Introduction

Although Freud (1965) was the first to recognize “the lawfulness of the sexual impulse in childhood” in 1905 (pp. 247–248), children’s sexuality is a relatively new research field. Its point of departure was the increased interest in the sexual abuse of children that arose in the 1980s and 1990s, as children’s sexual behaviors were initially mistaken for a sure sign of sexual abuse (Friedrich, 2007). For a long time, the view on children’s sexuality has been burdened by the association with child sexual abuse (CSA) (Dicataldo, 2009; Sandfort & Cohen-Kettenis, 2000), and since the 1980s, researchers have struggled to establish what is normative and non-normative sexual behavior in children.

Although we still have much to learn about children’s sexuality, and although parts of Western culture still frequently deny and ignore it (Dicataldo, 2009; Dixson, 2012), contemporary research has established that sexuality as such, and a variety of sexual behaviors are expected and developmentally appropriate in children (Elkovitch, Latzman, Hansen, & Flood, 2009; Friedrich, 2007). Several studies from various countries have shown that among children, sexual games, the so-called doctor games, are common and pervasive across both Western and non-Western cultures (Dixson, 2012; Fitzpatrick, Deehan, & Jennings, 1995; Ford & Beach, 1951; Lamb & Coakley, 1993; Larsson & Svedin, 2001; Lopez Sanchez, Del Campo, & Guijo, 2002; Sandfort & Cohen-Kettenis, 2000; Schoentjes, Deboutte, & Friedrich, 1999). Ford and Beach (1951) and Dixson (2012) stated that sociosexual patterns are found among all great apes during infant and juvenile life and argued that, given that children’s sexual games are observed across human cultures, these are normal for our species, but emphasized culture’s pervasive influence on the actual prevalence of such games, with substantial differences in tolerance among cultures.

There is a broad consensus that views on children’s sexuality vary, depending on cultural setting and historical period, and that these are important, influential factors in the expression of children’s sexuality (Dicataldo, 2009; Dixson, 2012; Elkovitch et al., 2009; Ford & Beach, 1951; Friedrich, 2007; Graugaard, 2013; Larsson, Svedin, & Friedrich, 2000; Tobin, 1997). Even so, there has been little empirical research into the role that culture plays, in both a national and a general sense, in determining what is normative and non-normative sexual behavior in children, and into the consequences for children of such determinations. In the study presented in this article, we examined the influence of the attitude toward children’s sexuality of a particular cultural development in Denmark, and a considerable part of the Western World in the past 25–35 years, namely, the increasing focus on, and fear of, CSA.Footnote 1

Our study presents the first Danish research into the attitudes toward children’s sexual behaviors and nudity at Danish childcare institutions. Worldwide, it represents one of few empirical studies of the unintended consequences of contemporary society’s significant focus on CSA. The study was conducted in 2012 at approximately one quarter of the Danish preschool institutions, and before- and after-school clubs (BASCs). An important finding was that the majority of the institutions had established rules for the children’s conduct that essentially forbade or restricted children’s nudity and doctor games. The results indicated an important shift in the attitude toward children’s nudity and doctor games at Danish childcare institutions. Discourse analysis of the childcare professionals’ answers revealed a conflict between a former, tolerant view of children’s doctor games, and a more recent, now dominant, view of the games as problematic and potentially abusive. The rules and discourse concerning doctor games strongly indicated that the fear of CSA has influenced the conception of what is normal and admissible with regard to children’s sexuality at Danish childcare institutions, and we discuss some of the implications that this new attitude toward children’s sexuality may have for children.

Historical and Cultural Context

Over the past 35 years, in a large part of the Western world, including Denmark, the fear of CSA has become a significant cultural feature (Bech, 2005; Best, 1990; Dicataldo, 2009; Furedi, 2006; Furedi & Bristow, 2010; Jenks, 1994; Johnson, 2000; Meyer, 2007; Piper & Stronach, 2008; Tobin, 1997) and the center of a moral panic (Cohen, 2002; Critcher, 2003; Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009; Jenkins, 1998).

In Denmark, the moral panic regarding CSA broke out in 1997, during the big “Vadstrupgaard case,” in which a male teaching assistant was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for the sexual abuse of 20 children in his kindergarten. This first major, public case of the sort created a public outcry in the Danish society (Rantorp, 2000). Some, however, claimed that the case was a miscarriage of justice, arguing that there was no concrete evidence, that the police had made major mistakes in their investigation and interviewing of the children, and, finally, that the children’s testimonies were uncritically believed in the case (Blædel, 1999; Rantorp, 2000). The number of allegations of CSA against childcare staff raised drastically in the years immediately after Vadstrupgaad (Rasmussen, 2000). In the aftermath of the case, CSA received a great deal of attention from the media, the public, politicians, and children’s organizations. Another significant case at a kindergarten, the Beder case of 2007, and approximately seven extreme cases of CSA in dysfunctional families during the past decade in Denmark have only intensified the extensive concern. Considerable juridical, political, and institutional steps have been taken since the Vadstrupgaard case, to prevent CSA in Danish society.

The concept of moral panic serves here as a tool, rather than an explanation (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009), to illustrate how a specific fear emerges in a culture and leaves behind significant institutional and social changes. By “moral panic,” we do not imply that fear of pedophilia is not understandable or that the attention Danish society pays to CSA is not important. Instead, we direct attention to the proportions of the fear, and its unintended consequences. In 2010, we conducted a controlled study that focused on Danish childcare institutions, which strongly indicated that both institutional and social changes had occurred that were not justified by the actual risk of CSA at such facilities (Munk, Larsen, Leander, & Soerensen, 2013). In 2003, the Danish National Institute of Social Research concluded, based on a cohort study of 5000 children born in 1995, “that extremely few children had been exposed to sexual abuse or sexual acts by adults at preschool institutions” (Christensen, 2003). The Danish Union of Early Childhood and Youth Educators, BUPL, informed us that between 2008 and 2015 three childcare teachers were convicted of CSA,Footnote 2 and the Danish Union of Public Employees (FOA) informed us that between 2012 and 2015 two childcare assistants were convicted of CSA.Footnote 3 These numbers do not give a complete picture, but they indicate a low risk of CSA at Danish childcare institutions. Even so, our 2010 study showed a tendency to a climate of fear at Danish childcare institutions: 68.7% of the teachers felt that the risk of being accused of CSA had increased in the previous years; 56.3% of male teachers and 21.1% of female teachers had changed their conduct toward children because of increased focus on CSA in society, keeping a greater distance from them; 12.7% of teachers had become more suspicious of their colleagues, and 47% of ordinary citizens in the control group had become more suspicious of other people’s behavior toward children in the previous years. A number of childcare professionals spoke of formal and informal guidelines established to protect staff from wrongful allegations from without (Munk et al., 2013). Our study indicated that a climate of fear at the institutions may considerably alter daily interactions with children in ways that are incompatible with professional standards and ideals, similar to research findings from the UK and the U.S. (Furedi & Bristow, 2010; Johnson, 2000; Piper & Stronach, 2008; Tobin, 1997).

The present study aimed to investigate in detail the formal and informal guidelines that our 2010 study indicated were established by some institutions to protect staff from wrongful allegations of CSA; we now also focused on rules at childcare institutions regarding children’s doctor games and nudity. Tobin (1997, 2004, 2009) described how childcare teachers’ fear of being unjustly accused of CSA and a fear of children’s sexual games developed simultaneously in American early childhood education, in the aftermath of the outbreak of the CSA panic in the U.S. in the 1980s, and how these fears led to central changes in American preschools. Case reports and articles in the Danish media and professional magazines (e.g., Børn&Unge, 2008), showing increasing concerns about children’s sexuality, indicated that a similar, dual development was occurring in Denmark, and needed to be investigated.

Method

Participants

The participants were 2051 directors and teachers from 1457 Danish childcare institutions, representing urban and rural areas throughout Denmark. The institutions were public and private preschools for children aged 0–6 years,Footnote 4 and public BASCs for children aged approximately 6–10 years. The preschools included crèches, kindergartens,Footnote 5 and so-called integrated institutions with both crèches and kindergartens. Participants included 1374 directors (67%) and 677 teachers (33%); 456 participants were men (22%) and 1595 were women (78%). The directors were between the ages of 31 and 70 years, and the teachers were between the ages of 20 and 68 years. 79.8% of directors and teachers were over 40 years, and 50.2% were over 50 years.

Procedure

We e-mailed our online survey to 4716 (74%) of Denmark’s approximately 6400 preschools and BASCs. We selected the institutions randomly, adjusting only to represent both urban and rural areas in all parts of Denmark. The Danish Union of Early Childhood and Youth Educators, BUPL, provided the list of institutions. We supplemented this with institutions from municipalities in Denmark underrepresented on the list. We sent the invitations to participate to the institutions’ directors, as we were unable to obtain teacher e-mail addresses. We invited the directors to answer the questionnaire themselves and to pass on the survey link to as many teachers as possible. Compared to directors, teachers initially had a lower response rate, and as teachers have close contact with the children on an everyday basis, we targeted them in three reminders. This compensated somewhat for the difference in response rates between teachers and directors, although a considerable difference remained in the final result.

Our questionnaire had a 30.9% response rate, which represents 23% of all preschool institutions and BASCs in Denmark. The response rate from men was good, relative to the percentage of male childcare teachers on a national level (12%), which is relevant, as the issue is particularly sensitive for male childcare workers (Munk et al., 2013). The pilot study had a response rate of 20%, and when we contacted the unresponsive institutions, they all explained that the institutions were pressed for time and received many surveys. This seems to be a general problem for optional surveys at Danish childcare institutions. Guided by the pilot study, we made the questionnaire easier to answer, which, with the reminders, may account for the improved response rate of the final survey.

Measures

Our questionnaire contained questions about formal and informal guidelines for staff and rules for children to prevent CSA or wrongful allegations of CSA at the institutions. As the material is so extensive, this article addresses only the rules for the children.

The survey was a mixed method study (Bazeley & Kemp, 2012; Frederiksen, Gundelach, & Nielsen, 2014), including both mandatory, closed-ended questions and optional, open-ended questions. The purpose of the quantitative questions was to establish the prevalence of the guidelines and rules in question in Danish childcare institutions and to be able to generalize findings from a large sample about purposes, practices, consequences, and experiences related to the guidelines and rules. The purpose of the qualitative questions was to give participants the opportunity to elaborate their views and experiences and to tell their stories of the everyday practices surrounding these guidelines and rules. Since no previous research described guidelines for staff and rules for children to prevent CSA or wrongful allegations of CSA in a Danish context, it was important that both directors and teachers could give information that we might not have thought of asking for, and it was important to address both formal and informal guidelines (Creswell, 2015; Frederiksen et al., 2014). In all, 1682 of the 2051 participants made qualitative comments, ranging from a few sentences to entire pages.

The aim of the part of the study concerning rules for children was to investigate how widespread such rules were at Danish childcare institutions, what the rules addressed, how childcare professionals experienced them, how they affected the children, and how these rules might be connected to a broader societal context. The participants were asked whether their institution had rules for children’s conduct. To frame the kind of rules in question, we gave examples of rules concerning sexual games and undressing. If they answered “yes” to this question, they were invited to describe the rules. They were also asked questions about whether, in their opinion, the rules influenced the care taken of the children, or their conduct and development, and if they answered “yes,” they were invited to describe how. Finally, the participants could add comments. Many respondents also gave information about the rules for children in the part of the questionnaire concerning guidelines for staff, and this information has been included in our analysis.

The quantitative and qualitative dimensions of this study were integrated through design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation of the results. Both dimensions were necessary to our aim of developing nuanced knowledge of rules for children to prevent CSA and wrongful allegations of CSA at Danish childcare institutions, and this article’s conclusions are based on the integrated analysis of quantitative and qualitative results (Bazeley & Kemp, 2012; Creswell, 2015; Frederiksen et al., 2014). To integrate the results, we sometimes used data transformation (Bazeley & Kemp, 2012): some numeric results were described verbally, and some qualitative results were quantified, either as numbers or verbally. The numerous answers to the open-ended questions offered a detailed picture of the everyday practices surrounding the rules for the children and this article’s presentation of the results is largely based on the qualitative answers.

Data Analysis and Theoretical Approach

We applied the theoretical approach of discourse analysis to the qualitative responses to our questionnaire (Fairclough, 1992; Foucault, 1976; Jørgensen & Phillips, 1999). We used thematic analysis as part of our discourse analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). We believe that a given social structure, such as a childcare institution, is constituted both by its practices—in this case, the rules and daily routines surrounding children’s sexuality and nudity—and by its discourses, as discourses are constitutive of identities, social relations, and actions (Fairclough, 1992; Foucault, 1976). Discourse analysis is a way to identify norms, conflicts, and changes in norms and to establish their connections to a broader cultural context. We analyzed which discourses are found in the qualitative answers on children’s nudity and sexuality and on the rules concerning children’s nudity and doctor games at the institutions. In this context, we understand “discourse” as an unequivocal constitution of meaning in language, in a given field or setting, often recognizable by specific thematic patterns and linguistic characteristics, such as recurring terms or images (Fairclough, 1992; Jørgensen & Phillips, 1999). A fundamental ontological and epistemological assumption in discourse analysis is that our understanding of the world is always historically and culturally contingent and created through social processes wherein discourse is crucial to the construction of meaning and knowledge, and the ongoing fight for the “truth” (Fairclough, 1992; Foucault, 1976; Jørgensen & Phillips, 1999). Our use of discourse analysis reflects our fundamental belief that human sexuality is biologically natural, but always historically, culturally, and socially embedded.

Definition of Doctor Games

Friedrich (2007) defined doctor games like this: “There are at least two children who expose genitalia and maybe even touch each other” (p. 41). In a typology of childhood sexual play and games, derived from reports of childhood sexual play and games by college undergraduates, Lamb and Coakley (1993) described doctor games like this: “For most subjects, pretending that one child was the doctor (or nurse) and the other child was the patient merely served as a framework in which the removal of clothes and the examination of bodies (especially the genitals) was permitted” (p. 519). Drawing on these two sources, on the knowledge gained from our study, and on our general knowledge of the subject, our definition of doctor games, on which this article is based, is: “Doctor games is a situation of play where at least two children undress and examine or otherwise play with their bodies, especially the genitals and/or the bottom. They look at and/or touch each other. The framework of the games can be a visit to the doctor, but other themes of play can inspire the games as well.”

It should be added that in Denmark, as in some responses in our study, a synonym for “doctor games” is “bottom games.”

Results

The Rules for Children

Sixty-four percent of the 1457 participating institutions had established rules for the children. Qualitative descriptions of the rules at their institutions were provided by 770 directors and 315 childcare teachers: 837 from preschool institutions and 248 from BASCs. At both types of institutions, two kinds of rules stood out: rules for undressing and doctor games.

We first address the preschool institutions. The vast majority of respondents from preschool institutions informed that their institution had one or more rules concerning undressing. The general rule was that the children were not allowed to undress at the institutions. Some respondents informed that the children were forbidden to take of their clothes, and other respondents specified that the children were forbidden to take of their underwear or to be naked. Many institutions forbade the changing of clothes in the main areas of the institutions, confining it to the bathroom. At a small group of institutions with rules for the children, the children bathed naked in summertime. However, at the vast majority of preschool institutions, children were forbidden to bathe naked or to play naked with water in summertime. Instead, the children bathed wearing swimsuits, a diaper, or underwear. Furthermore, the preschool institutions tended to have a policy of forbidding children to be photographed with few or no clothes on. A few respondents also mentioned that in their institution, they made sure that parents, passersby, mailmen, or workers in the building did not see undressed children.

Given that undressing was forbidden in the vast majority of preschool institutions, the possibility of playing doctor was nonexisting or very restricted in most institutions. Most of the respondents from preschool institutions simply stated that the children were forbidden to undress at their institutions or that the children were to keep their clothes on in all kinds of play and games, while about 126 respondents directly informed that playing doctor was forbidden. About 195 respondents told that their preschool institution allowed doctor games with certain restrictions. The most frequently mentioned restriction by far was that children had to keep their clothes on while playing doctor, in some institutions their underwear, in some institutions all their clothes. Less mentioned restrictions were that children could play doctor only above the waist or that children were allowed to look at each other, but not to touch. In most cases, the institutions that allowed children to look at each other, only allowed this during visits to the bathroom. Only very few respondents, less than 30, made descriptions of the rules at their preschool institutions that indicated that their institutions allowed doctor games, where children actually undress and examine their bodies, particularly the genitals and the bottom. At the preschool institutions that allowed doctor games to some extent, the childcare teachers were typically very attentive to the games, ensuring that they took place between equals in both age and temperament, did not get out of hand, and that all children involved found them fun. Some of the preschool institutions that entirely forbade doctor games explained to the children that these belonged at home. Finally, quite a few respondents specified that children were forbidden to insert objects into the vagina/rectum. A small group of respondents mentioned kissing. Their institutions either forbade kissing or they forbade kissing on the mouth, on the body, on the genitals, or with the tongue. Eight respondents mentioned masturbation. At 3 of these respondents’ institutions, masturbation was forbidden; at the other 5, masturbating children were told to go somewhere and be private about their activity.

Also, the vast majority of respondents from BASCs informed that undressing was forbidden in their institutions. Only two respondents from BASCs mentioned that children were allowed to bathe naked in summertime. Many respondents from BASCs told that the changing of clothes was confined to the bathroom. Several BASCs had a dress code, mostly for girls, who were forbidden to be topless or to bathe without tops in summertime. One also found the same pattern of prohibitions and restrictions for doctor games as in the preschool institutions, but with less tolerance, and no respondent told about doctor games allowed in their BASC where children could actually undress and examine their bodies, particularly the genitals and the bottom. Many respondents from BASCs mentioned that children were forbidden to accompany each other to the toilets or to touch genitals. Several BASCs forbade the children to take photographs of each other, especially with few clothes on. Finally, a couple of BASCs had rules against sexualized language.

At all types of childcare institutions, staff often closely monitored the children, to ensure that they respected the rules for undressing and doctor games, and our study indicated that this resulted in increased supervision of the children. In Denmark, most childcare institutions traditionally have so-called cushion rooms, where children can either relax or play energetically. It seemed that these rooms were generally the places where children played doctor games or took off their clothes because they were warm. Therefore, there was a tendency to closely supervise “cushion rooms.” At some institutions, this had resulted in changes in the use of the rooms. For instance, one institution had removed the door to the “cushion room,” another had installed a mirror to watch the children, and a third had installed a window into the “cushion room.” Also, children’s blanket forts or hiding places were either forbidden or kept under surveillance at several institutions.

Not all respondents offered information about the reasons for the rules in their institutions, but many did. The two most frequently mentioned reasons that children were forbidden to undress were to prevent naked children from playing doctor and to please parents who disliked the idea of their children being naked. However, the fear of accusations being made against the staff, and increased attention to the risk of pedophiles watching the children, also played significant roles.

With regard to doctor games, some respondents simply stated that they did not want these games at their institution. Others stated that the reason for forbidding or restricting doctor games was to avoid the risk of parents misunderstanding children’s accounts of a doctor game as having involved a teacher. However, the most frequently mentioned reason by far was to prevent children from being harmed, or overstepping each other’s boundaries in the games. In this matter too, the institutions tried hard to please parents, who, according to many respondents, were often uneasy or upset about doctor games. Still, in many institutions, the staff shared the concern that some children may overstep other children’s boundaries.

Many respondents expressed their professional conviction that children’s doctor games and their curiosity about the differences between boys and girls were a natural part of children’s development, and in several institutions, this conviction formed the foundation of a written policy for the institution’s handling of children’s sexuality. Yet, as previously mentioned, in practice, very few of the institutions with rules for the children seemed to allow doctor games where children actually undress and examine their bodies, especially their genitals and/or bottom. Some institutions forbade or restricted doctor games despite their professional conviction that these were natural, to propitiate parents or to protect staff. Others forbade or restricted the games despite these professional convictions, because their main focus was on the risk of some children behaving intrusively, and the need to protect weaker or smaller children. A number of institutions tried to balance things. They allowed doctor games to a certain extent and/or were careful of the way they interfered in the games, avoiding making the children feel ashamed.

Finally, a considerable group of institutions forbade doctor games because they regarded the games as inappropriate or directly harmful, including one integrated institution that stated, “The children are forbidden to play doctor games where they look at each other and touch each other. We find that transgressive.”

The Doctor Games

The aim of this study was to investigate the rules for children’s nudity and doctor games, not the games themselves. Hence, we did not ask the institutions about their experience of the prevalence of doctor games. However, the rich qualitative data of the survey provided significant insight into just how well known a phenomenon doctor games are at Danish childcare institutions, an insight we wished to preserve. To support this finding, we mixed qualitative and quantitative methods. We calculated that, of the 1682 respondents (working in 1135 institutions), who answered optional open-ended questions, the responses of 485 respondents (working in 338 institutions) clearly indicated that doctor games had been observed at their institutions. As not all 2054 participants were asked directly whether they had observed doctor games, this number was evidently not a precise measure of prevalence. However, it showed that children’s doctor games were known at many institutions, which became obvious when qualitatively analyzing the comments of the 485 respondents.

A few of the respondents reported only one or two episodes of doctor games in their institution, mostly episodes causing trouble with parents, as described by one integrated institution: “Four boys of the same age experimented with kissing each other’s penises. There was no indication of abuse, but one of the mothers reacted strongly.” However, the vast majority of the 485 respondents spoke of doctor games as a familiar and recurring thing. This was the case among respondents who noted that doctor games were allowed in one way or the other in their institutions, often detailing the rules, as did this integrated institution director: “The children are allowed to play doctor when the staff knows about it. The children are forbidden to touch each other’s genitals and to insert objects into body orifices.” Many respondents described doctor games as something that occurred periodically, including one kindergarten teacher: “During the periods when we experience a lot of ‘doctor games,’ we are very attentive to the ‘unmanned’ areas of the playground and the smaller rooms in the institution.” In a couple of institutions, doctor games recurred every spring or summer. In contrast, a couple of respondents observed the games continuously: “We talk a lot about this with the parents, since it happens all the time.” And some respondents wrote that their institutions might attempt to forbid doctor games, but that you cannot stop children from playing them. A kindergarten director explained: “The children are forbidden to play ‘doctor’; they do so anyway, but we inform parents and children that they are forbidden to, and that attitude calms the parents.” Regardless of its exact prevalence, the overall pattern of the group of qualitative comments clearly indicating the observation of doctor games demonstrated that the institutions were very familiar with this activity.

This picture was further supported by the qualitative comments in general, indicating that children’s sexuality was a significant focus at childcare institutions. Many institutions encouraged discussions among staff, and sometimes with parents, concerning how to address children’s sexuality, wrote policies on the subject, acquired knowledge of what was considered normative and non-normative sexual behavior in children, or arranged lectures by experts at the institutions. Here is a short extract from the long sexual policy of one integrated institution:

We want our institution to be a place where children are to some extent allowed to explore themselves and each other in a safe environment and in equal relations. Therefore, we recognize the children’s sexual curiosity, exploration and games as long as there is respect and equality among the children. And therefore, we believe in the importance of being open to talking with the children about their sexuality.

Finally, the fact that 64% of the institutions had rules for children’s doctor games and/or nudity further supported our finding that the staff in many institutions encountered these games during the work with children, presuming that the rules were not purely hypothetical, which the often detailed descriptions of the rules suggested that they were not.

We did not ask questions about the prevalence of each activity related to doctor games, and their prevalence would be difficult to assess, given that the majority of institutions stopped or restricted doctor games and undressing. What children would do, and how often, when playing doctor, if they were left to themselves, is difficult to establish under such circumstances (Dixson, 2012). However, the qualitative answers offered a picture of the spectrum of activities in which children may engage while playing doctor. Children may expose themselves and look at each other’s bodies, with a particular interest in the genitals and the bottom. They may touch or examine each other’s bodies or otherwise play with their bodies. These activities were by far the most mentioned in our survey. Children may also kiss each other, or lick the skin—at times, the genitals. They may get on top of each other, simulating intercourse. Finally, they may insert objects into the vagina/rectum. These activities were almost always mentioned as prohibitions or as episodes of broken rules or trouble-making.

Attempts to kiss or lick each other, or simulate intercourse were mentioned only a few times. By contrast, we calculated that of the 1682 respondents (working in 1135 institutions), who answered open-ended questions, 91 respondents (working in 58 institutions) voluntarily mentioned “the inserting of objects into the vagina/rectum.” Most of the comments simply stated that inserting objects into the vagina/rectum was forbidden, but some of the statements indicated that these acts were not unfamiliar to childcare professionals. One integrated institution director explained: “We can’t guarantee that the children don’t play doctor with sticks etc., because they are not constantly surveilled.” A kindergarten director wrote: “The children examine and explore, but we draw a line at inserting various objects.” One kindergarten that prohibited this behavior still stated in its sexual behavior policy that it considered it to be common that “kindergarten children may sniff each other or try to insert things into each other. Toads. Sticks. Fingers.” Other comments suggested that inserting objects into the body may be as much a playful as a sexual thing, indicating that body orifices in general appeal to children’s explorations: “The children are forbidden to insert objects into their holes. That is, nose, ears, mouth, eyes, navel, and vagina.” Other comments indicated that children use whatever is available. For instance, a forest-based kindergarten mentioned that in the forest, children sometimes experimented with putting leaves between their buttocks. Assuming that a prohibition is not purely hypothetical, but the result of childcare professionals actually encountering a particular behavior, the fact that a relatively large number of respondents mentioned this prohibition voluntarily, and the way some of them did so, indicated that children’s attempt to insert objects into the vagina/rectum was not a very rare phenomenon.

The Dominant Discourse of “Boundaries” and “Abuse”

Foucault (1976) taught us to pay attention to the way we talk about sexuality at different times in history. His major point was that the history of Western sexuality is indeed discursive; it is shaped by a power struggle among diverse discourses fighting for their historically embedded sexual norms and “truth.” This also applies to children’s sexuality, which Foucault identified as one of four main targets of biopower’s efforts to discipline bodies and regulate populations in the Western world since the eighteenth century. Until the twentieth century, children’s sexuality, especially older children’s masturbation, was considered an epidemic threat, not only to children’s future health, but also to the future of society and the entire human race. Parents, public authorities, and teachers implemented a range of activities, such as surveillance, changes in pedagogy, and disciplinary discourses, to control and discipline children’s sexuality (Foucault, 1976). These activities resemble the surveillance, rules, and discourse that our survey found were used to control children’s nudity and doctor games in Danish childcare institutions in the twenty-first century.

For the qualitative responses to our survey, we analyzed how the respondents “talked about” children’s sexuality and the rules for children’s nudity and doctor games at their institutions and found two very different discourses. The dominant discourse supported the rules, and the other discourse, expressing the view of a minority of respondents, was critical. We first address the dominant discourse. At the core of the dominant discourse, we found a frequently mentioned fear of children “overstepping each other’s boundaries” in doctor games. One integrated institution director stated: “We don’t want doctor games because they may result in the trespassing of a child’s boundaries.” The dominant discourse was characterized by a significant focus on “boundaries,” a frequently recurring term, along with synonyms. One integrated institution director emphasized that “the most important thing is that the children learn not to overstep each other’s boundaries.” Both institutions with strict and more liberal rules for doctor games shared the focus on “boundaries.” In some institutions, the conviction was that children learn best about boundaries from their own experiences in doctor games, but in most of the institutions, teaching about boundaries was seen as the most efficient way for children to learn about them. The respondents explained how, in addition to enforcing rules for doctor games, they actively taught the children “to feel their boundaries,” “to set boundaries,” and “to respect other children’s boundaries.” For instance, one integrated institution noted: “We talk a lot to the children about setting boundaries and saying ‘no’ to things you want no part of. We also teach them to respect when a friend says ‘STOP.’” “Saying ‘no’ and ‘stop,’” and respecting other children’s “no” or “stop” were recurring synonyms for “boundaries” in this discourse. Similarly, the teachers at a small group of institutions taught the children ownership of their bodies. They taught them that their bodies were their own and that what they had in their underpants belonged to them. One BASC taught: “Your body is yours, you’re in charge of it, no one should touch it without your permission.”

Some respondents explained the focus on boundaries as a way to prevent sexual abuse later in the children’s lives; otherwise, the purpose was to prevent children from violating each other’s sexual boundaries at the institutions in the present. This prevention-oriented sexual education of children at Danish childcare institutions strongly resembles and appears to be an informal version of, the much more formalized and pervasive sexual abuse prevention programs in the U.S., where children also learn, in almost the same terms, that their body is their own, to say “no” to offending persons, and to distinguish between “good and bad touches” (Johnson, 2000).

In a smaller group of survey responses, the fear of children violating each other’s sexual boundaries was extremely explicit, and here, the dominant discourse was expressed in terms normally used for adult sex offenders. To these respondents, children might act in “offensive” ways and risked “violating” or “abusing” each other. For instance, a kindergarten director stated: “We do not remove all our clothes, even if it is hot, and the adults walk about both inside and outside, to ensure that any doctor games do not devolve into abuse.” In an integrated institution that forbade doctor games, the director made a distinction between “curious children” and children with “abuser behavior”: “When doctor games happen—because they do—we look carefully at the balance of power. Is there an abuser and victim behavior, or is it two curious children who have just discovered that we look alike or different?” A small group of institutions reported that they had had actual “cases” of children “sexually abusing” or “violating” other children.

The terminology of boundaries and the terminology of abuse were two levels of the same discourse, revealing the core of the dominant discourse to be the view of children’s doctor games as problematic and potentially abusive, and the child’s body as one to be protected against a hypothetical threat. Even though the dominant discourse also included the perception of doctor games as part of children’s natural development, the focus was on the risk of potential harm, and the games were viewed through the lens of adult sexuality. A few respondents actually used the adult term “sex” to describe the children’s games, including one integrated institution director: “The staff have decided that children are not to play sex games, to ensure that no children are harmed.” The dominant discourse could be more or less explicit; however, the general pattern in the dominant discourse revealed that doctor games were viewed in light of CSA. The fear of CSA seemed to be the sole rationale for speaking of children’s games as abusive and for using the theme of “boundaries” to teach children to defend their bodies and to respect other children’s bodies. The more or less explicit aim was to ensure that children were neither victims nor abusers in childhood or adulthood.

The Critical Discourse

In the second discourse, which we call the critical discourse, a minority of respondents criticized the prevailing rules at the institutions. At the core of their discourse was the perception of children’s doctor games as an expression of innocent childish curiosity about the body and the differences between boys and girls, and as a part of children’s natural development. In this discourse, the extensive regulation of children’s nudity and doctor games, and the negative view of these games as transgressive were seen as a sad development that did not serve the children well. A kindergarten director stated:

To me, it is unnatural when children do not run about naked at the beach, and can’t sit in a paddle pool without clothes. They acquire an incorrect relationship to their bodies as something that must be hidden.

Another kindergarten director argued:

I think that in everyday life children should have the opportunity to express themselves freely. It is natural to compare genders, and touch each other, examine each other. I think it is sad that we cannot manage this. Childcare institutions function as an alternative to the home for many hours.

One integrated institution director held an even stronger opinion: “It seems like a sort of repression of sexuality.”

A kindergarten director argued that the view of the doctor games depended on the viewer, and mentioned parents, who were frequently described in the survey as disliking the children’s doctor games: “When children play doctor games, they don’t think of it as something sexual. The thoughts of the adults/parents make it something bad.” Other respondents criticized their colleagues or their profession for their attitude to children’s sexuality:

I think that we, as a profession, are racing in a wrong direction that is not about professional considerations, but about our squeamishness with regard to parental reactions and the influence of the media. No one wants to be the one who failed to react, therefore one overreacts.

Another BASC director made the same criticism:

My experience is that many teachers have tunnel vision when it comes to children’s doctor games. They think “sexual abuse” almost before they think “normal development.” I really miss more perspectives being brought into this debate, concerning the consequences of this on children’s normal development.

The expression of concern about the consequences of the rules for doctor games and nudity for the children was characteristic of the critical discourse. The main concern was that the rules would negatively affect the children’s natural development, and their relationship to their bodies and to sexuality. There were concerns about both short-term and long-term consequences for the children. Some criticized what a preschool teacher called the “constant surveillance” of children that resulted from the staff’s fear of these games. Some believed that the games would take place secretly, despite the rules, keeping children from seeking adult guidance if needed. Other respondents worried about the consequences for the children when they reached adolescence. They believed that children profit from having these first experiences with sexuality in secure settings and feared that children will be worse off without them when, as teenagers, they are confronted with sexuality in a challenging youth culture, which at times includes pornography and alcohol. Finally, a key concern voiced in the critical discourse was that children will come to perceive the body and nudity and sexuality as dangerous and forbidden and that they may experience guilt and shame because of their childish curiosity. One BASC director wrote:

When adults make rules for children’s natural curiosity about examining each other’s bodies, we send the message that something is wrong about that. That doesn’t make the curiosity disappear, but it connects it to shame. It sometimes seems as though children are more affected by shame owing to our rules, than by any transgression of each other’s boundaries.

Professional Dilemma or Professional Pride

The differing views of the dominant discourse and the critical discourse on children’s doctor games represented opposing experiences of how the rules for children corresponded to professional competence. The minority of respondents who expressed their disapproval of the rules in the critical discourse found these incompatible with their professional competence. They found themselves in a professional, and sometimes ethical, dilemma, when they went against their professional knowledge and personal conviction at the cost of children’s welfare. This could be the case for teachers working at institutions where the directors and their colleagues had established the rules, but it could also be the case for directors. Directors were well represented among the critical minority. They could feel forced to establish rules that conflicted with their professional convictions because of pressure from parents or society, or to protect their staff from wrongful allegations, as described by this BASC director: “We are sorry that we need to have rules that may teach children that their sexual curiosity is not quite natural.”

The majority of respondents found that the rules had no negative consequences for the children’s behavior and development. The consequences mentioned in the dominant discourse were positive: the rules, and the work with boundaries, taught children healthy and respectful sexual behavior and protected weaker children who were at risk of being harmed during doctor games. Therefore, the rules supported these respondents’ professional competence, and quite a few respondents also found that the rules gave them a professional tool for navigating a difficult field. For instance, they found it helpful to rely on the rules when interacting with parents. For some directors, the general task of protecting children against sexual abuse, with both rules for the children and an awareness of possible signs that the children were being abused elsewhere, had become an important pillar of their professional identity, in that they found themselves responsible for an imperative, societal task in which they took professional pride.

The Cultural Shift at the Childcare Institutions

The divergent discourses on children’s sexuality and the rules for doctor games and nudity indicate a conflict in current views on children’s sexuality at Danish childcare institutions. These divergent discourses also tell of a historical–cultural shift at the institutions. No research exists concerning how Danish childcare institutions handled children’s nudity and doctor games in the past. Glimpses of the past and reflections on the shift in attitude offered by respondents in our study constitute the first piece of documentation. According to a number of respondents, the rules prohibiting children’s doctor games and nudity marked a new development. In 2012, when we conducted the survey, a shift in attitude over the preceding 10–15 years was noted by several respondents, including one 57-year-old integrated institution director:

There definitely has been a change in attitude within the last ten years. The children bathe in swimming suits or underwear. We are more alert with regard to doctor games and undressing. Parents are also more sensitive about their children’s nakedness.

A director, aged 48, who had worked for 19 years in an integrated institution, observed the same change in the history of her institution: “Children can’t bathe naked or play doctor as they did in the beginning, when the institution first opened.” A director, aged 55, who had worked for 14 years in an integrated institution where they began limiting children’s doctor games to protect both children and staff, agreed: “We are more prudish than before.” A director, aged 52, who had worked for 10 years in a kindergarten that used to allow children to play naked in paddling pools and under sprinklers, said that they now always had the children wear underwear and had become more aware of who might see the children from the street. She explained that doctor games and nudity had acquired new meanings:

To be naked, now, is associated more with something secret and a bit sexy—before it was just natural. Parents are also more attentive and worried if the children play sexual games—to a greater degree than before, they are afraid that their children will be “violated.”

A director, aged 47, who had worked for 5 years in a BASC, told the same story: “There has been a drastic shift in the views of children’s relations to one another. Exploratory behaviors among children are, sadly, often interpreted as abuse.” Another BASC director, aged 49, who had worked for 10 years in a BASC, made this comparison: “Sexuality has become dangerous and taboo, a bit as I imagine it was in the 50s.”

Especially with regard to children’s bathing nude, many comments explicitly identified a historical–cultural shift, noting that children used to bathe naked on the playground or at the beach in the summer, but that the institutions now forbade this, to protect children against CSA, or staff against wrongful allegations, or to please worried parents. Some respondents portrayed a time not so long ago, when things were quite the opposite, and children bathing nude was a common practice at preschool institutions; one director, aged 59, who had worked for 20 years in an integrated institution, stated:

In the past, the children undressed completely when bathing or playing with water on the playground in the summer. In recent years, the practice has changed, so children wear swimwear. Twenty years ago one would be almost puzzled if a child kept its underwear on during water games or brought swimwear to the childcare institution.

A director, aged 63, who had worked for 11 years in a kindergarten that forbade children to be naked despite their inclination to undress in the “cushion room” and on the playground in summertime, offered this interpretation of the shift: “Previously, children’s nudity on the beach and on the playground was not associated with the possible sexual abuse of children.” Some respondents looked back at the past nostalgically, including one director, aged 61, who had worked for 11 years in an integrated institution:

According to the rules at our institution, no children run around or bathe without underpants. We have gotten used to them, and it’s no problem on an everyday basis. It only becomes a problem when one begins to think about the lost freedom to run around without clothes that existed when my own children were kids, and the time was different…

The rules for the children evidently had direct effects on their behavior, such as not being able to be naked or play doctor. Although the vast majority of respondents did not find that the rules had influenced children’s general behavior in other ways, a minority noticed secondary changes. Some respondents spoke positively of the effect of the rules and the focus on boundaries on the children, such as this director, aged 56, who had worked for 7 years in a BASC: “The children know the limits of what they can and cannot do to each other. Every child knows the limits of what you are not supposed, and allowed, to do to others.” Other respondents had noticed that children had become more modest, for instance an experienced kindergarten director who found children more modest than ever before in her long career. A director, aged 50, who had worked for 23 years in an integrated institution, agreed:

I don’t know whether it is because of the rules—probably more because of the attitude of “adult Denmark”—but children are more modest than they were ten years ago, for instance, with regard to undressing in the swimming hall and bathing naked on the beach.

Several respondents noticed secondary changes in the children’s sexual conduct. A couple of respondents found that children were more conscious of sexual behavior, that they hid to play doctor games, or told on friends who broke the rules. This director, aged 59, who had worked for 15 years in her integrated institution, noted:

The eldest of the children are conscious that they are forbidden to play that kind of games, and that means that we observe fewer incidents of “doctor games.” However, we still see “doctor games” once in a while, and we also see that, as a consequence of the rules, children try to hide the games.

Several respondents agreed that doctor games had become rarer, including a director, aged 42, who had worked for 15 years in a kindergarten that enforced the rule that the children always had to keep their underwear on, also during water games, whereas the children used to be naked. When asked whether this rule had influenced the children’s general behavior, the director noted: “Doctor games are not as pervasive as they used to be.”

Discussion

The Loss of the Child’s Innocence

To summarize the testimonies of the last section, our survey indicated that there had been significant changes in both parents’ and childcare professionals’ attitudes toward children’s nudity and doctor games since the millennium, in the period following the outbreak of moral panic over CSA in Denmark at the end of the last century. The low response rate to our study necessitates caution when generalizing the results, but the limitation of the quantitative results is balanced by the strengths of the rich qualitative material of the survey on which this article is largely based. The combination of the quantitative results, showing that 64% of all institutions had rules for children’s nudity and/or doctor games, and the qualitative results reveals a cultural shift at the childcare institutions. This cultural shift varied in expression and extent at the individual institutions. The general pattern indicated by both rules and discourses was that the child’s body had been sexualized, not through recognition of the child’s own sexuality, but through the lens of adult sexuality. The child’s body now represented a range of risks that had to be controlled, and there was a tendency to directly taboo the child’s body, for instance, when everyday activities such as changing clothes were closely regulated to prevent the child’s body from being seen. The child’s body had clearly lost its innocence.

This cultural shift is complex and may be viewed in light of several cultural developments. An important one is the current polarization of Danish society—as of many Western societies—into the hypersexualization of society, including children, and a countertendency to a “new puritanism.” However, discourse analysis clearly indicated that a specific cultural development, namely the moral panic regarding CSA, played a principal role in this cultural shift, and in determining what is now admissible, and considered normal and morally good with regard to children’s nudity and doctor games at childcare institutions. The results showed that the pervasive cultural focus on CSA has closely associated the child’s body with CSA. Adults have learned to view the child’s body as a potential target of CSA, to the extent that it is no longer viewed in its own right. The rules and the discourse of boundaries and abuse revealed this fear of a transgression of the child’s body, and the cultural shift at the institutions appeared defensive, rather than based on professional arguments: defensive with regard to both children and to childcare professionals, who risked accusations of CSA in the presence of a child’s nude body.

Our survey showed that the cultural shift at Danish childcare institutions was characterized by a general loss of trust. Childcare professionals feared the accusations of parents and were themselves on the alert for the possible pedophile gaze all around them: of parents, workmen, or people on the beach. Teaching children to identify and respect boundaries is essential education, in sexual and all human matters. However, the qualitative responses indicated that the institutions’ focus was mostly one-sided. Although many respondents viewed children’s sexual curiosity as a natural part of children’s development, and the staffs in many institutions were careful not to shame children when regulating doctor games, few participants actively used positive terms when speaking of the sexual games, or referred to any positive discourse with the children conveying the importance of trust and joy in intimacy, or the fun and knowledge of discovering how children have different bodies and sexes. In our opinion, a sexual education with a one-sided focus on boundaries, based primary on a fearful rationale of preventing CSA, risks suggesting to children that sexuality is dangerous and that we must defend our bodies. This is logical with regard to potential CSA, but not in terms of the “normal” spectrum of sexuality, to which trust and joy are fundamental. Finally, the loss of trust also targeted the child. The games were viewed as potentially harmful, and it was against their small friends that the children learned to defend themselves. The discourse of boundaries and abuse revealed that the child had lost its innocence in more ways than one. Not only had the child been sexualized, the discourse of abuse typically used for adult sex offenders, which suggests an intentional act, rendered children playing doctor at their childcare institutions guilty of CSA. This result revealed the tendency at Danish childcare institutions to no longer view the child only as a potential victim of CSA, but also as a potential offender.

In our opinion, the discourse of boundaries, and especially, abuse, risks considerable consequences for the children. Such discourse is constitutive of the way others perceive the games, our actions concerning them, the identities of the children playing them, and the children’s relations to both their friends and the adults in the childcare setting (Fairclough, 1992). The discourse of abuse may identify small children as abusers (and victims) and divide them into “good/bad guys.” The discourse risks criminalizing and stigmatizing certain children at a very young age for playing doctor with their friends in childcare. The discourse and the view of doctor games as potentially abusive also risk altering the social relationships between childcare professionals and children, so that the child becomes not only someone to guard, but also someone to guard against.

Our findings, which focused on Danish children, are consistent with the research findings in other countries, namely that children’s doctor games are common and pervasive (see introduction). These concurrent, cross-cultural findings reveal a high prevalence of children’s doctor games, which makes it possible to establish the games as expected and developmentally appropriate sexual behavior in children (Dixson, 2012; Ford & Beach, 1951; Friedrich, 2007). The concurrent, cross-cultural findings therefore strongly contradict the tendency, also revealed by our study, to problematize childhood sexuality.

Our results furthermore raise the question of whether children attempting to insert objects into the vagina/rectum are as rare as some studies have concluded (Elkovitch et al., 2009). This supposed low-frequency activity is often labeled “problematic,” “aggressive,” “non-normative,” and “imitative of adult sexual behavior” (Elkovitch et al., 2009). This is due partly to the fact that it may harm children, but our study questions whether other interpretations of this activity may sometimes be relevant (Levine, 2002). These questions call for further research, particularly because children’s sexual behavior deemed “problematic, aggressive, non-normative, and imitative of adult sexual behavior” often raises suspicions that the child exhibiting this behavior has been sexually abused, and risks the child being identified as a “perpetrator.”

The problematization of childhood sexuality may be contemplated on a larger societal scale in the U.S., where, as mentioned earlier, a similar shift in culture took place in American preschools in the late 1980s, when children’s sexuality became associated with sexual abuse and danger (Dicataldo, 2009; Levine, 2002; Tobin, 2004). Tobin (2009) depicted this shift in culture in American childcare:

And four and five-year-old children are also vulnerable to accusations of sexually abusing their classmates. Kissing games and playing doctor, common activities of young children just a generation ago, are now activities that routinely lead to calls home, official reports, and even suspensions and, in rare cases, legal proceedings. (p. 727)

In “Harmful to Minors,” Levine (2002) described a drift in professionals’ and lay-people’s view of childhood sexuality, in the 1980s, from tolerance and trust, toward fear and prohibitions. Physical affection among children has come to be always judged as sex, and sex is now always judged as dangerous, Levine argued, bemoaning that sex education for children of all ages focuses on danger, whereas pleasure is tabooed. Children learn to defend themselves against peers and adults and are “brought up to be…suspicious of intrusions against their own body’s ‘boundaries’” (p. 179). In his book, “The Perversion of Youth,” Dicataldo (2009) asked, “How did we get to the point where childhood sexuality is perceived as so potentially dangerous?” (p. 111). He regretted the lack of knowledge and acknowledgment of children’s normal sexuality and pointed out the current pathologization of sexual behavior in children “that in the past or within another cultural context would have barely registered a reaction.” He mentioned the expressions “children who molest children” and “children with sexual behavior problems” as examples of “new clinical terminology covering younger and younger children” and emphasized that such new categories are not without consequences. They are “buzzing, interactive and productive,” and have resulted in “new regimes of assessment and treatment” of children (pp. 135–136). Levine (2002), who also described the rise of a “new class of patient,” remarked that in 1984 there were no treatment programs for “children with sexual behavior problems” in the U.S., but a total of 50 residential and 394 nonresidential programs for such children under 12 just a dozen years later. Chaffin and Bonner (1998) described how the discourse normally applied to adult sex offenders has been applied to American preschoolers: “We see the labels of offender and perp applied to preschoolers. In many instances, this has extended to affixing the label of sex offender, even in advance of any actual inappropriate behavior” (p. 315).

The criminalizing discourse on children’s sexuality in the U.S. is reflected in the American legal response to children’s sexual behavior. Since the late 1980s, children’s and adolescents’ sexuality has been increasingly criminalized in the U.S., where criminal laws originally designed for adult perpetrators, including civil commitment, registration, and public notification, also are applied to children (in most cases older than preschool children) and youths, with no consideration for their developmental status (Dicataldo, 2009; Letourneau & Caldwell, 2013; Stillman, 2016; Zimring, 2004). The literature gives the examples of a 7-year-old child removed from home because he fondled his 5-year-old sibling’s genitals, and children as young as 10 or 12 years old being arrested by the police and subjected to sex-offender registration, neighborhood notification, and even civil commitment (Chaffin & Bonner, 1998; Letourneau & Caldwell, 2013). No other democratic country in the world subjects legal minors accused of sexual offenses to such severe penalties as the U.S. (Letourneau & Caldwell, 2013). An article in The New Yorker (Stillman, 2016) described how public juvenile sex-offender registration ruins the lives of children and youths, denying them rehabilitation, long into adulthood. These young Americans are unable to find jobs, and they and their families suffer stigmatization, even after sex-offender treatment, because their faces remain on the internet with the “sex-offender” label attached. Some of the offenses that in the U.S. get children and youth on the registry in the company of hardboiled, adult sex offenders are considered harmless or at least would not prompt legal proceedings in other democratic countries, for instance consensual sex between teenagers, which is generally accepted in Denmark, and only in rare cases becomes a legal matter (Graugaard, 1997; Graugaard et al., 2004).

Danish culture, regarded as being the opposite of the American culture of repressing youthful sexuality (Letourneau & Caldwell, 2013), may seem far from the American developments of the last 30 years, with regard to children’s sexuality. Danish culture is very secular and known to be very broadminded. Since “the sexual liberation” of the 1960s, the Danes’ generally liberal attitude toward sexual matters has clearly left its mark. Sex education has been mandatory in the Danish elementary school system since 1970. Denmark was the first country in the world to legalize pornography in 1969, and the first country in the world to legally recognize same-sex unions in 1989, with the first homosexual couple getting married in Denmark that same year (Graugaard, 1997; Graugaard et al., 2004). The past that some childcare professionals evoked in our study, with children bathing naked in summertime, and a more tolerant attitude to doctor games some 15–20 years ago, is consistent with this broadmindedness, and the shift in attitude at Danish childcare institutions is the more surprising on this background. Nevertheless, our study indicates striking similarities between the cultural shift at American preschool facilities and in the general American attitude toward child sexuality in the 1980s, and the cultural shift at Danish childcare institutions around 2000. Without arguing that Denmark will necessarily follow the same path as the U.S., we do argue that a significant change is occurring at Danish childcare institutions, which calls for further consideration. Additional research is needed to further investigate both short- and long-term consequences for children of the present development, as our results indicate that the rules, discourse, and sexual education at Danish childcare facilities, intended to safeguard children, but based on fears of CSA, may instead result in mistrust, a problematization of the child’s body, and the criminalization of children’s sexuality, and of some children in particular. The Danish and the American shifts in culture illustrate that there is no innate view of children’s sexuality, but that culture is paramount in determining the norms of childhood sexuality. The cross-cultural parallel between two historically different countries, with regard to general sexual norms and liberty, further illustrates the deep and widespread influence of the fear of CSA in Western culture today.