Growing Up Sexually

 


Index

South America

Ecuador

SCCS:

(2+,2+,3+,3+,

3,3;5,8)

CAYAPÁ (Ecuador)

 

IndexAmericasSouth AmericaEcuadorCayapá

Also featured: Jivaro


 


 

Altschuler (1964:p231)[1] was sure of young Cayapa boys indulging in homoeroticism (in contrast to homosexuality) when wrapped around each other on the floor or sharing hammocks. Cayapá parents and older sisters pick the boy up in the air and take his penis between their lips (Altschuler, 1971:p50-1)[2]: “A common activity that parents and older siblings engage in with young male children is to hold the child high overhead, open the mouth, and then close it over the child’s genitals (The game is never played with female children). Observation suggests that the experience is not at all frightening to the child”.

 

 

 


 

 

 

Janssen, D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin: Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology

Last revised: Sept 2004

 



[1] Alschuler, M. (1964) Tha Cayapa. PhD Dissertation. Cited by Murray, S. O. (1987) Sentimental effusions on genital contact in Upper Amazonia, in Murray, S. O. (Ed.) Male Homosexuality in Central and Latin America. New York: Gay Academic Union, p139-51, at p141

[2]Altschuler, M. (1971) Cayapa personality and sexual motivation, in Marshall, D. S. & Suggs, R. C. (Eds.) Human Sexual Behavior: Variations in the Ethnographic Spectrum. New York: Basic Books, p38-58. Also Duerr, H. P. (1988) Nacktheit und Scham. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Vol. 1 of Der Mythos vom Zivilizationprocess. 2nd ed., p201