”Jag hade aldrig kunnat fråga mamma om detta”: En genus- och kunskapshistorisk textanalys av frågorna och svaren i ungdomstidningen Kamratpostens frågespalt om sex och samlevnad från 1964-2019

Sammanfattning: The source material for my thesis has been the question column about puberty and sex in the Swedish youth magazine Kamratposten. The target audience of the magazine are boys and girls age 8-15 and it was founded in 1892 by the school teacher Stina Quint. The focus for my thesis begins in 1969 when the question column was first introduced in the magazine. Over the years the question column has touched on a wide arrange of subject concerning sexuality, puberty and relationships. My main goal has been to trace how the column has changed from its first appearance in 1969 until 2019. Since it would be impossible to trace all the changes I choose to focus on two aspects which also make out my theoretical framework. The first was inspired by Judith Butlers Gender Trouble and sought how the discourse regarding sex, gender and sexuality has changed in the material. The second was inspired by the history of knowledge andsought to map out how much knowledge the children had about the thing they asked about, where this information came from and how this changed during the period. I found that the discourse surrounding homosexuality, unwelcome sexual advances and how children wrote about their own genitalia had gradually changed, as had the terminology in Swedish about the hymen. How children acquired sexual knowledge had also changed. Family and friends has continuously been used as sources of sexual knowledge, but pornography and the internet has become bigger sources of sexual knowledge throughout the period. The sexual education the school provides has only been referred to in the material when it has been seen as insufficient. Although my main goal was examining change it became evident in my research that continuity was at least as great as change in the material. Especially in regards to questions about masturbation and the menstrual cycle the theme of continuity was strong. The material proved a rich source for analysis and I have only been able to touch the surface of the possibility it holds for further research