“Knowing Something I Was Not Meant to Know”: Exploring Vulnerability, Sexuality, and Childhood, 1900–50

• Published in: The Canadian historical review Vol. 98; no. 1; pp. 35 - 59
• Main Author: Gleason, Mona
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: North York University of Toronto Press 01.03.2017
• Subjects: Canada; Canadian history; Children; Children & youth; Conversation; Discourse analysis; Physicians; Sexuality; Silence; Topics; Canada
• ISSN: 0008-3755; 1710-1093
• DOI: 10.3138/chr.3564

In this Forum, I explore the discourse of Canadian doctors and educators regarding childhood sexuality, a topic laden with emotional import and moral hand-wringing, and some of the ways youngsters responded to it between 1900 and 1950. Historians have largely overlooked the “everydayness” of sexuality in childhood in Canada perhaps because the topic risks challenging long-standing associations between childhood and innocence. History, however, points to more complex relationships among youngsters, adult experts, and discourses of sexuality and, in particular, sexuality education. Here, I put expert discourse in conversation with oral histories of Canadians who felt the impact of this adult-produced discourse in their childhoods. The participants testify to the inadequate and inaccurate information about their own bodies that resulted in silence and miseducation regarding sexuality. This miseducation produced fear, shame, and, ultimately, vulnerability in many young people and reinforced unequal relations of power. In the most extreme cases, children were rendered more, not less, vulnerable to abuse by adults and even other children.