The first sign of puberty, occurring somewhere between the ages of ten and fourteen, is in the scrotum, which enlarges and becomes reddened. At around the same time there is an increase in the size of the testes. This latter change is under the immediate control of a pituitary hormone called the follicle-stimulating hormone (in women the same pituitary hormones control the menstrual cycle). The secondary sexual characteristics that then develop, such as the increase in the size of the penis, beard and body-hair growth, the voice breaking, muscle development and so on are brought about by the testosterone produced by the enlarging and functioning testes.

Largely under the influence of testosterone, erections increase in frequency, as do sexual fantasies and eventually at around the age of twelve to fourteen, most boys start to masturbate. The starting point is often hearing about masturbation from slightly older boys or seeing someone else masturbating. Most normal boys promptly turn into ardent practitioners. For many boys, the start of their interest in masturbation occurs slightly before ejaculation is possible and their orgasms are of the so-called ‘dry run’ variety. Friendships with other boys usually intensify and mutual genital display, comparison and masturbation are fairly common. This reduces the sense of guilt boys feel, because they know other boys are doing it as well. Although this developmental phase is frequently ‘homosexual’ in this way, it is completely normal and should not really be thought of as homosexual at all.

Although a few boys may be seduced by older girls or women at this stage, most are unable to handle heterosexual advances even from girls of about their own age.

Old erotic interests in his mother (from the Oedipal stage of development) re-emerge and the process of finally growing away from her begins, so eventually freeing the boy to love and to make love to a woman outside the family. His father and ‘extensions’ of his father in other admired men are usually idealised and used as models. They usually inspire his day-dreams of achievement. In some cases old rivalries and fears of his father may surface again, sometimes leading to depression and, rarely, to suicide.

The reawakening of his attraction to his mother is the starting point of the boy’s interest in heterosexuality. Although his outward attitudes may not show it, his notions about girls begin to change sharply. Girls become increasingly desirable and of fascinating interest. This can lead to blushing and social unease when he is in contact with them. He very often uses ‘girlie’ magazines, however guiltily, to stimulate his sexual fantasies. Discussions about, and definitions of, pornography are endless but a practical way of looking at the subject is to distinguish it from erotica on the basis that pornography promotes incorrect sexual learning. Obviously adolescents, and particularly early-adolescent boys who are in a stage of rapid sexual learning, need to be shielded from pornography. Whether ‘girlie’ magazines are erotica or pornography is debatable. If they teach boys that only girls who have bodies like those of the models are desirable then they promote incorrect sexual learning. But in that they encourage an admiration for the female body and an interest in heterosexuality, they are undoubtedly helpful.

On average, boys begin to understand the mechanics of intercourse two or three years later than do girls and are frequently well advanced into early adolescence before they get a grasp of the subject. As a result, their sexual fantasies are vague and voyeuristic.

Early adolescence is the time of dirty jokes. Although these may be entertaining, they inspire performance fears because they usually involve accounts of a huge penis or prodigious sexual feats. Misinformation about women, their functions and their fatal powers is also rife.

In all this, the standards and attitudes of a boy’s group of friends — for which the psychological jargon term is ‘peer group’ — exert a powerful influence on his own sexuality. In the main this is superficial because his basic standards were set years before by his parents. Matters as unimportant as hairstyle and style of dress are common causes of conflict with parents but all that is happening is that the boy is conforming to the requirements of his peer group. Most boys are not overtly rebellious, unlike many girls, probably because they are given more freedom anyway. In many families a form of amused and mutual tolerance becomes established between a mother and her son from early adolescence onwards, and she exerts influence by persuasion rather than by any direct attempt to impose her authority.

Early adolescence is the stage at which teenagers start to take the initiative in forming relationships with others outside the family. If they have not got the social skills necessary to form friendships they become increasingly isolated. Where such skills are lacking, they can be taught. Usually, with boys, the friendships are with members of their own sex. Boys of this age have more friends than do girls and confide in them less but worry more about their ability to make friends. They tend to be more concerned with competitive striving and with establishing themselves in the eyes of other boys, whereas girls are more concerned about their relationships and looks. For adolescents of both sexes people in the peer group function as testers, models and mirrors outside the family.

Genital anomalies, delayed puberty, delays in one aspect of development (such as the voice breaking) or a display of feminine interest or traits can lead to teasing from the peer group, which is not unfriendly if the boy is likable but can result in self-imposed isolation if he reacts badly.

Many early-adolescent boys are concerned about nocturnal emissions (wet dreams) and also about breast development. The first nocturnal emission usually occurs between the ages of thirteen and fifteen and in some families the subject is totally ignored. A few boys not only display no concern about it but also leave evidence of masturbation for their mothers to find. Such boys are thought by experts to have difficulty in breaking away from their mothers.

The breasts (or often just one) enlarge in around a third of all boys during early adolescence and this can produce embarrassment if it is conscious. The vast majority regress spontaneously.

Early adolescence, then, is the stage at which girls and boys learn to accept their body changes and emerging sexuality as the start of their progress from childhood to adulthood. Although it is a time of considerable change for both sexes, boys, in general, face a less complicated situation than do girls. In general, early adolescence is not a particularly stressful time for boys but it can disorganise and distress a girl.

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During the latency stage of sexual development, a child’s early interest in his or her parents widens out to other adults such as teachers, and interest in the mysteries of sex enlarges into interest in other mysteries and learning generally. Although Freud and others thought that little by way of psychosexual development occurred at this stage few modern experts would agree. Things might slow down a little but the child certainly does not shut down on sex.

Curiosity about sex may lead to the use of dictionaries, other available books and newspapers to learn about sexual matters. In this way general curiosity and learning can be promoted. Investigations of the genitals of friends of the opposite sex, which may have started as early as three or so, may continue until seven or eight. Children who have seen their parents having intercourse may pretend to do it with others, girls sometimes undertaking the male role, but it has no sexual significance in adult terms. Sex play between brothers and sisters up to and including the latency stage of psychosexual development (which ends at puberty) is innocuous, as is any other heterosexual play, but if continued it can fix the children on each other in such a way that their subsequent ability to relate effectively to members of the opposite sex is impaired.

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To many people in our culture any concept of childhood sexuality seems totally unwholesome and many find it impossible to think of children as sexual beings at all. This is because most people think of sexuality as being inextricably linked to genitality. This is not true of adult sexuality and is even less so when it comes to children.

Babies and children are sexual creatures and it is only in a sex-repressed culture such as ours that credence would be given to any alternative suggestion. In the vast majority of cultures in the world children witness adult sexuality as part of their everyday life experience. Things are different here where children are required to be ‘innocent’ and are seen as empty slates on which anything can be written, so that they are in need of protection. Of course children do need protecting, but to protect them against sex — one of our basic appetites and means of

expression — is strange, to say the least.

If it could be proved that, by allowing children to gain a knowledge of sexuality naturally as they grow up, we would be harming or damaging them in any way, we would of course, be against it — but there is no such proof. On the contrary, work done by Margaret Mead and others suggests that in societies in which children are not repressed sexually, as happens in the West, the children show no preoccupation with sex and grow up far better balanced sexually than ours do. In such cultures, perversions and deviations are rare and the sexes get on well together as adults.

The problems when discussing baby and childhood sexuality come about because for

adults — as we have said – sexuality is often wrongly equated with genitality. There is evidence that the two are not so closely linked in babies and young children, who get just as much enjoyable and intense physical pleasure from other pursuits and experiences, as we adults do from intercourse and other genital behaviour.

At the risk of putting readers off it is probably useful to consider what Freud said about sexuality at this stage, if only because his theories have not been greatly improved on in nearly a century. Freud suggested that a child goes through several well-defined stages of sexual or, more correctly, psychosexual development from the cradle to sexual maturity in the teens. The first stage is the oral one in which most pleasure is centred around the baby’s mouth; the second is the anal one in which pleasure mostly comes from excreting (urinating and opening the bowels); the third stage is the phallic one during which the child discovers his penis or her clitoris as the best source of pleasure; the fourth is a period of latency during which psychosexual development more or less marks time; and lastly, with puberty, the child becomes genital and obtains the majority of his or her sexual and sensual pleasures from genital sensations.

Most children progress from one stage to the next at a fairly predictable pace but can, because of problems in upbringing, stop at a particular stage; go awry, or go back a stage or two after having successfully negotiated one stage. It is clearly seen in clinical practice that adults can move around the scale from a major preoccupation with the adult (genital) stage. At any one stage in a person’s life one of these phases is dominant in his or her sexuality but regression is possible to any of the previous stages. We shall look at all of these stages in more detail as the chapter progresses.

These stages in psychosexual development are under the control of the genetic ‘blueprint’ as are intellectual, physical, emotional and personality development. But genes are not the whole story because external circumstances affect the outcome too. The physical ‘blueprint’, for example, may specify a 6 foot individual but poor nutrition or a bad emotional environment may hamper this so that only 5 feet 8 inches is finally achieved. Similarly, the responses from parents and others to each stage of psychosexual development influence whether the stage progresses ‘normally’, becomes fixed or even makes the child regress to an earlier stage. The pattern of the blueprint is basically the same in both sexes but there is a considerable difference in the way our culture treats the emergent sex drive of girls compared with that of boys.

Although Freud was by no means the first person to discuss infant sexuality he was blamed for opening up the subject by people who preferred to talk of the innocence of childhood. Such people believe in the sinfulness of adults, that sex is sin, and therefore that children should be protected from it.

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Sexual stimulation begins with sexual arousal and may continue after orgasm. The pattern of our response to sexual stimulate called our sexual response cycle. There are five steps in the с desire, excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. Some or all the steps are reached each time one has a sexual experience. However, one can stop at any step before orgasm. Completing cycle is not necessary for sexual fulfillment.

In order to make the sexual response cycle easier to understand let’s take a look at two people who have just met. For the purposes of showing the responses that are similar and different between men and women, the couple in this example will be a man and a woman

Desire Phase

The man and woman begin to feel sensations. They are attracted each other. Their interest grows. This is caused by stimuli—such as seeing one another, hearing one another’s voice, smelling one another’s cologne or perfume, or holding one another’s gaze. Neither the woman nor the man knows why or how this attraction happens. At this point, the woman and man begin to want or “desire” sexual intimacy with one another.

The desire phase can go on for a long time—weeks, months, or years. Or the change from desire to the next phase, excitement, may happen very quickly—within a few minutes.

Excitement Phase

Excitement is the phase during which the body responds to desire. The body reacts automatically to the stimuli of desire. It may be very easy for the woman or man to feel these reactions in her or his own body. If they are wearing clothes, however, it may be difficult for each to know that the other is sexually excited. Communication about their sexual excitement may begin. Communication happens through talking and body gestures. It may be that our bodies produce special chemical substances that attract us through our sense of smell. These substances are called pheromones.

Sometimes women and men are embarrassed by their sexual excitement and try to hide it. Sometimes we are attracted to people who are not available to us because of social restrictions. You may be sexually attracted to the spouse of a friend, but your mind tells you that a sexual relationship with that person is not allowed. Sometimes we are very surprised by sexual stimuli. In any case, sexual stimulation is often difficult to talk about. Shy people may wait a long time for a sign of interest from other people before they communicate their sexual excitement.

Excitement prepares our bodies for sexual intercourse or for outercourse, which is sex play without insertion of the penis into the vagina or anus. Excitement can lead to sexual intimacy, but the woman and man can experience excitement in their own bodies and not be sexually or physically intimate with each other.

Once a person enters the excitement phase, she or he can leave it at any time. Desire, excitement, and wanting to be sexually intimate are normal, but it is important to remember that it is never “necessary” to be sexually intimate. Whenever women or men do not want to be sexually intimate, their choices must be respected.

For the purposes of our example, this couple is feeling sexually excited. They have been flirting. They have also talked about their sexual excitement. This woman and man agree to continue their excitement through intimacy, foreplay, and intercourse. The excitement phase for this couple lasts from the time of their discussion through foreplay. During the excitement phase, the following changes happen inside and outside of the woman’s and man’s bodies.

Plateau Phase

Excitement continues to rise through many kinds of stimulation. At the highest point of excitement, a certain state of feelings and body changes is reached. This state is the plateau phase. Stimulation continues during the plateau phase. Stimulation during the plateau phase is usually physical. It may include stroking or rubbing of an erogenous zone—face, breast, clitoris, or penis. This can occur during masturbation, intercourse, or outercourse.

Sexual intercourse usually means that the penis is inserted into a part of the body and moved in and out for sexual stimulation. Sexual intercourse occurs between women and men, men and men, and women and women. Trying different types of intercourse depends greatly on how comfortable you are with your own and your partner’s bodies. It also depends on your personal, religious, and cultural values.

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Girls

Girls have all their sex and reproductive organs when they are born. Girls also have all their sex cells—eggs—already formed by the time they are born. At puberty, these eggs mature, usually one a month.

The pituitary gland in the brain stimulates body changes by triggering hormone production in the ovaries. The ovaries begin producing the hormones estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen and progesterone affect the other cells in a girl’s body. Secondary sex characteristics begin to appear. Some changes girls can expect during puberty:

• They will grow taller.

• The voice will become deeper.

• Underarm hair will appear.

• Pubic hair will grow on the mons pubis and the labia majora.

• Sweat glands will produce greater amounts of sweat.

• Acne may appear.

• The uterus will enlarge.

• Breasts will develop.

• Hips will widen.

• Menstruation will start.

• Thinking about sex will become more common.

• Mood swings may happen abruptly.

Boys

Boys have all their sex and reproductive organs at birth, but the testicles do not make sperm until puberty.

The brain stimulates body changes by triggering hormone production in the testes. The testes produce very large amounts of the hormone testosterone. Testosterone affects the other cells in a boy’s body. Secondary sex characteristics begin to appear. Some changes boys can expect during puberty:

• They will become taller very quickly.

• Facial hair will begin to grow.

• The voice will become deeper—it may “crack” during the change.

• Underarm hair will appear.

• Pubic hair will begin to grow above the penis and on the scrotum.

• Sweat glands will produce greater amounts of sweat.

• Acne may appear.

• Penis and testicles will become larger.

• Seminal vesicles, the prostate, and the Cowper’s glands will begin the adult function of producing semen.

• Erections will be more common and may happen spontaneously without stimulation.

• Thinking about sex will become more common.

• Wet dreams may occur.

• Mood swings may happen abruptly.

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The penis and scrotum are connected to the internal reproductive organs and structures. The internal organs and structures are responsible for making and moving sperm. Sperm are the reproductive cells in men. It takes two reproductive cells, or gametes, to unite and begin the long, complex process of making a new individual. One cell has to come from the male and one from the female. When a sperm meets a female reproductive cell, the egg, or ovum, they can unite. This is called fertilization.

Testes

The testes are the ball-shaped glands inside the scrotum. Within each testis is a network of thin tubes, 750 feet long. These tubes are tightly coiled. They are called the seminiferous tubules. Sperm are formed inside these tubes. The name for the process of making sperm is spermatogenesis. Men’s bodies make sperm all their lives, from puberty on. New sperm develop every minute. The supply never ends.

In between the seminiferous tubules are cells that produce male sex hormones. Hormones are chemicals that influence the changes in our bodies. Hormones also direct the work of glands and organs. If a hormone is found in greater quantities and has greater importance to the reproductive process in the male body than in the female body, it is categorized as a male sex hormone. Another name for male sex hormone is androgen. Testosterone is the major androgen that stimulates the production of sperm.

Epididymis

On top of each testis is another highly coiled tube. This tube is called the epididymis. When sperm are nearly mature, they move into each epididymis. Here, the sperm mature and gain the ability to swim. Mature sperm are stored in the epididymis until they are forced out of the body at the peak moment of sexual excitement. This is called ejaculation. This process is also called emission. At this point, boys and men usually have an orgasm, which is a very pleasurable feeling that may involve the whole body.

An orgasm is an uncontrollable release of tension that has built up in the body during sexual activity. This can happen during sex play, such as masturbation or intercourse, or during erotic fantasy. Orgasm does not always occur with ejaculation, and ejaculation does not always occur with orgasm.

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Katharine Bement Davis (1860-1945)

Davis completed the first major study on women’s sexuality. In 1929, she published her study “Factors in the Sex Lives of Twenty Two Hundred Women.” She gathered data for more than 10 years about the sex lives of middle-class women. She also worked extensively with prostitutes in prisons. She examined such topics as sexual desire, masturbation, frequency of intercourse, use of birth control, marriage, sources of sexual instruction and information, and same-sex intimate relationships.

Her study challenged the narrow reproductive view of women’s sexuality common at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was our first real glimpse into the sex lives of real women.

Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935)

Hirschfeld was a German sexologist who founded the Institute of Sexual Science in Berlin in 1919. He studied human sexuality in order to provide counseling for sexual problems. He published one of the world’s first sexological journals to encourage open debate about sexual issues. He also believed masturbation and homosexual behavior were normal and healthy He challenged many of the repressive ideas about sexuality of his time. The institute’s and most of Hirschfeld’s research were destroyed by the Nazis in 1935.

Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956)

Kinsey has been the most influential American sex researcher of the twentieth century. His research was unique and groundbreaking. In extensive live interviews, he and his team of researchers took thousands of case histories of the lives of women and men. No one else, before or since, has questioned such a huge sample of people so thoroughly about their sexuality. Although his sample did not precisely reflect the full range of diversity of the American people, he and his team provided us with important data from which we have learned a great deal.

William Masters (1915— ) and Virginia Johnson (1925— )

Masters and Johnson are responsible for our understanding of the human sexual response cycle. They used mini-cameras and other electronic devices to observe what was going on inside and outside the body during the various phases of sexual arousal.

They noticed and measured functions in the bodies of women and men that no one else had been able to observe. They first develop the concept of sex therapy by working with couples to help the overcome sexual problems, including sexual dysfunction.

Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Foucault was a French philosopher who wrote three volumes on t history of sexuality. He challenged Freud’s view that women and m are sexually repressed by their cultures. He theorized about the n of power in sexual relationships. He suggested that power does r always come from the top down, but from the bottom up as well. He believed that people have sexual power as individuals, despite sex law or cultural norms.

Although his ideas were not always based in scientific or historical fact, Foucault’s work enabled many people who belonged oppressed sexual minorities to view themselves as powerful individuals, capable of resisting dominant sexual norms.

Foucault died of AIDS in 1984.

The rich and changing traditions, history, and beliefs described this chapter have shaped our society with extremely diverse messages and values about sex and sexuality. The differences between the various messages and values may often seem confusing and conflicting. We will look at the ways in which people develop their own sexual identities within this world of sexual diversity.

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Many people had many partners during the “sexual liberation” of the “swinging” 1960s and 1970s. One result was an epidemic of herpes. Many infected women and men felt great shame and guilt, even though herpes is not a serious health condition. The stigma once attached to syphilis and gonorrhea was transferred to people with herpes. For some time, they were seen as sexually promiscuous, perhaps even immoral. In time, hot lines and support groups were formed to help restore a sense of normalcy to the lives of people with herpes.

In the early 1980s, the stigma associated with herpes was overshadowed by the stigma associated with AIDS. First known as gay-related immune disease, AIDS was first identified among gay men and later among intravenous drug users—groups that were already severely stigmatized. People with AIDS were commonly discriminated against or refused medical and social services in the first years of the epidemic.

As the epidemic progressed, other groups became targets for discrimination. Even children fell into the line of fire. Many people thought that children with HIV should not be allowed to go to school. Some parents kept their children at home when students with HIV were allowed in school. Women were viewed as transmitters of the infection, and only pregnant women were included in most studies. It was more than 10 years into the epidemic before the definition of AIDS was changed to include conditions specific to women.

It is now very clear that all IV (intravenous) drug users and sexually active women and men, all over the world, are at risk for AIDS. Despite public education campaigns and media attention, however, ignorance about AIDS still exists, and arguments continue about the morality of the use of condoms by people at risk of HIV. Today, teenagers and women have the fastest-growing rates of HIV infection.

There is now widespread research being done on AIDS. Although there are improved treatments for many conditions associated with HIV disease, there is still no cure. We have to rely on preventive techniques, including sexual health education. Early in the epidemic, the gay community buckled down to educate itself about HIV and safer sex. Its efforts paid off, and the infection rate in the gay community has fallen. Although the IV drug community was more difficult to mobilize than the gay community, needle-exchange programs have been effective in urban areas.

Despite the evident effectiveness of educational campaigns, the majority of high school students in the United States are still deprived of responsible sexuality education that includes information about contraception, sexual orientation, and safer sex. The old stigmas about sexually transmitted infections still haunt us.

The AIDS epidemic, however, is forcing our society to deal more openly with sex and sexuality. Educators, the media, public health officials, medical professionals, parents, young people, and children are all much more likely to speak frankly and directly about sex than our great-great-grandparents did at the beginning of the century.

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