title: Understanding childhood sexualities.
abstract: Contemporary concern over paedophilia and child sexual abuse usually rests upon uncritical and under-theorized conceptions of childhood sexualities. This article examines some of these assumptions and then outlines the social 'constructionist' alternative. Focusing upon the processes by which a child comes to script its sexual world, a number of central dimensions are posed: the scripting of absences, of values, of secrecy, of utility, of gender and of generation. By analyzing the complexity of childhood sexualities, the implications for cross-generational sexuality may be clarified.
authors.affiliation: University of Essex, Colchester, England.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Plummer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000523:psychology*; D005783:Gender Identity; D006716:Homosexuality / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010378:Pedophilia / Q000523:psychology*; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011606:Psychosexual Development