For vulnerable teenagers, sexual gratification is
really a peripheral issue to the sexual event.
-M. W. Cohen and F. B. Friedman
EROTICISM isn't the central issue for today's adolescent. Sex
is twisted and stretched to serve other concerns. It's used to
establish individuality, to express anger, to relate to classmates,
and even to commit a kind of social suicide. Erotic
activity makes a fine weapon for an angry adolescent in a
sexually anxious or repressive family.
Adolescence is the time between puberty and the assumption
of the adult role, whether by marriage or through entering
the job force. It begins with an incredible expansion-in
growth, in ability to reason, and in libido.
Hormone production
increases enormously, yielding sexual and aggressive
urges which frighten "nice" youngsters. Girls are ashamed as
breasts enlarge and pubic hair sprouts. It's as if their bodies
proclaim the feelings they've tried to hide. Even the mother
is banished from the bedroom when the daughter decides to
undress. Boys are intrigued by the relative size of each
other's genitals and are forever making unfavorable comparisons.
Broader issues eclipse eroticism. The child must pull away
from parents and their principles to establish a separate self.
As this process begins, the youth sees the parents' values as
priggish and arbitrary. The girl who kept her room reasonably
neat is angry when her mother complains that it's now
a total mess. The boy who was polite and responsible is
moody and unpredictable. As awful as adolescence may be
for parents, it holds a high potential for emotional growth
and remodeling.
As adolescents form a separate self, shame
may lessen, allowing the sexual response to expand.
If parents are open and enthusiastic about erotic matters,
their offspring are unlikely to use sex as a weapon to assert
their independence. There's no point in provoking if no one
gets upset anyway. In effect, this frees sex from issues which
impede its development. Battles are fought in other areas
while erotic growth advances in its own inimitable fashion.
A hundred years ago, the average age of becoming an
adult was fourteen, whether by marriage or by entering the
work force. Now a thirty-year-old graduate student may still
be an "adolescent," dependent upon his parents. Adolescence
not only seems interminable-it is. Without strong religious
and family supports, it becomes less and less reasonable to
expect young people to refrain from coitus. By the time independence
is finally achieved, the prime period for sexual
learning has been left far behind. The individual is less malleable
and has fewer opportunities to extend his boundaries.
Dysfunctions are already well entrenched.
Janet was a seventeen-year-old girl who believed her
mother's warning that "boys don't respect girls who let them
do anything." Janet had been courted by only a few compliant
chaps who were also family friends. Activities were well
defined in advance. In the back seat Janet was so worried
about what might happen next that she felt little excitement.
She allowed certain caresses because "he was nice enough to
take me out." She was unaware of any erotic needs of her
own. When Janet turned twenty-four, her eighteen-year-old
sister was married. Three months later, Janet was engaged.
She attempted coitus but experienced such sharp pain that
she consulted a gynecologist. He informed her that she had
tight muscles and needed to relax. Janet tried desperately to
relax with no success.