Children's Sex, Fairy Tales & Children's Literature

Foucault also speaks of four deployments of sexuality. Specifically, pedagogization of children's sex, this is what we make of: Sexuality isn't a "thing" that is then repressed by power, or that must be discovered through careful investigation . Sexuality is used rather, says Jackson and Scott, to refer to "erotic desires, practices and identities" or "aspects of personal and social life which have erotic significance". This suggests a highly varied set of meanings.

Let us now look into the pedagogization of children's sex. In any discussion of sexuality, Foucault argues that we must not comprehend sexuality as a psychic drive . It appears rather as an especially dense transfer point for relation of power: between men and women, young people and old people, parents and offspring, teachers and students, priests and laity, an administration and a population . In addition to this, sexuality should neither be equated to sex itself nor is it subordinate at the same time. Foucault quoted, "We must not place sex on the side of sexuality on that of confused ides and illusions. Sexuality is a very real historical formation. It is what gives rise to the notion of sex."

One of the most impressive social inventions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the emergence of an exceptional concern with the life of the child . This does not contend that children now are more taken care and loved for, but there is a special awareness of them as occupying some special social and psychological status as children. In the earlier times, children and those of teens were deemed as a smaller, lesser, and physically weaker being, innocent enough not to do be aware of the concept of "sex", "love", and "flings" . This was the kind of thinking people used to believe until the emergence of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare, William Wodsworth, and Charles Dickens. Their works and writings showed a new and possessing concern for the unique experiences and perceptions of children.

Children's Literature

Perhaps what has been a prevalent manifestation of Foucault's "pedagogization of children's sex" that has survived up to this date can be seen in literature, children's fairy tales and preteen novels. Besides being an important resource for developing children's language skills, children's books play a significant part in transmitting a society's culture to children . Gender roles are an important part of this culture. How genders are portrayed in children's books thus contributes to the image children develop of their own roles and those of their gender in society. In every fairy tale book that a child reads, certain gender biases exists such as the domination of the male figure and the distress of the damsel. In stories with female protagonists, plots often revolve around males. Females tend to be sweet, naïve, conforming, and dependent. Boys tend to be strong, adventurous, independent, and capable. Boys achieve goals because of perseverance. These are common bias seen in Cinderella, Snow White, & Sleeping Beauty .

Sexism in literature quietly conditions boys and girls to accept the way they see and read the world, thus reinforcing gender images. This reinforcement keeps children from questioning existing social relationships. At the same time, however, books containing images that conflict with gender stereotypes provide children the opportunity to re-examine their gender beliefs and assumptions . Thus, texts can provide children with alternative role models and inspire them to adopt more egalitarian gender attitudes. Children's literature is part of a culturally regulated frame that determines what sorts of gendered being appears to be natural. Charles Perrault and Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm wrote tales to caution children about the perils and consequences of "inappropriate" behavior. When a person thinks of reading a children's book, themes of sex, desire, and gender differences do not often come to mind. However, analyses of favorite children's books such as Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, the fairytale "Sleeping Beauty", and L.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, have proven that these themes actually do occur but in a hidden manner .

Lewis Caroll's Alice In Wonderland also has its own sexual suggestions. In the story, Alice falls asleep and dreams of an adventure in Wonderland. There were instances where she falls many times---in the tunnel or in the hole. Sigmund Freud theorized that a dream consisting of falling reflects sexual desires. Carroll makes it rather clear that Alice in Wonderland represents his pervasive side. Carroll is sometimes viewed as a paedophile, due to his love of photography of children, and his love for them in general. Sleeping Beauty is also another example. Exploring dark, hidden places is always a sexual metaphor in fairy tales. A dark attic or cave is the female body, never supposed to be explored lest it lead to the worst sin: sexual congress. When females are interested in sex it becomes joyful and fun, and therefore wrong. When only men are interested in sex, it is quick, and results in babies, which for married women, is appropriate. Thus women must never explore, but wait to be found by the men who are conquering their sexual energies, and upon a marriage, it is acceptable for a woman to be a vessel, no more. All the punishments (death commuted to one hundred years sleep, in Sleeping Beauty) that befall women for curiousity are meant to repress sexual exploration .

Childhood, in Shakespeare's writings, for example, was depicted as a developmental stage during which moral and intellectual categories were related