"Playing doctor" is a phrase used colloquially in the Western world to refer to children examining each other's genitals.
[1] It originates from children using the pretend roles of doctor and patient as a pretext for such an examination.
[5] A study by American sexologist Alfred Kinsey published in the book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) found that 38.6% of all 10-year-old children practice heterosexual and homosexual doctor play.
[7] Parenting professionals often advise parents to view such a discovery as an opportunity to calmly teach their children about different sex characteristics, personal privacy, private parts, and respecting the privacy of other children.
[3] Playing doctor is distinguished from child-on-child sexual abuse, because the latter is an overt and deliberate action directed at sexual stimulation, including orgasm, coercively or in a situation of difference of knowledge, as compared to non-coercive anatomical curiosity.