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The subjects of this study are two brothers. The elder, at nineteen months, observed his mother undressed and asked, 'Hasn't any Mommies penis?'. The mother answered that girls do not have a penis, only boys do. He repeated his question daily for three months, and received the same answer. One day in desperation he said, 'It must be hidden under the hair'. Again, at twenty-six months, while on the toilet, he asked his mother if his penis could fall into the toilet like his feces.
A brother was born when this first child was three and a half, and a sister when he was five years old. When the infant sister was observed by the younger boy, now nineteen months old, he became apprehensive. He held both hands over his genitals, pointing to his brother and then to his father. He looked at his mother and sister with a pained expression. The child could not yet speak. This disturbed behavior continued for more than a week, when the older boy volunteered the theory that his younger brother was frightened when he first saw 'that thing' on her 'belly button' because he must have thought it was her penis. When it fell off he probably thought 'somebody cut it off and that's why she's a girl'. Both boys became aware of the difference between the sexes at the same age, nineteen months.