Sex training and traditions in Arnhem Land*

Children and Youth in Aboriginal Australia: An Overview of the Literature

“…Burbank's (1988Burbank's ( , 2006) work on Aboriginal children and youth which applies a 'culture in mind' model, Hamilton's (1981Hamilton's ( , 1979) observations on attachment, Morton's (1989) psychoanalytic interpretations of the symbolic representations of mother-child links in certain cultural institutions, and Robinson's (e.g., 1990Robinson's (e.g., , 1992aRobinson's (e.g., , 1992b ongoing research of transforming family dynamics appear to be exceptional in the Australian context. In addition to Ró heim's psychoanalytic investigations in Central Australia, there are a few psychiatric studies on children's sexuality: Money et al (1973Money et al ( , 1977 on sexual training and traditions on Elcho Island, and Eastwell's (1977) longitudinal study of mental illnesses in an East Arnhem Land community. Bearing parallels with findings from other non-Western societies, for example, the Pilagá Indians of Argentina (Henry and Henry 1974), these researchers have observed that Aboriginal children were afforded great sexual freedom while displaying very few neurotic symptoms.…”

Why the Paraphilias? Domesticating Strange Sex

“…But we suggest that to engage in active hiding of sexual features may result in an increased interest in and arousal by those features being concealed. For example, despite the assertion by Money et al (1970) that no paraphilias existed among the Yolngu Aborigines, the authors reported a case of one teenage male who had a "history of peeping" (p. 396) with respect to (presumably White) female mission personnel. One could not know whether this youth exhibited voyeuristic tendencies in his own camp and among his own people, but there is the possibility that the "hiddenness" of females behind layers of artifacts-that is, inside buildings and under clothing-helped foster this interest.…”

“…10 The only study that has explicitly set out to study the paraphilias in a traditional group was undertaken by John Money, together with colleagues (Money, Cawte, Bianchi, & Nurcombe, 1970). Using the Australian Aborigines as the archetypal primitive society, much as Freud, Durkheim, Róheim, and others had done, Money and his colleagues searched for but did not find any evidence for the existence of paraphilias among the Yolngu of Arnhem Land.…”