http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/artic ... awaii.html
Milton Diamond Ph.D. wrote:
Sexual Behavior in Pre Contact Hawai‘i: A Sexological Ethnography
.... young females learned from the older women, with whom they remained. They were taught to look forward to sex and appreciate its pleasures. Both sexes heard the sex-positive conversations, songs, and stories of their elders and learned accordingly. By the age of puberty sexual exploration with same-sex age mates was actively encouraged.
....In regard to sex,...the occupation of a young woman is to procreate, which in the Hawai‘ian culture implies all that relates to seduction, in which it is said that women play a more active role than men ... properly feminine activities are . . . chanting, dancing, and other activities that promote eroticism. It is the women who often compose and chant the "mele inoa" (name chants) with their deliberately erotic content, and even the "mele ma ‘i" (chants praising the genitals).”....
Sex training was direct and firsthand. Young individuals learned of coitus and sex play from instruction, direct observation, and practice. As they slept in the family house (hale noa), they observed their parents having coitus....A Mangaian may copulate, at any age, in the single room of a hut that contains from five to fifteen family members of all ages — as have his ancestors before him. His daughter may receive and make love with each of her varied nightly suitors in the same room .... But under most conditions, all of this takes place without social notice: everyone seems to be looking in another direction.
The young observed dogs, pigs, and other animals mating, and these activities were discussed openly with parents or other adults. Parturition was not a secret event and was well attended by the young and by adults, all of whom observed traditions that included the washing and burying of the placenta and, usually, the disposing of the umbilical cord.
The young Hawai‘ian also acquired sex education in day-by-day exposure to precepts, practices, and attitudes concerning sex. Traditionally, . . . childish curiosity about sex was satisfied, with neither guilt nor shame instilled. With variations depending upon rank, region, and social circumstances, the young individual learned the lore of kapu, social restraints and preferences, and attitudes toward both sex for procreation or love and sex for fun and pleasure. Each kind of sex was appreciated for its own value.
AGE AND PREPARATION FOR FIRST COITUS
Individuals of both sexes were expected to initiate and participate in coitus at puberty, although sexual activity, play, instruction, and so forth occurred much earlier. For instance, as part of exploratory play, the young investigated each other’s genitals, and young males and females might masturbate each other heterosexually or homosexually. This activity occurred without adult disapproval, and it was considered to be an introduction to adulthood. Casual intercourse before adolescence was not an uncommon experience both for males and females.
Ellis (1782, Vol. 2, p. 153) wrote of sexual expression in Oceania: “The ladies are very lavish of their favors ... and some of their attachments seemed purely the effects of affection. They are initiated into this way of life at a very early period; we saw some, who could not be more than ten years old.”
The time considered “right” to start coitus was not so much based on chronological age as on ability or maturity. A male doing adult work or holding adult responsibilities was considered to be “old enough.” A young male who could grow taro or catch many fish was considered mature. A female’s first menses usually signaled she was ready for coitus if she had not already experienced it. Kamehameha the Great, who unified all the Hawai‘ian Islands, took his first “wife”, Ka‘ahu-manu, when she was 13; he probably was several years older than she.
As physical signs of maturity appeared. the young Hawai‘ian received more formal sex education. Among commoners, this education was traditionally and usually the responsibility of the tūtū wahine for the females and the tūtū kane (“grandfather”) for the males. Suggs (1966) elaborated on the early sexual experiences of pubertal males with married females in their 30s and 40s in the Marquesas Islands, who “take special pains to be pleasing and patient with them ... a source of enjoyment for many Marquesan women” (p. 61). For young females of the Marquesas Islands, the first coital experience reportedly is earlier than it is for young males before menarche —and occurs unplanned with an adult male (Suggs, 1966, p. 63).
Among ali‘i, an experienced chiefess, usually a blood “aunt,” instructed and trained the young males. Similarly, young females were trained by their “aunt,” by another experienced woman, or by a tutu kane. The training concerned not only what to expect and what to do but also how to increase or maximize pleasure. Less formal but similar training was afforded to commoners. There was practice as well as theory. A young male was taught “timing” and how to please a female in order to help her attain orgasm (Pukui, Haertig, and Lee, 1972, p. 79). A young female was taught how to touch and caress a male and move her body to please them both. She was taught how to constrict and rhythmically contract her vaginal muscles (Pukui, Haertig, and Lee, 1972, p. 79). Several of the informants who were interviewed remember being so instructed. One adult female told of being instructed on how to get her vagina to “wink.”.
These adult/nonadult sexual interactions were socially approved behaviors. Kamehameha the Great, again can be used as an example. Before he aligned himself with Ka‘ahu-manu, he had an infant, while “still a beardless youth,” by Chiefess Kanekapoli, a wife of Kalaniopu‘u (Judd, 1976, p. 71). The infant was welcome and was accepted without stigma, as was any pregnancy resulting from such unions (Handy and Pukui, 1958, p. 110). For adults not to have given such practical education would have been unthinkable - a dereliction of duty.
Most important for Hawai‘ian society, the young learned of sexual humor. Among the Hawai‘ians, sex was and remains a rich source of humor and enjoyment. In everyday conversation and in song and story, it was considered to be an “art form” to speak using sexual double entendres (kaona). One well- known folk song, still sung, uses the vowels as erotic expressions; their elongated sounds are highly sexual: aaaaaaa, eeeeeee, iiiiiii, ooooooo, uuuuuuu (Johnson, 1983). Erotic imagery was, and remains, common in speech, poetry, and songs: coconut tree bending over a female; a digging stick spreading a female’s legs.
Suggs (1966, p. 39) considered the early manifestations of infantile and childhood sexual behavior, including sexual behavior with adults, to be among the most distinguishing features of Marquesan sexual behavior. Many of the activities he described, however, are similar to activities that were present in Hawai‘i and elsewhere in Oceania. Oliver (1974, pp. 458-459), for example, reported on adult/nonadult sexual behavior in Tahiti and quoted the missionary Orsmond from 1832: “In all Tahitians as well as officers who come in ships there is a cry for little girls,” and older females, when in a position to choose, preferred younger males. Marshall (1971, p. 126) described the routine early sexual encounters of young males and females in Mangaia as being with older, experienced males and females.
Coitus between adults and adolescents isn't objectively "bad." Indeed, as Hamlet observed, "nothing is good or bad but thinking make it so."
21 Oct 2013, 11:34 am
