"Sex"

 

Brian Lynch

Revised

"The propagation of the human race is not left to mere accident or caprices of the individual, but is guaranteed by the hidden laws of nature which are enforced by a mighty, irresistible impulse." (Baron Richard von Krafft-Ebing, 1840-1902, Psychopathia Sexualis, 1866.)

Why after millennia do we not know how to deal with human sexuality and thus, for the most part, not have the foggiest idea of what to tell our children about sexuality?

I think we now know or at least the information is there for those that will consider it.

For so long it would seem it did not matter. Throughout the majority of human kinds existence “childhood” barely existed. Life expectancy only slowly crept up to 40 years within the last two hundred years. High percentages of women died young in childbirth.

 

These are some reasons. The problems we have now have not always been around. They are a product of huge social change over only several hundred years where a “childhood” has been carved out and the idea,  that  “protection” is needed is  recent.

 

Let me restate. Would that humans would have always cared better for their offspring, but the idea, the thought was not there. Childhood had to be invented first. Now that we have invented it, we have to now figure out the rules and after a very long time, we have not done that.

Yet, in short, we fairly universally feel that “children” having children is not a good idea. Yet in some sense, we are finding out what will, in some sense, always be the case. We are finding out that “maturity” is a moving target and that the brain is not fully integrated, on average, until age 25 by which time many people have started large families. To add to this young people are maturing at a younger and younger age. It is estimated that for several decades, young women have started menstruating a month earlier as every decade passes in the northern hemisphere. We are reminded:

"The propagation of the human race is not left to mere accident or caprices of the individual, but is guaranteed by the hidden laws of nature which are enforced by a mighty, irresistible impulse." (Baron Richard von Krafft-Ebing, 1840-1902, Psychopathia Sexualis, 1866.)

 

What does culture have to do with anything?

We do not seem to have the slightest idea how to deal with this situation.

I first want to say that I am not pointing any fingers at young people. And given the biological facts, how can we? And they are often doing a wonderful job of managing their lives with and without children even despite the biological facts. On the whole, statistics show that for the most part, they have much more “sense” than we give them credit for. And by the way, if they don’t have that “sense” it is not a reason to admonish or punish them.

How do we make things better? I think it is by helping children understand very basic, now known, concepts about their emotional lives.

One of these is that we not only have “drives;” The sex drive, the drive to eat and sleep and breath, but we also feel something about those drives. 

Psychology is slowly coming out of a fixation with “drive” and realizing that we feel something about the way we experience a drive. I can get hungry and be irritated by that feeling or I can feel happy or interested. I can feel distressed. Obviously with sex, if I have a sexual urge I can feel interested in fulfilling it or I might feel disgusted or shame about it based on previous experiences.

With this basis, we should naturally move to a new maturity. “Sex” is and is not simply a drive that everyone takes for granted that is going to and needs to be satiated. It is a localized neurological hormonal complex of activity in our body that produces feelings in that body. This is the “simple” part. It then becomes much more “complex” in that it becomes generalized, and we feel many things about it.

So many parents think it is inevitable that their child is going to engage in early sexual activity and I say this is because we simply think of it as a wild erg, drive, that is going to be completed no matter what. Or that children by their nature are morally bad and need to be set right.

 

But might not we have another view of things, my goodness, if we realized the power of being interested in another human? Indeed, some of my patients (parents) have been surprised by their children.

Once one recognizes this feeling, this emotional feeling of “interest” can be and is  powerful. “I am interested in you.” If I am interested in you would I want to hurt you? Would I want to emotionally damage you, impregnate you/us, change your life course irrevocably? Some people call it respecting others.

Make no mistake about it, I am not in any way saying “just say no” or anything like that. I am looking at a problem that tears families apart daily and ruins lives. Such problems need deep solutions. It is not easy to create a revolution in thought but it happens. Are you interested?