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In
early-20th-century Scotland,
the old belief in the curative powers of sexual congress with a virgin led to
a number of attacks on young girls by men suffering from venereal disease
(Davidson, 2001)[1]. This “pernicious
delusion” entered legal and medical discourses as court proceedings increased
against rapists who transmitted syphilis and gonorrhoea to their children.
However, despite the prosecutions, resistance remained with the legal and
medical professions to recognising child sexual abuse with many of the
symptoms of venereal infection dismissed as the result of dirt or worms.
In
one contemporary study[2],
preschool staff groups in Greece and Scotland differed in the
extent to which they thought families and preschool establishments should
provide sex education, the age at which it should start and the requirements
for staff participation.
Additional
refs:
§
Burtney, E. (2000)
Teenage Sexuality in Scotland. Health Education Board For Scotland Evidence Into
Action 2000 [http://www.hebs.scot.nhs.uk/researchcentre/pdf/teenage_sexuality.pdf]
§
Buston, K., Wight, D.
& Scott, S. (2001) Difficulty and Diversity: the context and practice of
sex education, Br J Sociol Educ 22,3:353-68
§
Cardinal's
anger at sex lessons, U.K. Guardian,
August 30, 2004 [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1293386,00.html]
§
Davidson, R.
(2005) Purity and Pedagogy: The Alliance of
Honour-Scottish Council and Scottish Sex Education, 1946-1967. Paper to be delivered to International Conference
"Sex Education of the Young in the Twentieth Century: A Cultural History",
16th to 17th April, 2005 at CollingwoodCollege, University of
Durham, UK
§
Mahood, L. &
Littlewood, B. (1993/4) The “vicious” girl and the “street-corner” boy.
Sexuality and the gendered delinquent in the Scottish child-saving movement,
1850-1940, J Hist Sex 4:549-78
§
Wight, D. & Scott,
S. (June, 1994) Mandates and Constraints on Sex Education in the East of Scotland: Preliminary Study for a Sex Education Initiative. Report to the
Health Education Board for Scotland. MRC Social & Public Health Sciences Unit
Highland Scots
“Although sex education is sometimes provided in the schools today, it
is a subject about which people are extremely reticent, except in the
sometimes crude but more often lyrical and metaphorical excess of the
late-night ceilidh. A woman in her fifties was first given sex education
classes when she was in the forces. “I trembled as I listened to the
lectures. I didn't want to have anything to do with that”. Another woman
recalls that her mother never told her anything about where babies came from;
she just told her to stay away from boys, because if they got at her they would
leave her and not care for her. “I never looked at them, even when I was
eighteen--I hated them sometimes. Even after I got married, I felt my husband
wouldn’t like me”. I once got into an awkward discussion with a nine year old
about humans being mammals that carried their babies inside instead of laying
eggs. She asked with wide, surprised eyes, “Do they get big?” Her mother said
her daughter had never asked where babies came from” (Parman, 1990:p112)[3].
Historically
speaking, however,
“human facts were not
left to be learned only by observation of animals, but were simply and
frankly taught. In a parent's verses to a maiden, for instance, marriage is
spoken of tenderly but frankly, in words which can hardly be translated
literally without over-emphasis to most English ears. There is a place for
gentle frankness, as there is for reticence” (Geddes, 1955:p205-6)[4]
.
Janssen,
D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin: Magnus
Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology
Last
revised: Jan 2005
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