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The Sexual Life of Children. By Floyd M. Martinson. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1994, 168 pages. Cloth, $45.00.
Reviewed by Terri D. Fisher, Ph.D., The Ohio State University at Mansfield, Department of Psychology, 1680 University Drive, Mansfield, OH 44906.
Childhood sexuality is one of the most understudied areas in human sexual behavior. The idea that children may be sexual in any way is abhorrent to many people, and even those who recognize that there are sensuous and sensual aspects to the lives of children are loathe to admit to an interest in learning more. Those brave enough to pursue empirical research on the sexual lives of children are likely to have their attempts stymied by problems in achieving an adequate participant sample and other methodological difficulties as well as by the insinuation that they are perverted in some way.
Sigmund Freud first popularized the idea that childhood sexuality is not necessarily an oxymoron, although he encountered a great deal of resistance to this notion. Childhood sexuality was discussed in the Kinsey reports, although not really studied systematically. An extremely important contribution was made by Goldman and Goldman in Children's Sexual Thinking, published in 1982. The authors reported research of their cross-cultural attempt to document the knowledge and thoughts that children of various ages have about sexuality, and the Goldmans' research put to rest the belief that childhood is a period of latent sexuality. The children studied by the Goldmans appear to have been very interested in a variety of sexual topics, and when these young, inquiring minds lacked accurate information, they simply made up explanatory theories. To my knowledge, there has been no significant advancement made in the general area of sexuality and children since the publication of the Goldmans' book.
Despite the scarcity of research on childhood sexuality, Floyd Martinson has succeeded in producing a scholarly yet accessible text, The Sexual Life of Children, that is comprehensive and...