The research team of Young, Goy and Phoenix, as well as others, have sought to discover just how it is that the cells. are finally commanded to so arrange themselves as to produce at birth a boy or a girl. It is believed that the "computer orders" come from the different ways in which the X X or the X Y chromosomes, and their associated genes, set into motion the production of various complex hormonal combinations. At Princeton, Lisk has conducted experiments which suggest that the final sex differentiation may not actually take place until almost right up to the moment of birth.

Such indeterminacies make it clear that none of us are quite as totally male or female as we may have thought. In fact there are remnants and vestiges of the opposite sex to be found in each one of us. For example, girls and boys both have quite similar nipples until, at adolescence, those of the girls begin to enlarge due to hormonal changes within their bodies. The clitoris and the penis are sometimes so similar in appearance in infants that there are instances in which physicians have mistakenly recorded the child's sex. Even so relatively obscure a male anatomical structure as the prostatic utricle is recognized as being vestigially related to the female oviduct.

There is no need for subscribing to any theory of unisexuality in order to recognize that while men are men and women are women, both have much in common with each other, biologically and sexually. Small wonder, then, that many a boy or girl is born in whom the edges between the two sexes are even more blurred than ordinarily. This being so, would it not be well to have respect for variations, differences and the diversities which are so frequently found in nature? In fact, we really have no warrant for making absolute statements as to what is natural for boys to do, or ways no girl ought to behave. Nature itself leaves the question pretty open.

Concerning animals, students like Ford and Beach and ethologists such as Lorentz, cite many examples of females behaving aggressively, even mounting other females as if to mate with them. Among male animals of virtually every species a certain number of individuals will be found who behave far more passively than would be expected. Some of them make no resistance to courtshiplike approaches from other males, and, despite contrary belief, some male animals show little or no interest in mating with females of their species. Thus, even animal nature shows great variations of behavior in sexual, as well as in other directions.

HOW CHILDREN ACT

What are some of the ways children behave? To answer such a question concerning sexual behavior in their growth from infancy to adulthood, much help can be had by referring to the studies by Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey and his team of research associates. Because their findings have been strongly criticized in some quarters it eems necessary to point out that their work was done with the most scrupulous scientific care. More importantly, since their first major report in 1948, no one has yet come up with sex research studies done on so massive or comprehensive a scale, or seriously challenged the findings. Until this has been done the Kinsey work will continue to be regarded as supplying the most reliable information which is now available.

What does it tell us about young people's sexual development? For one thing they show that in matters of sex, as in other respects, children are irrepressibly curious. Curiosity is their method for discovery. Like puppies and kittens, youngsters tumble and roll with each other, exploring their own and each others' bodies. Adults may sometimes interpret such actions with alarm in terms of adult sexuality. Many an individual recalls that hi earliest feelings of guilt and shame over sexual matters were stamped indelibly upon his memory by the shrill and violent reactions of some adult to what was but harmless child play.

The Kinsey books report that "nearly all boys have some pre-adolescent genital play with other boys or with girls. Only about one-fifth of the girls have such play." With both animals and humans this appears to be a wholly natural step in growing up. For parents or others to try to curb and stop such processes of learning can inflict serious psychological damage upon the young. Curiosity is entirely normal; it is at the very heart of how humans learn.

At the coming of puberty boys start to become sexually active on a regular basis, meaning that they regularly experince orgasm. The Kinsey studies indicate that 95% of all boys conform to this pattern by the time they are fifteen. This means two to three sexual outlets per week during the ages from sixteen and twenty. Despite such data there are many who prefer not either to believe this or to think about it. It is such attitudes which cause young people to accuse their elders of hypocrisy.

Young people ask how it is that if adults do not care frankly to discuss masturbation, venereal disease, homosexuality, pregnancy and other similar matters they at the same time expect and demand that young people shall somehow work out perfect solutions for these problems. "Can't they understand," is the question, "that all this refusal to talk about such matters means that they really must want to encourage masturbation, venereal disease, homosexuality annd pregnancies? For that is the way it works out. They talk about moral responsibility, then act with total moral irresponsibility." For this is how it looks to many a young person today.

FRANKNESS AND HONESTY

Not all adults are so uptight on sexual matters. Some scientists, psychologits, psychiatrists and others are frankly and honestly telling it like it is. For example, in answering a question about homosexual behavior, many years ago psychiatrist Blanche M. Baker wrote, "I regard it as one of our mamalian heritages of complex origins, so widespread in the animal kingdom that no serious student should consider it to be unnatural but merely a variation of commonly accepted sexual behavior."

A fear which many parents, teachers and others often express is that harm may result if young people are given honest answers to sexual questions. The most extreme reactions of all center around fears about sexual contacts between youth and older persons. It is thought that this must somehow leave a lifetime mark upon a young boy or girl, despite the fact that there is little or no scientific evidence to support such a belief.

On the contrary, many studies have shown that youngsters soon forget the experience, provided their elders do not surround the incident with tension and alarm. The younger the child the more true this seems to be. With puberty the whole situation changes, for puberty marks the approach of adulthood and, whether parents acknowledge it or not, many an adolescent boy or girl is by this time actively reaching out for levels of relationship not to be found at home. This explains the fact, often pointed out, that in many so-called seductions the seducer is the youth and not the older partner, but parents do not like to think of their children in such a light, so they raise the cry of "child molestation." To many teen-agers this smacks both of adult hypocrisy and laughable ignorance.