are of importance to the other, such as desire for social
approval or, with a man, mastery.
There are many people for whom it is utterly impossible to fall in
love. For a few this is due to physical inadequacy. But to most it
is a result of unfavorable conditioning that has made them selfish
or afraid of contact with the opposite sex. How does a person get
the ability to fall in love? From a physical standpoint certain
hormones pour into the blood stream of a man or woman past puberty
that create sexual tension. But that only starts to explain the
complexity of the love relationship.
Your ability to fall in love depends for the most part on your own
previous experience as far back as childhood. In the beginning, for
example, your mother met all your needs. Every time you cried your
mother rushed to you, to feed you, to give you a drink, to change
your diaper or to remove a pin that was sticking in you. Gradually
in your mind the mother becomes associated with everything
pleasant, with eating, the relief of thirst, the elimination of
pain. You probably became attached to her with a depth of love
and affection that lasted for many years. Similarly your mother
received pleasure from hearing your coos when she gave you relief
from pain, she received the approval of your father for bearing
you and the admiring comments on you from the neighbors; and she
satisfied her motive of mastery by having something (you) under her
control. Her love deepened for you.
It has been observed in the South, where the nursemaids may often
spend more time with the child than the mother does that the child
becomes more favorably conditioned to the nursemaid than to the
mother. That illustrates that love is a _learned_ process.
As you grew older and began playing with children you learned to
like those with whom playing was fun and you learned to dislike
those where your association was marked only by dissatisfaction and
unpleasantness.
Similarly if your early associations with those of the opposite sex
were all marked by unpleasantness and nervous tension you tended
to stick to those of your own sex; but if they were marked with
pleasure you turned more and more to the other sex.
Even the appearance of the girl that a young man likes is due to
pleasant associations with other persons who had one or more of
the characteristics that his girl has. It is not just accident
that girls are more likely to fall in love with boys who have
characteristics resembling their own fathers than they are with
boys who don’t. Similarly a boy is more likely to fall in love with
a girl who resembles his own mother than with a girl who doesn’t.
If your early life has been marked by strife in the home and
tension in your relation with people your own age, then you have
been poorly conditioned for the comradeship married love can
provide. And you probably will have the greatest difficulty finding
happiness in marriage.
But if your relationships with people have been relatively serene,
you will find it easy to learn to love someone of the opposite sex.
You will find that when you do certain things you receive approval
by way of happy smiles and rewards. Gradually you learn to put your
best foot forward. You and your date both are conditioned to be on
your best behavior and if you have many things in common develop a
deep friendship with each other.
Then, if the conditioning during the friendship is quite favorable,
your mutual feeling of appreciation and affection for each other
grows and finally ripens into love. There you have it.
In your love for each other you will both gradually become
sexually vibrant and you both will begin to feel a need for sexual
expression through each other. As this need becomes increasingly
strong, you both begin to think of engagement and marriage. Ideally
when your need for each other becomes so strong that it can no
longer be denied, you are married.
ARE YOU REALLY IN LOVE?
The first thing many counselors like to find out when people
come to them about the possibility of marrying is to find out
whether they are actually in love. Here are some questions
which quickly disclose whether a person is afflicted with
the real thing or is just infatuated by good looks and sex
appeal. Answer each question truthfully regardless of what
you _think_ the correct answer should be.
1. Do you have a great number of things that you like to
do together? Yes No
2. Do you have a feeling of pride when you compare your
friend to any other you have known? Yes No
3. Do you feel you need to apologize for certain things
about him? Yes No
4. Do you suffer from a feeling of unrest when away from
him or her? Yes No
5. Have you a strong desire to please him or her and are
you quite glad to give way on your own preferences? Yes No
6. Do you have any difficulty carrying on a conversation
with each other? Yes No
7. Even when you quarrel do you still enjoy being together? Yes No
8. Do you actually want to marry this person? Yes No
9. Would you be afraid to trust him or her in the presence
of another attractive person of your own sex for an
evening? Yes No
10. Does he or she have the qualities you would like to have
in your children? Yes No
11. Do your friends and associates mostly admire this person
and think he, or she, would be a good match for you? Yes No
12. Do you ever wonder if he, or she, is faithful? Yes No
13. Do your parents think you are in love? (They are very
discerning about such things.) Yes No
14. Have you started planning, at least in your own mind,
what kind of wedding, children, and home you will have? Yes No
15. Are you conscious of being jealous of him, or her? Yes No
16. Is this person attractive to you not only in appearance
but in the way he talks, acts and thinks? Yes No
17. Do you approve generally of each other’s friends? Yes No
18. Do you wonder if he, or she, is being sincere in what
he tells you? Yes No
19. Do you have a wealth of things to discuss and do together? Yes No
20. When outside trouble develops for one of you does the
crisis tend to pull you together rather than apart? Yes No
21. Are there many things on which you disagree? Yes No
22. Do you find that in thinking of the future it is always in
terms of two rather than of yourself alone? Yes No
23. Can you imagine how he or she will appear at 40 and still
feel as deeply attached to him as before? Yes No
24. Do you have serious doubts about your love for him? Yes No
If you have a perfect score you answered every third question
(3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24) with _No_ and all the others
with _Yes_. Did you have twenty or more “correct” answers? If
so, we would judge you to be solidly in love. If you did not,
you should be skeptical until you receive further proof.
_Chapter V_
Growing Up Sexually
Your ability to undertake marriage successfully has already been
determined in large part before you even start. It has been
determined by experiences you have had with sex generally and with
the opposite sex particularly. Possibly you are already seriously
handicapped by repressions and fears on the subject.
To ignore or fear sex is no more sensible than to ignore any of
the other emotions you possess. Sexual desire is a natural desire.
Without it your personality would become impoverished. Without
it there would be few marriages. Without it there would be few
children and few homes. Sex is nothing to be ashamed of or be
whispered about.
You can have love without sex and sex without love but neither
alone is very satisfying or enriching. For example many men are
capable of sexual activity with women for whom they could find no
pleasure in social associations. Were it not for this fact there
would be no prostitution. Likewise it is true there are many wives
who love their husbands and engage in sexual activity with them,
but without feeling any sexual urge whatsoever and without feeling
any physical satisfaction.
The ideal arrangement, however, is that in which the two people
have genuine love and affection for each other and at the same time
have strong sex desire for each other and find sexual satisfaction
in each other.
A very large proportion of the fears, repressions and anxieties
that people suffer from involve sex one way or another. Many of
these repressions are revealed in such things as frigidity and
impotence. The individual who is ashamed and afraid of sex will
be repressed in married life unless the attitude is corrected, and
will find it difficult to adjust to marriage. When such persons are
married the feelings of shame or guilt about sex may prevent sexual
satisfaction. This lack of satisfaction, and the tension that goes
with it, may produce nervousness, aches and pains and even nervous
breakdowns.
Many married people, particularly wives, suffer from repression.
While sexual maladjustment is not the only cause of unhappiness
in marriage it does play a significant part. It is estimated that
one-fifth of all married people turn to masturbation as one of the
ways to reduce the sexual tensions not satisfied through intimate
relationships with the mate.
How do these so-called repressions develop? Where do we learn about
sex?
Our sex experiences--whether good or bad--started when we were
babies. We reacted in a very favorable way to the fondling,
caressing and other skin stimulation of our mothers. Love and
affection came to be associated in our minds with fondling and
stroking. Sometimes as the baby grows older the parent lavishes
too much affection on the child because the mother is hungry for
affection which is not forthcoming from her husband. This excessive
love-conditioning may cause the child to become intensely attached
to the mother and makes it difficult for the child to break away as
it grows up. Not only this, but in addition the excessive fondling
and favorable attention may cause the child to have an excessive
desire for sympathy and social approval. Ergo, we have a “spoiled
child.” This spoiled child grows up feeling very sorry for himself
and insecure when he is not receiving sympathy. In marriage, he
or she becomes quite possessive because he or she wants to be the
constant center of attention.
But to get back to when you were a growing child. Many of the
feelings of guilt, shame or fear that people suffer from concerning
sex begin then.
Perhaps the child is detected in the act of exploring his sex
organs. It is probably normal curiosity but the parents punish him
so severely that the child feels exceedingly guilty about it.
Perhaps the child hears a four-letter Anglo-Saxon word. Proud of
this new acquisition he comes home and uses it with his parents.
The parents are dumfounded, show their intense disapproval, and may
wash the child’s mouth out with soap.
Or perhaps the child asks how babies are made and the parent may
rebuff the child or act so mysterious that the child concludes he
has done something for which he should be ashamed.
On the other hand, if as a child you had a confidential relationship
with your parents and found that when you took such problems to them
they would try to give you answers you could comprehend you developed
a normal, healthy attitude toward sex. Repression usually occurs only
when something happens to us for which we feel ashamed or guilty or
fearful.
It would seem to us that no child should be permitted to reach
the age of five or six without knowing where babies come from. It
furthermore seems to us that no child should reach the age of ten
without knowing what produces or causes babies.
Now we come to the period that affected you most profoundly in your
sexual development, puberty. Can you remember how your life and
body were changed from the time you were twelve to fourteen?--that
is, when you were first endowed with sexual capacity. Whether you
were a boy or girl, your sex glands (gonads) began pouring their
hormones into the blood stream in great quantities. Perhaps you
did not realize it at the time but you began feeling more tense,
more energetic, and began exhibiting what might be called “animal
spirits.” Farmers shake their heads sadly at their youngsters
during this period and resign themselves to the fact that the
youths won’t be over “Fool’s Hill” until they are sixteen.
It probably was during your early teens that you had your first
great “love” affair, if you were normal. Puppy love is one of the
sweetest loves that one ever has. It usually makes its appearance
at about the time the girl begins to menstruate and the boy becomes
capable of having sexual emissions.
This first love of yours was romantic and idealistic. Probably
you “fell in love” with a girl in the next aisle, passed notes to
her and picked flowers on the way to school for her. You walked
home together after school and if you did manage to conquer your
embarrassment and kiss, it is a kiss you will never forget.
You did not realize that those hormones pulsing through your body
were responsible for this “crush” and did not realize why you were
more tense and energetic. To reduce the tension, though, you looked
at each other and something about your past conditioning made each
of you find something appealing in the other. Sometimes these first
“loves” endure but more likely you are soon both in “love” with new
“flames” that suddenly appeared more appealing. Puppy love, you
see, is an early version of infatuation.
As a child your sexual feelings were diffused over the body surface
but with puberty those feelings came more and more to be localized
in certain sensitive areas of the body, called “erogenous zones,”
if you had normal contacts with the other sex. In the case of girls
whose contact with sex is carefully guarded, however, it is quite
possible that sex desire may remain diffused until marriage and the
loss of virginity.
The appearance of the menstrual discharge can be a profoundly
frightening event for a girl unless she has been prepared to expect
it. Often it marks the beginning of fears that carry over even into
marriage.
Take the case of Alice, a school superintendent’s daughter, who
was reared in a stern atmosphere of morality. When she asked
where babies came from her mother first rebuked her and when
she persisted in inquiring the mother said they were brought
in the medical bags of physicians. When she reached the age of
menstruation, for which her mother had not prepared her, she
thought a terrible calamity had befallen her. She naïvely believed
for several months that she was having a baby. Later the only
information she ever acquired on sex was through bull sessions with
other girls at college, and there the information was misleading.
She was fearful of sex and when, during her freshman year, a boy
tried to kiss her she reacted very strongly. She felt that she must
not be a nice girl or a boy would not think of trying to kiss her.
Her mother had told her that nice girls did not kiss boys.
Today Alice is twenty-nine and still not married. Furthermore
she seems like a very poor prospect. She has reacted frigidly to
all overtures of grown men to kiss her even though she feels she
should marry. To her “sex” is animal passion and its only rightful
function is reproduction. She has so many repressions about sex
that she cannot act normally in the presence of someone of the
opposite sex.
Here is how the repressions operate with Alice. She does her best
not to think about sex. She avoids situations or circumstances
that would involve sex by staying away from people of the opposite
sex, by not going to dances and by refraining from doing things
that would in any way bring sex to mind. Her life is a desperate
hide-and-seek with sex. Furthermore her repression is so effective
that she won’t even admit that a sexual problem exists for her.
Sometimes direct fear conditioning may occur. In one girl who was
referred to the Penn State clinic there was an intense fear of
being with well-educated people. When all the facts were learned,
it was discovered that in her early teens the girl had been
detected masturbating by her mother. To frighten her out of the
habit the mother told her that such a practice would change her
facial appearance so much that any educated person looking at her
would know she was a masturbator. The girl, already ashamed of her
habit, felt so much guilt that she started avoiding anyone who had
a college education because she believed such people could see her
secret in her face. It took many months of treatment to get her to
the place where she could associate with college people with ease.
It is our opinion that much of the sexual maladjustment of the
world is brought about by parents giving their children the
impression that sex is shameful, disgusting, fearful or nasty.
One young man came into the psychological clinic complaining of
severe indigestion, heartburn and excruciating stomach pains. When
asked what he thought the trouble was he said it probably was
caused by his habit of drinking a couple of beers three or four
times a week. He had made many efforts to stop drinking the beer,
but in vain. The companionship of the other young men with whom
he drank, the feeling of tension reduction that he felt while
drinking, the partial release of some of his inhibitions under
alcohol all prevented him from breaking the habit. He had never
been drunk yet he was sure that the half-dozen glasses of beer a
week were causing his stomach trouble and would ultimately lead to
ulcers or cancer.
In working with this young man it was found that he had begun
masturbating in adolescence. His father had discovered this and had
severely denounced him for the practice. The boy could not, or did
not, give up masturbation and was in constant fear that he would
go insane because his father told him that continued masturbation
always led to insanity. In reading an old-fashioned book on sex
which his father gave him, the boy ran across a statement to the
effect that alcohol weakened the sex drive. He was so anxious to
reduce his own drive, for fear of insanity, that he began drinking
beer habitually. He was so sure the alcohol was reducing his sex
drive that he stopped masturbating. Actually, of course, the
sex drive was still present and his repression and anxiety were
transferred from masturbating to beer drinking, with the physical
symptoms already described. By helping the young man understand how
he had become unfavorably conditioned to masturbation (which, while
an inferior or substitute adjustment, is a natural act) he lost all
of his stomach symptoms and gained a wholesome attitude about sex.
How can sexual inhibitions and repressions be “unlearned?” The best
thing to do of course is consult a good clinical psychologist or
competent psychiatrist. Extensive psychotherapy may be needed. But
here are some things that an individual can do that may help:
--Develop a friendly confidential relationship with some
other person who can be trusted and bit by bit unburden
yourself of your fears, anxieties, problems and frustrations.
Simply getting things out of one’s system brings tension
release. Not only that but as one talks about his problems
and feelings toward them, he begins to define the problem
and see possibilities of attacking and solving the problem
himself. And the friend may have some helpful suggestions.
--Deliberately associate with people of the opposite sex as
much as possible if repression is present. Gradually this
will help reduce tensions as you become used to them and if
the conditioning is favorable you may achieve wholesome and
normal reactions to the opposite sex.
--Acquire adequate information about sexual behavior.
Good books are available today in the field of sex (_note
bibliography in the back of this book_).
--Even bull sessions can be helpful though much of the
information you will hear may be erroneous or inadequate. The
freedom of expression in the sessions and the opportunity
to talk help one feel less repressed and more natural when
sexual matters come up.
All young unmarried people should realize that the sexual emotion
is just as much a hunger as a hunger for food and that in marriage
their personality is enriched when the sexual hunger is satisfied.
While all this association with the opposite sex is going on, the
girl or young man is learning what kind of a mate he wants in
marriage. It is only through these experiences (starting with puppy
love) that they begin to set standards and qualifications of the
persons they would like to marry. The typical boy or girl needs to
date a good many persons before they know the kind they would like
to have as a mate, to decide upon the minimum standards they wish.
In going with one girl the boy learns to appreciate music and
decides he wants a wife who can play the piano. In going with
another girl he finds he wants a girl who is brunette, who is
reasonably tall, who is relatively slim. In going with a third girl
he discovers he wants a person who has as much education as he does
and who is interested at least politely with mechanical things,
which happen to be his passion. In going with still another girl he
discovers that it is important to him for her to have control of
her temper, to be friendly to people, to be gracious in manner, to
be kind and considerate. And so it goes. It is only through such
experiences that a man gradually learns what he wants in a wife and
what is important to him.
In contrast, it is ignorance of what one wants that may prevent
you from ever achieving a happy marriage. Not knowing what you
want or need, you may marry the first person with whom you become
infatuated.
Today there are nearly twenty-five thousand different occupations
in the country. More people are completing high school--and
college--than ever before in history. The radio and automobile have
broadened man’s horizon. Thus for the man today a selection of a
wife from among a half-dozen girls whom he has known would be a
hazardous selection. As we have said before, he would need to know
at least twenty-five eligible single girls--and date at least a
dozen of them--before he could be fairly sure of finding one that
would meet his wants and needs.
_Chapter VI_
Sex Adventuring
In the course of looking over the field for mates a large part of
our young people become involved in bodily petting and complete
intimacy. How widespread are such premarital sex relations? All
the factual studies would indicate that there has been a steady
increase. Dr. L. M. Terman, whose book _Psychological Factors in
Marital Happiness_, published in 1938, reports a study he made of
792 couples, concludes:
“The trend toward premarital sex experience is proceeding with
extraordinary rapidity.”
Of older couples who married around 1910, he found fifty per cent
of the men and eighty-seven per cent of the women had been virgins
at the time of marriage. In contrast, of those who married about
ten years ago only fourteen per cent of the men and thirty-two per
cent of the women were virgins at marriage. Dr. Terman predicted:
“If the drop should continue at the average rate shown ...
virginity at marriage will be close to the vanishing point” for
males marrying after 1955 and for girls marrying after 1960.
It’s a rare high school nowadays that doesn’t have an occasional
pregnant girl, unmarried, in its midst. In one city more than two
hundred such pregnancies occurred last year. Most of the sexual
experiences today--especially for girls--are with people they
eventually marry. But even in this respect the trend indicates that
more and more young people are having intercourse with persons they
do not marry than has ever been true before in our history. The
trend is more pronounced for men than it is for girls. This can
be understood in view of the fact that it is the woman who gets
pregnant, and not the man.
Of couples marrying today, a relatively high percentage have
complete physical intimacy before the wedding night. The rate seems
to be higher among the lower economic classes than in the higher
levels.