All My Children

I don’t think that the recent trend to earliness in dating and in going steady and in sexual intimacy means a readiness to share love, in a great majority of cases. In past generations in America, as well as in other Western societies like ours which are committed to advanced education, a great majority of young teenagers with aspirations were satisfied for a couple of years to be in love from a distance most of the time, with only occasional encounters; they did not become heavily involved until their late teens. Continue Reading »

Attraction only to ‘bad’ Girls

There are boys who can feel no physical attraction to a girl they respect or have tender feelings for—they respond only to ‘bad’ girls or girls who would be considered entirely unsuitable by their parents. This disturbance is fairly common—for girls as well as boys—in the early years of adolescence, but tends to wear off in a majority of cases. In a few unfortunate individuals it persists for life. (A persistent case may yield to psychiatric treatment.)

The disturbance is caused by an excessive inhibition of sexuality in the six- to eight-year-old period, when the boy comes to feel a taboo that is particularly strong against any romantic interest in his mother, for whom his respect and tenderness are the highest. Next in order come his sisters and other ‘nice’ girls close to the family. And if, as in most such cases, he has grown up with an unusually strong feeling that sex is a dirty business, this makes it doubly sinful to associate it with good girls or women. All the sexual drive he allows himself to recognise is then channelled towards debased members of the opposite sex. Girls with the corresponding problem can feel no sexual response to men for whom they feel respect and tenderness. Continue Reading »