Growing Up Sexually

World Reference Atlas (Oct., 2002)

 

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Janssen, D. F. (Oct., 2002). Growing Up Sexually. Volume I: World Reference Atlas.

Interim report. Amsterdam, The Netherlands

 

 

 

Additional Western Nations

Nonaboriginal Australia, Canada

 

Contents

 

Additional Western Nations. 1

 

Non-Aboriginal Australia   1

Historical Observations  2

 

Canada   2

 

Notes  3

 

 

Non-Aboriginal Australia [up] [Contents] [IES]

 

A proposal has been advanced by the New South Wales (Australia) Antidiscrimination Board to establish 14 as the age of consent to sexual relations for both sexes[1]. The current age of consent would be variable for territories but typically 16 for all categories (Graupner, 2000)[2]. Coates (1997)[3] states:

 

"There is little information available about types of sexual behavior and whether patterns of sexual experimentation have changed. However, anecdotal reporting indicates that Australian children are no different from children in other countries and engage in sexual rehearsal play. This is conventionally curbed by witnessing adults, although enlightened parents will take the opportunity to educate their children about private and public, acceptable and unacceptable, behavior. Many parents will tell their children that it is acceptable to engage in self-pleasuring as long as they confine it to the privacy of the bedroom. It is not customary for children to witness adult sexual interactions nor for children to be initiated in to sexual activity by an adult".

 

"Each state and territory, through their respective education authority, has a curriculum that provides for personal development and education in sexuality. These have been developed by experienced educators and offer well-rounded, age-related programs for both primary and secondary education. The implementation of such programs, however, is variable and no child in Australia is guaranteed a consistent and continuing sexuality education".

 

 

"Biology and reproductive sexuality is generally offered before the emotional aspects of human sexuality, although personal safety and the concept of invasion of private "space" is suggested for the 6- and 7-year-olds. Information on gender identity and sexual orientation is suggested for secondary school students at about 15 and 16 years of age".

 

 

"Results of a survey of 2,000 respondents aged 16 to 25 years suggest that adolescents are probably more sexually experienced than their parents were at the same age (McCabe and Collins 1990)[[4]]. Intercourse is occurring at an earlier age than ten years ago and in greater numbers. The mean age of first intercourse is about 16 years, and by the age of 18, nearly 60 percent of young people report that they are sexually active. There is also a reported increase in the number of sexual partners at a given age.

Casual sex is still an important part of adolescent sexual activity, although most sexual experience in adolescents probably occurs in the context of a steady relationship. Explanations for the initiation of sexual intercourse include curiosity, peer pressure, and the need to be loved. The rates of sexual experience are greater in males than in females (Dunne et al 1993[[5]]; Cubis 1992[[6]]). Peer pressure from boys is strong and many young women report that their first experience of intercourse was not a positive one".

 

Australian childhood sexual thinking was studied by Goldman and Goldman's (1981; etc.)[7] comparative work. Goldman and Goldman later (1988)[8] added to these data with a study on behaviour.

Among 308 Year 10 girls (mostly aged 15 or 16) in Sydney, 18% were sexually active, and the mean age at first intercourse was 14.5 years[9]. According to a 1995 study among technical college students, the mean age of first sexual intercourse was 16, range 12-23 (1.2% at age 12, 5.1% at age 13, 14.2% at age 14)[10].

 

 

Historical Observations [up] [Contents]

 

During "Victorian" days, children's "sexuality" (finger-sucking, masturbation) was declared unnatural, and a known cause of mental and physical degeneration as well as crime (Kociumbas, 1997)[11]. Kociumbas[12] analyses children's literature used in Australia in the years prior to 1914, noting the dominant themes of hard work and religious purity, the superstitious treatment of sexuality, and the resultant effects on the development of sex roles among children. In Victoria, Australia the age of sexual consent was raised from 12 to 16 in 1909 (Tyler, 1986)[13].

 

 

Canada [up] [Contents] [IES]

 

Desjardins (1994)[14] analysed 1940-1960 Québec teenage masturbation discourses. Contemporary social conflicts over parent-child relationships, especially concerning child sexuality, were analysed by Lee (1982)[15], drawing on various Canadian studies from the 1960s and 1970s.

In one study (Prescott et al., 1980)[16], 31% of American males, 33% of American females, 38% of French-Canadian males and 36% of French-Canadian females reported engaging in childhood masturbation (p179). In a study by Shymko (1979)[17], only 9.1% of male Canadian adolescents stated sex education was received in elementary school through grade 11, opposing 25.1% of females (see also Morin-Ribardière, 1980)[18].

 

Barrett et al. (1997)[19]:

 

"All provinces and territories have school programs that include sexuality education although the content, and extent of implementation, varies considerably between provinces and within different parts of the same province. […] There have been only a few national surveys of the availability of sexuality education in Canadian schools (for reviews, see Barrett 1990; 1994)[[20]] and no detailed national studies of the classroom content of sexuality education that would indicate the extent to which provincial guidelines and curricula are translated into classroom programming".

 

As for informal sources,

 

"In general, there is a developmental shift that occurs in the relative place of family, peers, and media sources during adolescence. Between about grade nine (13 to 15 years of age) and grade eleven (16 to 17 years of age) peer influence rises to top rank and that of family decreases in importance, in some cases even outranked by the more impersonal media (e.g., print materials). In addition, at least for university women, mothers in particular have been a potential source of information and influence in matters of sexuality".

 

According to a study by Otis et al. (1990)[21], among Francophone versus Anglophone high school girls however, differences were apparent in terms of intercourse experience (61.5 percent vs. 30.1 percent), number of lifetime partners (2.8 vs. 1.8), use of the birth control pill (56 percent vs. 22 percent) and use of condoms (30.9 percent vs. 83.7 percent). These differences may reflect more long-standing relationships or sexual experience among francophone girls (age at first intercourse was 14.9 vs. 15.7)

 

Changes in the Canadian Criminal Code in 1987 expanded the old provision that prohibited sexual intercourse with a person under 14 to include the following category of sexual interference: "Every person who, for a sexual purpose, touches, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, any part of the body of a person under the age of fourteen is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years or is guilty of an offense punishable on summary conviction". Since children under 14 are not assumed to be able to give consent, "it is not a defense that the complainant consented to the activity that forms the subject matter of the charge" (MacDonald, 1994, 16). MacDonald (1994) notes that the prohibition on sexual activity with a person under 14 does not apply if, "the child is at least twelve years old, is consenting, and the other person involved is less than two years older than the child and is not in a position of trust, authority or support toward the child" (MacDonald, 1994, 17). In addition, there is a statute on "invitation to sexual touching," which makes it an offense "to invite, counsel, or incite a person under fourteen to touch him/herself or any other person, directly or indirectly, if the invitation is made for a sexual purpose. For example, it is a criminal offense to suggest that a young boy masturbate for the voyeuristic pleasure of the person making the suggestion". See  (MacDonald, 1994:p16), as cited by Barrett et al. (1997).

In the period 1940-1960, attitudes toward masturbation were significantly liberalised as the traditional repressive religious morality lost ground[22]. Instead, masturbation came to be seen as an action that reflected the ordinary psychological confusion & hormonal changes of adolescence. These changes, in turn, reflect a change in attitudes toward adolescence itself, as well as the development of a new definition of sexual normality in Quebec.

 

Thomas (1987)[23] reports on an interview study with 77 mothers of 4-6 year olds, mapping attitudes toward sexuality.

 

 

[Additional refs.: Gleason, M. (1999) Embodied negotiations: Children's bodies and historical change in Canada, 1930 to 1960, J Canad Stud 34,1:112-38]

 

 

Notes [up] [Contents]

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