6. Male Adolescent Sexuality. The Lessons from Osborne

1. The importance of the child or youth’s own assessment of his sexuality — of the type, for example, that Osborne’s taped conversations reveal — are seen in other studies of child and adolescent sexuality. Alfred Kinsey, in a letter to New York gynaecologist Dr Sophia J. Kleegman, wrote: ‘Children’s material is precious. It is giving us more insights into the patterns of behaviour than we ever anticipated we could get.’ Quoted in Pomeroy, W. B., Dr Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research, Signet, New York, 1972, p.222.

2. Most of the material Osborne obtained on early childhood sexuality came from his partners’ recollections of their infantile experiences. Again, Kinsey emphasizes the importance of this sort of material. Ibid., pp.128—129.

3. Prescott, J. W., ‘Body pleasure and the origins of violence’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November, 1975, pp. 10—20.

4. This stage is discussed by Martinson in Cook, M. and Wilson, G., Love and Attraction, Pergamon, London, 1980, pp.489-491.

5. The Freudian concept of ‘Sexual latency’ during this stage is open to attack based on Osborne’s material. Clearly, most of his partners were sexually very active during Freud’s ‘latency’ period.

6. Individuals and organisations who have advocated more liberal attitudes towards childhood sexuality are discussed by Martinson. See Cook, M. and Wilson, G., op. cit., pp.490-491.

7. See Constantine, L., ‘The Sexual Rights of Children’ in Cook, M. and Wilson, G., op. cit., pp.503-507.

8. See Martinson, Cook, M. and Wilson, G., op. cit., pp.489-491.

9. Wilson, P. R., Intimacy, Cassell, Sydney, 1979, p.147.

10. The problematic nature of sexuality is one of the most established findings in the study of human sexuality and is extensively documented in the works of Kinsey, Ford, Beach and Freud.

11. Sartre, J. P., Saint Genet in Sartre, J. P., Oeuvres Completes, Gallimard, Paris, 1967.

12. There are exceptions to this rule and it is clear from Osborne s documents that some boys wanted to be kissed and enjoyed this activity considerably.

13. Rossman, P., ‘The pederasts’, Society, May/April, 1973, pp.29—35.

14. This theme is the basis for Robin Lloyd’s book. See Lloyd, R., Playland, Quartet, London, 1979.

15. Goldman, I., The Cubeo-Indians of the Northwest Amazon, The University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1963.

16. See a discussion of this evidence in Longfeldt’s paper in Cook, M. and Wilson, G., op cit., pp.493-498.

17. Rossman, P., op. cit.

18. Ibid, pp.34-35.

19. It would be very difficult, in this society, for guilt to be absent in adolescent same-sex relations given the antagonistic societal attitudes towards homosexuality.

20. Zilbergeld, B., Men and Sex, Hutchinson, Melbourne, 1978.

21. Wilson, P. op. cit., pp. 102—124.

22. Zilbergeld, B., op. cit., p.S.

23. Ibid, pp.3—li.

24. Lestor, J., ‘Being A Boy’, Ms Magazine, July, 1973, p.113.

25. Zilbergeld, B., op. cit. p.27l.

26. May, R., Love and Will, Fontana, London, 1972. (See particularly chapter 1.)

27. Tripp has emphasized this point vividly in his writings. See Tripp, C. A., The Homosexual Matrix, McGraw Hill, New York, 1972.

28. Wilson, P. R., op. cit.