ABSTRACT
The nature and particular quality of children's sexual games are also influenced by the highly sexualised visual culture of television that is now part of their everyday experience. When Sigmund Freud began writing about childhood sexuality at the beginning of the century, he caused shock among polite circles, where denial of the reality of children's bodily experiences and their imaginative significance had held sway. In an increasingly sexualised society, the recognition of the reality of children's sexual natures places on adults a duty of protection which may be very difficult to fulfil. The view that childhood is innocent implies that destructiveness, cruelty, greed, hatred and anger are not part of a child's nature but rather are just a response to bad treatment at the hands of others. Work with children and young people who have been drawn into frankly abusive sexual relationships is a disturbing experience for the professional caseworker.
