Troubling the Silencing of Childhood Sexualities in South Africa

In this paper I trouble the continued silencing of sexuality in researching children and childhood in the Global South challenging the dominant narratives that render children's sexualities invisible under the guise of sexual innocence and heteronormativity. Drawing inspiration from research conducted with children in South Africa, the discussion interrogates the entangled legacies of colonialism that continue to shape normative understandings of sexuality across diverse contexts. I ask: why is there a lack of attention to issues around children and young people’s sexuality and what can we do about this ongoing silence?

To answer these questions, I foreground how historically ingrained gender and sexual norms, rooted in colonial discourses, persist perpetuating binary understandings of gender and reinforcing heterosexual imperatives. By exploring the complex intersections of gender, race, class, culture, religion, and political censorship, sexuality is silenced and what is unknown and unpredictable remains unrecognised. Next, I focus on how gender and sexuality come to matter in children and young people’s lives addressing the complexity of pleasure, desire and danger contrasting these narratives against the adult empire of knowledge supporting childhood sexual innocence and childhood protection. Finally, I advocate for the destabilisation of the entrenched silences, emphasising the urgent need for research that reimagines childhood sexualities in the Global South. To do this requires a revolution of thought, thinking and theory so that childhood sexualities can be recognized, valued and supported towards a future where all children can thrive. Through this, I argue for the decolonisation of childhood sexualities highlighting the critical role of Global South perspectives in reshaping our understanding of childhood, gender and sexuality.