A Sociological History of Researching Childhood and Sexuality: Continuities and Discontinuities

  • Stevi Jackson
  • Sue Scott
Chapter

Abstract

Both public and academic debates on the sexualization of culture and its impact on children and young people have a history. In this chapter, we locate current concerns about children and sex in historical context through a retrospective engagement with our own work, set against the backdrop of wider social changes since the 1970s. We write as feminist sociologists who have been actively engaged with the sociology of sexuality for four decades both separately and together. We reflect on our motivations for becoming and remaining academically interested in this area based on our own experience of changing sexual mores over time. We map changes but also highlight continuities in relation to the ways in which sexuality was, and continues to be, seen as a danger to children and especially to girls. Underlying our analysis is the argument that anxieties around children and sex and the challenges this poses for children and young people derive from constructions of sexuality as a special area of life and the child as a special category of person; we will argue for the need to question and disrupt the ways in which the former is seen as inimical to the well-being of the latter. This has been a recurrent theme in our work and, despite changes in the sexual landscape, remains relevant to contemporary critical analysis.

Keywords

Young People Child Sexual Abuse Sexual Violence Sexual Script Sexual Knowledge 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Attwood, F. (2006) Sexed up: Theorizing the sexualization of culture. Sexualities, 9 (1), 77–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Backett-Milburn, K., Scott, S., Jackson, S., & Harden, J. (2000) Scary faces, scary places: Children’s perceptions of risk and safety. Health Education Journal, 59, 12–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Bailey, R. (2011) Letting children be children – Report of an independent review of the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood. London: Department for Education.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Bell, V. (1993) Interrogating incest: Feminism, Foucault and the law. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Boston Women’s Health Collective (1973) Our bodies ourselves. Boston, MA: Boston Women’s Health Collective.Google Scholar
  6. Brownmiller, S. (1975) Against our will: Men, women and rape. London: Secker and Warburg.Google Scholar
  7. Buckingham, D., & Bragg, S. (2004) Young people, sex and the media: The facts of life? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
  8. Buston, K., Wight, D., & Scott, S. (2001) Difficulty and diversity: The context and practice of sex education. British Journal of the Sociology of Education, 22 (3), 353–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Butler, J. (1990) Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  10. Cree, V., Clapton, G., & Smith, M. (2014) Moral panics, Jimmy Savile and social work: A 21st century morality tale. Discover Society, 5. www.discoversociety.org
  11. Egan, D. R. (2013) Becoming sexual: A critical appraisal of the sexualization of girls. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
  12. Egan, D. R. & Hawkes, G. (2010) Theorizing the sexual child in modernity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Ennew, J. (1986) The sexual exploitation of children. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
  14. Faulkner, J. (2011) The importance of being innocent: Why we worry about children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  15. Fine, M. (1988) Sexuality, schooling and adolescent females: The missing discourse of desire. Harvard Educational Review, 58 (1), 29–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Fine, M., & McClelland, S. (2006) Sexuality education and desire: Still missing after all these years. Harvard Educational Review, 76 (3), 297–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. Ford, C., & Beach, F. (1951) Patterns of sexual behavior. New York: Harper and Brothers.Google Scholar
  18. Foucault, M. ([1978] 1981) The history of sexuality volume one. London: Pelican.Google Scholar
  19. Gagnon, J. (1965) Sexuality and sexual learning in the child. Psychiatry, 28, 212–228.Google Scholar
  20. Gagnon, J. (1973) The creation of the sexual in early adolescence, in S. Groubard (Ed.) From Twelve to Sixteen. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
  21. Gagnon, J., & Simon, W. (1974) Sexual conduct. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
  22. Gill, R. (2009) Beyond the ‘sexualization of culture’ thesis: An intersectional analysis of ‘sixpacks’, ‘Midriffs’ and ‘hot lesbians’ in advertising. Sexualities, 12 (2), 137–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Greer, G. (1970) The female Eunuch. London: Paladin.Google Scholar
  24. Griffin, S. (1971) Rape: The all-American crime. Ramparts, 10 (3), 2–8.Google Scholar
  25. Heaphy, B. (2014) Same-sex marriage: Time to celebrate? Discover Society: 6. Retrieved from: www.discoversociety.org
  26. Heath, S. (1982) The sexual fix. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. Herman, J. L. (1981) Father-daughter incest. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  28. Holland, J., Ramazanoglu, C., Scott, S., Sharpe, S., & Thomson, R. (1990) Don’t die of ignorance – I nearly died of embarrassment: Condoms in context. London: Tufnell Press.Google Scholar
  29. Jackson, S. (1978a) On the social construction of female sexuality. London: Women’s Research and Resources Centre.Google Scholar
  30. Jackson, S. (1978b) How to make babies: Sexism and sex education. Women’s Studies International Quarterly, 1 (4), 341–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  31. Jackson, S. (1980) Girls and sexual knowledge, in D. Spender & E. Sarah (Eds.) Learning to Lose. London: The Women’s Press.Google Scholar
  32. Jackson, S. (1982) Childhood and sexuality. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
  33. Jackson, S. (1996) Ignorance is bliss when you’re just seventeen. Trouble & Strife, 33, 50–60.Google Scholar
  34. Jackson, S. (1999) Heterosexuality in question. London: Sage.Google Scholar
  35. Jackson, S., & Scott, S., (1999) Risk anxiety and the social construction of childhood, in D. Lupton (Ed.) Risk and Sociocultural Theory: New Directions and Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  36. Jackson, S. & Scott, S. (2010) Theorizing sexuality. Maidenhead: Open University Press.Google Scholar
  37. Jackson, S. & Scott, S. (2013) Childhood, in G. Payne (Ed.) Social Divisions, 3rd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 182–199.Google Scholar
  38. Kelly, L. (1988) Surviving sexual violence. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
  39. Kitzinger, J. (1988) Defending innocence: Ideologies of childhood. Feminist Review 28, 77–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  40. Kincaid, J. R. (1998) Erotic innocence: The culture of child molesting. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
  41. Koedt, A (1972) The myth of the vaginal orgasm, in A. Koedt (Ed.) Radical Feminism. New York: Quadrangle, pp. 198–207.Google Scholar
  42. Laumann, E., Gagnon, J., Michael, R. T., & Michaels, S. (1994) The social organization of sexuality. Sexual practices in the United States. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
  43. Lees, S. (1986) Losing out: Sexuality and adolescent girls. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
  44. Lydon, S. (1970) The politics of orgasm, in R. Morgan (Ed.) Sisterhood Is Powerful. New York: Vintage Books, pp. 210–227.Google Scholar
  45. Marcuse, H. (1964) One dimensional man. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
  46. Mead, M. (1935) Sex and temperament in three primitive societies. London: George Routledge and Sons.Google Scholar
  47. Medea, A., & Thompson, K. (1974) Against rape. New York: Farrer, Strauss and Giroux.Google Scholar
  48. Millet, K. (1971) Sexual politics. London: Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd.Google Scholar
  49. Papadopoulos, L. (2010) Sexualisation of young people. London: Home Office.Google Scholar
  50. Piercy, M. (1970) The grand coolie damn, in R. Morgan (Ed.) Sisterhood Is Powerful. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
  51. Plummer, K. (2001) In Memoriam: William Simon (1930–2000). Sexualities, 4 (2), 131–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  52. Red Collective([1973]1978) The politics of sexuality in capitalism. London: Red Collective/Publications Distribution Cooperative.Google Scholar
  53. Reich, W. (1951) The sexual revolution. London: Vision Press.Google Scholar
  54. Renold, E., & Ringrose, J. (Eds.) (2013) Feminisms, ‘sexualisation’ andcontemporary girlhoods. Feminist Theory (special issue) 14 (3).Google Scholar
  55. Richardson, D. (2005) Desiring sameness? The rise of a neoliberal politics of normalisation. Antipode 37 (3), 515–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  56. Rubin, G. (1984) Thinking sex: Notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality, in C. Vance (Ed.) Pleasure and Danger. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 267–319.Google Scholar
  57. Rush, F. (1980) The best kept secret. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
  58. Schofield, P. (1965) The sexual behaviour of young people. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
  59. Scott, S., & Botcherby, S. (2004) Parents as sex educators, Report for Durham Education Authority.Google Scholar
  60. Scott, S., Jackson, S., & Backett-Milburn, K. (1998) Swings and roundabouts: Risk anxiety and the everyday worlds of children. Sociology, 32 (4), 689–705.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  61. Scott, S., & Watson-brown, L. (1997) The beast, the family and the innocent children. Trouble and Strife, 36, 36–40.Google Scholar
  62. Simon, W. (1996) Postmodern sexualities. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  63. Simon, W., & Gagnon, J. (1969) On psychosexual development, in D. A. Goslin (Ed.) Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally, pp. 733–752.Google Scholar
  64. Simon, W. & Gagnon, J. (1984) Sexual scripts: Permanence and change. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 15 (2), 97–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  65. Snitow, A., Stansell, C., & Thompson, S. (1984) ‘Introduction’, in Desire: The politics of sexuality. London: Virago.Google Scholar
  66. Thomson, R. (1994) Moral rhetoric and public health pragmatism: The recent politics of sex education. Feminist Review, 48, 40–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  67. Thomson, R. & Scott, S. (1991) Learning about sex. London: Tufnell Press.Google Scholar
  68. Tolman, D. (2002) Dilemmas of desire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  69. Vance, C. S. (Ed.) (1984) Pleasure and danger. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
  70. Weeks, J. (1981) Sex politics and society. London: Longman.Google Scholar
  71. Weeks, J. (1990) Sex politics and society, 2nd edn. London: Longman.Google Scholar
  72. Weeks, J. (2007) The world we have won the remaking of erotic and intimate life. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  73. Whiting, P. (1972) Female sexuality: It’s politics implications, in M. Wandor (Ed.) The Body Politic. London: Stage 1, pp. 189–213.Google Scholar
  74. Wight, D. (1994) Boys’ thoughts and talk about sex in a working class locality of Glasgow. The Sociological Review, 42 (4), 703–737.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  75. Wight, D. et al. (2002) The limits of teacher-delivered sex education: Interim behavioural outcomes from a randomised trial. British Medical Journal, 324, 1430–1435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  • Stevi Jackson
  • Sue Scott

There are no affiliations available

Personalised recommendations