In sex, as in most other aspects of life, the older teach the younger. In the vast majority of cases such encounters are with someone close to the child, a family member, another relative, a neighbor, or a “babysitter.” If the “teaching” is sexual, it most often is fondling or oral relations; attempted intercourse is relatively uncommon. If intercourse is attempted, it is often exploratory and becomes part of the initiator’s learning experience rather than being purposeful, aggressive, or violent.
Since the preadolescent or adolescent who initiates a sexual encounter with a child is usually known by the child and by the child’s parents, he or she does not dare to be too aggressive but feels the need to be devious so as not to be exposed, embarrassed, and perhaps punished.
The need to ejaculate can be very compelling in an adolescent boy who approaches a child. For example, a boy of sixteen was babysitting for a young girl of seven at her home while her parents were out of town. While the girl was taking a bath, with the excuse of making sure that she got clean, the boy stripped and entered the tub. He then proceeded to wash the girl’s genitals, and suggested that she do the same to him. After a little protest she obliged. She was surprised when the boy’s penis became erect. With urging from her “babysitter,” she continued washing and he had an ejaculation.
These different encounters contribute more to a child’s sexual knowledge and experience than do physiological readiness or sex interest. Interest in coitus and knowledge and acceptance of premarital coitus is well established among seven-year-old boys in some communities, and in some instances as early as four years old. Much of this sexual sophistication comes from associating with older companions. Children overhear adolescent boys talking to one another about naked women and couples who have had sex relations. The size and shape of a woman’s vagina are topics of conversation among boys and men, and younger boys learn from older males that women are objects of sexual gratification. As a consequence, they orient their thoughts and behavior in accordance with what other males expect of them as young, on-the-make machos. Kinsey found that the boy from the comparatively sheltered, upper-socioeconomic level home was not exposed to such experiences and was likely to confine his sex play to exhibition and manual manipulation of the genitalia. He does not attempt coitus because, in many instances, he has not learned that there is such a possibility. In spite of their limited contact with coitus or information about coitus, children raised in homes of educated parents have often seen genitalia at an earlier age, primarily because of the greater acceptance of nudity in their homes than in lower-class homes.
Before leaving the subject of sexual encounters of children with preadolescents and adolescents, we must say a little more about fraternal incest, sexual encounters with siblings. If siblings share the same home, in some cases the same room or even the same bed, the possibilities of sexual encounters are always present. They occur even in families in which the children are supervised closely and in which such behavior is not acceptable. Fraternal incest usually stops short of coitus. More often it is limited to disclosure, fondling, or perhaps oral-genital relations.
Most cases of a young child in a sexual encounter with a preadolescent or adolescent could be lumped under an emotionally laden label-child molestation. But when we take a close look at the encounters we find that the content of the interaction is different in each case. To say that a preadolescent or adolescent is “molesting” a younger child is neither a fair nor precise definition in many cases.
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