Sex in carding culture. Psychological functions of sex.

[Lord777]

Fragment of the book Nartova-Bochaver SK, Bochaver KA, Bochaver S. Yu. Family living space: unification and division. M.: Genesis. 2011
The book is addressed to practical psychologists and other specialists, as well as to a wide range of readers interested in strengthening family values.

Sex in culture
If food is a condition for the physical existence of a person and his personal growth, then sex and everything connected with it reflects the ability for creativity in a mature person. It is no coincidence that you have to prepare for sex for a long time, it is responsible. Initially, it is aimed at procreation, but we humans have gone so far from this primordiality that we treat sex primarily as a social phenomenon. Some psychologists seriously believe that even a person's gender is determined by his self-awareness, acceptance of behavior typical of men or women. D. Morris writes that in the field of sex “we are failing in an attempt to separate the main, reproductive, function of sexual relations from the secondary ones, and yet in the conditions of the human menagerie, Morris, 2001, p. 92). Therefore, sexual behavior is deeply symbolic and often represents a metaphor for life in general, which can be clearly seen in the profanity that is present in the culture of every nation.
For an adult, his sexual well-being is one of the foundations of self-confirmation and, at the same time, a tool for manipulating others, gaining freedom, self-assertion, in other words, a feeling of authorship of his own life ... For millennia, Western cultures have been characterized by the identification of a person and her sexual potential, a man and his phallus. Phallus is a participant in many mythological plots; even milestones in Greece (herms) were a stone landmark with the image of a person's face (usually known and recognizable by everyone) and his phallus, apparently the most significant parts of the human body. Therefore, it is not surprising that psychoanalysis originated in Europe. Hence - all the psychological difficulties that are associated with successful or unsuccessful sex and even the idea of it.

This is not the case in other cultures. On the islands of Polynesia, for example, it would never occur to anyone to be sad because sexual contact did not work out: if this happened, then some of the gods wanted today not to baffle a person with these very things. Failure is not assessed as such and does not lead to depression; as a consequence, there is no functional impotence and sexual weakness.

We can say that after Freud, the role of sex in our life is exaggeratedly important, but it should not be underestimated either. The sexual life of a self-actualized person is natural and free from coercion, it is dialogical and problem-free: it does not cause excessive interest or excessive desire to turn a natural part of family life into an occupation that requires a special attitude. Sex is a continuation of everyday life.

To understand the family environment, a minimum of information is absolutely necessary about this side of life, which may appear very differently to each of the partners. In the practice of counseling, one often hears that the sex life for one of the spouses was “hard work”. It is very important what a person experiences after intimacy - fatigue or a surge of strength, depending on this, you can understand whether he is experiencing a holiday, ordinary cheerful everyday life, or is giving up marital duty. One of the most common forms of abuse in family life is sexual provocation and humiliation with an underestimation of the partner's abilities.

The main feature of erotic relationships in humans is hypersexuality - the obvious redundancy of sexual contacts and, in general, the attention paid to this phenomenon in culture and industry, in relation to reproductive offspring. The expression "sexual as an animal", in essence, does not make sense at all, because in animals, sex is always functional and there is nothing superfluous in it. And in humans, this area of life is disproportionately inflated due to the fact that it performs many other, in addition to biological, functions.

Psychological functions of sex
What psychological functions does sex perform in modern life? Many have pondered this; we will summarize the results of these reflections. It is important to realize that the meaning of sex in its various aspects is revealed not sequentially, but simultaneously, and for each of the spouses this can happen in different ways.
First of all, of course, without sex, reproduction is (practically) impossible. In order to acquire offspring, mating is a necessary process. However, among us humans, not every act is directed at the birth of a child; contraceptives are improving. In general, people who are attracted to the opposite sex do not necessarily love children. Therefore, it is obvious that this motive for having sex is not the main one.

Sex helps to escape from loneliness, that is, it serves as a means of creating a pair, continuing one of the biological instincts. In people, the search for a couple is manifested in the readiness and desire to love. Of course, having sex in a relationship reinforces this desire. However, if someone is initially deprived of this need or it has weakened due to life events, the partner may feel deprived, “used”. In addition, this function of sex is based on an unrequited desire for exclusivity in relationships, in other words, for fidelity. Not for everyone, his partner is the only one, and for a successful relationship it is advisable to soberly assess the measure of reciprocity.

After finding a partner, the "second half", sex helps to strengthen the psychology of relations between a man and a woman. In a good case, they strive to be together with each other, do not want to part, and the attraction intensifies after the forced separation. Probably, this function of sex is completely absent in married couples living separately. In traditional marriage, the longing and desire to be with a partner also implies the experience of sexual loneliness in his absence.

All these functions are related to procreation, therefore, as a rule, they are familiar to family people. Everyone who had or has children had the experience of experiencing the search for an object of love, parting as a "little death", pride in creating a new life. But there are other tasks that can be easily and effectively solved through sex, aesthetic, psychotherapeutic, social, which have broken away from biological programs aimed at procreation. However, they are cultivated in the human community, giving sex an independent value and thus turning it into a pretext for vanity, into "supersex". These properties of sex are not always realized, but many build their erotic behavior on them.

Sex for the sake of relieving physical and psychological stress (physiological sex) has no constructive purpose; it serves exclusively physiological self-regulation. People who are lonely, even in a state of physiological virginity, nevertheless experience spontaneous orgasms, usually under the influence of aesthetic impressions or dreams. There is evidence that the number of erotic dreams increases in the case of getting into a gender-homogeneous environment, for example, in a prison or the army. Strictly speaking, for solving this problem, a partner of the opposite sex is not a necessary condition; the desired effect can be caused by masturbation or the use of objects that replace the penis or vagina. Such items have always been in use in closed communities, and with the development of the sex industry, they became available to everyone. Observations of animals also indicate that in artificial conditions they often resort to masturbation. Obviously, physiological sex in the family is absolutely necessary, and the situational lack of attraction in one of the partners does not make sexual intimacy useless. It happens that for spouses the same act of copulation means different things, but in any case, both are needed.

Sex can be presented as a creative, research activity, as an experiment. At the beginning of a married life, experimentation is almost always present, serving mutual adaptation, the search for comfortable postures, a suitable tempo and chronotope. Then the curiosity of many is saturated. However, not all. The search for novelty leads either to a deepening of sexual experiences with a close beloved partner, or to an extensive development of sexual cognition, that is, to the search for new partners. Experiments “on the side” may not always suit a permanent partner, and this is the cost of such use of the meaning of sex. Another cost is provoking competition in the offended partner or partner, because the sexual experience is difficult to hide. Probably, the search for novelty is due to the properties of a person's temperament.

Sex is fun. There are many objects and phenomena in nature that evoke aesthetic feelings: sunset and sunrise, flowering and fruiting. Sex continues this series. However, like everything in the world, he can be ugly and beautiful. Sometimes special education is required, or at least an understanding that sex is not a nocturnal phenomenon, that one should be ashamed of it. This dimension of marital relations is part of the mutual respect of the spouses.

“And there would not be this shame and shame of drunken intercourse, when you lie full of hatred, and you are twitching ninety kilograms, they beat you dry, as if you are impaling, and your chest is bruised, as after the beatings, the brown bruises then passed for a year. And the stench is smelly, and the smell of the bottom, from which the nausea rolls up, and shakes, as in the hold, and if only to reach the toilet to vomit all this into its shining white interior ... ".
(L. Ulitskaya "First and Last")

Sex can also be a cure for boredom for those who are placed in monotonous conditions or who do not know how to structure their lives. Your own body is the most accessible object in order to do it and thus entertain yourself. It can be a simple self-examination, the urge to bite your nails, squeeze out pimples, or change your hairstyle. Sex with or without a partner can also help alleviate loneliness. The intense and varied erotic life in slums and countries with a low economic status, apparently, as one of the reasons is precisely the lack of spectacle. After all, sex has a beginning, a middle and an end, and it is not monotonous. Depending on the breadth of the spouses' outlook, this motive for sex can also exist in the family, and it effectively fulfills its function of saving from the dullness of life.

Sex is also a medicine for stress. In a tight time frame, in extreme conditions (for example, in a crisis or in a war), people need not so much inspiration and excitement as calmness. In this case, they do not strive for diversity, on the contrary, monotony and stereotypes for them are relaxation. It is a relaxation and a reminder that, in addition to stress, there is a lot of pleasant routine in the world. And if the possibility of sexual contact turns up, it is used completely not creatively, but, in general, stupidly and unambiguously, but effectively leads to the desired goal. If one of the spouses is constantly experiencing stress, the partner needs to understand that, perhaps, he is not up to experimenting now. He is capable of either routine sex or none at all. On the other side, a person experiencing stress, due to natural shyness, may not even know that sex can help him. At all times, “sex workers” have been able to explain this clearly.

The ability to bring sexual joy can be the subject of commercial relationships based on the so-called "incentive mating" (Dolnik, 2003). There is a point of view that incentive mating originally arose among ancient women as a way to tie a breadwinner to the family, which became necessary due to the acceleration of human intellectual development, which required good protein food, which could not be obtained for the child only by the mother with her gathering occupation. Sex as a bait began to be used widely, including in the conclusion of marriages-misalliance, when one of the parties is not emotionally involved in sex at all. In this case, partners usually know what their marriage is based on, and unspoken rules have been developed that prescribe the exchange of psychological bonuses: who is allowed what and what can be punished. These rules are the secret of two.

Sex in humans (incidentally, incidentally in other biological communities as well) also serves as a measure of social status and the establishment of subordination. As a rule, a woman is in the role of a subordinate, and a man is in a dominant role. In this case, sex has nothing to do with the tasks of reproduction, it is intended to demonstrate the strength, power, measure of the despoticness of the male in relation to the female. It is this task of sex that is realized in different variants of domestic violence. Self-affirmation through humiliation of a woman is inherent in men with low self-esteem and self-esteem, and since there are many such men, cases of cruelty are not uncommon.

In family life, self-affirmation through sexual humiliation and provocation can take on more sophisticated forms, for example, a spouse may feel attraction to his beloved and independently chosen wife only if she is the object of worship of other men and demonstrates a willingness to fall in love with them. If the wife is unambiguously faithful, the husband begins to cheat on her himself. Such marital games have existed in many families for many years, are the subject of an unspoken agreement and, apparently, bring revitalization and tone to family life.

However, the sexual capabilities of the male are demonstrated not only in relation to the female; in the male environment, it is also customary to compete in the field of achievement, directly or symbolically, to improve social status. The collection of victories over women also characterizes mainly people who are not very confident in themselves (because true lovingness implies respect for women who never find themselves in a position of competition with a rival and most often do not know about these rivals at all).

And of course, sex can fulfill a psychotherapeutic function, it can be carried out “out of compassion” This is the easiest way to feel sorry, support, help to relax and feel valuable, loved and dear.
In order for married life to be multidimensional and interesting, you need to be able to be creative. Loving spouses and good lovers are not always socially reliable and high-status people, often their strengths lie only in the ability to poeticize everyday life and life together. Food and sex are important characteristics of family life. There is nothing surprising in the fact that people who are spiritually close still part if the home menu consists of dumplings, which are cooked for five minutes, and dumplings, which are cooked for ten minutes. All those possibilities of manifestation of sympathy and love, which a joint meal allows, drop out of being. Which can be arranged in bed.

 

[Teacher]

Psychological deviations that have become the norm of modern society

Salyut, carders, today we have an interesting article about psychological deviations that have become the norm of modern society.

1. Untidiness.
By psychiatric standards, untidiness is an indicator of a severe psychiatric disorder.

2. The cult of sex.
The media is the main "conductor" of the cult of sex to the masses.
Humorous programs, movies, advertising, and even cartoons are all imbued with the idea of sexual liberation.
What remains hidden in normal people is now brought out for public viewing and discussion.
Intimate shame is considered a relic of the Middle Ages.
But isn't this a sign of the moral degeneration of society?

From the point of view of specialists, this is not only the imposition of various kinds of perversions, such as voyeurism (when they show what is happening in other people's bedrooms), but also the popularization of sexopathological deviations that are part of psychopathology.

Moreover, the propaganda of sex, which takes the form of lectures and stories about the so-called safe sex, provokes in the younger generation neglect of family and marital relations, which are one of the important components for a person with a healthy psyche. In the absence of marital relations, mental disorders are inevitable, which generally leads to the degradation of society.

3. The cult of money and luxury.
We live in a time when a person can neglect the most necessary things in order to buy something that will impress others. Whether it's a new car, a fur coat, or an iPhone.
A person is evaluated by his financial situation, his spiritual values are relegated to the background. Spiritual hunger in this case is satisfied not by working on your complexes, but by acquiring things, filling the external space.
Against this background, it is interesting that the lowest number of suicides occurs in poor countries, while the growth of material well-being in Europe was accompanied by an increase in the number of suicides.
The "consumer" attitude towards a person, in which he is perceived through the prism of his well-being, leads to complexes and mass neuroses.

4. The cult of success.
Everyone wants to be successful.
But success, which does not serve to satisfy not only the material but also the spiritual needs of a person, often leads to depression.
"A successful person at a psychologist's appointment" - today this has become the rule, rather than the exception.

In modern society, success has been turned into an idol that people worship, forgetting themselves. And it seems that there would be nothing wrong with this if this concept did not "push" all sorts of things far from success, for example, such as money, fame, honor, etc.
After all, success is, first of all, a state of mind, and not what others think about you.

A person should and can strive for success, but it is important to have a clear understanding of its content. Because when we buy a shiny wrapper and spend our lives and energy on a rotten filling, it eventually leads to frustration, regret, mental disorders, and suicide. It is also impossible not to recall the excessive rationalism characteristic of those "successful" ones.

Rationalism, which is presented as pragmatism.
This is also one of the signs of schizophrenia.
Since, contrary to popular belief, schizophrenia is not characterized by irrationality, but on the contrary – excessive rationality, excluding feelings of empathy for others.

5. Narcissism.
Each century had its own "fashionable" mental disorders.
If at the beginning of Freud's practice these were hysterical disorders, then in our time narcissism has become "fashionable".
Perhaps this is due to the development of technologies that can "unite" people from almost all over the world into a single online community.
If earlier for self-affirmation and universal recognition people needed to work for years, invent, create, but today people do not need to go to such feats, there are enough successful photos and beautiful pages.

But narcissism isn't just about social media.
In the preface to the book The Infernal Web.
How to survive in the world of narcissism " Sandy Hotchkiss writes the following: "It's hard to say anything new about narcissism.
There have always been empty, greedy, manipulative people with inflated self-perceptions who don't take other people's interests into account.

In modern culture, it is the degree to which other people's psychological flaws are universally accepted that is worrying.
In our time, in the modern era, narcissism is not only tolerated — it is approved and praised. Many of our leaders and public figures we adore show off their narcissistic tendencies, and we can't wait to emulate their exclusivity.
Their outrageous behavior does not leave us indifferent and seems charming and attractive to us, and therefore we allow ourselves to "admire" them.
Until we learn to recognize which behaviors are healthy and which are not, we will walk in a fog, and the statement that "everyone does this" will not help to justify those who go downhill in doing so."

Narcissism is a violation on the altar of which not only actions that cause surprise, shock, and interest in society are ascended, but also noble deeds, such as charity, helping one's neighbor, loyalty to ideals, etc.

This means that it is also dangerous because it calls into question even good deeds, doubts about the sincerity and morality of the person who committed them.