The Sexual Life of Children

Floyd M Martinson

Apr 1994 · Greenwood Publishing Group

About this ebook

This book traces the development of sexuality in the child from the prenatal, through birth and up to puberty and adolescence. Very little has been written about children's sexuality in spite of a large literature on child abuse. Western society has been slow to recognize sexual experiences and conceptualizations as an important part of a child's development. This is the only work that has been written in a frank and open manner about the many sexual encounters that children have on a daily basis as part of their normal psychological development. Martinson's study is unique in that children speak for themselves in telling about their explorations, confusions, fears, and satisfactions. The book traces the life of children in their day-to-day encounters as they grow and develop. It complements and rounds out Robert Coles's important works on The Moral Life of Children, The Political Life of Children, and The Spiritual Life of Children.

About the author

FLOYD M. MARTINSON is Research Professor of Sociology at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. He is the author of five books including Family and Society (1970), Children and Sex (1981), and Growing up in Norway (1992), and was recently appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board of The Journal of Sex Research.