Sharon Lamb & Jen Gilbert (Eds.): The Cambridge Handbook of Sexual Development: Childhood and Adolescence

Abstract

The editors of The Cambridge Handbook of Sexual Development: Childhood and Adolescence say they have been “less concerned with outlining expected paths from sexual immaturity to maturity than with critiquing the possibility of a normative theory of sexual development”. It is offered as “an interdisciplinary conversation amongst leading sexuality scholars”. It merits this description to the extent that its 50 contributing authors have collectively presented a wide range of theoretical and critical perspectives, with supporting empirical information; this will be of great interest to its intended readership, which appears to be mainly those involved in sex, health and relationships education. However, the interdisciplinary aspect is undermined by the editors’ evident belief that biological understandings can be offered as a relatively minor feature rather than as a fundamental aspect of the subject that needs to be integrated throughout. Other significant weaknesses include sparse attention paid to child as opposed to adolescent sexuality and total silence as regards the plight of proto-paedophilic minors.