Should Kids Be Allowed To Play “Doctor” and Other “Clothes Off” Games?
Should Kids Be Allowed To Play “Doctor” and Other “Clothes Off” Games?
by Bill Knell
As a parent, I can easily understand why no one wants to discover their kid or kids somewhere in their home playing “Doctor”or some other game where everyone gets naked with their friends or relatives. It's troubling for sure, but is it fair?
Are we upset because they are doing something that we feel might be illegal, emotionally damaging to them, or just plain not right: or is it that the embarrassment of their game might possibly be discovered by neighbors and that's just too big a pill to swallow?
Growing up in a suburban area on Long Island near New York City meant being around a lot of people with diverse ethnicities and views. Two commonalities were that many of the kids frequently visited each other's homes, and lots of them loved to play Doctor.
Living in a crowded area can be challenging. One reason that I believe so many kids got into playing Doctor was the way real doctors handled the large volume of children seen by each, especially when school started. Schools in our area, and most others in New York State, demanded a health check before a child started their first or next school year.
I've been blessed with a good memory. I still recall the doctor visit mom and I made for my Kindergarten health check. The office was packed with kids of all ages. To save time, doctors would see groups of five or six kids, the same sex and around the same age, at a time.
We were all herded into a large examination room and told to strip to our undies. Then, the doctor and a nurse poked and proded us. Next, we were asked to drop our undies so the doctor could do the dreaded “please cough” procedure while he foundled our private parts. Well, I was mortified!
Having no siblings and being shy, it all seemed crazy, embarrassing and improper to me. I mean, if we were given some privacy for that last part of the exam, it would not have been so bad. I wasn't used to five other kids seeing my private parts, or me being able to see theirs.
Looking back, I'm sure that the doctor's assembly line method of examination was partly to blame, or an excuse, for kids wanting to take off each other's clothes. Kids like to copy things they see. You go to school, so sometimes you play School. You go to the doctor, so sometimes you play Doctor.
By second grade, and with several health checks under their belts, more than a few kids in my neighborhood regularly played Doctor. I was too shy to play, but eventually gave in to peer pressure and watched others play.
Without siblings, living in a house with lots of room and an older grandma in charge of watching me during the day while my parents worked, my second floor play area became the office where many of the neighborhood doctors, and some from school, had their practices. I was always there to watch. My grandma stayed downstairs because she had bad legs and the only thing she ended up watching was soap operas.
My curious nature caused me to sometimes take the helm and play doctor with some of the neighborhood girls who, hesitant at first, came to enjoy the game. I was always the doctor, never a patient. By the time I was twelve I had seen more than my share of nude girls and boys. Parents sometimes got wind of our shinanigains, but none thought it was a big thing and basically ignored our childhood folly.
I'll be the first to admit that our situation was kind of unique and I haven't met alot of people who had similar experiences (or would admit to it). Maybe it was the fluoridated water?
For us, it was not a continual thing. It usually happened at the start of a school year after health checks, during holiday breaks when everyone got bored and during summer when there ended up being a lot of “skinny dipping” games in our pools when parents were not around.
By twelve, with the sometimes embarrassing changes to our bodies, the doctor games ended. The only really good thing to come out of our games was that when we had to start taking showers in Junior High Gym (phys ed) class, we were less likely to be embarrassed because we were naked in front of other boys and them in front of us.
When my cousin Ingrid became my sister after her folks died when I was eleven, she moved in with us and my folks adopted her. My tween teen sister had been a professional model since she was a little girl. She had lots of friends who were models, some were swimsuit models. Forced to change quickly in front of other models and assistants during photo shoots and fashion shows, modesty was not an option.
Ingrid regularly had her model friends come over for sleepovers, barbecues and pool parties. When my folks were away, the young teen girls would go skinny dipping in our pool. One time when I was already in the pool, they began jumping in naked. Thinking I would be shocked and seeing I wasn't, Ingrid asked me, “Are you freaked out or what?” I replied, “No. I've seen all that before.”
Thankfully, my kids were less adventuress than I was, so there were no embarrassing discoveries of them playing naughty games. I guess my attitude towards the whole thing could best be summed up by what happened to my next store neighbor when I lived with Ingrid and some models in my folks retirement house in Florida.
He was in his thirties and had two twin daughters aged 10. His wife got all upset one day after catching them playing Doctor with a girl and boy around the same age. They were in their room thinking it safe because their mom went out shopping and was to be gone for quite a while. However, she returned early to discover the group naked and touching each other in the girl’s room.
She started yelling, made them all get dressed and told the boy and girl from our neighborhood to leave. Their mom interrogated them for what seemed like an hour. The girls said they were just curious and enjoyed touching their friends.
After dad got home and heard both sides of the story, he told his wife it was “just innocent curiosity”. He reminded her that you could go right up the street to the gulf beach and see more of a young girl's anatomy than you care to thanks to mini-bikinis. I heard the story from the Dad who came by to talk to Ingrid and find out if any of the tween or teen models around us were involved. None were.
I have come to the conclusion that kids are going to play Doctor and other nude games regardless of how we feel about it. Before we judge too harshly, it would be wise to consider how children are portrayed in the media. Each year more of the human bodies of all ages are easily accessible online. It's a natural progression to want to see the real thing.
Some family therapists suggest helping children to set up a mock Doctor's Office in their room, wear lab coats, use play stethoscopes and so on. In a perfect world, this would allow them and their friends to play the game without removing clothes. But these therapists miss the point. It's not about pretending to be a clothed doctor and patient. It's about using the Doctor game to get friends naked and touch them.
“Playing doctor" is a phrase used colloquially in the Western world to refer to children examining each other's genitals. It originates from children using the pretend roles of doctor and patient as a pretext for such an examination. - Wikipedia
In my younger days you could actually buy books right off any book store shelf filled with naked children and teens doing everything imaginable in the name of Art. Add that to failed and imodest medical exam practices, as well as children's natural curiosity, and you have the reasons why.
It's easy to forget that the 1978 film ‘’Pretty Baby”, and a subsequent parent approved photo shoot suggested by the movie, both featured a naked, 10 year old Brooke Shields. In the 1980s a film titled “The Last American Virgin” showed images of partially clothed tweens. Both films likely influenced many kids, tweens and teens.
I would suggest you do all you can to explain your personal preferences regarding nudity and the games children play to your kids. If you forbid that type of behavior, make it clear why. Ask them to tell you when other children ask your kids to participate in those types of things. Approach those parents and let them know about it all. That's where your responsibilities regarding all this end.
If you are less concerned about childhood curiosity games, lay down your ground rules if you think your kids are involved in any type of “clothes off” games. Let them know the potential problems that can erupt from those types of behaviors which, in these days of government encroachment, can include criminal, civil and local family services actions.
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