Kiss and tell: Boys, girls and sexualities in the early years

Abstract

abstractEarly sexual and gendered cultures amongst young South African children remain largely unquestioned and unproblematised under the presumption of childhood sexual innocence. Arguing against such representations that associate young children with sexual innocence, this Article shows how sexuality is an important resource through which boys and girls, between the ages of 6 and 8, construct and police their masculinities and femininities. By drawing on elements of an ethnographic and interview based study of young children in the early years of schooling, the Article highlights a range of sexualising practices through which boys and girls exercise their sexual agency analysing the implications for gender relations. The study makes two important claims. First, young children, whether adults approve or not, are already involved in heterosexual cultures and desires. They do so through the construction of boyfriend and girlfriend cultures, through sexualising practices which include kissing, games and love letters. Secondly, the insertion within heterosexual cultures does not only provide evidence of their pleasures, their agency and desires, as they debunk the myth of sexual innocence, but their sexualities are already caught up in normative constructions of gender through which power inequalities are manifest, underpinned by femininity as subordinate. The Article concludes that there is a need to examine the sexual and gendered cultures amongst South African children in the early years.