{Film Review II [continued(7)]}[24th February 1973]

[Redbook1:283-290][19730224:1735f]{Film Review II [continued(7)]}[24th February 1973]

(Saturday) 197302241735

[continued]

            (You see, despite myself I am anxious, though not confused.)  Dr. X said in his lectures that it was recognised that children in adolescence were ‘sex objects’ – were sexually attractive.  I am not sure that this is not an over-simplification.

            It measures up to my own experience in some ways.  I have never felt sexually attracted by children under the age of puberty.  On the whole I like them, and I enjoy demonstrations of physical affection with those that I know and like.  But I have never felt sexually attracted to any man.  The idea of classic buggery – anal penetration etc. – rather disgusts me; the idea of indecency with men seems pointless (and embarrassing).

            But I have felt sexually attracted to young girls in early adolescence, with a strange combination of physical desire and protective tenderness.  Occasionally this has died as they became older, fatter and harder; but I have usually continued to feel affection for them. 

            The very odd thing is that not only have I felt this protective tenderness towards boys I have known of this same age, i.e. early adolescence: but for some of them I have felt a quite definite physical* desire or attraction.  I think this is really a desire to give (and receive) physical (as well as emotional) comfort and affection from (and for) those in trouble (Adolescents almost by definition are in trouble, and need and reject love more than anyone else).  However I know damn well that if, for example, I ever were to go to bed with some adolescent, sexual responses would be stimulated more surely than by a shower or by a blanket.  I never have gone to bed with an adolescent; I hope I would not, not because I think it is wrong in itself, but because in the present circumstances of society it could do more harm than good to the adolescent’s life and to  mine; but if I did , I hope such sexual responses would not embarrass me.

            I don’t think that adolescents are primarily sex objects, to their own sex at least.  They are not primarily sexy; but they are sexual: they are often sexually aware, aware of their own sexuality.  Early adolescence is often subjectively the most sexual period in one’s life: the adolescent is trying to come to terms with his own new-found sexuality and awareness, and radiates – to those who can perceive, on whatever level – a confused complex of emotions from need for affection through sheer physical frustration.  That was what struck me first about IB’s step-daughter, for all her smooth skin: she was sexually aware, and bored: frustrated, perhaps, though not in the denigratory sense.  [….]

[*i.e. distinguished from sexual desire or attraction. This series of journal entries risks being seriously misunderstood; but because I think it is helpful, the product of youthful angst and rational thought over a long period, and, above all, utterly honest in a way which is needed now, I have (with some misgivings) not materially redacted it before this point.  It may be worth pointing out that the writer was 22 years old, and therefore according to some recent psychological guidelines still an "adolescent" himself <201301142145>]

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