The Evolution Of Sexuality In Children: A Social S

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Vanessa Spano Miss Amolins EAE 4U Friday September 24th, 2010 The Evolution Of Sexuality In Children: A Social Science Essay Introduction The concept of sexuality is not one that is innate. Actually, the recognition of sexual organs begins to take place during the preschooler stage. Then, the comprehension of sexuality develops further. Therefore, the concept of sexuality is not one you learn overnight. It is long and complex, causing the human being to pass through many stages in life before completely understanding the notion, let alone his or her own sexuality. Freud's psychosexual stages of development explain the learning of sexuality in correlation with the following life stages: early childhood, childhood and adolescence. In the beginning – the phallic stage What should first be recognized is that children do not acknowledge the presence of their sexual organs until early childhood, between the ages of three and six years old. During this stage, family remains the center of the child’s life although other children begin to play an important role. Strength and mobility develop and children take a small step towards independence. Children of this age group possess a cognitive immaturity, a selfish behavior and a refined sense of play, creativity and imagination. It is also during this phase that Freud’s phallic stage will occur. Equally described to be between the ages of three and six, the phallic stage is the third of Freud’s psychosexual phases, following the anal stage. Throughout the phallic stage, girls and boys become fully conscious of their sexual organs, which are now the erogenous zones, contrary to the anal phase, when the anus was the area of sensibility and sexual excitement. A popular theory associated with the phallic phase is the Oedipal complex, when the boy becomes fixated on his mother thus turning his father into a rival,
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