James E. Jordan, MD, Patuxent l A sense of SIECUS’s own significant history and role. The Seminars, Inc., 5999 Harpers Farm Road, Columbia, MD 21044.

SIECUS Report, November 1983 7 DO YOU KNOW THAT t 8m

Resources to Write for . . . Guidelines for AIDS Risk Reduction is an eight-page flyer oriented toward sexually active gay men. The first half summar- Sex Is a Parent Affair: A Responsible Guide for Teaching Your izes the information that is known so far about acquired Children About Sex by Letha Dawson Scanzoni is now available immune deficiency syndrome. The second half discusses, one in a completely revised and updated edition (December 1982). by one, a variety of sexual practices from cuddling to anal With a practical, honest approach, this excellent handbook intercourse, the possible risks involved in each, and how to provides Christian parents with thoughtful and well- minimize those risks. For copies or reprint permission documented answers to questions children ask concerning requests, contact: Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights, P.O. sexuality. A 12-page resource listing is included in the appen- Box 14546, San Francisco, CA 94114. dix. Single copies cost $2.95 (plus p/h); educational, religious, and other non-profit groups may qualify for a 40% discount A Booklet for Boys (1983) is a IO-page publication written to when ordering 24 or more copies. Write to: Direct Response help boys who are not circumcised learn more about their Department, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY bodies and appreciate them as they are. The text and illustra- 10103. tions are appropriate for children of elementary school age and will be reassuring to them and to their parents and teachers. Who Am I? Who Are You? Coping With Friends, Feelings, and Single copies are available for 45~ plus a 20-cent stamp. Bulk Other Teenage Dilemmas (1983) by Kathleen London and rates are available. Order from: Intact Educational Foundation, Frank Caparulo is a book about feelings and emotions. Its 10 c/o Rosemary Romberg, 6294 Mission Road, Everson, WA chapters are devoted to disappointment, worry, embarrass- 98247. ment, love, sadness, insecurity, anger, helplessness, fear, and confidence. Letters and responses related to each topic are Cat and Mouse: A Self-Protection Program for Children (1983) provided by Beth Winship of the nationally syndicated “Ask is a 31-page curriculum guide designed to provide a framework Beth” column. Each chapter also analyzes the emotion in on which to build a program appropriate to the availability and depth, featuring examples and special sections for girls and for the needs of the children who will be participating. Three basic boys. It is available for $7.25 (plus p/h) from: Addison-Wesley objectives are suggested: identification of safety-conscious Publishing Co., Reading, MA 01867. responses to potentially dangerous situations, ability to distin- guish between appropriate and inappropriate touching and to Talk to My Parents? (1982) is a six-page pamphlet giving teenag- respond assertively to the latter, and identification of individu- ers practical information on why and how to begin talking with als and agencies available to help. Materials and activities for their parents about sexual issues. It makes the point that many fulfilling each are presented. The single-copy price is $6.50 parents would love to talk more with their children about (includes p/h); $5.50 each if 10 or more copies are ordered. sensitive topics but do not know where to begin, and suggests Write to: Girls Clubs of Omaha, 3706 Lake Street, Omaha, NE that sometimes the adolescent can be the one to break the ice 68111. by initiating the conversation. Its question-and-answer format, eye-catching graphics, and easy reading level are all designed Gays and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS): A to attract the teenage reader. Priced at $18 per 100 for 100-500 Bibliography (1983) compiled by Alan V. Miller is the second copies or $15 per 100 for over 500 copies, it is available from: edition of this Canadian Gay Archives publication. The bibliog- Planned Parenthood of Monterey County, 5 Via Joaquin, Mon- raphy is broken down by source into three parts-the medical terey, CA 93940. press, gay press, and mainstream press-and within each sec- tion articles are listed alphabetically by the first author. Impor- Homophobia and Education: How to Deal With Name-Calling tant early articles on Kaposi’s sarcoma and immuno-deficiency is the title of a superb special issue (Vol. 14, Nos. 3 and 4, 1983), are included: This publication is available for $4.00 (includes edited by Leonore Gordon, of the interracial Books for Chjl- p/h) from: Canadian Gay Archives, Box 639, Station A, Toronto, dren Bulletin. It begins with several very thoughtful articles Ontario M5W lG2, Canada. about the nature of homophobia, its relationship to other forms of oppression such as racism and sexism, and the impor- Red Flag-Green Flag People, a 28-page coloring book for ele- tance of recognizing the role it has traditionally played in mentary school-age children, is now available in a revised 1983 rearing children. Also included are articles analyzing how les- edition. This publication by Joy Williams is designed to teach bians and gay men are dealt with in fiction and sex education children how to protect themselves in potentially abusive books for children and adolescents,aswelI as in encyclopedias. situations, especially sexual assault. They learn to discriminate The final three chapters are devoted to a lesson plan for coun- between touch that feels good (green flag) and touch that feels tering homophobia, suggestions for better card catalog access “scarey,” confusing, or bad (red flag); to assert their right not to to gay and lesbian library materials, and an action plan for be touched in a “red flag” way; and to turn to trusted adults for getting books on gay and lesbian themes into the library. To help. Single copies cost $4.00 (including p/h) and bulk prices order this fine and unique resource, send $3.50 (includes p/h) are available. Order from: Rape and Abuse Crisis Center of to: CIBC, 1841 Broadway, New York, NY 10023. Fargo-Moorhead, P.O. Box 1655, Fargo, ND 58107.

8 SIECUS Report, November 1983 RESEARCH NOTES

“Research Notes” is prepared by Elizabeth Rice Allgeier, PhD, Psychology Department, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio.

Attachment and Separation: Harmonizing Different Voices

l recently devoted a weekend to reading Carol Gilligan’s (1982) emphasis on relationships by the women in her research, but In a Different Voice. Actually, it is a short book-184 pages- her book stimulates many questions about how such gender but it is so richly provocative that I kept having to stop reading differences (if documented by further research) come to exist. to think about and digest both the views she was presenting A little later, I will suggest someextensions of her work and and the ideas that they stimulated in me. My initial motivation some research to test some of the many untested hypotheses in reading it was to obtain more information about an abortion stimulated by her book. Before doing so, I want to give a little study, the results of which Mary F. Belenky and Carol GiIIigan more detail about Gilligan’s model. The central focus of her (1979) presented at a convention. I had intended to attempt an research has been on the bases of moral judgments made by integration of that work with my own abortion research and women and men in various contexts. She discusses Freud’s with the Supreme Court rulings of 1973 and 1983. Perhaps I will hypothesis regarding differences in the moral development of do that in another column. males and females. Males resolve the Oedipal conflict through /n a Different Voice focuses on gender differences in the intense identification with their fathers fueled by castration bases for moral judgments, and in particular, how those differ- anxiety, thus acquiring a strong superego. Freud, however, ences may be related to thedifferent meaningsof attachments, believed that females’ moral development suffered from the relationships, and caring versus separation, independence, distinct disadvantage of the absence of castration anxiety and individual attainment for women and for men. I have been resulting in what he believed to be their relatively weaksuper- intrigued by the position of relationships in the lives of men egos. Parenthetically, I might add that although it is popular to versus women for many years. My own pattern involved devot- ridicule this set of Freudian constructs, and although they have ing more time, energy, and thought to relationships that were failed to receive support from the Goldmans’ (1982) important important to me, and feeling that I did not exist apart from research as I described in a recent S/ECUS Report column, I those relationships. Later, I shifted toward wanting the inde- believe that Freud should be credited for attempting to con- pendence of an identity quite separate from that of anyone sider both genders in his model of personality development else. After feeling some sense of resolution over the.potential rather than to study male psychology and assume that it can be conflict between attachment and independence, I read “lnti- generalized to females as has been so common since Freud’s mate Terrorism” by Michael Vincent Miller (1977). He dis- time. Freud did, however, potentially commit another error, cussed the dilemma of couples, one member of whom is also common among researchers since his time, in using male heavily motivated by fears of abandonment, and the other of psychology as the norm from which to judge female psychol- whom acts from fears of engulfment. As the partner who fears ogy. That pattern is continued by Kohlberg (1969, 1976), as engulfment (typically the man in our culture?) acts in ways gently outlined by Gilligan, his student. designed to provide himself with space and separation, this In Kohlberg’s structure, there are three levels of morality. activates the fear of abandonment in the other partner (typi- Preconventional morality is egocentric and based on individual cally the woman in our culture?), who responds by trying to needs. Conventional morality bases judgments on shared increase the level of intimacy in the relationship. norms and values that sustain relationships, groups, communi- in discussing this potential relationship problem in my ties, and societies. Finally, postconventional judgment sexuality classes, I have tied it to the concept of differential “transcends” the concern with social norms and values and socialization of males versus females. I have suggested that bases morality on universal principles. Consistent with Freud’s equating healthy female adulthood as being “other directed,” perspective, in response to Kohlberg’s moral dilemmas, a in which the central goal of life is highly intimate relationships larger proportion of males than of females were able to reach that are the major source of one’s identity, and equating healthy the “highest” levels of morality. In contrast, females tended to male adulthood as being self-reliantly competent and inde- get hung up at the conventional level. Their pendent sets the stage for the conflict that Miller describes as construction of the moral problem as a problem of care abandonment versus engulfment when men and women and responsibility in relationships rather than as one of attempt to form relationships with one another. My assump- rights and rules ties the development of their moral tion that engulfment and abandonment motives exist as over- thinking to changes in their understanding of responsi- lapping distributions in men and women because of bilities and relationships, just as the conception of moral- differential socialization based on gender has been bolstered by ity as justice ties development to the logicof equality and discussions with gay couples who struggle with the same aban- reciprocity (Gilligan, 1982, p. 73). donment/engulfment issues. After reading Gilligan’s book, however, I am no longer quite so sure of my assumption. She Rather than trying to account for the relative “failure” of does not really address the issue of the source of the greater women to reach the “highest” levels of morality, Gilligan sug-

SIECUS Report, November 1983 9 gests that it may be inappropriate to use a construct of moral maintaining their separateness (integrity?), individuation, etc. judgment based on male psychology, test women on this In regard to individuation, this concept as used by Gilligan model, and infer that they are developmentally inferior with is an aspect of male development and moral decision-making. I respect to the bases on which they reach decisions in the moral was surprised that Gilligan did not introduce Jung’s (1959) domain. At this point, her argument is similar to that made by notion of individuation which he felt encompassed the inte- Hyde (1980) who describes the series of studies that led to the gration, by males, of their “feminine” potential and, for interpretation that, compared to men, women lack self- females, of their “masculine” potential into their personalities. confidence. For example, when asked to estimate the number Jung believed that our capacity to engage in this process be- of correct answers they have on an exam they have just taken, gins to emerge during our fourth decade-a point, interest- men give higher estimates than do women. The interpretation ingly, that corresponds to the end of women’s reproductive of inferior female self-confidence, however, was challenged by lifespan. I would like to know if the divergence in the bases of subsequent research that examined the correspondence moral judgments observed by Gilligan among college students between estimated and actual scores. Females’estimates were and people in their twenties begins to converge among people more accurate than were those of males, which could lead to in their forties and beyond. If there have been such studies, I an interpretation that males exaggerate thequality of their own would like to receive references to them. performance, although I think such an interpretation would be Gilligan acknowledges that the volunteers for their premature. research were above average in intelligence and socioeconomic in the area of moral judgment, Cilligan is similarly con- status in this country. They are also members of this country’s cerned with the interpretation of observed gender differences. population, and as such, subject to the attitudes and socializa- She argues that instead of using inferior bases for their moral tion practices of our culture. I would like to see Gilligan’s decisions, women may be using an entirely different perspec- approach applied to members of at least two other groups. tive: First, it would be fascinating to examine the bases of moral In young adulthood, when identity and intimacy con- judgments in Sweden where the teaching of sex education and verge in dilemmas of conflicting commitment, the rela- gender egalitarianism from kindergarten on has been national tionship between self and other is exposed. That this policy since the 1950s. Would we find a convergence in the relationship differs in the experience of men and women bases of moral judgment or a reliance on the perspectives is a steady theme in the literature on human develop- typically found in one or the other genders in our culture, or ment and a finding of my research. From the different the same different voices observed by Gilligan? Research with dynamics of separation and attachment in their gender samples of nonindustrialized populations would also be useful. identity formation through the divergence of identity The environmental constraints of a preliterate, agricultural and intimacy that marks their experience in the adoles- group are such as to emphasize the importance of interde- cent years, male and female voices typically speak of the pendence among people-of relationships. Under these con- importance of different truths, the former of the role of ditions, do men more closely resemble women in our culture separation as it defines and empowers the self, the latter in the bases they use for moral judgments and on the impor- of the ongoing process of attachment that creates and tance attached to friendships and relationships? sustains the human community (Gilligan, 1982, p. 156). This column has become overly long, but I have felt frus- Attachment and separation anchor the cycle of human trated in my inability to do justice to the contribution made by life, describing the biology of human reproduction and Gilligan. I hope that you will read her book, and I hope that the psychology of human development. The concepts of both sets of qualities considered important for moral judg- attachment and separation that depict the nature and ments-justice and independent identity versus caring and sequence of infant development appear in adolescence concern for relationships-can be appropriated by men and as identity and intimacy and then in adulthood as love women alike. As Gilligan (p. 174) says: and work (p. 151). To understand how the tension between responsibilities She may be suggesting an inherent, biologically determined and rights sustains thedialecticof human development is divergence between the genders, rather than a difference to see the integrity of two disparate modes of experience based on learned gender roles. I cannot tell, but I began to that are in the end connected. While an ethic of justice wonder about the accuracy of my own assumptions about the proceeds from the premise of equality-that everyone effects of gender socialization and the abandonment/engulf- should be treated the same-an ethic of care restson the ment theme with which many couples grapple. Although Gilli- premise of nonviolence-that no one should be hurt. in gan repeatedly illustrates her perspective with quotes from the the representation of maturity, both perspectives con- people that she and her students havestudied in their research, verge in the realization that just as inequality adversely she appropriately acknowledges that their samples were affects both parties in an unequal relationship, so too neither large nor selected to represent any larger population. violence is destructive for everyone involved. This dia- Throughout this column, I have clearly operated on the logue between fairness and care not only provides a assumption that attachment concerns are more the province of better understanding of relations between the sexes but women, and concerns with separation are more of an aspect of also gives rise to a more comprehensive portrayal of adult maleness, and Gilligan implies the same assumption. I would work and family relationships. like to see this assumption tested with large random samples of males-and females at different points across the lifespan by References asking them: to indicate the extent to which they feel concern Belenky, M. F., & Cilligan, C. Impact ofabortion decisions on moralde- and devote time and energy to issues relevant to their intimate velopment and life circumstance. Paper presented at the meeting relationships, friendships, etc., and then contrast this to their of the American Psychological Association, New York, September, concerns around issues involving individual development, 1979.

10 SIECUS Report, November 1983 Freud, S., The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Jung, C. G. The archetypes and the collective unconscious. In H. Read, Sigmund Freud. Translated and edited by J. Strachey. London: The M. Fordham, & C. Adler (Eds.), The collected works of C. C. lung Hogarth Press, 1961. (Vol. 9). New York: Pantheon Books, 1959. Cilligan, C. In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s Kohlberg, L. Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental devefopment. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. approach to socialization. In D. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook ofsocializa- Goldman, R., &Goldman, J. Children’s sexual thinking. A comparative tion theory and research. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969. study of children aged 5 to 75 years in Australia, North America, Kohlberg, L. Moral stages and moralization: The cognitive- Britain, and Sweden. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan developmental approach. In T. Lickona (Ed.), Moral development Paul, 1982. and behavior: Theory, research, and social issues. New York: Holt, Hyde, J. S., & Rosenberg, B. C., Half the human experience; The Rinehart & Winston, 1976. psychology of women (2nd edition). Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, Miller, M. V., Intimate terrorism. Psychology Today, April 1977, 70, 1980. 79-80, 82.

Boys Will BeGirls: The Hidden World of the Heterosexual Male Transvestite (1982), a 106-page book by John T. Talamini, con- iDovoU KNOW THAT.. . tains six chapters covering the following topics: cross-cultural views of transvestism; motivations for cross-dressing and man- Resources to Write for . . . agement of the identity that is stigmatized; transvestites’ rela- tionships with wives and children; the transvestite subculture Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Project: An Educational Pro- in the U.S.; traditional and alternative psychiatric approaches gram for Children (1979) is a 120-page manual by Cordelia A. to transvestism; and androgyny. An extensive bibliography is Kent who also piloted the project of the same name as part of also provided. Single copies sell for $8.00 (paper) and $18.95 her position with Sexual Assault Services in the Hennepin (hardcover), from: University Pressof America, P.O. Box19101, County Attorney’s Office, in collaboration with the Illusion Washington, DC 20036. Theater and the Minneapolis Public Schools. This guidebook outlines procedures, findings, and a curriculum which resulted Sexual Harassment: How to Recognize and Deal With It has from this two-year project.The basic foundation of thecurricu- two major purposes: to help people, especially women, lum is the”Touch Continuum” which was created as a result of become aware of sexual harassment in their work situations; a process in which students, working with professionals, out- and to provide suggestions for creating an environment freeof lined their knowledge about sexual assault and exploitation. such harassment. The author, Mary Fuller, defines and explains The useof this continuum helps students differentiate between sex-related behaviors, analyzing their cause and effect. She touch that is nurturing and caring and touch that is exploitive then discusses an alternative working relationship based on and damaging. To order, send $8.00 (includes postage) to: mutual respect and performance and defines men’s and Sexual Assault Services, Office of Hennepin County Attorney, women’s responsibilities within this framework. This 50-page, C2000 Government Center, Minneapolis, MN 55487. 1982 booklet costs $6.00, plus $1.00 postage and handling, and is available from: Advanced Learning Systems, 13906 Ventura The Media Book: Making the Media Work for Your Grassroots Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423. Group (1981) is a”how-to” manual oriented toward reproduc- tive rights groups and other grassroots groups with low budgets Recommendations for improving legal Intervention in Intra- and small staffs. It focuses on free access media, both print and family Child Sexual Abuse Cases (1982) is a publication of the electronic, in particular on those which provide access to free National Legal Resource Center for Child Advocacy and Pro- speech messages, public service announcements, talk shows, tection, Young Lawyers Division, American Bar Association. It and news reports. Included are sections dealing with planning presents approximately 25 recommendations, each followed for a media project, developing a press list, the press packet, by detailed commentary, with many references to other litera- monitoring the local media, budgets, and evaluatingthe media ture and to legal cases. Written by Josephine Bulckley, this work. Thirty illustrations provide useful examples of a press 57-page report was funded by the National Center on Child packet, drafts of a public service announcement and a news Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN), Department of Health and release, and photos and graphics for press work. To order, send Human Services. To receive a copy, send $5.00 to: American $8.50 (includes postage and handling) to: Committee to Bar Association, 1800 M Street, NW, S-200, Washington, DC Defend Reproductive Rights, Coalition for the Medical Rights 20006. of Women, 1638-B Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117. But Why Didn’t She Use Birth Control?-A New.Approach to Involving Significant Others (1979), written in cooperation with Pregnancy Test Counseling (1981) is a 175-page manual for use the National Abortion Federation, is a step-by-step guide to with clients who are faced with an unwanted pregnancy. Writ- organizing and implementing programs designed to include ten by Ellen Traves, it is designed both as a self-instructional the male partners and other family and friends of patients at tool and as a resource to supplement classroom instruction. abortion clinics. This 50-page booklet contains descriptions of Three general areas are covered: personality structure and programs, and includes pertinent statistics, clinic self- how it affects behavior, motivation for contraceptive risk- assessment data, client feedback, and evaluation models. It also taking, and development of counseling skills. The seven chap- provides suggestions for teaching people the importance of ters include information on planning the interview and political activism in the campaign to uphold the legality of post-abortion counseling, along with case examples. To order abortion. The cost for l-9 copies is $5.00 each; and for 10 or this publication, send $13.00 (includes postage and handling) more, $4.00 each. Order from: Sylvia Hampton, Reproductive to: Planned Parenthood of Rochester and Monroe County, 24 Health Services, 100 N. Euclid Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63108. Windsor Street, Rochester, NY 14605.

SIECUS Report, November 1983 11 DO YOU KNOW THAT ma 1

Resources to Write for . . . Confessions of a Single Father (1982) is authorjames R. Coving- ton’s day-by-day account of how he learned to cope with the Coping With Herpes: The Emotional Problems (1982) is a 25- new challenges involved in being a single parent: finding baby- page booklet written by Vincent B. Greenwood and Robert A. sitters, helping with homework, dealing with illness, while at Bernstein. The authors feel that the portrayal of genital herpes the same time trying to pursue a career and resolve the inevita- in the popular media has often exaggerated its sexual and ble ambivalence growing out of his feelings of love, anger, and moral aspects, thereby fostering feelings of anxiety, guilt, and helplessness. He describes how his son and daughter have shame in herpes patients. The booklet not only identifies spe- dealt with the bewildering changes in their lives and main- cific negative thoughts and feelings, but also offers alternative tained love and respect for both their father and mother with- responses which are both realistic and positive. This self-help out having to choose between them. The author, director of publication was written in cooperation with the American the New York Center for Men, also shares his insights about Social Health Association and the Herpes Resource Center. how traditional male sex roles negatively affect men’s potential Single copies are available for $4.95 (including postage and for marital happiness and personal fulfillment. This book is handling) from: WCCT, P.O. Box39119, Washington, DC 20016. available for $13.95 (plus postage and handling) from: Pilgrim Bulk rates available. Press, 132 West 31st Street, New York, NY 10001.

Sexuality and the Rheumatic Diseases: An Annotated Bibliog- Facts and Reflections on Female Adolescent Sexuality and raphy 1970-1982 is a 20-page listing compiled from the data What Do We Know About Girls? are two 1982 publications of bases maintained by the Arthritis Information Clearinghouse Girls Clubs of America. Facts and Reflections, a 24-page book- and the National Library of Medicine. It is divided into profes- let, summarizes for practitioners what is currently known about sional and patient education materials, and there are title and the biology and the social context of female adolescent sexual- subject indexes. Copies are available at no cost from: Arthritis ity. Girls Clubs policies and programs on this topic are also Information Clearinghouse, P.O. Box 9782, Arlington, VA spelled outWhat Do We Know About Girls! presents the pro- 22209. ceedings of a 1982 seminar held in Cambridge,Mass., to enable researchers and practitioners to compare notes on their Beliefs of Indiana Public School Policy Makers on the Role of answers to the question posed in the title. Among the presenta- the School in Education About Sexuality: Its Responsibility, Its tions included are: “Becoming a Woman: The Meaning of Quality, Its Direction (1982) is a 46-page study undertaken in Menstruation for Adolescent Girls,” “Girls Learn to Be Girls: order to compare the beliefs as cited in the titlewith those held Gender Role Flexibility and the Family,” and “Adolescent by the public at large, as determined by a variety of polls over Development Within the Context of the Family.” This 29-page the past 15 years. The study was initially proposed as a meansof booklet is available for $4.95 and FactsandReflections for$3.75 testing the theory that one of the reasons for schools’ being (prices include postage and handling) from: Girls Clubs of slow in accepting responsibility for providing sex education has America, National Resource Center, 441 West Michigan Street, been opposition on the part of the policy makers involved. Indianapolis, IN 46202. However, this theory did not hold up since 82% of the 616 school superintendents and board members who responded Early Adolescent Sexuality: Resources for Parents, Profession- approve of sex instruction in their schools. To order the als, and Young People (1983) is a 32-page publication of The detailed summary of this very interesting study, send $3.50 to: Center for Early Adolescence. The first section presents a series David C. Marini, Center for Sexuality Education, Department of bibliographies of: general reading materials, journals, and of Physiology and Health Science, Ball State University, Mun- periodicals for parents and professionals; training materials, cie, IN 47306. curricula, and films for use by professionals; and fiction and nonfiction for pre-adolescents and early adolescents. The book- Child Sexual Abuse in the Family: A Review of Trends in the let concludes with an article by Joan Lipsitz entitled “Sexual literature with an addendum on The Incest Taboo: Some The- Development of Young Adolescents.” Copies are available for ories is a 1982 publication by Sarah Lawton-Speert and Andy $3.50 (includes $1.00 p/h) from: The Center for Early Adoles- Wachtel. This 65-page working paper reviews trends in the cence, Suite 223, Carr Mill Mall, Carrboro, NC 27510. analysis of child sexual abuse from the early decades of this century to the present. Two changes are particularly notable: Sexually Transmissible Diseases: The Facts (Stock #1606), Ceni- first, the reversal in the perceived importance of incest from tal Herpes: Questions and Answers (#1649), and The Condom uncommon and atypical to being the prototypical form of child (#1550) are a trio of new brochures published by the Planned sexual abuse; second, the shift of focus from the nature of the Parenthood Federation of America in 1982 and 1983. A single abuser to the broader pattern of family dynamics. The adden- copy of any of the three costs 5Oq, and bulk prices are: $18 for dum discusses the often misunderstood nature of the incest IOOand $140for 1,OOOof #1606; $15for IOOand $120for1,000of taboo. To order, send $4.50 (includes postage and handling) to: #1649; and $10 for 100 and $85 for 1,000 of #1550. Send orders Social Planning and Research, United Way of the Lower Main- to: Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 810 Seventh land, 1625 West 8th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V6J lT9, Canada. Avenue, New York, NY 10019.

12 SIECUS Report, November 1983 1I AUDIO-VISUAL REVIEWS 1

Beginning with this issue, a new format tant than the urgency of making a deci- The panel was unanimous in its nega- will be used for the audio-visual reviews. sion about having sexual intercourse. tive reaction to Informed Consent In the May-July 1983 S/ECUS Report, Rick and Leslie are shown in the weeks which left everyone with the impression Deryck Calderwood, who has served as that follow a confusing night of almost that it was a “propaganda” film designed the reviewer for this section over the “doing it.” Leslie, who is hesitant about to shock the viewer into a highly emo- past several years, announced his retire- becoming sexually active, discovers tional negative reaction toward circum- ment from this responsibility, stating: what she is comfortable with and asserts cision. This is accomplished very ef- “For some time I have been promoting herself in sharing her feelings with Rick. fectively through the constant focus of the advantages of having film reviews He, in turn, realizes that their fighting the camera on an incessantly wailing done by a panel of persons involved in about sex, breaking up briefly, and baby who is undergoing whatappears to education at various age levels and in being apart are not what he wants. be a rather gory procedure. Simultane- various educational settings. A group Throughout the film, Leslie and Rick ously, a voice-over presents information consensus-or a majority and minority are shown interacting with each other, about circumcision which the viewer report-will, I believe, be more effective peers, siblings, and parents, and the can barely assimilate because of the and unbiased than the reactions of a sin- panel members felt that the film does a overwhelmingly unpleasant visual and gle individual.” good job of encouraging communica- audio stimuli with which the narrator is Such a panel of reviewers has now tion on all of these levels. They agreed competing. been assembled and the audio-visual that a scene which takes place between The Circumcision Question, which reviews will henceforth reflect their col- Rick and his mother is an unusually good actually presents much of the same lective opinion. Since their attendance model of parent-child communication information, also takes an anti-circumci- will vary from meeting to meeting, the about sex. Overall the review panel felt sion point of view (except as a religious list of the people involved in reviewing that First Things First does a fine job of tradition) and shows the procedure tak- the films will also vary from issue to portraying the issues involved in adoles- ing place. By contrast, however, the issue. The reviews below, which repre- cent sexual decision-making and that it approach here is humanized, presents sent the views of the first panel, have would work well as a discussion starter. both sides of the issue, and emphasizes been compiled and summarized by White, middle-class audiences would be that making the decision about whether Leigh Hallingby, SIECUS Librarian. most appropriate. ET, LT, P, PR to circumcise or not is ultimately the par- ents’ prerogative. Also the focus in this Audio-visual review panel members film is not on the operation itself; there for this issue: Carmen Reyes Aviles, are many scenes of children playing, MSEd, S/ECUS Parent Project; Patti 0. The Circumcision Question. 1983, 16 Britton, Planned Parenthood Federation mm or video, color, I5 min. Purchase, being bathed, and interacting with their of America; lose Cartagena, MS, SIECUS $295; rental, $50. Perennial Education, families. Dr. Benjamin Speck appears on Parent Project; Andrea Eschen, graduate 477 Roger Williams, P.O. Box 855 Ravi- camera to discuss his own change of student at New York University in Inter- nia, Highland Park, IL 60035; (312) 433- mind from pro to con on the question of circumcision. An excellent film for national Public Health and graduate 1610. assistant in the S/ECUS Library; Leigh Informed Consent. 1982, video, color, 10 expectant parents, it presents non- Hallingby, MSW, MS, S/ECUS Librarian; min. Purchase, $135; rental, $35. Informed circumcision as a viable social and medi- and Valerie Pinhas, PhD, Associate Pro- Consent, P.O. Box 493, Forest Knolls, CA cal option for their male children and fessor of Health Education, Nassau Com- 94933. will promote rational discussion with munity College. other viewers, family members, and phy- These two films reflect the new con- sicians about the issues it raises. A, P, PR sciousness on the part of many Ameri- First Things First. 1983, 16 mm or video, cans that circumcision is, in the words of Edward Wallerstein (author of Circumci- color, 30 min. Purchase, $485; rental, Sexuality: A Woman’s View. 1981,16 mm sion: An American Health Fallacy), a $48. Bill Wadsworth Productions, 1913 or video, color, 30 min. Purchase, $430 “solution in search of a problem.” Back West 37th, Austin, TX 78731; (512) 478- (16 mm), $250 (video); rental, $57. Multi in 1975, the American Academy of Pedi- 2971. Media Resource Center, 1525 Franklin atrics appointed a Task Force on Circum- Street, San Francisco, CA 94109; (415) The title of this film refers to an ado- cision which concluded: “There is no 673-5100. lescent couple’s coming to terms with valid medical indication for circumci- their priorities: They decide that caring sion in the newborn period.” Three The few positive comments the panel for each other and being sensitive to years later the American College of members were able to make about this each other’s feelings are more impor- Obstetricians endorsed this position. film can be summarized by pointing out

Audience Level Indicators: C-Children (elementary grades), ET-Early teens (junior high), LT-Late teens (senior high), A-College, general adult public, P-Parents, PR-Professionals.

SIECUS Report, November 1983 13 that the-production values are excellent things at once, it ends up doing neither affect the relationships between men and that it does raise important issues particularly well. There are other (and and women, as well as the images men about female sexuality for thought and better) films about adolescent sexual and women have of themselves and of discussion. However, a sampling of the decision-making, but there is not yet a each other? What is the relationship negative comments will show why the good documentary describing the work between the women’s movement and panel agreed that professionals in the of teen life theater groups. ET, LT, A, P, the growth of the pornography business sexuality field can find far better ways to PR (now estimated at $5 billion per year)? stimulate consciousness-raising about Can more widespread pornography these issues: “Hollywood hype,““narra- create an atmosphere of desensitization tor as sex object,” “patronizing,” “hete- Not a love Story: A Film About Pornog- to violence? Also, the fact that this film rosexist, ” “embarrassing and trite,” and raphy. 1983, 16 mm or video, color, 68 reflects an unabashedly feminist point of “simplistic, unhelpful view of male sexu- min. Purchase, $825 (16 mm), $450 view raises many possibilities for discus- ality throughout.” Therefore, this film is (video); rental, $80. National Film Board sion about feminist philosophy and po- not recommended for any group. of Canada, 1251 Avenue of the Ameri- litical activism. cas, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10020- The panel was unanimous in its feeling 1173; (212) 586-5131. that any viewer would be engaged and TNT (Teens ‘n Theater). 1981,16 mm or moved by Not a Love Story and that it This unusually complex and thought- video, color, 28 min. Purchase, $370 (16 would be a fine educational tool for use provoking film follows the film-maker mm), $250 (video); rental, $50. Multi with any group of people college age or Bonnie Sherr Klein and Linda Lee Tra- Media Resource Center, 1525 Franklin above to interest them in examining the cey, a Montreal stripper, as they set out Street, San Francisco, CA 94109; (415) many facets of this extremely controver- together to explore the world of erotic 673-5100. sial topic. A, PR magazines, peep shows, strip joints, and The actual TNT shown in this film is sex supermarkets. There are frank inter- one of the teen life theater groups that views with female and male producers, have sprung up around the country. This directors, publishers, photographers, Looking for love. 1982,16 mm or video, particular one is based in California and models, and live performers. There are color, 30 min. Purchase, $300 (16 mm), is composed mostly of minority-group also talks with such prominent feminist $150 (video). Educational Consortium adolescents. The troop develops skits on critics of pornography as Kate Millett, for Cable, 24 Beechwood Road, Summit, issues of importance to them (many Robin Morgan, Kathleen Barry, and NJ 07901; (201) 277-2870. involving sexual concerns), performs a Susan Griffin. series of these skits for an audience, and The only type of pornography exam- In this poignant documentary several then joins the spectators for a follow-up ined is basically oriented toward hetero- teenage mothers and mothers-to-be, as discussion. sexual men, and the visual images well as their own mothers and one teen- The film TNT mixes theater and life. It include everything from the most com- age father, speak about how the preg- is partly a documentary about the real mon billboard ads to the most violent nancies have affected their lives. The TNT and partly a fictional account of off- portrayals of women being killed. One young women, almost all of whom are stage relationships between group of the especially noteworthy aspects of black or Hispanic, are insightful in artic- members who must make decisions the film is an interview with a group of ulating their anger toward their babies, about sexual involvement. Reactions of men who are against pornography. One their mothers, and the fathers of their panel members varied considerably- of the few criticisms the panel had of the children. The panel agreed that the film from “contrived, stilted, not believable” film, however, is that male consumers of was especially strong in dealing with the to “upbeat, current, will keep interest.” pornography are not interviewed. . intense mother-daughter conflict that However, the majority reaction was that Not a Love Story raises unanswered can result from teenage pregnancy but the film would have been much more questions that could provide endless felt that it would have been strength- effective if it had left out the fictional fodder for discussion: Where does one ened by additional focus on the male’s account and concentrated on the docu- draw the line between erotica and por- role. mentary format. By attempting to do two nography? How does pornography For the most part the panel felt that, in comparison to other films on adolescent Serving the educotlonal medic needs parenthood, this is one of the best and In the Flaid OF human sexuol~t~ that much of its power comes from the fact that the people in it have “been IDnnllnl U fiNN~IlNC C there” and are not actors. However, the panel also challenged the approach of using films which concentrate on the ONE CRll-ONE ORDER negative aspects of teen pregnancy as a FOA GENERAL INFORMATION CACC OR UJAITE way of preventing other teens from fol- ANY OF THE FOCCOUJlNG OFFICES: lowing the same course. Questions were Focus International, Inc. The Akron Sex Forum raised about whether the same discus- 1545 f ronklin St. 333 UJest 52nd St. 3i200 West Morket St. sion topics evoked by this type of film San Francisco. CA 94109 New York. NY 10019 Suite 104, Akron. OH 44313-3355 might not be as effectively (and certainly (415) 673-5100 (212) 586-8612 (216) 067-6644 much less expensively) elicited simply TO PLRCE FILM ORDERS ONLY -CR11 800-821-0514 through encouraging people to share (not Caltfornla) their life experiences. ET, LT, A, P, PR

14 SIECUS Report, November 1983 r I 1BOOK REVIEWS

Am I Normal? An Illustrated Guide to of all ages-men and women-mastur- function!); the science teacher, who has Your Changing Body. Jeanne Betan- bate. They do it because it gives them intercepted her note to a friend in which court. New York: Avon Books, 1983 (85 pleasure and relaxes them. It is also a Janie asks whether she can still go to gym pp.; $1.95). way of getting to know their bodies and even with her period (yes, it began), feeling good about them. Other people takes this opportunity to talk to the Dear Diary. An illustrated Guide to Your may not enjoy it, or find it against their whole class about menstruation; and Changing Body. Jeanne Betancourt. principles. Masturbation is a private act she and her mother together find a book New York: Avon Books, 1983 (100 pp.; and a private decision. It is normal if you that explains various aspects of sexual $1.95). do it. And also normal if you don’t.” functioning (including much the same The book concludes with Jimmy’s message about masturbation as in Am I Reviewed by Robert Selverstone, PhD, sharing his new-found information with Normal?). To its particular credit, it also teacher of sex education, Westport, his friends (of both sexes and various mentions what few other books do-the Corm.; psychologist in private practice; racial and ethnic groups). The applause normalcy of avaginal discharge as much Chairperson, SIECUS Report Editorial his peroration receives from peers and as one year prior to menarche. All in all, Board; President, SIECCONN. adults alike seems to support his search it is a good book, emphasizing the nor- Am I Normal! and Dear Diary are the for information and the importance of malcy of different rates of development two delightful paperback books which talking honestly-both about sexual and the importance of having good feel- grew out of the deservedly praised films matters and about feelings. ings about oneself. of the same names. They are excellent Dear Diary chronicles two weeks in Both of these books will appeal to a introductory “guides to your changing the life of Janie (though sometimes she broad audience. The characters are body” for pre- and early adolescents. thinks that “Jane” sounds more grown appealing and the reader can easily The publisher suggests them for 9-14 up), during which she frets about not identify with them. A few modifications year-olds, thus reflecting the widechro- being as physically or socially mature as might be considered for second edi- nological age-range within which the her closest friends (she has yet to get her tions. For example, while the Am I Nor- physical, emotional, and social issues of period, she has small breasts of unequal mal! explanation of masturbation in- puberty can appear. Each book speaks size, does not enjoy kissing games, etc.). cludes both orgasm and ejaculation, the compassionately, humorously, and with In a reassuring unfolding, Janie comes to discussion of a wet dream mentions only understanding to the growing-up con- understand the normalcy of her body the ejaculation without reference to an cerns of young people. I would like to and her own internal time clock. Facts of orgasm. More importantly, while the see them made widely available in life are shared with her by a thoughtful difference between sperm and semen is homes, schools, libraries, and pediatri- science teacher, a track coach, a bras- clearly shown in a diagram (and the cians’ offices. Like the films, the books siere saleswoman, and her own mother. accompanying discussion even des- can also offer to parents and teachers In diary entries with which most young cribes how the sphincter closes to pre- valuable insights into the concerns of adolescents can identify, she wonders: vent the release of urine during ejacula- pre- and early teens. “I want to know what’s going on-and tion), the role of sperm in reproduction In Am I Norma/? we follow Jimmy’s not going on-in my body.” “Do you is not mentioned at all. In Dear Diary the efforts to learn the truth about his own think I’ll ever grow up?” “IS something author neglects to introduce the word sexual development-data that is not wrong with me?” vulva anywhere in the book-the dia- readily available due to his friends’ bra- Her more socially advanced friends try grams and text focus on the clitoris and vado and his father’s reticence. He even- to teach her how to kiss (using a “smile vagina as the centers of sexual feeling. tually gets straight answers from a library pillow”) and how to meet boys, though And while the book admirably keeps the book, his school nurse, and a friendly neither activity interests her particularly physical, emotional, and social develop- adult-“a nice guy who knows all kinds at that point. But for the answers to her ment of girls as its main focus, it does of interesting stuff about animals.” From more pressing concerns she gets assist- seem as though there could have been them, he learns about erections, noctur- ance from adult sources: The brassiere some mention of sexual intercourse nal emissions, penis size, and masturba- saleswoman reassures her that most beyond “If the egg meets a male sperm tion. And, most importantly, at each step breasts grow.at different rates, and that while it is traveling [in the fallopian of his education he reaches the reassur- big and small are all fine (though this tube], it is fertilized.” How did the sperm ing conclusion that “normal” is an inclu- reviewer feels it would have been nice get there? sive rather than an exclusive category. also to call attention to the fact that These are certainly fine books to help He learns, for example: “Many people breasts have other than an ornamental young people learn about their sexual

Audience Level Indicators: C-Children (elementary grades), ET-Early teens (junior high), LT-Late teens (senior high), A-Cdllege, general adult public, P-Parents, PR-Professionals.

SIECUS Report, November 1983 15 development-but if we are all doing programs as a cause or consequence of zation, and policy implications. Shecites our jobs, more will continue to appear teenage parenthood. several examples of how specific confer- so that more and more questions can be In discussing the causes of adolescent ence findings can be translated into reassuringly answered. C, ET, P, PR childbearing, the authors present fac- practical activity. tors associated with: the participation of The book’s 27 chapters revolve teenagers in coitus; contraceptive around several additional themes: the behaviors; and decisions regarding paucity of research data on menarche, Private Crisis, Public Cost: Policy Per- pregnancy resolution. The book then particularly before 1970; new evidence spectives on Teenage Childbearing. suggests intervention strategies, with an that menarche plays a positive integrat- Kristin A. Moore and Martha R. Burt. emphasjs on early prevention through ing role in a girl’s development; a col- Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, sex education, family planning, and lage of attitudes which point to a 1982 (166 pp.; $11.00). enhanced educational/occupational distinctly American view of menarche opportunities. and menstruation; and compelling Reviewed by Catherine 5. Chilman, Human services professionals in direct proof that menstrual cramps and other PhD, Schoof of Social Welfare, Univer- practice, as well as those in policy posi- physical discomforts (known clinicallyas sity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwau- tions, will find many valuable ideas in dysmenorrhea) are neither psychomatic kee, Wis.; author of Adolescent Sexuality these carefully developed recommen- nor pathological, nor are they restricted in a Changing Society (lohn Wiley & dations. Researchers will welcome the to post-adolescents. On the first theme, Sons, 2nd ed., 7983). expert summary of past studies along there exists an apparent irony. Although This book makes an important contribu- with suggestions for further investiga- nearly every presenter posited a lack of tion to the growing literature on adoles- tions. PR research in the field, nearly every pre- cent pregnancy and childbearing. It is senter also cited a substantial body of outstanding in its expert analytic sum- existing data to support his or her cur- mary of large bodies of relevant research. rent work. In addition, the presence at So-called consequences of adolescent Menarche. Sharon Colub, ed. Lexing- one conference of at least 25 researchers childbearing are presented as: early ter- ton, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1983 (352 who are currently studying menarche mination of education, forced marriage pp.; $29.95). and menstruation would seem to belie and subsequent divorce, large family the very situation they decried. In fact, Reviewed by lane Quinn, ACSW, Direc- size, lower vocational achievement, there appears to be a substantial number tor of Program Services, Girls Clubs of greater tendency to be welfare-de- of excellent research studies on America; member, S/ECUS Board of pendent, and the stronger likelihood for menarche, and readers can rejoice that Directors. children of teenage mothers to have they are collected in one place. One can developmental deficits. Menarche is a fascinating, informative surmise that this trend is a recent one, My own analysis of the relevant book with a surprisingly broad scope. since very few studies before 1965 are research leads to a somewhat different Based on the proceedings of a 1981 con- cited. conclusion (Chilman, 1983). It is an error ference co-sponsored by Tampax, Inc., And there is more good news. The to interpret associations between varia- the Society for Menstrual Cycle Educa- second theme-that menarche can play bles as necessarily showing consequen- tion, and the College of New Rochelle, a positive integrating role in a girl’s ces of a behavior. For instance, research this new book considers seven aspects of development-is highlighted in several shows that teenagers who engage in the’onset of menstruation: sociological, chapters, nowhere better than in the early coitus, who fail to consistently use psychological, educational, sexual, liter- one by Jill Rierden of the Wellesley Col- adequate contraceptives, who do not ary, clinical, and physiological. Of par- lege Center for Women. Rierden cites choose abortion to resolve pregnancies, ticular note to readers of the S/ECUS the work of Kestenberg (1967) and oth- and who bear the child outside of mar- Report is the fact that the educational ers, which describes menarche as a riage are more apt than other teenagers implications of the reported research “normative developmental crisis, with to come from low-income, female- are woven into the fabric of the entire favorable resolution of this crisis entail- headed, welfare-dependent, minority text, rather than being dealt with as an ing a more mature and integrated sense group families. So-called outcomes of appended chapter, as so often happens of self as female.” She goes on to report early childbearing may often be more in such compendium-type books. her own research team’s findings-that fundamentally outcomes of long-term Another refreshing change is Mary adequate preparation for menarche poverty and racism rather than youthful Brown Parlee’s chapter on “Future does have a positive impact on girls’ childbearing per se. Although it is Directions for Research,” which comes experience of the event and on their important to help adolescents prevent in the book’s Epilogue. Instead of offer- resolution of the “developmental crisis” early childbearing, it is even more ing the usual catalog of unanswered that menarche brings. What is particu- important to support policies aimed at questions, the author exhorts confer- larly useful about Rierden’s chapter is the resolution of such basic problems as ence participants (and presumably other that she reports on what her subjects unemployment, inadequate income, researchers) to consider how to move (college students) believe to be ade- poor schools, racism, and the like- their present findings beyond the quate preparation for menarche: infor- topics to which the authors pay rather domain of the research community. She mation about the physiology of menstru- inadequate attention. presents a sound analysis on this impor- ation; menstrual hygiene; the unique- The various forms of pregnancy reso- tant issue of bridging the gap between ness and variety of menstrual experi- lution are discussed (marriage, abortion, research and practice, noting that there ence; and the normality (including such adoption, and non-marital childbear- are three general directions of this out- factors as girls’ambivalenceabout it,dis- ing), as well as issues regarding welfare ward movement: application, populari- cussion of their common fears and

16 SIECUS Report, November 1983 embarrassments, and clarification that cramps are “all in her head.” Equally graph. Not only do these letters ask menstruation does not connote disease, important are the findings of Jeanne clear, concise questions, but they ask injury, and uncleanliness). Rierden’s Brooks-Gunn and Diane N. Ruble on them in polished English and in a con- subjects also stress the importance of dysmenorrhea: that three quarters of sistent style. Although the authors do educating mothers about their role as the adolescents and college students in admit in the preface that the correspon- menstruation educators, since effective their large sample had experienced dence had been altered, I still felt the preparation cannot be accomplished menstrual cramps; that two-thirds had urge to find my red pen and.write “con- through educational materials alone. experienced premenstrual cramps; and trived” diagonally across the cover. “Many women emphasized a girl’s that one-half of the elementary and ju- Back to the content. Dr. Lauersen need for support and reassurance at the nior high school girls in their surv:y re- states in the first chapter that doctors are time of menarche, and many referred ported experiencing cramps at menarche. not gods. He then goes on to make some specifically to the importance of an Editor Golub is to be commended, not gospel-like statements which are clearly informed, understanding, and accept- only for having convened a group of his opinion. Let me give you three exam- ing mother.” Yet, Rierden notes, inter- such solid researchers, but also for pro- ples. “Tubal sterilization should only be views with mothers of adolescent girls viding an insightful summary of their performed on women in their later thir- indicate that most mothers are poorly reports. Her excellent concluding chap- ties or forties . . .” This is clearly insulting prepared to act as informed, supportive ter underscores the book’s most impor- to the 29-year-old who has made a models for their daughters. tant points and integrates the diverse mature, well-thought-out decision to Several authors point to a uniquely approaches of the interdisciplinary team have her tubes tied. Yes, it’s true that American view of menarche and men- of presenters. I could not agree more some young women change their minds struation, noting our culture’s many with her charge that “these research after the procedure is performed, but so taboos against discussing menstruation findings must be disseminated and used do some women in their late 30s and or celebrating its onset, as many other to improve women’s lives.” PR early 40s. societies do. Vera J. Milow presents a “A diaphragm is only recommended variety of findings from the 1981 Tampax for a young woman who is extremely Report, noting, for example, that two- familiar with her body and is unafraid to thirds of the respondents believed men- listen to Your Body: A Gynecologist explore herself internally. Most teenag- struation should not be discussed in the Answers Women’s Most Intimate Ques- ers do not know their body well, nor are office or socially, and that one-third tions. Niels Lauerson, with Eileen Stu- they usually disciplined enough to insert thought it an unacceptable topic even kane. New York: Simon and Schuster, a diaphragm when passion is driving for a family at home. Karen Ericksen 1982 (513 pp.; $9.95). them to action.” This is quite a general- ization-definitely a personal opinion, Paige’s chapter on cross-cultural pat- Reviewed by Martin Weisberg, MD, and one that I don’t share. In fact, teach- terns in relation to menarche and chastity Assistant Professor, Obstetrics and Cyne- ing a young woman how to use a diaph- control provides some of the book’s cology and Psychiatry, Thomas leffer- most fascinating reading. And Sharon ragm properly is one of the best ways to son University, Philadelphia, Pa. Golub should win an award for her help her get familiar with her body. observation concerning contemporary Listen to Your Body is a good book. It “Recent research has indicated that American parents’ increasing tendency discusses many contemporary topics in currently available low-dose birth con- to celebrate their daughters’ menarche: the area of women’s health and the trol pills do not cause cancer or any information it provides is, ,for the most other harmful side-effects as long as I am currently studying recollections part, current, well chosen, and clearly they contain less than 50 micrograms of of menarche and some of the most written. The chapters cover such things estrogen.” Okay, we know that pills positive memories reported are those as how to find a competent physician, don’t cause cancer and may even help of girls whose parents sent them menstrual cramps, pre-menstrual syn- prevent some types of the disease, but- flowers, took them out to dinner, or drome, toxic shock syndrome, infertil- no other harmful side-effects? Even if gave them a gift, thereby recognizing ity, contraception, endometriosis, Dr. Laurensen believes this to be true, their new status. More primitive cul- sexually transmitted diseases, and there are certainly many, many others tures than ours have puberty rights. surgery. It is obvious that Dr. Laurensen who worry about blood clots, migraines, Perhaps all of the secrecy that en- is a good doctor who is warm and caring heart problems, blood pressure eleva- shrouds menarche-our increase in and, an important point,on the patient’s tions, and a myriad of other side-effects so-called civilization-has caused us side. associated with the pill. In a book like to lose something. I could continueto list all of the wond- this, both sides should be presented. The fourth theme-the normality of erful things this book contains but, as There are many other instances of menstrual “pathology”-is a welcome critics are known to do, I have chosen to reporting only half of the story. The sec- addition to the professional literature discuss some things that I did not like tion on thermography is a good exam- and will only serve to confirm scientifi- about the book. ple. There is certainly a lot to be said for a cally what has been known for years by I know I should be talking more about method of screening for breast cancer the 50% of women who suffer some content than style, but I’ve always been which does not require radiation, but the form of dysmenorrhea. W. Y. Chan’s fascinated with “question and answer” use of thermography as a screening chapter on the role of prostaglandins in books. Each topic in this book is dis- method is very controversial at best. primary dysmenorrhea, and his clear cussed very completely, in a very well- Many experts feel that it ii useless or, explanation of new pharmaceutical organized manner. It amazes me, worse, that it may create a false sense of therapies, should end forever any however, that there just happens to be a security in some instances. In any case, debate on whether or not menstrual perfect letter to precede every para- the book’s readers assuredly deserve a

SIECUS Report, November 1983 17 thorough discussion of this technique. of potential fathering, but for a woman speaks to the differences between the Lest you leave this review with the the act of sexual pleasure is not neces- sexes, not to their inferiority or superior- feeling that l didn’t like the book, please sarily an act of potential mothering. ity. A, PR remember that I found only a few para- It is the premise of Rocking the Cradle graphs to complain about in a 588-page that motherhood is a peculiarly female text. I actually liked the book a great phenomenon which has no natural deal, and l shall put it in my waiting room dependence on a heterosexual lifestyle. The Sensuous lie. Celia Haddon. New along with Our Bodies, Ourselves, and The children of lesbian mothers are liv- York: Stein and Day, 1982 (225 pp.; Womancare by Madaras and Patterson. ing proof of this and, despite common $16.95). Thank you, Dr. Lauersen (and Eileen Stu- prejudice to the contrary, they do not Reviewed by Gary F. Kelly, Headmaster, kane). You’ve done a lot for the field of exhibit any significant differences from The Clarkson School and Director, Stu- gynecology and for women’s health. A, children raised in heterosexual families. dent Development Center, Clarkson PR Rocking the Cradle is an eminently College, Potsdam, N. Y.; Editor, Journal of readable book with numerous sensitive Sex Education and Therapy. examples of both the “pride and the pain” of being different-for different a The Sensuous lie is another addition to Rocking the Cradle-lesbian Mothers: lesbian mother is. There are beautiful the current spate of books decrying the A Challenge in Family living. Cillian E. descriptions of how lesbians develop sexual myths, pressures, and problems Hanscombe and Jackie Forster. Boston: both their need for a loving relationship created by changing sexual values in Alyson Publications, 1982 (153 pp.; in one area of their lives, and their desire recent decades. It is a lengthy essay on $5.95). for children in another. the perils of buying too heavily into what Those people who believe that the the author calls the “new sexual ortho- Reviewed by Audrey 1. Steinhorn, CSW, only natural reason for human sexuali- doxy,” which-in her opinion-puts far Chairperson, Study Group on Homosex- ty’s existence at all is the reproduction of too much emphasis on the importance uality, American OrthopsychiatricAsso- the species might have difficulty with of sex in human life. ciation; clinical social worker in private some of the ideas presented in this This is primarily a scholarly book that practice of psychotherapy. book. For not only does it cover all the traces the evolution of sexual values by “Are lesbian mothers proper lesbians?” aforementioned, but it also introduces examining a few of the significant sex According to Cillian Hanscombe and the reader to the art of artificial insemi- researchers (Havelock Ellis, Kinsey, Mas- Jackie Forster it’s time we looked-with nation by donor-a practice which is ters and Johnson) and sex manuals. Had- their well-informed assistance-at what neither against the law in Britain nor dis- don uses rational arguments to attack feminine sexuality is all about and how approved of by the British Medical Asso- our currently predominating sexual much it is mixed up with having or not ciation. The authors describe the use of values built around the idea that sex is having children. The authors take us not this alternative, pointing out that it fun, natural, and healthy. She argues only on a trip through England and offers the possibility of separating the instead that these are superficial atti- Wales to meet lesbian mothers and their need for sexual relations from the need tudes that ignore the complexity and children, but also on a journey to for family, as well as providing a way to potentially negative effects of overem- explore some modern conceptions and achieve pregnancy tiithout the compli- phasis on things sexual. The book is well misconceptions about love, sex, mar- cations of marriage or the unpleasant- written and reasonably well researched. riage, and childbearing. ness of casual heterosexual encounters. Yet it left me asking, “So what’s new?” Western’s society’s obsession with the Although some of the language may Haddon has a strong and valid mes- nuclear family, which excludes all sexual be strange to American ears, there are sage, but it is not at all a startling revela- love relationships except “married heter- more similarities of situations in the tion. She seems surprised that a century osexual monogamy,” does not offer three countries than differences. No of changes in Western sexual values- any chance for personal liberation. The matter how she achieves motherhood, a changes that were often rooted in the authors concisely describe the special lesbian mother is uniquely different hope that making humans more free problem women have of coping with from her heterosexual counterpart: she sexually would somehow make them the double role of wife and mother. A has no assurance (i.e., protection from happier and healthier-created as many woman cannot be two people at once. the law) that, regardless of thequality of problems as were solved. She seems dis- Yet she is expected to be both wife and her mothering, her child will not be gruntled about the application of mother, and this frequently results in taken away from her because of her sex- straightforward scientific methods to her having to choose between her hus- ual preferences. For all readers working the complexities of human sexuality. In band and her children. with actual or potential lesbian mothers her chapter on “Marriage and Sex,” she in clearly defined language, the this book is a rich resource for learning takes 15 pages to prove what any happily authors explain both male and female about the prejudice these women married couple can tell you: The impor- sexuality, pointing out that while for endure and how they cope with it, and tance of sex to happiness in marriage is men, biologically, sex pleasure and the about their pride in themselves and their generally overestimated. Her final chap- reproduction of the species must occur loved ones. ter picks up on the currently popular together, for women this is not the case. One final note: Although this is a theme that celibacy is okay, and that we A woman has a sexual arousal system book about lesbian mothers, it does not should respect and condone it. Who and she has a reproductive system, and present men as irrelevant or inferior. would argue with that? one may be activated independently of The women presented do not hate men It is the naivete of The Sensuous Lie the other. Stated another way, the act of or deny their presence in their own lives that is both its strength and its weakness. sexual pleasure for a man is always an act or in the lives of their children. The book Its basic points are made forcefully, but it

18 SIECUS Report, November 1983 often relies on generalizations to make presented in a refreshingly enthusiastic what makes sex so problematic and pro- those points. For example, in the Intro- style, explains dynamics between cou- vides incentive as well as concrete ways duction she speaks about the situation ples, illustrates communication tech- to begin making changes. For example, for today’s women being “entirely re- niques, and includes current research she illustrates what happens when peo- versed” from that of Victorian women, findings concerning the field of human ple do not say what they mean or feel. with all of our present emphasis on sexuality-such as information on the G She underscores the importance of female orgasmic adequacy. Were it all spot, pheromones, and penile implants. increasing one’s own self-awarenesscon- that simple! She blithely states, without Her insight into human behavior is cerning identifying and then sharing substantiation, that sex manuals “often keenly enhanced by her medical knowl- one’s feelings. She uses a chart to illus- show disapproval of messy contracep- edge, her sensitivity regarding relation- trate replacement phrases in communi- tion.” Instead of recognizing that most ships, her knowledge of socialization, cating with one’s partner, e.g., instead people have already acknowledged the and her caring concern for her patients. of saying “always” or “never,” use “up confusion and conflict of greater sexual Her tone ranges from supportive to to now” or “in the past”; for “you said” freedom, she implies that everyone has challenging, encouraging people to substitute “I heard.” And she includes a blindly adopted a permissive sexual change their sexual patterns from prob- questionnaire on sexual response. ethic. lematic to pleasurable. At times the use Crenshaw also deals with the issue of Although this book offers somestimu- of sarcasm may seem somewhat patron- anger as a deterrent to good sex, lating reading, I can only conclude that it izing or confusing, but the tone on the through helping readers understand the rehashes the obvious. Any intelligent whole is warm and wise. The value of this feelings of fear, frustration, and emo- thinker knows that words such as “fun,” book lies in the encouragement and tional or physical hurt which often pre- “natural,” and “healthy” are not abso- advice it offers to help people make cede or coincide with anger. Once a lutes but values terms, as susceptible to even small changes from which theywill person understands more fully what sociocultural trends as any other values. be able to benefit greatly. s/he is feeling, then it becomes easier to And of course problems are always Crenshaw’s philosophy is essentially: communicate with a partner, and more created by the prevailing sexual values “If you think that your sex life is proble- likely that they will be able to meet each of anyone’s time. Only idealists and matic, then it probably is. Now what can other’s needs. revolutionaries hold tightly to the dream you do to change that?” There is no Although the book is clearly written that change is easy. Since we have trou- blame involved-she suggests only that for the general public, I recommend it to ble accepting sexual individuality, and the readers acknowledge the reality as professionals who want to further their since it does not fit well with the group they see it, and then empowers them to knowledge of couple interaction, the expectations characteristic of human change those patterns. She explains current research on the topic, and addi- societies, human beings will forever be tional ways to help their patients make struggling to fit into contrived sexual their sex lives more satisfying. A, PR molds. The molds in Victorian times fit PROMOTING SEXUAL some well, others not at all. The same may be said for the molds of 1983. RESPONSIBILITY AND I fear that Haddon has missed the PREVENTING Sexual Practices in the Medieval Church. essential point. Whether or not she-or SEXUAL PROBLEMS Vern L. Bullough, James Brundage, et al. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1982 anyone-likes the “new sexual ortho- Edited by George Albee, Sol (289 pp.; $22.95). doxy” is irrelevant. It is that very ortho- Gordon, and Harold Leitenberg doxy that makes sex important and that Reviewed by lames A. Siefkes, MDiv, can make it fun, natural, and healthy for Much has been written on sexuality Director, Mission Discovery, The Ameri- some while making it a disaster for oth- and sexual problems, yet this is the first can Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, ers. Her personal dissatisfaction with book devoted specifically to the pro- Minn.; former member, S/ECUS Board prevailing sexual values would have motion of responsibility and the pre- of Directors. been enhanced by providing some solid vention of these problems. Twenty-five recommendations for coping with them experts provide a useful overview for This book grew out of attempts to inter- or even changing them. A, PR beginners in the fields of sexuality and est medievalists in the study of human sex education, physicians and mental sexuality. Its chief authors are James health professionals, political activists, Brundage, professor of history at the and persons concerned with philo- University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee Bedside Manners: Your Guide to Better sophical, social, and theological issues. (six chapters); and Vern L. Bullough, Sex. Theresa Larsen Crenshaw. New The book results from the seventh dean of the faculty of Natural and Social York: McGraw-Hill, 1983 (300 pp.; Vermont Conference on the Primary Sciences at the State University College $14.95). Prevention of Psychopathology. of New York at Buffalo (seven chapters). The authors of the remaining five chap- Reviewed by judith E. Steinhart, DA, 464 pages. $30.00 ters are all very obviously specialists in Lecturer, Health Science Department, the various aspects of medieval history Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, N. Y. about which they have written. Dr. Crenshaw has written a lively book UNIVERSITY PRESS Although at first glance the book for couples, providing not only sugges- OF NEW ENGLAND appears to be a rather stuffy piece of tions to improve the quality of their sex- 3 Lebanon Street scholarship with 57 pages of more than •l Hanover, NH 03755 ual lives together, but also giving insight 1,200 footnotes attached to its 217 pages into their behavior. Bedside Manners, of content, a careful reading dispels this

SIECUS Report, November 1983 19 initial impression of stuffiness. While the Emperor’s New Clothes,” has exposed all these ideas are worth.” This “expla- authors do not give us a clue about their some terribly oppressive reality behind nation” of the myths is based on success or failure in interesting medi- the apparent facade. It gets at some root unfounded assumptions about the way evalists in the study of human sexuality, I causes of a lot of pain and suffering in our people learn. She assumes that a “smile” would guess that there will be few theol- world as the research in this document will eradicate beliefs which may be ogians, sexologists, or others who will unfolds concerning a wide variety of deeply embedded in a person’s family, read this book without coming away topics such as Christian theory and prac- culture, and religion. Unfortunately, extremely interested in medieval his- tice, celibacy, prostitution, transvestism, people can simply learn to “smile” when tory. For all its first-class scholarship, you homosexuality, Canon law, adultery, they are told that their beliefs are silly. don’t need to be a theologican or a his- rape, and seduction. However, this smile may foster a deep torian to appreciate the impact the book This is a long overdue book. Try it- sense of humiliation, preventing the carries and the self-understanding it you will be glad you did. This reader possibility for real clarification of facts makes possible for those of us who are suspects he will use his copy over and and exploration of fears. This approach products of Western culture. over again. Even if it leaves you uneasy, it merely creates a silence, forcing beliefs The Middle Ages (A.D. 300 to 1500) is a kind of uneasiness that is healthy and to become more private. represent a crucial period of history dur- good for us all. A, PR In some crucial areas of the book ing which many Western attitudes and where the humorous approach is aban- values were shaped and formulated. doned, important factual information is This period also marked the years of the regrettably absent. Chapter 7, “The early church councils, influential church Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex. Ruth Myth of the Fantastic Every Time fathers, and doctrinal formulations Westheimer. New York: Warner Books, Orgasm, ” includes several subsections: which continued right up to the Protest- 1983 (320 pp.; $15.50). “Clitoral versus Vaginal Orgasms”; “The ant Reformation. Not only were cultural Numbers Game”; “An Orgasm is an and religious attitudes and practices Reviewed by lulie Spain, PhD, clinical Orgasm is an Orgasm”; “Quality not established, they were also justified by psychologist in private practice; Adjunct Quantity”; and “How to Have an church fathers such as Saint Paul, Cle- Assistant Professor, Hunter College Orgasm.“None of these sections in- ment of Alexandria, Saint Augustine, and School of Health Sciences, New York, cludes a description of the physiology of N. Y. such critical and formulative church the sexual response. The absence of this councils as the one at Nicea (A.D. 325). While the backbone of Dr. Ruth’s Guide material seems to be based on Westhei- The biblical base from which all of this to Good Sex may seem to be its mer’s belief that all women who have has come may indeed be biblical, but commonsense approach to the sexuality orgasms just simply know that they are certainly everything was also subject to movement, the book has the potential having orgasms. She begins the chapter the selective literalism and interpreta- for generating a harmful impact which by describing a male who called into her tion of the “powers that be” at the time goes beyond its good advice. The basic radio show, “Sexually Speaking,” to find of their shaping. The book points out advice offered here by Dr. Westheimer out how he could help his wife under- that these medieval attitudes were mod- is sometimes helpful and thoughtful and stand whether she had had orgasms. ified and amplified by Canon lawyers at other times benign and amusing. She Westheimer’s response to him was: “It who incorporated them into their law often places people’s sexual experien- sounds to me that she probably does not codes. Ultimately these religious laws ces within the context of their interper- have an orgasm. Otherwise, she would became not only part of the civil law, but sonal relationships and encourages not ask such questions. She would know also part of our general cultural inher- good communication and respect. that she had an orgasm.” My experience itance. However, in the long run, she perpetu- as a psychotherapist and teacher of The book is a first to take a holistic ates many of the very problems she sets human sexuality indicates that this is not look at what these medieval theolo- out to eradicate. true. The absence of factual information gians, philosophers, Canon lawyers, One of these problems is people’s about the sexual response prevents scientists, and humanists had to say dependence on myths and their diffi- some women from actually knowing the about sexuality. When you put it all culty in requesting information to clarify terminology which correctly describes together, the implications must betaken these myths. Westheimer’s humor their physiological and emotional seriously. Honest biblical scholars must sometimes does reduce the reader’s experiences. give a bow to this critical study. Most anxiety and provide relief; often, how- A second problem perpetuated by traditional theologians will be pressed ever, her humor is a substitute for facts. Westheimer concerns people’s unrea- back to the drawing boards. Sexologists In the absence of information, the sonable expectations of what they will celebrate the signals of hope that it humor frequently becomes both con- should do based on beliefs about what is raises. Most general readers will probably temptuous and disrespectful and, in my normal. She establishes new rules, feel they may have been “taken in” by judgment, conveys a lack of understand- norms, and “shoulds,” and in the end institutions they have believed and ing of the depth of people’s deeply held develops unreasonable expectations. trusted in for basic values and norms for beliefs about sexuality. For example, in One of her new rules is proposed in living. For those who are aware that such Chapter 3, “Feeling Good About Sex,” Chapter 8, “Afterglow”: “Falling asleep institutions are not working out and are in Westheimer includes a two-paragraph immediately after having sex is just a bad trouble, there is hope that these institu- section, “Myths About Menstruation.” habit and, like all bad habits, it can be tions may make a fresh start at becoming In the first paragraph, she lists the com- broken. And should be.” In addition to edifying and salutary. To put it in a nut- mon myths about menstruation; the rules, she proposes guidelines, many of shell, Sexual Practices and the Medieval second is only one sentence long: “I which are unrealistic. In Chapter 5, “The Church, like the child in the story, “The hope you are smiling, because a smile is First Time,” she suggests: “If the bride-

20 SIECUS Report, November 1983 groom is too insecure to like having his rectly assumes that most people do not page. But for anyone interested in a bride pleasure herself, she had better do have a clear understanding of the con- literate, well-organized, and definitive it by herself. But it will be a nicer expe- tent or process of sex therapy. Yet she account of the efforts of our country’s rience for her to do this by lying com- does not respond to people’s need for gay men and lesbians to achieve equal- forted in his arms than to do it surrounded clarification by describing the therapeu- ity, this book is highly recommended. by cold bathroom tiles.” Putting a label tic process. Instead she says: “Sex ther- A, PR of “insecure” on the bridegroom who apy is a much shorter course of treatment.” does not feel comfortable viewing his Sex therapy is a much shorter course of bride masturbating is, to my mind, dis- treatment than what? Her presentation respectful. By offering advice in this of treatment modalities is limited and Sexuality in the later Years. Ruth B. Weg, manner, Westheimer may foster peo- her overall view of sex therapy is dis- ed. New York: Academic Press, 1983 (299 ple’s anxiety, promoting further feelings torted. Statistics are needed for her pp.; $29.50). of failure. Furthermore, this advice dem- claim: “Often one visit cures your prob- Reviewed by jack L. Haber, MD, retired onstrates a lack of real understanding of lem.” Unfortunately, the lay reader can family physician, Elmont, N.Y.; post the nature of people’s fears, discom- be misled by such a statement. The pro- retirement career in the study of human forts, and anxiety. Her lack of under- fessional reader is aware that a responsi- sexuality, with special emphasis on sex standing is reflected similarly in her ble evaluation often requires more than and aging. advice to couples to use a lubricant dur- one visit. ing the first sexual intercourse. While In the end, the problems perpetuated This book contains 15 chapters by 18 dif- this may indeed be helpful to some cou- by Westheimer undermine the good ferent contributors, including the edi- ples, it also can create an added burden advice and severely limit the possibility tor, drawn from the various disciplines in an interaction which is extremely of recommending this book for either of medicine, physiology, psychology, complicated. the professional or non-professional sociology, and anthropology. As a result, A third problem Westheimer addresses reader. the reader gets a well-rounded, multifa- is people’s concern with size. On the ceted picture of sexuality in the later one hand, in tackling the myths about years. It appears that the contributors penis size, she points out that size is not have had extensive experience with the related to sexual satisfaction. On the Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: elderly, and have acquired a great deal other hand, her careless use of language The Making of a Homosexual Minority of knowledge, insight, and empathy for may reinforce people’s belief that size is in the United States, 1940-1970. John their sexuality and the attendant prob- important. Describing “Random Erec- D’Emilio. Chicago: The University of lems of aging. tions” in Chapter 3, she writes: “. . . he Chicago Press, 1983 (257 pp.; $20.00). By way of extensive quotation from would have a big, strong, lasting erec- the Duke University Longitudinal Study, Reviewed by Anne Backman, MA, tion.” Unfortunately, such a statement the works of Kinsey and Masters and S/ECUS Publications Officer. may create further anxiety for the man Johnson, and the authors’ own expe- who does not view his erection as “big.” In his introduction, the book’s author riences, ample documentation is pro- Although the book is not meant to be poses a number of thought-provoking vided to show that sexual interest and scientifically rigorous, its incorrect or questions. For example, why was it that, activity persist even through the ninth unsubstantiated statements are mislead- although gay liberation activists in the decade of life in many people. It is ing and have no place in a guide book. In early 1970s “repeatedly stressed . . . the pointed out, however, that survey Chapter 3, Westheimer responds to a intertwining themes of silence, invisibil- researchers have concentrated nearly all mother who is concerned about her ity, and isolation,” they were able so their efforts on the physical aspects of three-year-old rocking with a blanket rapidly to marshall this “allegedly hid- sexual intercourse, such as orgasm, between her legs’to put herself to sleep den, isolated constituency” into a intensity, and frequency, and have shed at night. She says to the mother: “Yes, it strong, effective movement? After cen- far less light on the aspects of sexual is natural. Absolutely, and part of grow- turies of religious and civil persecution interest which become more important ing up. It’s part of becoming a sexual of homosexuals, what happened in the to older people, especially after a long being, and this type of girl very often, post-World War II period to generate relationship. This book makes a point of later on, will not have any problems hav- the move toward gay emancipation? stressing those aspects of intimacy, such ing an orgasm.” The longitudinal studies And why did it take until the late 1960s as body contact, kissing, and the warmth which support this assertion should be for this move to snowball into mass and feeling of closeness-even in the referenced at this point. I am not aware action? absence of complete physical sexual that such studies exist. In the book’s 13 chapters, D’Emilio functioning: “By shifting the emphasis Westheimer claims to place sexual presents the answers he has arrived from genital intercourse to more gen- experiences within the context of peo- at after many years of research. His eral sexual and sensual activities, many ple’s interpersonal relationships. She conclusions are exhaustively docu- individuals might prolong the enjoy- subtly undermines this valid and thought- mented as he charts the events begin- ment of sexual feelings.” ful concept by her approach to thera- ning with the founding of the Matta- Indeed, this holistic approach to sexu- peutic help. Sex therapy is not presented chine Society and extending through ality and sensuality is the central theme as one of a number of ways in which the domino action of the Stonewall of this book, and it is reiterated and people can obtain help for sexual and riot. Indeed, the documentation, the detailed in many chapters. Such an interpersonal problems. Instead, sex buttressing, and the amplification are so approach provides a welcome relief to therapy is often described as the princi- comprehensive that it takes a per- those students in the field of sexuality pal form of treatment. Westheimer cor- severing reader to reach the final and aging who have become somewhat

SIECUS Report, November 1983 21 sated by the literature on the perfor- philosopher who abandoned academia preserving life-encoded eros poten- mance aspects of sex in later life. Time for a freer way of life. This is, therefore, a tial. But “the terror we fear most, to be and time again, this message of the spe- personal study that reflects the author’s unbonded and abandoned, is the first cial importance of the emotional com- working through the sexual revolution product of most modern births.” Draw- ponents of sensuality and sexuality to of the 50s and 60s toward a psychologi- ing upon the research of lames Prescott, older couples is brought to the attention cal/philosophical/mystical resolution Keen claims that “societies that provide of the reader. And the authors maintain of his own. Yet Keen’s book speaks to all children with a high degree of touch, that not enough research has focused on of us and should be of particular interest cuddling, and carrying, and that are per- this aspect: “Perhaps the difficulties of to readers of the S/ECUS Report not just missive of a wide range of sensuality and defining sensuality for research pur- because human sexuality is central to sexuality in later life, are the least prone poses, explaining it to subjects, and col- the author’s concerns but also because to interpersonal violence.” Neverthe- lecting and interpreting data, have his erotic vision is original, challenging, less, in all our childhoods in the West, precluded its incorporation into most and sweeping in its implications. eros tends to be twisted in one way or studies?’ What is interesting here is the From his viewpoint “love, in its three another, producing a double effect on similarity of the conclusions reached epiphanies-romance, marriage,sex-is our identity: “(1) our character type, regarding the pleasure and warmth of a dying God” today, since we no longer personality style, defense mechanisms, sexuality in later life, in view of the dif- perceive and celebrate the full range of addictions, neurotic patterns are the ference in professional backgrounds love: “eros, philia, libido, agape, charity, result of the perversions of eros-are an and experiences of thevarious contribu- compassion, sweet lust, adoration, com- outward and visible sign of an inward tors. fort, care.” Tracing eras back to Plato’s and invisible d&grace or dis-ease; (2) Basically the authors’ collective mes- myth of the androgyne, Keen presents the essence of who we are is eros, grace, sage is that sexuality and sensuality the original meaning of eros as”the pro- ease.” should be of lifelong duration, and that found longing to be reunited with our Because of the clash between the this information should be disseminated missing complement,” and its full mean- child’s deepest desires and the parents’ not only to the elderly, but to the public ing as the prime moving force of all life. will and authority, the child learns at at large, and to professionals who have However, in changing erotic to sexual about the age of six to be a secret rebel. occasion to counsel th’e elderly and the (largely as the result of the liberating This rebellion finds it outlet in adoles- middle-aged. This volume can serve as a effects of the sexual revolution) modern cence, with its own kind of romanticism textbook for future and present medical society reduced eros to a romantic- expressing the instinct to adore and and allied health professionals, for psy- genital connection between two per- commune, as well as the need to break chologists, sociologists, anthropologists, sons and, consequently, contributed to out of the family. This romanticism inev- gerontologists, and sexologists. An a divorcing of sex from love and com- itably brings about disillusionment; extensive bibliography follows each mitment, from “continuity of caring, “passion is necessarily blind because we chapter so that sources for additional from consequences, from children, are fragments of an incomprehensible knowledge are readily available. from community. Stripped of its context, totality.” “. . . Human beings have an It would be difficult to find another sex became a happening between geni- insatiable longing that cannot be satis- book on sexuality in the later years in tals that were only incidentally con- fied by any sexual attachment. Sex is one which so much information is presented nected to persons who had a history and of the many disguises of eros”- with such clarity, affection, and wisdom, hope. for the future.” The result of dis- enabling us to grasp the interconnection and with such a comprehensive under- connected sex was a diminished iden- of life and to get beyond the self. Recog- standing of a subject which has been not tity, with attendant feelings of alienation nizing the need for adolescent rebel- only neglected but at times even depre- and violence-an inner wasteland. lion, western culture has provided the cated by professionals and lay people Keen’s study of love is not just socio- adolescent with a moratorium from alike. A, PR logical, psychological, and biological in adult responsibility. However, perver- its approach-it is ontological, for he is sions of adolescent rebellion and trying to get at how love functions in romanticism may be seen in fanatic one’s being. To do this, he proposes to ideologies and in the playboy philos- The Passionate life: Stages of loving. examine “the varieties of love that ophy that maximizes sensation, mini- Sam Keen. New York: Harper & Row, unfold as a person moves through an mizes feeling, and promotes amorality. 1983 (274 pp.; $14.95). entire lifetime.” Rather arbitrarily, Keen Adult status and identity require an divides the human lifetime into five internalizing of the values and myths of Reviewed by Melvin A. Backman, PhD, stages: the child, the rebel, the adult, the our society, which in effect reorganizes C. W. Post College, Long /s/and Univer- outlaw, and the lover. He suggests that eros for social purposes. “Marriage is a sity, Greenvale, N. Y. “the goal of becoming a lover is discipline that takes us nearer to the Sam Keen’s The Passionate Life: Stages of encoded within the human DNA, that heart of reality than romance. Adult- Loving begins as an eclecticstudy of the the primal reality that in-forms us, prior hood and marriage offer us pleasures of decline and fall of love in current west- to all cultural myths, is love.” potency and seminal sexuality that are ern culture. Then, as it proceeds Keen follows the child from its fetal greater than the pleasures of play. We through a cultural, psychobiological stage in the “womb of love” (complete enter a new stage of life when we ask the examination of the stages of human life, symbiosis, no I and Thou) to the tearing questions: What is coming to birth in the book becomes, in a sense, the apart of the child’s “early seamless and through my life? Our relationship? record of a personal pilgrimage-an being” and then to the healing of the Life itself?” “There is a ‘biological’ intellectual but warmly human quest for rupture by the bonding of mother and imperative contained in every sex act.” the meaning of life by a Harvard-trained child. The bonding is nature’s way of “Our deepest pleasure is inseparable

22 SIECUS Report, November 1983 from fertility. Our most unshakable glimpses the essential wholeness/holi- The author has, in the course of her security lies in the knowledge that we ness within which all beings belong, but book, done several very useful things. are bonded together in a fruitful uni- remains painfully aware of the actual The first is to set forth clear definitions of verse. Something larger than we can dis-ease, suffering, and alienation that and discuss societal perspectives on rape know or understand is moving us.” afflict us all.” It is compassion-learned (including marital rape) and child sexual Yet the making of an adult is a com- from the family, from the child-that abuse (including incest). This explora- plex process which not only provides an serves as the empathic factor of love; btit tion of sexual violence inside and out- outlet for erotic desires but seriously it is, in large measure, the Western side the home exposes the widespread wounds and reduces erotic potential. In obsession with genital sexuality which confusion in U.S. culture between sex- identifying with our society we incorpo- severs sexuality from its natural context ual violence and sexual activity which rate into ourselves a “consensual para- of familiarity and kindness. Fortune sees as categorical opposites noia” which divides our love and based on the presence or absence of Sexual love is both most passionate multiplies our hate; we project into the consent. Consent, which requires that a and most ordered when it assumes its ‘enemy’ of our society or country the person have all the information neces- rightful position within a nexus of demons from our own psyche. In this sary to make a decision regarding sexual erotic relationships that make up the acculturation process we lose, Keen activity and the power to choose and natural world. Earthy love begins claims, more than 95% of our erotic have that choice respected by others, when we acknowledge our participa- potential while we multiply our hostili- becomes the key factor in determining tion in an ecological bonding that ties. Hostility is so much a part even of the the presence of violence or abuse. This is joins all the spkcies of life in a single sex act that, according to Robert Staller, a particularly significant point in the commonwealth. Thus it is only when “‘hostility, overt or hidden, is what gen- book’s assumption that any sexual con- we deal with the dis-eased character erates and enhances sexual excitement, tact between adult and child is abusive of modern sexuality and the ecologi- and its absence leads to sexual indiffer- in nature. cal crisis as a single problem that is ence and boredom.“’ Another unique and important contri- rooted in an erotic disorder that we Keen’s chapters which deal with his bution is the book’s focus on ethical can begin to discover ways to heal Nietzschean conception of the creative questions. Fortune contends that sexual ourselves of our alienation from our outlaw as “a supranormal individual violence has not been a priority for ethi- own bodies and from nature (p. 236). who cares about others too much to cists because it has happened primarily accept the limitations on eros that are Ultimately, it is in a loving relationship to women and children. A review of imposed by normal life,” are the weak- with our lover’s body and with the earth, scriptural stories of sexual abuse and vio- est because his category of the outlaw Keen believes, that we may discover lence and of Christian tradition reveals a seems unrepresentative and personal. something of the mysterious love that preoccupation with these offenses as The psychology seems contrived, for unites all creation. A, P, PR violations of male property rights, with Keen’s outlaw acts in the name of eros, little attention to issues of power or con- whereas Nietzsche’s and Dostoevsky’s sent. Though there is a clear biblical “extraordinary men” act in the name of demand that people care for and protect pride and egoistic daring. These chap- Sexual Violence: The Unmentionable the powerless and vulnerable, Fortune ters are the most autobiographical as Sin-An Ethical and Pastoral Perspec- concludes that both scripture and Chris- well as the murkiest. tive. Marie Marshall Fortune. New York: tian tradition are inadequate for address- In the final chapter entitled “The Pilgrim Press, 1983 (240 pp.; $9.95). ing sexual violence as an ethical issue. A Lover” Keen tries to pull together his new sexual ethic would require, she Reviewed by Peggy Halsey, Executive various insights and ideas into a trans- says, acknowledging the sin to be the Secretary for Ministries With Women in cendent vision of the interconnection offender’s, understanding God as the Crisis, National Division, United Metho- between the cosmos and the love seeker of justice and standing with the dist Board of Global Ministries, New encoded in the human DNA. This is what abused, developing a “norm of right York, N.Y. the lover realizes-that every individual relationship” (shared power when possi- atom and self is unique at the same time This most welcome book fills a void in ble or protection of the less powerful that it is also an integral part of the the literature about rape and child sex- from exploitation and abuse), acknowl- “‘pattern that connects’ [Gregory Bate- ual abuse-the role of religious tradition edgement of sexual violence as blas- son], the tightly woven fabric of being.” and the responsibility of the faith com- phemy (denying the sacredness of the All life, by the very nature of its being, is munity. Marie Fortune, whose Center victim) and righteous anger toward interconnected; the conception of an for the Prevention of Sexual and Domes- offender and compassion for victim as a autonomous self is a delusion. The lover, tic Violence in Seattle has played a pio- just response. by concentrating on spirit rather than neering role in nearly all aspects of the The author explores with courageous matter, becomes aware “that we are religious community’s relationship to bluntness an issue which is certain to be embodied within a continuum, that we sexual and family violence, sets the controversial and viewed by many are alive only when a universal life force book’s tone by declaring in the fore- clergy as meddling: that of professional flows through us like breath through word that “we have not heard about sex- ethics related to sexual contact between lungs, like wind through the ever- ual violence in the church because we pastors and parishioners or between greens.” Through Christian and Bud- have not spoken about it.” This volume pastoral counselors and clients. She ap- dhist mysticism, especially through is an eloquent effort to break this plies the principle of power and consent Christian agape (“spontaneous self- silence, and to call the church to effec- imbalance here and concludes that one giving love expressed freely without cal- tive and compassionate response to cannot be pastor/counselor and lover/ culation of cost or gain”), “the lover both victims and perpetrators. sexual partner at the same time; these

SIECUS Report, November 1983 23 roles can be consecutive ones but not, with thoroughness and sensitivity. the framework for a pastoral response to responsibly, simultaneous ones. The final chapters of the book address these issues, as well as to guilt and Another major theme of this book, religious issues inherent in an examina- shame, forgiveness, confession, repent- and one which makes it a valuable tion of sexual violence. These concerns ance, and reconciliation (all dealt with in resource for clergy, is the development may be especially helpful to the church their complexity, with no more abuse as of a “pastoral perspective” on sexual as it seeks to respond to these issues the bottom line). violence. Acknowledging that victims from a standpoint that is peculiar to its The book closes with a reminder to often feel abandoned or betrayed by the nature and responsibilities (i.e., what the church of its basic responsibilities to church, the author outlines a responsi- does the religious community have to victims of sexual violence: being pres- ble role for the minister which includes: offer in the struggle to prevent sexual ent, available, and willing to listen, reas- becoming knowledgeable about and violence and serve its victims that is dif- suring victims of the community’s comfortable with the issues; taking the ferent from that offered by secular caring; and to offenders: confronting initiative for talking openly about sexual organizations and service providers?). them and holding them accountable, abuse; assuring victims that they are not On the other hand, those community but not ostracizing them. It raises the to blame and will not be abandoned; leaders not representing religious possibility of designing liturgical sup- and utilizing secular resources and mak- groups will doubtless find it a relief to ports for healing, such as ritual cleans- ing responsible referrals. see the church accepting responsibility ings. Finally and most emphatically, it In the section on pastoral response, for its role in creating a climate where calls on the religious community to be the focus is specifically and in some sexual violence is tolerated, and outlin- an advocate for prevention and address detail on responsible ministerial response ing strategies for change. Many secular the root causes of sexual violence. to victims of rape, victims of child sexual counselors of victims of sexual violence For all of the book’s depth and sensi- abuse, male victims, families of victims, have acknowledged the urgent religious tivity, one senses that only the tip of the non-offending parents in incest situa- concerns of these victims and the impos- iceberg has been revealed. It is hoped tions, adult women who were victims as sibility of moving from suffering to heal- that this volume marks the first in a children, and offenders in each cate- ing without dealing with those concerns. number of works designed to assist the gory. Issues such as confidentiality, These include the “why did this happen religious community in dealing with peculiarities of rural/small town set- to me?” syndrome, a feeling of aban- issues surrounding the victimization of tings, and recognition of the stages donment by God, and anger at God for women and children, so long ignored by through which victims go are addressed “allowing” the abuse. Fortune provides those responsible for ministry. PR

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November 1983

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