Feeling pleasure is not a new experience for adolescents, but feeling “horny” is. In the early stages of puberty, especially, many young people wonder where these feelings come from, if they alone are experiencing these cravings, and what to do about them.
There is no easy answer to the question of where sexual feelings come from. Undoubtedly, hormones play a role. And because the body’s production of hormones is accelerating in adolescence, sexual feelings may seem more intense, more urgent, than they do in adulthood. However, hormones are only half the story. The cultural belief that boys are supposed to be horny and girls, if not horny, romantic plays an equal role in sexual awakening. Perhaps children have been experiencing tinglings and longings all along, but only in adolescence do they begin to label these sensations as sexual.
What we do know is that sexual desires and fantasies are normal and common. Everyone has them, not just teenagers, and not just boys. The most important thing for teenagers to know is that no thought, by itself, is sick or weird or wrong. Fantasies cannot harm you, no matter how bizarre or “far out” they are. At some time in their lives, almost everyone imagines making love to a member of the same sex, seducing a sibling, joining in an orgy, fornicating in a church, watching a neighbor undress, forcing or being forced to engage in sexual acts. Rape is wrong; incest is wrong; feeling aroused only when you are spying (the Peeping Tom syndrome) is sad. But thinking about forbidden acts is normal.
The only real harm in sexual fantasies is guilt. Young people who believe that their fantasies and dreams reveal something hidden and horrible about themselves are the most likely to be upset about their sexuality and also the most likely to become obsessed by a fantasy. It is important that young adolescents understand that fantasies are just that¡ªfantasies.
In a survey of 1,067 teenagers, more than three-quarters of the boys and about two-thirds of the girls said they had sexual fantasies. The most common object of their desire was their current girl- or boyfriend, followed by TV or movie stars, friends and acquaintances, strangers, rock stars, made-up people, and relatives. Girls’ fantasies tended to be romantic, while boys’ fantasies tended to be sexually explicit. Girls still dream of being swept off their feet.
They do not, however, fantasize about a stranger forcing them to have sex. Teenagers’ fantasies do not support the myth that “all women secretly want to be raped.” Because boys’ fantasies are often graphic, boys are somewhat more likely to feel guilty about them. And because their urges and fantasies may lead to unwanted erections and wet dreams, they are more likely to be embarrassed. Because many girls have been socialized to think that “nice” women don’t think about sex, they are somewhat more likely to feel that they are the only ones having such thoughts.
Contrary to what adults believe or fear, many young people prefer fantasy to action. Daydreams are a safer initiation to sexuality than actual contact. In their fantasies, they are the producer, director, screenwriter, and cameraman; flaws can be swept away with the airbrush of imagination; scenes can be played and replayed until they come out right. Psychiatrist Robert Coles describes a 15-year-old boy who had every social and material advantage but found the pressure to be top in his class, to excel at sports, and to find a girl who met his parents exacting standards too much. He told Coles, “I want out.” Instead of acting out, the boy had been carrying on a long, intimate, deeply committed, and wholly imaginary affair with a famous model. They traveled to remote islands, studied together, made love in meadows. The most important aspect of this fantasy was that it was his.
Parents should answer their children’s questions about sexual desires and fantasies, but respect their privacy.
Image : fptm
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