taboo, culture, anthropologyImagine the following situation: mom and dad are snuggling on the sofa. The kids are playing with toys in the same room. The parental snuggling escalates, and Mom ends up giving Dad a hand job. This would absolutely be taboo in my culture.
Obviously, it’s taboo if this act of sexual expression includes the kids (“incest”). Further, it’s taboo if the act is a display, or performance for the children as audience. I’m pretty sure that such taboos are universal across all human cultures.
That’s not what I’m asking about.
I’m asking about the situation where the adults are engaging in what would otherwise be a normal, acceptable sexual activity, with the exception that it is not explicitly hidden from the kids’ view. This is taboo in my culture, but I wonder if that taboo is universal.
Are there any cultures where sexual acts are not actively concealed from children? Is there any information documenting why it is or is not acceptable to perform sexual acts in the presence of children?
The short answer: No, it is not universal to "conceal" sexual expression from children. In some cultures, the physical realities of the living space more or less prevent that from being possible.
However</em>, "not concealing" is different from "flaunting" or "not even trying to hide". As an anthropologist by training, the best example I can think of off the top of my head is from the book Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman by Marjorie Shostak. Shostak is a well-known, well-respect American anthropologist who did a lot of ethnographic research on the !Kung people of Africa's Kalahari Desert. She interviewed !Kung women about many, many things, including sex and sexuality:</p>
Miraculously, it seemed, Bau talked freely about things I had wanted to hear, but hadn't, until then. We talked seven times over a period of two weeks; I took notes on all that I understood. She explained how children eventually became aware of their parents' sexual intercourse - conducted discreetly at night in the same one-room hut. That was how children got their ideas for sexual play. At first they played that way with friends and sometimes even with their brothers or sisters. As they grew older, they stopped playing with their siblings and played only with children of the opposite sex. She herself had played "house" when she was a child, and she remembered a time when two playmates had been discovered having "sex" under the blankets. (from Nisa introduction, p. 17, emphasis mine). As with all anthropology, this is not infallible evidence. Shostak herself notes: Winning Bau's trust had been the first step; trying to understand what her confidences meant came next. I knew enough not to assume that what she told me was necessarily true. Informants often told anthropologists what they thought they wanted to hear. Some even told outright lies - from concealment, from indifference, or just for amusement. It was also possible that the way Bau talked was governed by cultural forms I didn't know, but which she assumed I understood. (ibid.) But Bau's stories, coupled with other interviews, the abundant free time children have and her own observations about the type of play that !Kung children engage in, led Shostak to believe that the believe that much of this process of sexual discovery are true for most !Kung people. Methodological difficulties aside, this points to the conclusion that yes, there are some cultures where sex isn't totally hidden from children. Adults can be discreet about it, but it is assumed a natural part of a child's development that he or she will notice sexual acts being conducted by their parents. Arranging private meetings in which to engage in sexual acts is not very easy, so they try to be as discreet as can and don't seem to worry much about what they can't really control (e.g., a child pretending to be asleep but secretly watching). This is just one example that I recalled off the top of my head; there may be others, but one example is enough to dispel any claim of "universality." (Note: The above quotes come from the introduction; there's actually a whole chapter called "Discovering Sex" that's worth a read.)