Soggy diapers dragged about the knees of others.
Children soon learned to stimulate themselves and others.
One enterprising four-year-old was observed proficiently
penetrating his five-year-old sister. Others wriggled atop one
another, groaning and grunting in succinct imitation.
Descriptive words were used, most often incorrectly. When I
questioned one boy about a term he used while pummeling
another, he was puzzled and then happily defined it as
"mother's dirty butt."
Once children entered school, they were exposed to the
mysteries and the perils of the alley. Boys soon began to join
the junior echelon of infamous older boys' gangs.
They
remained away from home for hours, gaining acceptance
through feats of prowess, such as fighting with a rival junior
gang member, pilfering from the corner grocery, or grabbing
a girl in the garage.
Sex play was a pallid term for what
existed in the alley. Coitus commenced as early as age four,
although ejaculation was generally absent until after age
ten.
Most young girls returned home directly after school,
observing their mothers' admonitions and their own better
judgment.
A few ran with the boys, buying protection and
acceptance in the gang through sex. Far from being valued,
they were assigned derogatory nicknames, were callously
used as community receptacles for semen, and sometimes
beaten or abandoned. The sex act itself was brief, at best a
barter, at worst a rape.
There was no question that these children received early
and continued erotic stimulation. Yet the boys used sex more
for power and proof of masculinity than for pleasure. Status
was achieved through daring exploits, strength, and a fre
quently functioning phallus.
The hit-and-run act took less
time than recounting the exploit to other males. Sex was
often equated with dirt, and the girls so used were debased
and disparaged.
The cautious girls who remained at home
were more respected and were sometimes awkwardly
courted.
In the slum sex and anger are companions from earliest
childhood. The toddler observes its mother used, abused, and
abandoned by her consorts. Occasionally she abuses her
mate.
The child himself is the recipient of abrupt physical
punishment and is abandoned daily in the hallway. Once
there, he is subjected to a series of sexual and aggressive
assaults, until with growth, he becomes the master of the
corridor. The microcosm of the hallway later becomes the
macrocosm of the alley.
Boys and girls soon evolve separate roles: the victor and
the victim, the one who grabs and the one who withholds, the
protector and the protectee, the policeman and the pilferer.
Masculine prowess is highly esteemed and heavily reinforced.
Little boys who participate in girls' play are ridiculed
by both sexes (Rabban, 1950), and beaten by other boys.
Dehumanization is the price. The sex act, in itself an aggressive
denial of tenderness, becomes the medium of exchange
between the two camps. The girl who gives in earns instant
ersatz popularity, but lands at the bottom of the social heap.