The amazing true story of where she and they hide: Regulation of gender and female sexuality in sexual education picture books.

The amazing true story of where she and they hide: Regulation of gender and female sexuality in sexual education picture books.

“I argue that two information picture books, Fiona Katauskas’ popular 2015 The Amazing True Story of How Babies Are Made and Peter Mayle’s enduring 1973 Where Did I Come From?, conflate gender and sex and perpetuate patriarchal dominance within sexual processes…“

Samantha Pearson

Deakin University

 

Bio

 

Abstract

Despite an apparent increased willingness to discuss gender and sexuality in children’s literature (Giblin 2000; Venzo 2021), in picture books, this information is highly regulated and often problematic. In this paper, I argue that two information picture books, Fiona Katauskas’ popular 2015 The Amazing True Story of How Babies Are Made and Peter Mayle’s enduring 1973 Where Did I Come From?, conflate gender and sex and perpetuate patriarchal dominance within sexual processes. This paper will analyse the visual and textual strategies of both to argue that the more recent Amazing True Story of How Babies Are Made appears to update and expand Where Did I Come From?, which is notably male-centric, but does so only superficially. Katauskas’s text vibrantly unites narrative and illustration in an apparent equal exploration of sex and where babies come from. However, both texts position implied readers to uncritically internalize a male dominance within sexual relations, binary gender hierarchy and conservative morals regarding female sexuality.

 

Keywords

sex education, picture books, children’s literature, gender, sexuality

 

A note from the author:

While the author would prefer to avoid compounding the incorrect gender-genital conflation analysed herein, the texts leave no other option. For the purposes of analysis, when characters or sections of the books are discussed, people with vulvas will be called ‘girls’ and ‘women’, people with penises ‘boys’ and ‘men’, and the corresponding pronouns used, as the texts themselves define.

 

Introduction

To examine the regulation of information about gender and female sexuality in sex education picture books, this paper undertakes a close critical analysis of two current popular and enduring non-fiction picture books, Where Did I Come From? (WDICF) by Peter Mayle (1973) and The Amazing True Story of How Babies Are Made (TATS) by Fiona Katauskas (2015). Non-fiction picture books about sexual development, relationships, and reproduction claim to present the ‘true story’ (Katauskas 2015, cover) of the ‘facts of life’ (Mayle 2014, cover) authoritatively to young implied readers as an attempted intervention. Aiming to help address young people’s questions on these topics, the texts combine ‘writing, illustration and image to shape dominant representations of sex and sexuality for the implied child reader’ (Venzo 2021, 29). WDICF is known for having ‘set the tone for a new, frank and child-friendly way of learning about sex, initiating a sub-genre of picture books dealing with sex education for young people’ (Venzo 2021, 29). As Venzo notes, WDICF provides limited ‘information about puberty, heterosexual sex, and reproduction’ (2021, 31), and I will further demonstrate how it conflates gender and sex and presents heterosexual intercourse as the only means for reproduction. TATS is a much more recent and highly available non-fiction picture book addressing the same topic over three decades later. Through an analysis of diction, personifying metaphor, frames, illustrative settings and positionings in both texts, I argue that although the more contemporary sex education picture book seeks to be progressive by including equal spreads detailing male and female bodies and illustratively seeks to subvert male dominance within sexual relations, sexual information still remains conservatively and problematically regulated and male-dominated within its delivery. As such, it preserves and positions implied readers to uncritically internalise a binary gender hierarchy, male sexual dominance, and conservative regulation of female sexuality. Both texts address the question ‘how are babies made?’ with the answer: through procreation-intentioned, cis-gendered, heterosexual intercourse between a loving adult couple. 

The growing array of sex education picture books (Venzo 2021) is evidence of the growing ‘willingness to discuss hitherto taboo topics in children’s informational picture books’ noted by James Giblin (2000, 422). Davies and Robinson argue, however, that the intent to inform on sex education is fueled by the ‘meanings of childhood…constituted and defined by adults, for adults’ (2010, 251) which is driven by a ‘fear of breaching childhood ‘innocence’’ (Davies and Robinson 2010, 249-50). Stone et al. note that, despite the growing academic recognition that ‘early exposure to good quality sexuality education has clear implications for improving mental and physical wellbeing’ (2013, 229), adults believe ‘access [to sexual education] at an early age is…risky’ (2013, 229). This fear of risk ‘operates as a powerful means of social control’ (Davies and Robinson 2010, 250) and influences how and what information is presented to young people within non-fiction sex education picture books. Paul Venzo’s 2021 pioneering analysis of sex education picture books identifies the ‘key themes, motifs and narrative and visual strategies that underpin’ (29) this simultaneously expanding, yet highly regulated sub-genre. While Venzo acknowledges that ‘a small number of examples show a willingness to address contemporary ideas on this topic’ (2021, 30), as suggested by Giblin (2000), his analysis proves that ‘these books typically frame puberty, gender, sex, reproduction and sexuality in standardized, binary and heteronormative ways’ (2021,30) while representations of gender are limited to ‘traditional interpretations of femininity and masculinity’ (2021, 34). In concluding that sex education picture books ‘carry values and beliefs about puberty, sex, sexuality and reproduction and shape what these concepts mean for young people growing up’ (2021, 41) Venzo highlights the social control and exchange inherent with these texts. This paper contributes a close comparative analysis examining these persisting and potentially changing sociocultural attitudes to gender and sex education and the literacy strategies underpinning their delivery to children and young people within two picture books included in Venzo’s (2021) pioneering research. 

Conflation of sex and gender

In presenting the origin of babies, both texts follow a similar spread-by-spread structure, beginning by establishing binary sexed and gendered bodies. Moreover, they actively conflate the two, with TATS replicating ‘the gender binary reinforced in earlier sex education picture books’ (Venzo 2021, 34). While in 1973 gender might have been seen as predetermined by genitalia –  as evidenced in WDICF, by the time of TATS’s publication in 2015, gender is clearly understood as being different from sex (Robinson and Richardson 2015). WDICF presents a top to bottom “spot the difference” of two adults, stating that ‘the woman’ has ‘breasts’, ‘hips’, and a ‘vagina’, and ‘the man’ has a ‘penis’ (Mayle 2014). These spreads are accompanied by cartoon illustrations of a naked ‘Mum and Dad in the bath together’ (Mayle 2014) and standing full frontal. TATS states ‘boys have a penis’ and ‘girls have a vulva’ (Katauskas 2015). The use of definitive language in both texts attaches the genders ‘boy’, ‘man’ and ‘girl’, ‘woman’, to the physiological presence of a penis and a vagina/vulva respectively. 

While both texts conflate gender and genitals through diction and accompanying illustration, the relationship between TATS’s text and illustration intensifies this. Before introducing ‘boys’ and ‘girls’, TATS presents its readers with an illustration of new parents asking, ‘is it a boy or a girl?’ (Katauskas 2015), explaining that ‘the doctor or midwife – or anyone else – can tell straight away, because baby boys and baby girls are different’ (Katauskas 2015). The opposite spread is illustrated with two red-faced babies, legs widely spread, showing a vulva and a penis, labelled ‘Genitals’ (Katauskas 2015) and accompanied by the text: ‘Their faces may look pretty much the same. But the parts of their bodies called genitals are completely different’ (Katauskas 2015, emphasis in original). Presenting the new parents’ question in a speech bubble suggests that this is a valid question that parents want answered immediately to categorise their child accordingly within the gender binary. The pronoun ‘it’ infers that the baby has no identity or name until their gender is disclosed, with the binary ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ to choose from. The birthing parent’s arms are outstretched towards the right, reaching towards the opposite spread’s illustration of the two babies, yearning to welcome their baby only once ‘it’ has been defined as a ‘boy’ or a ‘girl’. The repetition of the word ‘different’ and italicised emphasis ‘completely’ reinforces this binary. 

The diagram-style label of ‘Genitals’ in TATS further locates this difference within the physical body, and the illustrative choice of babies in contrast to WDICF’s focus on adults establishes that gender is assigned not only by genitals, but from birth. Both texts’ use of diction and illustration establishes the conflated gender-genitals definition authoritatively, which is furthered by TATS’s use of diagram-labelling and italicised emphasis. This positions implied readers to see a binarily gendered and sexed society that excludes and thus denies the existence of trans, nonbinary, and intersex individuals and means that for these young people, there is no opportunity to see themselves. The negative effects of exclusionary sex education for trans individuals have been studied by Hobaica et al, who show that this can lead to ‘insufficient information regarding their identity and sexual health… experiencing considerable confusion about their identities, delayed identity development, interpersonal conflict, internalized shame, and minority-based stress’ (2019, 380). In comparison, Stone et al. highlight the influence ‘good quality sex education’ (2013, 229) can have including: 

improving mental and physical well-being, as well as individuals’ ability to develop appropriate competencies and skills, to understand and critically challenge assumptions, to avoid sexual exploitation and abuse and to achieve healthy sexual development’ (Stone et al. 2013, 229). 

‘Good quality sex education’ which does not equate gender to sex, uses trans, nonbinary and intersex inclusionary language, and is not heterosexual dominant, will have positive influences on all individuals. 

Preservation of a binary gender hierarchy and its effects 

The cis-gender binary established by the texts’ openings also establishes a hierarchical contrast between male and female, restricting female sexuality. WDICF’s illustration of ‘Mum and Dad in the bath together’ (Mayle 2014) has the man standing, affording a full-frontal view of his naked body, while the woman is seated. Whilst there is a full-frontal standing image of a female body recurring on the following spreads, it does suggest a hierarchy to the genders, with the man physically standing above the woman, her vulva only shown when no alternative exists within the context of the text. WDICF describes breasts as a ‘mobile milk bar’ providing ‘milk, wonderful milk’ to a baby, hips to ‘make enough room for a baby’, and a vagina as a ‘little opening’ to ‘push the baby out through’ (Mayle 2014). This description of the woman’s body as a mother’s body relegates her sexuality to procreation, enforced through the full-page spread of the woman breastfeeding a baby. 

In fact, young people with vulvas are not implied readers of WDICF; they’re only spoken about. When discussing the penis, WDICF states: ‘all you boys have one and yours will grow bigger as you grow bigger’ (Mayle 2014). The text directly addresses its young, cis-gendered male implied reader who is asking “where did I come from?”, illustrated at the end of the text. WDICF’s textual and illustrative omission and concealment of the vulva is passively reproduced within TATS; the hierarchy of male above female is replicated with boys described first, and boys and girls separated onto their own double-page spreads.

Vulvas are introduced in TATS in relation to the penis: ‘While a boy’s penis and scrotum hang out in front, a girl’s genitals, which are sometimes known as the ‘vagina’, ‘girl bits’ or ‘privates’, are down between her legs’ (Katauskas 2015). This relational description echoes Connell’s acknowledgement in defining hegemonic masculinity, ‘Masculinity and femininity are inherently relational concepts, which have meaning in relation to one another, as a social demarcation and cultural opposition’ (1995, 43). The colloquial terms included here for female genitalia include gendered labelling and the word ‘private’, in stark contrast to those for penises which include ‘tackle’ and ‘dangly bits’ (Katauskas 2015). The vulva is private, and its attribution to gender endows it with the socially constructed qualities of girlhood identified by Hateley as ‘relatively docile, [and] passive’ (2011, 87). Boys are ‘movers…[and] creatures of action’ (Hateley 2011, 87), and thus the penis is described relating to equipment or in action. TATS’s illustrations work in synergy with the text, enhancing this distinction (Nikolajeva and Scott 2001; Sipe 2011): the naked boys are poolside, public, while the naked girls are in a bath, private. The boy who is looking down considering his genitals is positioned comfortably upright, with a large red arrow drawing attention to a labelled close-up of his genitals, which is not framed. In contrast, the girl looking at her genitals is contorted upside-down using a small hand-held mirror. There is no arrow directing to the close-up, a heavily framed diagram. When puberty is introduced, the same public and private settings are applied and enhanced using frames: young men are illustrated in a line of shower cubicles like in a locker room whistling in concert, some privacy suggested by the framed showers now they are pubescent; while a lone young woman considers the adult female form in framed artworks with vulvas covered by hair or fig leaf. While male sexuality is a little more private than boyhood, adult female sexuality is tightly regulated in public as an object. 

These illustrations, within WDICF and TATS, echo Perry Nodelman’s assertion that ‘masculinity is to be taken as somehow natural and free’ (2002, 2) and implies that the fully exposed vulva with visible labia, vaginal opening, and clitoris, especially that of a body-curious girl, is not free, it must be hidden and should be enshrouded in privacy. This demonstrates Robinson and Davies’ contention that ‘sexuality is constituted [by adults] as irrelevant to young children’s lives, and yet, at the same time, a ‘danger’ to them’ (2010, 251), especially for girls. The private-ness of the vulva and vagina in TATS and WDICF replicates a cultural norm of censoring the vulva or limiting its imagery to a triangular ‘flat, smooth slit’ (Cox 2016, 227; Schick, Rima, and Calabrese 2011).. Braun and Wilkinson (2001) identify seven persistent, negative socio-cultural representations of the vagina: as inferior to the penis; as absence (of a penis); as a passive receptacle for the penis; as sexually inadequate; as disgusting; as vulnerable; and as dangerous. They note that these negative ‘representations of the vagina exist as cultural resources that women (and men) can use for making sense of the vagina and their experiences of it’ (Braun and Wilkinson 2001, 18) and that they are a ‘depressing portrayal…that needs to be challenged to promote women’s sexual and reproductive health’ (25). These socio-cultural perceptions can influence an individual’s willingness to examine their own genitals and seek medical help for concerns, as well as influence medical practitioners’ understandings of the vulva and vagina. The censured, visual representations of the vulva analysed herein confirm two of Braun and Wilkinson’s assertions: the vulva is socioculturally positioned as both vulnerable and dangerous (2001). Maintaining the privateness of the vulva and vagina perpetuates and normalizes these damaging socio-cultural views. 

While TATS includes descriptions of the female body as a mother’s body, it superficially attempts to empower implied girl readers by including a diagram of a vulva and discussing the clitoris, supporting young people to examine and know a part of their body not even spoken about in WDICF. The use of frames, illustrative settings, and body positionings employed to do this, however, passively preserves the privatizing silence towards the vulva in WDICF, perpetuating negative socio-cultural perceptions. This positions implied readers to internalise the tabooed nature of female sexuality, the inherent naturalness of female motherhood, and the dominance of male sexuality.  

Discourse analysis of the preservation of sexual male-domination

TATS’s surface level attempt at cis-gender equality is also applied to the specific spreads detailing heterosexual intercourse for conception and fertilisation, however, the following discourse analysis in (evidenced in Table 1) demonstrates that the diction employed deviates very little from that of WDICF. TATS introduces intercourse with equal language and includes a description of the woman’s physiological response to arousal, in contrast to WDICF immediately establishing the man in the position of dominance. However, the descriptions of sexual intercourse read almost identically. Even though the illustration in TATS positions the woman on top, the relationship between the text and illustrations is contradictory (Nikolajeva and Scott 2001) with the diction positioning the man with the action and power, replicating WDICF. When talking about an action undertaken during the sexual interaction almost all action is taken by the man and his penis in both texts (emphasis added): ‘The man loves the woman. So he gives her a kiss’ (Mayle 2014); ‘the man’s penis…has lots of work to do’ (Mayle 2014); ‘The man slides his penis into the women’s vagina’ (Katauskas 2015), ‘the man pushes his penis up and down inside the woman’s vagina’ (Mayle 2014). This line is almost word for word in both texts, undermining the attempted cis-gender equality of TATS and demonstrating persistent sociocultural views that heterosexual intercourse is male-dominant. The action is endowed to the man and the penis from boyhood, as discussed earlier.

Table 1. Diction employed to describe intercourse and fertilization in WDICF (Mayle 2014) and TATS (Katauskas 2015).

		Texts
		Where Did I Come From?	The Amazing True Story of How Babies Are Made
Diction	Introduction	‘The man loves the woman. So he gives her a kiss.’	‘They might start by kissing and touching each other’
	Physiological Arousal	‘the man’s penis becomes stiff and hard, and much bigger…it has lots of work to do’	‘the woman’s vagina becomes wet and the man’s penis becomes hard’
	Intercourse	‘put his penis inside her, into her vagina’  ‘The man pushes his penis up and down inside the woman’s vagina’ ‘gets quicker and quicker as the…feeling gets stronger and stronger’	‘The man slides his penis into the woman’s vagina’ ‘The man pushes his penis up and down inside the woman’ ‘As the feeling gets stronger and stronger, the man moves faster and faster’
	Orgasm and ejaculation	‘ends in a tremendous big lovely shiver for the both of them’  ‘a spurt of quite thick, sticky stuff comes from the end of the man’s penis…into the woman’s vagina’	‘the semen stored in his testicles shoots up and out of his penis, into the woman’s vagina’
	Fertilisation	‘sperm make their way up the woman’s vagina, like tiny tadpoles swimming up a stream’  ‘How could an egg resist a sperm like this?’  ‘if one single sperm meets one single egg, they have a romance of their own’  ‘the sperm and the egg combine’	‘Now it’s up the a sperm to find that egg!…The race is on!’ ‘when a strong-swimming sperm and egg finally meet, they decide to stick together’  ‘the sperm joins the egg’

 

This reflects the way both masculinity and femininity are social constructions. Nigro, in his affirmation of essentialist gender ideologies, notes that men are ‘objective…task-orientated…[and] future orientated’ (2016, 1). The view of women as ‘earth mothers’ (Plumwood 1993, 20) emphasizes the essentialist perception that women are endowed with ‘receptivity, relatedness, and responsiveness’ (Noddings 2013, 2). The construction that ‘boys are doers…[and] creatures of action’ (Hateley 2011, 87), as earlier discussed, has developed through puberty to include the ‘dominant position of men and the subordination of women’ (Connell 1995, 77) which characterises hegemonic masculinity. The man is the agent of action. The woman is ‘a passive receptacle for the penis’ (Braun and Wilkinson 2001, 20). She is the recipient of male action which will make her a mother. Ironically, it is WDICF that describes intercourse ending in orgasm for both partners, whereas TATS grants one only to the man, further perpetuating the image of the woman as a vessel for the penis, and now the sperm, to become a mother. 

The affixation of gender stereotypes to men and women continues through the personification of the ovum and sperm, and the metaphors used the describe them: ‘the semen…shoots up and out of his penis into the woman’s vagina’ (Katauskas 2015), the sperm must ‘make their way’ (Mayle 2014), ‘find that egg’ (Katauskas 2015) in a ‘race’ (Katauskas 2015), ‘swimming’ (Katauskas 2015) until ‘the sperm joins the egg’ (Katauskas 2015) or ‘the sperm and egg combine’ (Mayle 2014), the ovum unable to ‘resist’ (Mayle 2014) the strongest sperm: diction that corresponds to Emily Martin’s analysis of the scientific literature of reproduction. She notes that: 

‘it is remarkable how femininely the egg behaves and how masculinely the sperm. The egg is seen as large and passive…Sperm are small, streamlined, and invariable active. They deliver their genes to the egg [and] activate the developmental program of the egg’. (Martin 1991, 489)

Personified illustrations of sperm and eggs works to enhance (Nikolajeva and Scott, 2001) the text, with a tadpole-like sperm with a face, attired in a top hat and bow tie in WDICF and the ovum’s inclusions in TATS is as a round, pink circle with closed eyes and soft smile as the triangular streamlined sperm penetrates it. This mirrors the socially constructed gendered sperm ‘saga’ (493) of reproductive biology analysed by Emily Martin in 1991:

The degree of metaphorical content in these descriptions, the extent to which differences between egg and sperm are emphasized, and the parallels between cultural stereotypes of male and female behavior and the character of the egg and the sperm all point…[to the conclusion that] the “facts” of biology…[are] constructed in cultural terms (491-2)

The diction used to describe heterosexual intercourse reinforces the binary hierarchy of men and women, naturalising men’s sexual domination of women. 

The language devices used to describe intercourse and fertilisation in WDICF and TATS preserve sociocultural gendered stereotypes of the active male and the passive female, enduring from the male-dominated content of WDICF and covertly undermining the illustrated power reversal in TATS. This presentation of ‘facts’ that normalize male dominance in sexual relationships perpetuates the sociocultural power of ideological patriarchy, and positions readers to internalise a gender hierarchy, and to locate themselves within it – as dominating or dominated. 

Conclusion

Superficially, TATS offers an updated and expanded exploration of sexual development, relationships, and reproduction from the popular 1970s WDICF. However, the broadened inclusion of female physiology within the TATS is undermined by the firmly established cis-gender binary and male dominated diction. The regulation of female sexuality is passively perpetuated by the illustrative settings, positioning, and use of frames. The result is a modernized WDICF, naturalising male sexual dominance which positions readers to internalise conservative sexual values that hide female sexuality and privatizes it for procreation by men. Both text’s overt and covert regulation of sexual information positions their implied readers to uncritically internalise a binary gender hierarchy, dangerously denying the experience of members of the LGBTIQA+ community.