OUR MARITAL HEALTH/SEX AND PROBLEMS OF DAILY LIVING: MOVING THROUGH LIFE AND KEEPING SEXUALITY MOVING- ADOLESCENCE: FEELING IT VS. DOING IT
Adolescence is so sexually problematic not only because of resistance to allowing our young people to enter our adult world, but because the first three stages of sexual development are difficult for most children. When adolescence is taking place, the focus can be on “doing it” if the sexual self-concept and emotional response to sexual feelings have been disrupted or delayed. In a society that values action over feeling, doing over thinking, acting over reflecting, it is difficult to come through adolescence with an integration of love and sex. We teach our teens to be a man or woman rather than experience their own personhood and the personhood of others. We teach them to fear anything but the strictest of gender division lines.
You have already learned to read your love map and I have discussed these adolescent concerns, but reconsider now your own ability to unite sex with love. Would you say, would your children say, that love and sex are the same? They are, but our society teaches that they are different because our society seems stuck at this developmental phase itself, continuing to separate doing from feeling.
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