boobies?

Last night i read a bedtime story for Tarlik, the semi-verbal tot with whom i live. After the story, i held him while he played with a new Barbie-type doll. She wore a gold, one-shouldered shirt and bell bottoms. Tarlik was completely focused, and the nature of his curiosity was quickly apparent as his nimble fingers searched for a way to take off her top. The velcro soon gave way, and the object of his desire lay before him - boobies. He touched them for a minute or two, looking up at me once or twice as though inviting me to partake of his joy. I smiled, and said affirming but noncommittal words. Finally, he kissed the boobies. For a few seconds i wondered whether his fascination had to do with breast-feeding (i'm pretty sure he's already been weaned).
His fascination did not have to do with breast-feeding.
He began to single-mindedly work and tug at the pants. They resisted his efforts far more than the shirt. After a couple of minutes, he turned to me for help. I told him it didn't look like they were coming off. He kept at his efforts, then asked for help again, handing her to me. That he was seeking male bonding seemed an inescapable conclusion. I faked an effort to get her pants off, and handed her back. He continued to try. After succeeding in revealing only the top third of her hiney, he finally gave up.
Fascinating.
I couldn't help thinking that this scenario would be acted out by Tarlik someday with a real, live, "lucky" girl...and frankly, i'm not sure whether i want him to call me when he has trouble with the pants. At the very least, i hope for the girl's sake that the time units involved are a little more generous.
A semi-verbal almost-three year-old.
And all the groundwork has already been laid for a large part of his perceptions of, and interactions with, females.
Where did he learn his behavior? From the unspoken gender attitudes of all the people in his life. And from TV, as i know he has seen grownup shows. His fascination has also been shaped by our attitude toward the body in general...if we were a society at all comfortable with our naked selves, i doubt whether he would have been so thoroughly entranced. I remember being a child and disrobing a female doll in almost the same exact way...i may have been a little or a lot older than Tarlik, but that seems hardly relevant.
Is there also an element of instinct in his actions? Possibly, but the more we learn about genetics, the more we learn that the "purity" of genetics is a fallacy...that our genetic expressions are not set at birth, but that they shape and are shaped by our ongoing life experience.
Though raising a child takes years, don't ever doubt that by the time we're three, most of our general behavior patterns (and many of the specific ones) are well-set. Get to know a child of three, and you will surely be watching the thirty year-old he or she will one day be.