Recent recognition of child-to-child and adolescent-to-child
sexual abuse raises the question, for the courts, educators,
clinicians, and lay individuals, where do we draw the line between
normal childhood sexual play, and abuse. This paper presents the
results of a survey on normative childhood sexual play and games
experiences that was distributed to 300 undergraduates at an all
women's college. One hundred-twenty-eight returned the survey, 85% of
whom described a childhood sexual game experience. Of these women, 44%
described cross-gender play and there was a trend for women who had
described cross-gender experiences to have seen the play as involving
persuasion, manipulation, or coercion. A strong relationship was found
between abuse and cross-gender play. Level of physical involvement in
the game was correlated with perceptions of normality. A typology of
six kinds of sexual play experiences was derived. Results are
discussed in terms of their relation to differentiating childhood
sexual abuse from play and gender socialization influences relating to
the role rehearsal of coercive or manipulative relationships.