Citation

Janssen D. Int. J. Mens Health 2006; 5(1): 19-34.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Men's Studies Press)

DOI

10.3149/jmh.0501.19

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

n the West, a long heritage of notions of healthy boyhood sexuality has come to inform its embodiment by boys. However, the applicability of a biomedical paradigm to boyhood sexuality is greatly restrictive if it is oblivious to the worldwide variety of indigenous customs and practices that inform boys' experience of their bodies and their sexual practices. This article presents a sample of the wide range of practices associated with boys' sexual bodies and argues in favor of an ethnohistorical (cartographic) approach to local boyhood sexualities, that is, a plurality of boy sexualities, to supplement or replace the prevailing biomedical perspective that prescribes a single version of healthy boyhood sexuality. It provides a review of selected ethnographic findings related to boys' experience of their bodies, puberty, virginity, and involvement in same-sex intimacies. The purpose of the paper is to reveal how the status of the Western boy's body and boyhood sexuality has been created by the biomedical paradigm and to suggest an alternative perspective based on ethnographic findings.