(x) Preface

De auteurs willen al lang het eenzijdig mannelijke perspectief in het denken over speelplaatsen aanvullen met een vrouwelijk perspectief. Ze schreven daar al eerder over.

"That chapter was followed by another in Foundations of Playwork (2008) entitled ‘The Enigma of the Missing Female Perspective in Playwork Theory’ in which we outlined potential differences between male and female brains, thinking and communicating and how this affected what was written by men. We also gave an outline of some ‘female perspectives’ on what we perceived to be male ideas. We asked further questions to be pursued, hopefully by women, many of which we also continue to consider." [mijn nadruk] (x)

[Ik hoop niet dat ze bedoelen wat ik denk dat ze bedoelen.]

"We have come a long way since 2006. Much of which we wrote about in our early chapters now seems ill considered. Some is still relevant, but we were too quick to believe many of the theories that we read about differences between males and females, before we had considered all the opposing views." [mijn nadruk] (x-xi)

[Die indruk had ik al, ja. Maar goed. Gelukkig maar.]

"Would my play life have been the same if I had not been labelled a ‘girl’? I think not."(xi)

"It is strange to think that maybe I am a construct!"(xii)

(1) Introduction

Overzicht van de inhoud van de diverse hoofdstukken.

(3) Chapter one - Gender and sex: The play perspective

"So, there you have it. This is not a book that gives answers – it is a book that asks questions and tests and scrutinizes answers. We will explore the thoughts of those who have tried to answer them from a range of different perspectives. We have formed and reformed our opinions, but we have found it difficult to come to definitive conclusions. We have, however, fashioned different questions and we do offer some thoughts for better practice – and so we invite you to join our quest."(4)

"Play is something that human beings and many other animals simply and instinctively do, as often as they possibly can and especially – but not exclusively – while growing up. We believe with others Smith (2010), Bjorkland (2007), Sutton-Smith (1997), Beckoff and Byers (1998), Hughes (2012), that it is biologically essential and so commands our respect and interest."(6)

[De vraag is alleen hoe lang die fase in een mensenleven duurt. En dat heeft dan toch ook te maken met de cultuur en de samenleving waarin kinderen opgroeien: het is niet alleen maar 'instinctief' en 'van nature'.]

Volgt een lijst van kenmerken die we aan spel kunnen waarnemen.

"But is there a point to children’s play; does it have purpose? There are many theories but they fall into two main schools of thought; that of deferred or present benefits. The first states that play is necessary for our all-round development, i.e. playing helps us become better adults. The second states that play is necessary for a good childhood, i.e. playing enriches children’s lives in the here-and-now."(8)

"In their Playwork Principles (see Appendix A), the playwork sector in the UK makes statements about play in the first two principles; namely,
1 All children and young people need to play. The impulse to play is innate. Play is a biological, psychological and social necessity, and is fundamental to the healthy development and well being of individuals and communities.
2 Play is a process that is freely chosen, personally directed and intrinsically motivated. That is, children and young people determine and control the content and intent of their play, by following their own instincts, ideas and interests, in their own way for their own reasons.(...)
The Playwork Principles have been useful though in describing play as being children’s domain and not something that adults should lead, direct or organize – a much needed concept in a society that has become less and less tolerant of children’s play." [mijn nadruk] (8)

"Themes of violence, death, bodily functions, loss and tragedy are common in play, but all those playing know this is ‘not real’ and so they can experiment with ‘possible feelings and possible identities without risking the real biological or social consequences’ (Bailey, 2002: 171)."(10)

[Dat zou dus ook moeten gelden voor seksuele spelletjes. Ik denk dat de spontaniteit en de eigen keuzes van kinderen dan al snel verstoord zullen raken door volwassenen. Ik vraag me ook af of spel hier gezien wordt als altijd tussen leeftijdsgenootjes? Kan een kind spelen met een volwassene?]

"Children are naturally curious and explore and discover – they want to know why things are as they are and will pursue knowledge when something has sufficiently grabbed their attention (even though that something may seem insignificant to us)."(11)

"Thus, we come to relating play to our other subjects – gender and sexuality. We give below some anecdotal examples."(15)

"We use the word ‘sex’ in two ways. First of all, by sex we mean the biological, genetic differences that are observed at birth.(...) Second of all, we use the word ‘sex’ in relation to sexual experience, arousal and action."(16)

"We use the word gender to describe our awareness and reaction to our assigned biological sex, which is influenced by biological, psychological and social factors. Are you a girl or a boy baby? Will you grow into a man or a woman? By the age of about two years most children have a notion of whether they are a boy or a girl and they gradually grow more aware of the biological differences between males and females." [mijn nadruk] (17)

"Awareness of physical differences develops into a private experience of feeling like a male or a female – our gender identity. Generally, but not always, a person’s gender identity is in line with their biological sex.(...) Gender role is the public expression of gender; it is ways of being and behaving that are considered to be masculine, feminine or somewhere in between." [mijn nadruk] (17)

"Sexuality is the capacity for sexual feeling and arousal or a person’s sexual preferences for particular types of activity that arouse them. (...) Adults can have difficulty with children’s emerging sexuality because they view it through an adult lens rather than seeing that children are playfully exploring bodies and terminology in order to gradually understand what sex and sexuality is. The way that adults impart information and respond to children’s sexual play, can have a profound effect on how comfortable children become with their later sexual behaviour and sexual identity – but we will explore all this and more in Chapter 5." [mijn nadruk] (18)

(19) Chapter two - Gender and sexuality in childhood – perspectives past and present

Basisvraag:

"What part does children’s play feature in the ongoing struggle to make sense of possible equality of opportunity for males and females and people of different sexual persuasions? In pursuit of this, does it matter if boys and girls play in a stereotypically male or female way?"(20)

"Women’s groups began to associate control of women with the broader notions of patriarchy, capitalism, heterosexuality as normal and a woman’s role as ‘wife and mother’. There were efforts made on a number of fronts to rid society of sexism, from children’s cartoons, books and clothes across the layers of our culture, through to our laws and government."(22)

"In the mid-1980s, in-service training for people who worked in the early years’ sector, focused on anti-sexist practices. The ‘Wendy house’ was considered a sexist description for an area in which both boys and girls could play and ‘home corner’ was substituted instead. There was a campaign of zero tolerance to war, weapon and superhero play as it was considered to be linked to adult male violence, domestic abuse and rape. Feminists and women liberationists from many campaigning groups all believed that nurture had a larger part to play than nature and that if you took the guns away from boys and substituted them with dolls, boys could be socialized away from models of violence at an early age. (As you will see from Chapter 6 this is no longer considered the case, although now there is a concern about clothes and song lyrics as being corrupting.) Many women began to see themselves as a collective of more caring, collaborative, inclusive, peaceful, nurturing, democratic people than men, with a more holistic way of solving problems and with a greater connection to the earth.
Since the 1970s, some men have also become aware that they, too, are the object of sexism. Not all men want to be the breadwinners, the strong, powerful, unemotional, driven, logical ones in relation to heterosexual coupledom, responsible for earning money and providing protection for their woman or family. They recognize that they have many of the traits that are considered to be feminine and/or they enjoy some or many of the aspects of life normally carried out by women, such as child rearing, homemaking and the like. At the very least, some men, but by no means all, started to recognize the need for sharing of all aspects of life in an equal and fair way. However difficult men have found, or might still find some aspects of their gendered life, as yet they have not suffered the long years of oppression that women have and women, generally, are still far more disadvantaged by inequality than men." [mijn nadruk] (22)

[Goed geformuleerd, ik ben het als man zeer eens met die laatste alinea. Maar het zou dan ook aardig zijn om te vermelden dat veel vrouwen de traditionele rol van mannen blijven verwachten en niet overweg kunnen met mannen die het bovenstaande nastreven voor zichzelf.]

"Feminists and people who believe that all gendered behaviour is socialized into children certainly argue that stereotypically male or female play behaviour is harmful. However, others think not; they believe that differences are hard wired and gendered play is just a manifestation of this. We will discuss this further in Chapters 3 and 4. There are some who wonder if there are benefits to children developing gender-stereotyped roles? Most people who work with children know that play is very important, but does anyone think that stereotypically gendered play is important?" [mijn nadruk] (30)

"Eliot thinks that there may be a cost to encouraging girls to play more with stereotypical boys’ toys, because they will play some of the time with boys’ toys anyway, but time use, in childhood play, is limited to certain periods during that childhood and there may be benefits to playing with girls’ toys that we are not aware of. The same may be true when encouraging boys to play with stereotypical girls’ toys. There are particular skills associated with different types of play and some are specifically associated with gender. Does providing boys with construction and transport toys give them an advantage over girls? Do these toys represent some kind of power? Does providing girls with dolls and pushchairs give them an advantage over boys? Do these toys imbue the players with some kind of power? Do they nurture some kind of ability in the players to care for people? Do gender roles serve an important social and psychological function for individuals, as well as society, or are they, as some people (mainly women) think, a way of keeping a power differential in favour of men? There are certainly those who would say so."(30)

"Papadopoulos (2010: 6) states that ‘[s]exualization is the imposition of adult sexuality on to children and young people before they are capable of dealing with it, mentally, emotionally or physically’. (...) Papadopoulos suggests that such things as gender, class and age are being used to exaggerate constructions of femininity and masculinity; she sees children as being adultified, while adult women are being infantilized and boys are being hyper-masculinized. She does not say that children are being homosexualized!" [mijn nadruk] (31)

"Hines (2004: 122–4) gives examples of numerous studies that suggest that homosexual men and women engaged more in extreme cross-sex play and cross-dressing than heterosexual men and women."(32)

(35) Chapter three - Boys and girls playing: Same or different?

"We need to lay some sort of foundation for why it is that so many people believe so strongly that there either are or are not differences between the behaviour of boys and girls and, particularly, in their play behaviour. Studies across the world and over time have consistently noted gender differences in the ways in which children play and parents anecdotally continue to agree: but is this really true and what part does nature or nurture have in this?" [mijn nadruk] (35)

"Whatever we may wish to think about gender difference, there is consistent ‘evidence’ from research undertaken from different fields, such as developmental, educational and child psychology, neuroscience, early years and education that boys and girls do play differently and some differ- ences emerge and change over time (Maccoby (2003), Eliot (2010), Hines (2004), Martin (2011), Holland (2003/08), Smith (2010), Becker et al. (2008), Sax (2005), Blatchford et al. (2003), Pellegrini et al. (2004) – and even from people who might prefer to think otherwise, see Karsten (2003), Jordan-Young (2011) Davies (1997). Indeed, some believe play behaviours to be the biggest gender difference of all. It is believed that boys and girls choose to play at and with different things in different ways and that after the age of about three or four, they tend to choose more play partners from their own sex than the other." [mijn nadruk] (36)

[Het is inderdaad maar wat je bewijs noemt. Wat waren de waarden en normen op de achtergrond van de onderzoekers? Wat voor methoden werden gehanteerd in wat voor context en met wat voor populatie? En zo verder. En bovendien: ook al zouden dat de feiten zijn over hoe het is, dan zou weer niks zeggen over hoe het volgens bepaalde mensen zou moeten zijn. Op p. 38-40 staan de kenmerken die men aan het spel van jongens en meisjes toeschrijft. ]

"Below we will share a few of the observations we have gathered, in order to compare our experience with that of the scientists who have studied gender in some detail."(40)

[En de conclusie is straks natuurlijk dat het in de praktijk allemaal niet zo helder is en dat toeschrijven van die kenmerken vaak gebeurt op basis van vooroordelen.]

"Fine also gives examples of how toys and games can be made attractive to either sex merely by suggesting that they are, thereby demonstrating that the play of boys and girls might be more similar if they did not live within a gendered world." [mijn nadruk] (47)

"Perhaps such outdoor environments are less gendered and with only natural things and loose parts, they are also less gender-prescriptive, leaving children freer to play with each other. We have certainly noticed over time that when the props that are available for children to play with carry no obvious gender messages (which cannot be said of most toys), both sexes are more likely to explore these and play together."(48)

"Children do sometimes cross the gender divide – but in groups they do this rarely and not always successfully, as other children can make it clear that they have ‘transgressed’. It is much easier for girls to cross into the boys’ world than for boys to cross into the girls’, as we can see from some of the examples above and the one following." [mijn nadruk] (51)

[Ik zou graag willen weten wat de oorzaken zijn van dat conformisme. Is dat ook onderzocht of is dat als vanzelfsprekend aangenomen?]

"In real life, things are not always so easy for children who sometimes want to be gender non-conforming, unless they are superconfident and it is clearly harder for boys. ‘Tomboys’ are acknowledged and often accepted, but their male equivalents are called ‘cissies’ (even by researchers) and are often not tolerated – to a greater or lesser degree – by parents, adults or other children." [mijn nadruk] (51)

"Whatever the causes, voluntary sex-segregation in childhood seems to happen in every culture that has been studied, but it is by no means completely fixed and individual children can and do still play with their opposite sex at different times." [mijn nadruk] (55)

"Toys and games appear to be even more gendered now than they ever were in the days when gender discrimination was the norm. Prior to the 1970s, there always had been toys specifically for boys and girls based on gender stereotypes, i.e. girls had domestic, arts and crafts and nurturing based toys and boys had construction, action and wheeled based toys but there was not the rigid segregation by colour and fantasy-based characters (pink princess or blue action hero), that there seems to be now. The 1970s produced far more gender-neutral toys as feminism was at its height, but, as time has gone on, these seem to be a thing of the past." [mijn nadruk] (55-56)

"Are there really innate differences between the ways that boys and girls play and what they play with or are all differences socially constructed? There are certainly many researchers who would say yes, there are differences, and many more who would say yes with the reservation that it is society that causes this to happen and not a natural inclination on the part of boys and girls, and there are others who consider that there are very few or even no differences, because they have never come across them. It is interesting to note that all the people to whom we spoke, who are concerned about the causes of any perceived differences between the ways that boys and girls play, found it very difficult to say that they have seen differences, without referring to what they consider to be the causes of this i.e. gender socialization." [mijn nadruk] (57-58)

(59) Chapter four - The theoretical perspective

"This chapter will explore the varying theories which try to explain why there may be differences between the interests and play behaviours of, and within the groups labelled as, boys and girls. It will outline theories that are formed by research undertaken within the spheres of biology, education, psychology and sociology and will examine the biases within each and search for those that appear more conclusive (if indeed there are any). There is no one proven theory to explain how or why children either acquire or perform their gender roles and gender identities. All theories are speculative." [mijn nadruk] (59)

[Ik verwacht weer veel evolutionaire biologie en psychologie. ]

"Let us be clear here, we are not scientists, we have no reason to support one theory or another, but we are interested in how views on gender differences affect the way that people support children’s play and therefore we are going to try to be balanced by giving examples of a range of theories from different areas of research for you to ponder. We will leave you to decide whether any of them ‘speak’ to you in a way that informs or confirms your own thinking and the way that you think about the behaviour of girls and boys and indeed how you behave with them." [mijn nadruk] (60)

[Ze willen dus geen standpunt innemen over goede en slechte theorieën? Vreemd.]

"We have previously suggested (Kilvington and Wood, 2010) that theories can be roughly grouped into those with a socio-cultural, external basis and based on nurture and those with a biological, internal basis and based on nature. In hindsight, these may seem a little over simplistic and pandering to an oppositional or binary view of how gender is ‘done’, but nevertheless they still represent many of the historical and current approaches taken to the study of sex and gender."(61)

[Dat is toch helemaal geen rare gedachte? Er zullen natuurlijk ook wel mengvormen zijn, maar dan nog.]

"Is it possible that our behaviour is not influenced by our views? That we are able to take an objective stance? Surely our views inform our practice?"(70)

"Interestingly, during the course of our extensive reading we have not come across any literature where neuroscientists have disputed the findings of sociologists or psychologists."(74)

"Kane (2013: 59) also points to another style of research, related to the influences that possibly affect children’s performance of gender, when she tells us that Krafchick et al. (2005) carried out content analysis on the best-selling parenting books in the USA. This revealed the message that mothers should be the primary caregivers to children, boys are naturally more independent and girls more nurturing. The outcome of this content analysis would cause a shudder of horror in the minds of many social scientists and feminists alike!" [mijn nadruk] (75-76)

[Tja, in de VS is alles extremer en vooral conservatiever dan in bv. Europa. Hoewel het hier op dit specifieke punt al niet veel beter meer zal zijn gezien de grote invloed van Amerikaanse waarden en normen. ]

"Are any of these researchers surprised by their findings? It seems to us that researchers can always prove that which fits their own cultural view of the world! At the moment we despair. We want to read of a scientist whose research on gender differences has suddenly shaken their world view, or ours, whichever that might be." [mijn nadruk] (78)

"It is important to respect children’s competencies and to understand that they are not victims of life, but social actors within it. Therefore, they are just as able to affect their own gender identities as adults are. Further it is important to acknowledge as understood by UNICEF (2010: 10) that gendered experiences are also varied between groups of girls and boys. No group is entirely homogenous – ‘all include members of social sub-groups, defined by age, religion, race, ethnicity, economic status, caste, citizenship, sexual identity, ability/ disability, and urban/rural locality’. The experience of a child in one culture may be very different to that of a child in another, even where there are perceived similarities in some gendered behaviour." [mijn nadruk] (81)

"Secondly, we have to balance our duty of care to protect children from harm against their need to explore and experiment and to express every aspect of themselves through play, including their gender and sexuality."(81)

(83) Chapter five - Implications for boys and girls playing – children, sex and sexuality

"Children and sexuality remains a contentious topic in Western society and continues to provoke a range of responses that are often highly subjective, as other authors over the years have also found (see Jackson [1982], Jenkins [1998], Levine [2002], Luker [2007]). Do read this chapter with an open mind and be aware of your own intellectual and emotional responses as you think over the questions and issues we raise!
(...) To begin to address the complexities involved in perceptions of children and sexuality, we seriously need to raise our own awareness about the range of opinions, beliefs and behaviours which, across years and continents, shape and reshape the worlds in which children themselves then have to come to terms with their bodies and sexual identities. This will involve exploring the work of historians, scientists, sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists and anthropologists, as well as listening to parents and teachers and others who have worked or do work with children.
We begin by asking whether a prepubescent child has a sexuality. This is a difficult topic to discuss rationally not just in the light of current concerns about paedophilia and child sexual exploitation (CSE), but also because sexuality has a number of contexts and may mean different things to different people and we will need to reinterpret this query by asking further practical questions to get us thinking. We will go on to explore the issues that they raise and then return to them at the end of the chapter, but for now, ask yourself what answers you would give to the following – remembering these are about children before they reach puberty.

Key questions

-- Are children able to experience sexual pleasure?
-- Do (all) children masturbate and, if so, from what age?
-- If children can physically experience sexual pleasure, do they need sexual knowledge in order to understand or make sense of their experience?
-- Does having such knowledge – at any age – help or hinder their understanding?
-- If a child does not have sexual knowledge, does that mean that any physical pleasure they may experience is non-sexual?
-- If children behave in apparently sexual ways, are they motivated by the same needs and wants as adults?
-- Are there ‘milestones’ of sexual development that children pass through? And are these the same for all children?
-- Can children be ‘corrupted’?
-- Should children remain innocent of sexual matters for as long as possible? And would that be their preference?
-- Are children who experience any form of sexual abuse automatically traumatized?
-- Do/can children know their sexual preferences in terms of gender?
-- Do children engage in sexual play? And, if so, do all children do this? Is it ‘normal’?
-- Is sexual play healthy or can it be harmful?
-- How can we tell the difference between sexual play, sexual experience and sexual abuse?"(83-85)

[Dit is midden in de roos. Dapper van die twee vrouwen. De vragen die hier gesteld worden worden door de meeste mensen ervaren als 'not done'. Onderzoek ernaar wordt afgewezen of tegengewerkt. Lees maar verder:]

"Very little research on childhood sexuality has been undertaken, which perhaps is ethically understandable in the present day – most research in the last few decades has focused on childhood sexual abuse. For the few who have undertaken research into ‘normative’ childhood sexuality and published their findings, the response in the West, in some cases has been extremely negative and some have even attempted to damage the reputations of the researchers (see Rind et al. [1998], Levine [2002]). In our case, too, when we undertook workshops exploring some of the questions raised in the preceding section, we, certainly, received our own share of highly charged complaints (interestingly, always from people who had heard about the workshops, but did not attend them).
As Bancroft (2003: xii) says, ‘rational debate and scientific inquiry into normal childhood sexual development are currently very difficult’ (the italics are ours). Why is this? Jenkins (1998), a historian, describes ‘cycles of moral panic’ about child sexual abuse that have recurred three times over the last 120 years that significantly affect the way we perceive children and sexuality. We are currently in one of these cycles in the West and so any manifestations of sexualized behaviour by children tend to ring our safeguarding alarm bells. Renold (2005: 21), however, laments that, ‘such is the denial of children’s sexual awareness, that any child’s early interest in sex can be interpreted as warning sign that the child has been sexually abused’." [mijn nadruk] (85)

[Met andere woorden: onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik mag wel, onderzoek naar de normale seksuele ontwikkeling mag niet, waarmee je kinderlijke seksualiteit dus altijd benaderd vanuit een negatieve sfeer, als iets wat niet hoort. Terwijl seksueel misbruik weinig te maken heeft met seks en alles met machtsuitoefening en geweld. Genoemde 'moral panics' hebben ook weinig met seksueel misbruik te maken, denk ik, en vooral met conservatieve waarden en normen die seks- en vrouwvijandig zijn.]

"This is somewhat worrying – indeed in our own research, we have heard first-hand many stories of children being referred to Social Services and/or child psychologists and, in some cases, even being put on a sexual offenders’ register for what – when viewed through a different lens – appears to be behaviour that is simply a manifestation of curiosity – playing mums and dads at five-years old in the den, for example, or an eleven-year-old boy trying to catch and kiss shrieking girls. How did we get to this point?(...) Put simply, since the 1980s, there has been growing public concern about child abuse and child sexual abuse, in particular. Parental fears about strangers and paedophiles are widespread and have been fanned by the media (despite the facts that child abduction rates have not risen for sixty years and that the majority of child abuse is from people known to and trusted by the child). Child protection services have been constantly reorganizing and reviewing practice in order to better detect and support children who may have been sexually abused. Books for and by survivors have flooded bookshop shelves and helplines are regularly advertised on our televisions. Definitions of what constitutes abuse have also been revised and updated and new laws have been introduced in order to further protect children. All of this cannot help but influence current societal thinking." [mijn nadruk] (85-86)

"Our concerns about our children’s innocence and protection are not necessarily replicated across the world in other societies, who perceive children as more able and/or having the right to know about sex and sexuality." [mijn nadruk] (86)

"Let us clarify – we are not saying that sexual abuse of children is of no real consequence. We believe it is deplorable – as is all other abuse of children – but that it is so, due to the imbalance of power it comprises. After a great deal of reading, listening and questioning, we also believe that children are not asexual and that our strong desire to keep them safe and ‘innocent’ often erodes their own defences, undermines their growing confidence, denies them knowledge and understanding and fails to recognize their own experiences and queries. To explain this perspective, we will need to explore further a number of threads and ask you to bear with us as we do so."

[Een duidelijk standpunt, realistisch en relativerend. Dapper. In de UK kan dat nog, in de USA al lang niet meer, vrees ik. ]

"Like Egan and Hawkes (2008: 365), we felt that ‘the rights of children as sexual subjects are often singularly framed as the right of protection from sexual exploitation, but rarely do these conversations turn toward the equally important right of sexual agency’. How do children ‘normally’ express this agency? We decided to make an attempt to find out." [mijn nadruk] (87)

[Inderdaad is dat ook het standpunt van Egan en Hawkes. En mijn standpunt natuurlijk.]

"Playworkers, in particular, are often in a unique position to observe and hear this, because they create and oversee ‘compensatory play spaces’ as children have far less freedom to play than in previous generations and thus children in play settings benefit from the permissional approach of playworkers which enables them to ‘determine and control the content and intent of their play, by following their own instincts, ideas and interests, in their own way for their own reasons’ (see Playwork Principles [2005], referenced Appendix A). This meant that we could gather information and stories about children’s current activities and experiences without directly setting out to discover this – ‘asking children directly about their sexual experience and behaviours is fraught with methodological problems’ (O’Sullivan 2003: 27) let alone the ethical considerations of doing so." [mijn nadruk] (88)

"Concerns about the effects of sexual abuse are also dissimilar elsewhere – Montgomery’s (2010) research into child prostitution in Thailand describes a concern there with the children’s physical welfare, but no such belief that they are irreparably psychologically damaged and the children in the study did not consider themselves as victims, but rather felt able to positively contribute to the family income. Jackson (1982: 62) postulates that in Western culture ‘most of the ‘trauma’ is probably caused by ‘adult reaction’, a thought also echoed by Meyer-Bahlburg (2003: 373) when she describes seeing ‘marked exacerbation of the effects of child sexual abuse by what happens as a consequence of agency interventions’.
Let us clarify – we are not saying that sexual abuse of children is of no real consequence. We believe it is deplorable – as is all other abuse of children – but that it is so, due to the imbalance of power it comprises. After a great deal of reading, listening and questioning, we also believe that children are not asexual and that our strong desire to keep them safe and ‘innocent’ often erodes their own defences, undermines their growing confidence, denies them knowledge and understanding and fails to recognize their own experiences and queries. To explain this perspective, we will need to explore further a number of threads and ask you to bear with us as we do so." [mijn nadruk] (86-87)

[Wauw. Eindelijk eens een boek met goede inzichten in kinderen.]

"Children, of course, are rarely away from adult eyes these days and so sexual play and testing out the use of sexual language and exploring sexual knowledge that in the past usually occurred alone or between children in privacy – is now more likely to be noticed and/or heard than it used to be. Playworkers, in particular, are often in a unique position to observe and hear this, because they create and oversee ‘compensatory play spaces’ as children have far less freedom to play than in previous generations and thus children in play settings benefit from the permissional approach of playworkers" [mijn nadruk] (88)

Verhalen van deelnemers aan een workshop worden beschreven.

"These stories also concur with Friedrich’s (2003: 119) findings when he conducted studies of the sexuality of non-abused children and concluded that ‘sexual behaviour in children is typically non-pathologic, follows a developmental course and can be quite varied’. A few others have researched forms of sex play – notably Thorne and Luria (1986), Lamb and Coakley (1993), Reynolds and Herbenick (2003), Sandfort and Rademakers (2000). Some have asked caregivers to complete observations of their young children against a Child Sexual Behaviour Inventory (CSBI) and others have asked adults to reminisce and recall experiences when they were children.
Poole and Wolfe (2009: 109) in their exploration of normative sexual behaviour in childhood, say that ‘adults who remember and recount childhood experiences report a considerable amount of undiscovered sexual behaviour’ and refer to retrospective studies that featured examples of children exhibiting their bodies, masturbation and genital fondling, oral sex and attempted intercourse in middle childhood (6–12 years).
All these studies and our own collected stories, do propose that sexual play is a common phenomenon among many children, primarily motivated by curiosity and they challenge recent prevailing views that: a) children are asexual in their thinking and their behaviour; and b) that children in middle childhood do not – and should not – engage in sexual behaviour. Many of the stories we heard also included tellings off and punishments meted out by adults who discovered or overheard them and the guilt or confusion that followed.
Such prevailing views do tend to drive children’s experiences underground – they learn quite early on that most adults are embarrassed by their questions and disapprove of them behaving in certain ways. It does seem to be the case that the ‘abuse rhetoric has also expanded medicalized and deviant labels over juvenile sexual behaviours that until very recently were commonly regarded as harmless play’ (Jenkins 2003: 13). " [mijn nadruk] (91)

[Het standpunt is dus duidelijk en goed geformuleerd. Ik ben onder de indruk. Die criminaliseering is ook in Nederland gaande.]

"Sex education tends to be sanitized, moralistic and concentrates on the future, so that children get to know about babies but know very little about sexuality, about desire and arousal, about foreplay and pleasure, about making love, about homosexuality and about how any of this relates to them in the present. Girls particularly can therefore go years before ever finding out about their clitoris and its real function. Children, therefore, discover most sexual information from each other – which could include myths and falsehoods – and/or from the internet, which is likely to include pornography that is usually full of macho scripts and often comprizes violence. Goedele Liekens, a UN ambassador for sexual health and campaigner for a school-based curriculum that teaches children about sexual pleasure and consent, believes that if we ‘shy away from discussing sex in explicit detail, we lose all chance of counteracting porn’s disastrous effect on our young people’ (2015). There are a few websites that are set up for children and young people that are really positive and informative and include the facility to have questions – however explicit – answered, but we have not come across any adults or children’s organizations yet who promote them." [mijn nadruk] (93)

"Gagnon and Simon (1973) postulated that we learn about sexuality and eventually act out sexual roles from socially learned scripts, rather than acting on biologically driven sexual impulses, and they draw our attention to consider what those scripts might be and indeed which scripts we may have learnt. Have we wrestled with guilt, anxiety and confusion about our own sexuality and sexual behaviour, derived from the secrecy that surrounded it during our formative years? If we disapprove of children’s sexual curiosity and find it difficult to answer their questions, what message does that give them? If children learn about sexual acts from watching pornography, with no opportunity to talk about what they see, will they be espousing biased and macho scripts? How are they affected by the sexualization that Bailey (2011) calls ‘the wallpaper of children’s lives’– in terms of fashion, language, popular culture, music – products that are marketed to children that we all might label sexy or sexual? Is it okay for preschool girls to wear thongs, dance provocatively and sing lyrics like ‘baby, I’m so hot for you’? Is it okay for little boys to wear T-shirts emblazoned ‘chick magnet’, dance aggressively while muttering ‘I’ll get you motherfucker’? Have they any idea what the words mean? Are they learning anything from all this? Are Levin and Kilbourne (2008: 5) right to say that ‘children are paying an enormous price for the sexualization of their childhood? Girls and boys constantly encounter sexual messages and images that they cannot understand and that can confuse and even frighten them’? Rush and La Nauze (2006) even describe advertising and marketing which sexualizes children as ‘corporate paedophilia’.
On the other hand, the research of Buckingham et al. (2010) on sexualized goods aimed at children seems to indicate that children are not passive recipients but skilled consumers, reinterpreting purchases with different meanings according to children’s culture – the Playboy bunny image, for instance, became for them a symbol of a good student. If children do not know what something means, how can it influence them in the ways adults assume? As Levin and Kilbourne (2008: 21) admit, we tend to use an adult lens for interpreting what children say about sex, rather than a child’s lens, and ‘often when adults think “sex”, children have something very different on their minds’.
Over and over in the discussions where adults voice their concerns about children and sex; what children do and don’t know, what they should and shouldn’t know, how they do and don’t behave and how they should or shouldn’t behave – there is an underlying powerful thread of adult responsibility that rarely acknowledges children’s own agency and ability to make sense of things, or attempts to see children’s responses to all things sexual through their eyes. It does seem that we adults career on with our debates and arguments on morals and on values and don’t take sufficient time to sit outside ourselves and listen to and evaluate what is really going on in ourselves, our children and our society – and other societies who deal with all this rather differently." [mijn nadruk] (93-94)

[Nog steeds een heel goed verhaal. Heteronormativiteit is zeker een factor, maar naar mijn smaak dan wel als een onderdeel van allerlei andere conservatieve waarden en normen zoals de angst om er niet bij te horen, om af te wijken.]

"It’s worth pausing for a moment to consider the slowly growing recognition and range of intersex people. They may be born with ambiguous genitalia (currently between 1 in 1,500 and 1 in 2,000 births). They may appear to be either female or male on the outside but internally have mostly the ‘opposite’ anatomy. They may have a genetic condition whereby some of their cells have XY chromosomes and others have XX. There are a whole variety of hormonal and chromosomal traits and conditions that fall within the intersex spectrum. Obtaining accurate statistics of the incidence of all these conditions is impossible as records are not routinely kept; many of these conditions do not become apparent until puberty or until trying to conceive and many people wish to remain silent about it."(96)

[Waar, maar we moeten denk ik niet vergeten dat we het over minderheden hebben. Dat gebeurt namelijk nogal gemakkelijk in dit soort pleidooien voor openheid en tolerantie.]

"If we return to the questions posed at the beginning of this chapter, we are in a position to address these, although there is still much to learn.
Are children able to experience sexual pleasure?
Yes it would seem so
Do (all) children masturbate and if so, from what age?
If by masturbation, we mean manipulating genital organs, then it seems not all, but many do at different times and can do from babyhood
Can children experience orgasm?
If by orgasm we mean an intensely pleasurable bodily feeling that emanates from the genitals, it seems so
If children can physically experience sexual pleasure, do they need sexual knowledge in order to understand or make sense of their experience?
They can only understand it as ‘sexual pleasure’ if they have knowledge of sexual function
Does having such knowledge – at any age – help or hinder their understanding?
If that knowledge – at any age – is relevant, meaningful and either imparted or discovered in a way that makes sense to the child, then such knowledge can surely only be helpful
If a child does not have sexual knowledge does that mean that any physical pleasure they may experience is non-sexual?
It is probably impossible to answer this as what constitutes ‘knowledge’ and what is defined as ‘sexual’ varies hugely and may be experienced differently by individual children
If children behave in apparently sexual ways, are they motivated by the same needs and wants as adults?
Pre-pubescent children can experience interest and pleasure, but this is different to post-puberty and again to adulthood as understanding, desire, sexual experience and levels of hormones increase
Are there ‘milestones’ of sexual development that children pass through and are these the same for all children?
Further research is really necessary; there seem to be a few general markers but these don’t necessarily apply to all children – the idea of ‘milestones’ is far too prescriptive and many intereaving factors (social, emotional, familial, environmental, cultural, religious, gender) influence the precipitation of explorative ‘sexual’ behaviour in childhood
Can children be ‘corrupted’ by sexual experience or sexual knowledge?
What is meant by the term ‘corruption’? Children who are repeatedly sexually abused are certainly affected by their experiences and may need to relearn more ‘normative’ behaviour and may require therapeutic support. But giving children information about sex and sexuality is educative, not ‘corruptive’
Should children remain innocent of sexual matters for as long as possible and would that be their preference?
Our view on this is that we should follow children’s lead and answer their questions honestly as they grow up
Are children who experience any form of sexual abuse automatically traumatized?
This is questionable. Some children do get upset; some may become distressed; some are traumatized, but not all are – some seem to be unaffected. It is so widely assumed that any child with any abusive experience will be traumatized, that this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy and certainly the reaction from adults has a huge effect. We have heard stories from adults who went to counselling believing they must have blocked something out because they were not suffering from some incident in their past and were worried that they should be
Do/can children know their sexual preferences in terms of gender?
Some children do question this at a young age – many gay adults say in hindsight that they always ‘knew’ they were not straight
Do children engage in sexual play and if so do all children do this and is it normal’?
Many (but seemingly not all) children do at different times – as with all other forms of play, it is their way of making sense of their world
Is sexual play healthy or can it be harmful?
If all children involved are freely playing of their own volition, it seems to be explorative fun. If they are not freely playing, it may be harmful to a greater or lesser degree (i.e. discomfort ranging to actual abuse) as there may be coercion involved
Can we tell the difference between sexual play, sexual experience and sexual abuse?
Perhaps we can – sexual play is mostly pre-pubescent when children are curious and finding out what they don’t know. Sexual experience denotes physical involvement (although this could still be playful in content!) with oneself or consensually with peers with at least some knowledge of sexual matters. Sexual abuse involves the exploitation, persuasion or coercion of a child or young person and may be emotionally and/or physically damaging, but not necessarily so. "(97-99)

(101) Chapter six - Adult bias and reflective practice

"This chapter considers whether adults and those who work with children at play are consciously and/or unconsciously biased in the way that they work, by their own gender and sexuality, by their own experiences, philosophy and/or the emphasis given to particular unproven theories related to the acquisition or performance of gender and sexuality."(101)

[Natuurlijk is dat zo.]

"How many of us take the time to consider all the varying views that there are about gender and whether it is either constructed, developed, performed, expressed, maintained or born? How many of us try to see whether there is truth in any of them and what that truth might be?"(103)

[Waarschijnlijk niet zo veel.]

"A child who has an obsession with dinosaurs does not necessarily become a palaeontologist in adulthood anymore than a child who plays with toy guns or swords becomes an aggressive adult."(107)

"From their research into differences in gender across different cultures, Aydt and Corsaro (2003) suggest that gender roles are communicated in very subtle ways by adults and because children seek to be valued, they conform to those attributes that are valued by the adults in their own community. Thus, they suggest that we can infer that levels of segregation between boys and girls, in any community, will vary according to the degree that males are considered to be aggressive and females passive. Aydt and Corsaro (2003: 1309) also notice that this causes peer cultures to be different among children of different cultures yet they remark that ‘gendered behaviour among children is spoken of monolithically’ as if it was the same in all communities. Children’s peer genderscapes are not one thing, but many and we believe that unconscious gender stereotyping is alive and kicking." [mijn nadruk] (108)

"Parents worry about their children being able to ‘fit in’ and not be considered odd by other children or other adults and so will monitor the levels of gendered conformity they believe are acceptable. While this can and does happen for both boys and girls in different ways, it is sometimes harder for gentle or sensitive boys who can end up being labelled as ‘cissy’ – something many parents fear." [mijn nadruk] (108)

[Don't I know .. ]

"We suggested above that reflective training on gender should be included in training for all those who work with children. We would also strongly recommend that children’s sexuality should be on the training agenda for all professionals working with children. Martinson (1973: 1) says, ‘there is probably no human activity about which there is greater curiosity, greater social concern, and less knowledge than sexuality, particularly infant and child sexuality’. ‘The child as a subject learning about sexuality and capable of experiencing sexual pleasure doesn’t seem to exist in scholarly papers’, say Sandfort and Rademakers (2000: 1)." [mijn nadruk] (115)

[Ja, typisch. Het mag niet eens onderzocht worden, stel je voor dat we dingen ontdekken die we als volwassenen niet willen weten.]

"We need to see these situations through children’s eyes. Looking through an adult lens and making assumptions will lead to unhelpful interventions. Certainly blaming, judging and scolding children will only achieve humiliation and confusion." [mijn nadruk] (118)

(125) Chapter seven - Conscious competence in support of children playing

Toepassing van al het voorgaande op spelende kinderen.

"With regard to children’s growth and their sexual development in particular, it might be helpful to have an overview of what might be expected or typical of children at different ages. This does come with a warning however, because all children are unique and members of different families, diverse cultures and a range of social environments all of which impacts for better or worse on their thoughts, feelings, abilities and opportunities." [mijn nadruk] (126-127)

[De pest is alleen dat veel ouders en beroepskrachten die laatste waarschuwing in de wind slaan omdat ze niet in staat zijn een theoretisch ontwikkelingsmodel op die manier te relativeren en zelf na te denken. Ze klampen zich als het ware vast aan dat model omdat het 'zekerheid' biedt. Hoe vaak ik dat al niet gezien en gelezen heb ... Het kind wordt simpelweg niet gezien en binnen dat model geperst. En dan krijg je het gezeur over wat "age appropriate" is en wat niet.]

De auteurs beschrijven normale verschijnselen op dit vlak.

"Some of the above behaviours however, may give us cause for concern if they are obsessive or compulsive ..."(130)

[Tuurlijk, maar het probleem is dat dat waardengeladen termen zijn: wat obsessief is voor de een is dat niet voor de ander. Wat kinderne in hun spel verwerken hangt uiteraard af van wat kinderen allemaal tegenkomen - zoals ook de auteurs uitleggen. Maar het gekke is dat ze het niet over smartphones en internet hebben als bron van 'kennis' over seks terwijl steeds meer kinderen daar dingen zien die misschien verkeerd begrepen worden etc. We hebben ook vaak geen idee wat hun leeftijdsgenoten met hen doen, want ouderes hebben het te druk en zo.]

"We do need to learn to know – in practice – the difference between healthy and unhealthy sexual behaviours in children. However, our intention here is not to focus on the problematic but to develop a greater awareness and acceptance of what is natural and healthy sexual play that is often as much about understanding gender as it is about understanding sexuality."(132)

(145) Afterword

Aanbevelingen voor de praktijk, 'good practice' richtlijnen.

[Sluit aan bij en herhaalt wat al besproken is in eerdere hoofdstukken.]

Volgen nog wat bijlagen, een woordenlijst, een literatuuroverzicht, en een index.