Coming of Age in Samoa
fatalism as if all men had a set of slightly magical, wholly irresistible, tricks up their sleeves. But amatory lore is passed down from one man to another and is looked upon much more self-consciously and analytically by men than by women. Parents are shy of going beyond the bounds of casual conversation (naturally these are much wider than in our civilisation) in the discussion of sex with their children, so that definite instruction passes from the man of twenty-five to the boy of eighteen rather than from father to son. The girls learn from the boys and do very little confiding in each other. All of a man's associates will know every detail of some unusual sex experience while the girl involved will hardly have confided the bare outlines to any one. Her lack of any confidants except relatives towards whom there is always a slight barrier of reserve (I have seen a girl shudder away from acting as an ambassador to her sister) may partly account for this.
The fact that educating one sex in detail and merely fortifying the other sex with enough knowledge and familiarity with sex to prevent shock produces normal sex adjustments is due to the free experimentation which is permitted and the rarity with which both lovers are amateurs. I knew of only one such case, where two children, a sixteen-year-old boy and a fifteen-year-old girl, both in boarding schools on another island, ran away together. Through inexperience they bungled badly. They were both expelled
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