CREMATE THE SEXUAL MYTHS: SEX IS A LEARNING PROCESS
Sex, like walking, talking and bowel control in an infant, is a learning process in all of us. It is not, as is popularly believed, 'doing what comes naturally'. Learning is replacing ignorance with knowledge. The sexual instinct is the strongest instinct in animals and man. Yet, between the sexual instinct and sex with a woman there is a wide, wide gulf that is bridged only by learning. Let me clarify with a case history. 'Oh doctor, Zeenat Aman does something to my chemistry,' teenager Neville excitedly told me. 'I am aroused as soon as I see her on the screen. I go "nuts" with a burning desire to bed her, but, alas, beggars can't be choosers in this world.' The instantaneous sexual response in Neville did not come naturally but was the result of long years of indoctrination to respond sexually on seeing a 'sex-bomb'.
Sex even in the lower animals does not depend entirely on instinct. They learn it before they function normally. The young ones of animals kept in solitary confinement miss their mark sexually when they grow up. Harry Harlow has studied in great depth the importance of the early-learning process in monkeys, which he describes in Learning to Love. He isolated young monkeys, so as to prevent them from having early childhood experiences like being touched and fondled by their mothers or playing with other baby monkeys and watching adult monkeys have sex. When the secluded monkeys grew up and attempted sex, they were very clumsy. They had the natural sexual instinct and drive but since they had not learnt the know-how they were unable to have sex with female monkeys. Similar experiments have been done by other researchers as well.
Fortunately in animals the fantasy model does not exist. Sex is based on reality and for generations the young ones learn the right way from their parents, unlike human beings who are influenced in their outlook by societal norms and by saints, preachers and teachers who themselves need to be taught.
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