Sexuality in Childhood

Because children are naturally sexual human beings, gaining a better understanding of childhood sexuality is important for parents, educators, and developmentalists. However, research in this field has been limited because of a culture that is profoundly ambivalent about human sexuality in general and, more specifically, reluctant to recognize the existence of children's sexuality. In fact, compared to other areas of child development, sexuality is one of the least discussed topics and was wholly unrecognized until Sigmund Freud's (1963, 1965) research in the early 1900s disputed the traditional image of children as asexual beings (Heiman et al. 1998).