Raising Shameless, Free and Responsible Young People
How shame, guilt, rewards and punishments are used by culture (parents, educators and society) to retard the full development of a child's vast, innate capacity.
An obscure stat from one of my favorite sources, Playboy, noted that 91% of young women and 84% of young men approve of premarital sex. In the 1950's 12% of women and 40% of men held the same belief. The study was published in the Review of General Psychology. Wow. That's hot. I thought the sexual revolution was over -apparently not. If, as the headline reads, "All the kids are doing it," responsible sexual development and expression is a BIG concern for today's parents.
Conservatives responded by creating the psychological equivalent of a medieval chastity belt. Girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until wed in elaborate ceremonies dubbed Purity Balls. 1400 Balls were held across the US in 2006, mainly in the South and Midwest. Double that number will be held in 2007. The events have all the trappings of a wedding: limousines, proud tuxedo-clad fathers, white cake, an exchange of vows, but no groom and Cinderella is no bride. She's daddy's little girl, taking a vow of chastity until marriage. The public ritual is consummated when dad signs a covenant to protect his daughter's chastity by living an unblemished life. Many offer "purity rings" or "chastity bracelets" to be entrusted to the girl's husband on their wedding night. (Must be a guy thing, controlling the bodies of "their" women and little girls, passing the baton, with the best of intentions of course.)
Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder, or so the saying goes. We can also say, more scientifically, that sensory deprivation, which abstinence implies, produces a hyper-sensitive response to the denied stimulus. Here lies the shadow, a little understood Shakespearian dagger. Developmentally denying sensual (somatosensory) pleasure produces a brain that is hyper sensitive to the denied pleasure when it is experienced. You can see for yourself. Sit in a dark closet for a day and then turn on the light. Fifty watts will blaze like the sun. A brain system normalized to none or very little light will overreact when light is experienced at normal levels. The same is true for affectionate and sexual touch.
We often hear about educating the "whole child." Healthy, biologically normal emergent sexuality requires the integration of sensory, emotional and cortical information by the brain. The development of a fully integrated brain, one that reacts in a balanced way to all its sensory centers, including pleasure, requires that that brain experiences the full spectrum of its potential as it develops. Withholding, limiting, denying normal sensations (sensory deprivation) robs the developing brain of its ability to integrate all of its systems. A sensory deprived brain is not, by definition, a whole brain, which is a prerequisite for a whole child.
An obscure stat from one of my favorite sources, Playboy, noted that 91% of young women and 84% of young men approve of premarital sex. In the 1950's 12% of women and 40% of men held the same belief. The study was published in the Review of General Psychology. Wow. That's hot. I thought the sexual revolution was over -apparently not. If, as the headline reads, "All the kids are doing it," responsible sexual development and expression is a BIG concern for today's parents.
Conservatives responded by creating the psychological equivalent of a medieval chastity belt. Girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until wed in elaborate ceremonies dubbed Purity Balls. 1400 Balls were held across the US in 2006, mainly in the South and Midwest. Double that number will be held in 2007. The events have all the trappings of a wedding: limousines, proud tuxedo-clad fathers, white cake, an exchange of vows, but no groom and Cinderella is no bride. She's daddy's little girl, taking a vow of chastity until marriage. The public ritual is consummated when dad signs a covenant to protect his daughter's chastity by living an unblemished life. Many offer "purity rings" or "chastity bracelets" to be entrusted to the girl's husband on their wedding night. (Must be a guy thing, controlling the bodies of "their" women and little girls, passing the baton, with the best of intentions of course.)
Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder, or so the saying goes. We can also say, more scientifically, that sensory deprivation, which abstinence implies, produces a hyper-sensitive response to the denied stimulus. Here lies the shadow, a little understood Shakespearian dagger. Developmentally denying sensual (somatosensory) pleasure produces a brain that is hyper sensitive to the denied pleasure when it is experienced. You can see for yourself. Sit in a dark closet for a day and then turn on the light. Fifty watts will blaze like the sun. A brain system normalized to none or very little light will overreact when light is experienced at normal levels. The same is true for affectionate and sexual touch.
We often hear about educating the "whole child." Healthy, biologically normal emergent sexuality requires the integration of sensory, emotional and cortical information by the brain. The development of a fully integrated brain, one that reacts in a balanced way to all its sensory centers, including pleasure, requires that that brain experiences the full spectrum of its potential as it develops. Withholding, limiting, denying normal sensations (sensory deprivation) robs the developing brain of its ability to integrate all of its systems. A sensory deprived brain is not, by definition, a whole brain, which is a prerequisite for a whole child.