Learning Sex In and Out of School

Abstract

Many men recalled games from the age of five or six, before they started school, which involved the exploration of girls’ bodies, and, for some, boys’ bodies as well, and attempts to imitate the heterosexual behavior of adults.¹ Men would later differentiate this play activity from their first “real” experience of sex, as Darius explained:

I sort of had sex with small girls before I went to primary school, but I can’t remember much about it. We would pair off and try to have sex, but that sex is different from the sex I know now. At that time I wouldn’t release sperms. I would just push my penis into the girl. But nothing would happen. I wouldn’t feel any relief. I think it was because I was too young.