Friday, September 09, 2016

Eroticization and the unique developmental process of human persons - part 2 continuation

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

----------------------------------------------------------------


This is part 2 in a reflection on human sexuality following on part 1 which was posted May 20, 2016. In that more recent post I reflected further and reformulated an original post examining clergy sexual abuse and finding it to be only the tip of the iceberg in human society. 
Fr. Gilles Surprenant 

Here were some titles in the original post of January 14, 2014 - Sexual abuse 1 - by clergy the tip of the iceberg

Sexual abuse is a crime against humanity
 The complex nature of the human person and sexuality 
 Sex is good, yes, but not in every instance
 Why do people pervert sex into violence?
 The beauty and power of human sexuality 
 Human sexual development requires mentoring
 Wandering away from the original design
 Exquisitely sensitive spouses or dangerous rapists
 Human development is a long and complicated process
Human development - becoming a person 
 Most of us have some "wrinkles" in our development 

This original post from January 14, 2014 on sexual abuse I re-framed as a series of reflections with a focus on our unique developmental process as human beings with particular interest in the role of the process of eroticization in our development and growth as persons. Two additional titles were added to the original 11 to reformulate a reflection on sexual abuse in terms of human development. 

Eroticization and the unique developmental process of human persons - part 1

 We human beings are unique in our sexuality and in many other ways
We find a broad spectrum on the human landscape
 Sexual abuse is a crime against humanity
 The complex nature of the human person and sexuality
 Sex is good, yes, but not in every instance
 Why do people pervert sex into violence?
 The beauty and power of human sexuality  
Human sexual development requires mentoring
Wandering away from the original design
Exquisitely sensitive spouses or dangerous rapists
Human development is a long and complicated process
Human development - becoming a person 
 Most of us have some "wrinkles" in our development 
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Human development and the role of eroticization


It would be interesting to dialogue with readers who have questions or comments on what has preceded as well as what is to follow or, for that matter, on all that is to be found in this blog. 

Human beings develop into persons over a long period of time

It is admittedly impossible to thoroughly understand our human nature, including our sexuality, and even less in its distorted forms, unless we acquire a more fundamental and evidence-based grasp of what we are as human beings and how we become the beings we are whether at our best or at our worst. What are the many factors that enhance our free will to live lives of purpose and integrity on the one hand or on the other hand debilitate that ability and cause us to become mere shadows of what and who we might be, shameful or even dangerous counterfeit human beings?

In beginning this series of reflections on human sexuality and development we at first looked at the horror of sexual abuse as the distortion that it obviously is and then in contrast to it we opened this exploration to the broader vista of human development. Our premise is that we are not born fully developed but develop into the people we become over many years.

There seems to be broad consensus in the human sciences and in society at large that the early years in the womb and infancy are crucial for our development as persons and that our developmental process "closes the loop" as it were by the time we enter into early adulthood. As we consider human sexuality as it is experienced in the current landscape of human society we observe much confusion and pain around sexuality and sexual activity and expression. Even the casual observer can suspect the real existence of a very complex and protracted human developmental process which takes at least 25 years to run its full course.

Human development is a process generating a broad spectrum of characters

Professional anthropologists study artifacts left behind by people who lived in the past or those of people currently alive in various places on the Earth. Those now living can also be observed in the various moments, activities, social structures and practices and anthropologists formulate theories about those they observe, about how aware they are of themselves, how they see themselves, the meaning and purpose they give to their lives, and how they understand their place in the world.

In looking at our own lives and generations, at our own societies, we observe our human capacity for complex personal development, activity, and self-awareness, our profound capacity for reflection and understanding, and our unique capacity to be aware of our faults and to be willing to correct them. On the dark side we are also capable of ignoring self-awareness, of denying our own faults, and  instead of imposing on or attempting to dominate others. The contrast between the saint and the sociopath or psychopath illustrates this wide spectrum of possible human characters and personalities.

The  natural human family composed of a husband/father and a wife/mother with children

At one end of the spectrum of human life we find that the place given to human sexuality is merely as one of many refined dimensions of life. In the loving, faithful, fruitful, and committed relationship of a wife and her husband in marriage as a partnership of equals and a community of life and love, their human sexuality manifests a broad range of expression characterized by tenderness in a variety of relational contexts: towards each other, with children, their own parents and siblings, and others. For such a couple genital sexuality is always about their fertility and power to give life while it is also always about expressing and strengthening their union as persons joined in a unique couple.

Rather than seeking or grasping for pleasure, the husband seeks to pleasure his wife, to whom he attaches himself out of appreciation and gratitude for the multiple ways in which she pours herself out for him and their children as one who gives and nourishes life. His selfless efforts in the bridal chamber are consistent with his efforts each day and all week to attend to his wife and children. He notices each person and attends to them in accord with the nature and needs of each one and in this he greatly values the observations and judgement of his wife and mother of their children.

The tenderness with which she cleaves to her husband expresses her appreciation for his presence, his efforts on her behalf and that of their family, and his consideration and attentiveness to her needs as she forgets herself in pouring out her life energy for those she loves. She values his role in their joint parenting of their children, and she senses the importance of his role as each child develops a sense of identity, of their gender, and that they are loved. 

The friendship and manifestly loving relationship of the couple is the solid foundation of their family, in which children are mentored by both a father and a mother and are supported in their individual and collective developmental processes as infants, children, adolescents, youth, and young adults living in the communal context of their own family of origin.

While explicit genital sex does not feature overly prominently in such a universe of marriage and family life; it nevertheless is ever in the background and enjoys a valuable but discrete place as the wholesome expression of the tenderness and affection bonding their parents to each other and open to them as their children. In such a family, human sexuality is appropriately protected and safeguarded by an air of privacy, mystery, responsibility, and mutual respect.

These parents are open yet guarded on sexual issues, taking care to properly form and inform their children at appropriate teaching moments, yet taking care to protect - especially in their early more vulnerable years - their children's innocence of mind, heart, and imagination. From their point of view, our modern social climate and culture is a battleground littered with casualties, with children and youth who have been violated and robbed of innocence. All the more reason do such parents see the importance of their role in doing all they can to construct a lively and loving family environment which is at the same time communally rich and personally responsible.

Sex as the currency of human transactions tends to generate "sex wars" 

If parents find themselves with an obligation to protect the innocence of their children, it is because at the opposite end of the human spectrum we find the casualties of what we could call the "sex wars": those who have suffered, often from infancy, verbal, psychological, and even sexual abuse, or who suffered deficits of loving care, of compassion, of the essentials of human respect and kindness.

Even those who have benefited from proper human care as they grew up may have suffered the lack of proper formation and mentoring that could have helped them to begin to accept and understand themselves, their sexuality in all of its dimensions, and the natural place it has in the whole realm of human relationships in all their variety and complexity. This could happen in environments where the parent or parents suffer a lack of sufficient self-awareness, autonomy, knowledge, or responsibility, and hence engage in sexual activity as a form of currency for surviving or obtaining other goods, attention, influence, of even a position of dominance. Such deficits leave human persons isolated, or poor or raw and needy, and put them at risk to employ their sexuality to grasp as a drowning person might grab a lifesaver; rather than as a way to tenderly give of themselves to the other.

What place does human sexuality have in the emerging lives of young people?

A crucial question which acts as a "tipping point" in the human development of boys and girls into young men and women touches precisely on the place of sexuality in their consciousness. What has their experience of childhood and adolescence allowed them to understand is of greatest importance for them as human beings? Are they discovering as paramount their meaning, purpose, and dignity in life and have they begun to enjoy the freedom of will to go on giving meaning and purpose to their life by fully assuming their inherent human dignity?

In this context are they able to see, understand, accept, and responsibly assume their human sexuality as one dimension among many composing their nature as human beings? They begin to understand that human sexuality is a capacity to give of oneself to the other rather than an impulse to grab and use the other for oneself. This understanding enhances their free will to responsibly assume both their rights and duties in life and in society in view of making their personal contribution to the common good with satisfaction; while engaging in the course of living out their lives as fully as possible.

Here is the reverse side of this "tipping point". On the other hand, when people are not sufficiently formed and mentored by their parents to see, understand, accept, and appreciate their life as a good yet complex reality requiring ongoing learning and personal responsibility; they are at greater risk at a young age or later to be troubled by their human sexuality - from hormones to attractions - and by all that is to be observed in an impulsive society and culture and to be endured at the hands of others.

Even with optimum conditions in which to grow up from infancy to young adulthood, life presents us with any number of challenges to our understanding of life, the world, and society in general and to our self-understanding in particular. Whatever confusion or uncertainty assails us becomes a "hot point" or "sticking point" in our psyche and may remain with us as a problem to be solved or as a vacuum to be filled or again as a challenge to be taken up. Whatever the dynamic is in a young man's or woman's life may determine to a great extent one of the principle directions or orientations of their whole life. Our instinct of self-preservation or of survival tends to push us to resolve those issues that remain as an irritant in our psyche, in our mind or heart or spirit, or even in our physical body.

A preoccupation with illness or injury can drive a person into the medical field. Sensitivity to mental or emotional pain or confusion can drive a person into the related fields of psychiatry or psychology. An experience of emptiness or a single or series of spiritual experiences can drive a person towards related fields of religion, philanthropy, a religious vocation, pastoral ministry, or priesthood. A sense of loneliness can drive a person into some form of communal life or partnership or marriage. A good experience of family life can draw one to find a competent spouse with the complementary gifts of a mother to bear the children one would father or a father for the children one would bear as mother.

A turbulent, effervescent, and unstable culture exacerbates gender confusion

It is not difficult to find in any culture or time or place some men and women either demonstrably militant or more discretely unhappy with their traditionally assigned sexual identities or roles. We could perhaps say that our own western society and culture may perhaps be giving more prominence to gender identity issues than any preceding generations.

Gender confusion or uncertainty - affirmed more factually according to recent research - has been considered a normal but transitory and temporary phase for some children, adolescents, and even for some adults. To be more specific, it has been widely observed that children may spontaneously play "doctor" and explore one another's bodies. Adolescents may suddenly experience arousal at the sight of a same gender friend's physical features or nakedness. While a young person's sense of identity remains incomplete and fluid it can and does happen that they experience such physical arousal and corresponding emotions of attraction and affection. However, for the most part, it has been found that such experiences turn out to be temporary and fade or simply stop as youth continue to develop.

It is not difficult to understand how fluid an adolescent's self understanding may be and how volatile the changes can be in how they are aware of themselves, what that may mean to them, what place that has in their life history to this point, and what other factors may affect and change or affirm how they see, experience, and understand their own self and their life. In negotiating a labyrinth one may find many dead ends and backtrack to seek out a path that goes forward. So too in human development any number of human experiences turn out to be dead ends, accidents along the way, temporary stops but not final destinations.

It is scandalous that certain ideological stances taken by individuals and interest groups are lobbied to governments to impose on children in schools sex ed programs that are in fact propaganda designed to exploit children and youth in order to advance their social engineering agenda. Such self-interested voices seek to replace fact based and traditional understanding of human sexuality with libertarian ideologies promoting sexual exploration and experimentation without any consideration of moral, responsible, or religious principles that have been proved to be beneficial for the individual, for the family, and for society at large. These interests would want to "freeze" children and young people into "labelled" categories of sexual preference or gender rather than respect them and allow them to find their way. Most people throughout history have found their way to some degree of identification with their own gender, either to enter into marriage and family or some form of celibate living.

Developmental stages and the levels of human identity

The "Institut de Formation Humaine Intégrale de Montréal" in its formation programs adopted and has refined classic psychological theory and practice explaining the stages of development of the human person in terms of levels of identity, of which are six.
  1. The body identity - from birth to one year of age
  2. The identity of the doer - from one year to two and a half years
  3. The individual identity - from two and a half to three years of age
  4. The psychosexual identity - from three to six years of age
  5. The psychosocial identity - from six to twelve years of age
  6. The identity of the self - the integration of the human identity at all five previous levels into a single autonomous identity from twelve to eighteen years of age
From eighteen years of age on, the emerging personality goes through the various stages of adult human life, and much research has been done on the stages of adult life. It is very important for all to understand however that from conception to the dawn of adulthood each human being is engaged in the fundamental process of human development which unfolds as best it can. Children need support and understanding, and all those in a position to offer it need to understand that throughout these initial stages of human development the identity of the young person is fluid and in no way fixed.

The trend to redefine and "personalize" gender

The latest trend emerging from France is a whole theoretical or hypothetical philosophical discourse around human gender. The intention seems to be to call into question all that has been understood until now in human history around our gender identity as male or female. We have always known that there is a wide range of expression of "maleness" and "femaleness" among human beings and from one culture and ethnic population to another, from one century or millennium to another. These new ideologues would want to define such variations as entirely new "sexes" or "genders". There would even be some individuals who would want to claim to have "no gender" at all.

Human society seems to be unreasonably tolerant in entertaining such wild imaginings to the point of absurdity by allowing subjective feelings and imaginings to be taken as more real, substantive, and permanent than objectively known, observable, measurable, and definable facts. Only a fool would declare of no value the subjective human experience of life, but it is equally foolish to let subjective experience trump or nullify the cumulative value of our collective experience and knowledge.

Understandably, as children and adolescents experience confusion and uncertainty, it is tempting for them and for those concerned with their development, to want to find clarity to understand what they are experiencing and what is happening to them, including in their human sexuality. The logic at work in what is variously called the "gay lobby" or related movements seeks to define the human being primarily as a sexual being, giving priority to this dimension above all other characteristics and faculties that constitute the human being, the human person. In our time it is no longer unusual to hear adults encouraging young people who experience attraction to someone of their own gender to "lock themselves in" or label / identify themselves as homosexual: lesbian or gay or any of the increasingly numerous fractions of gender "à la carte".

What began some fifty years ago as an offshoot of the civil rights movement seeking to obtain for those who self identify as homosexual the kind of freedom and public recognition increasingly gained by racial or linguistic or ethnic minorities has become an audacious and ostensibly misguided quest to redefine human nature itself and the human person with sexuality as the keystone, the primary factor defining the whole. I don't think there can be any clarity in understanding what it means to be human without beginning with some understanding of the developmental process itself. Eroticization is one of the mechanisms involved in this developmental process and examining this mechanism will turn out to be very enlightening indeed.

We will find the process of eroticization at least a clue to why the current situation is what it is, how it has happened in our day that the trend to define oneself primarily in terms of one's sexuality has come to pass, and why our society and culture has become so obsessed with sex and sexuality.

 What is "eroticization"?

Various dictionaries don't really define the term eroticization but only repeat it in a grammatical loop, such as "to eroticize is to make erotic". Our culture has become so hypersexualized, so obsessed with all that touches on or evokes genital sexuality, that it can only go around in circles without input from other sources, such as the human sciences. Even some of these manifest signs of obsession with sex and sexual pleasure, such that other forms of pleasure have all but faded into insignificance. 


For our purposes here, let us adopt the definition employed at the I.F.H.I.M. mentioned above in the course of teaching and giving practical formation in the mechanisms of the human developmental process. In this context, eroticization is the mechanism whereby a human being from one moment to the next, from conception on but especially from birth, takes "imprints" from the outside world and connects these with its own interior sensations and processes. In Introductory Psychology there is the much quoted experiment of "Pavlov's Dogs" in which the dogs at first don't salivate upon seeing and smelling unknown foods but who later on do salivate upon seeing or smelling them after having eaten and tasted them. The initial experience of seeing, smelling, and then tasting the unknown food leaves a new "imprint" in the animal's conscious and neurological processes. 

Eroticization has taken place, that is, the pleasure principle has been activated and experienced and has left traces or pathways which from then on will tend to seek repetition. Eroticization connects the animal with the object of its pleasure, and in time, other circumstances may join in the association, such as the time of day, or the light in the room, or the color of the plate, or a particular sound, and so on. Almost anything can be caught up into an association with a particular pleasure, and the association may be intensified with use or eventually disassociated altogether through disuse.


The role of "eroticization" in becoming a human person

It is not difficult to understand how dangerous it would be not to enjoy eating or drinking. Should eating and drinking be unpleasant we would all be at risk of dying of hunger and thirst. From the very first moments of life newborns seek nourishment. Every one of the billions of cells in a living body crave the replenishing of nutrients, oxygen, and water, among other things, in order to continue all the biological processes that make up a living being.

In our day most people have seen graphic animations or other representations of how the human brain works with lightning like sparks running between the synapses and establishing connections and paths. Those physical and chemical processes correspond to the "associations" we make between the sight of a food, its fragrance, its taste, the pleasure we take from those sensations, the satisfaction that comes from taking in nourishment and drink, and the awareness we accumulate of all these factors. All of this experience further develops into desire, anticipation, and future planning for acquiring, preparing, and consuming food and drink.

The first experiences of various pleasures and the process of building on those pleasures with the development of memories and imagination grows into a cumulative experience we could call a process of eroticization. We all have a rich and increasingly long and deep experience of pleasures and these make innumerable "associations" with material objects, places, other people, sights, sounds, tastes, fragrances, and countless other factors.

A friend years ago explained to me how he had developed such a strong association between coffee and cigarettes that he could hardly have one without also taking the other. There is abundant literature about strange "sexual tastes or preferences or associations" such as with pain or particular garments and so on. Such associations may initially come about by accident or coincidence, but they may also come about by conscious intent and choice.

Human beings and societies have always understood that we are not machines with no choice but to operate as built, but living organisms with free will and the ability to "shape" our behaviors, tastes, preferences, and choices. Different ethnic populations and cultures manifest different preferences to be assigned to gender as male or female. These have been, until now, widely accepted as beneficial in helping young people to find their way to clarity of identity within themselves but also socially.

The pleasure principle certainly contributes largely to the development, health, and prosperity of the human person, but through interaction with family and wider social groups, individuals also learn to curb their desires to satisfy the pleasure appetites in favor of the good of other people in particular and of the common good in general. Morality and religion have a lot of accumulated knowledge and wisdom that assure sufficient harmony between individual personal growth and happiness and the common good of others in a great variety of groupings.

Inclinations and appetites for sexual pleasure - both the diffuse pleasure of simply being male or female with all their inherent processes and sensations and meanings and the specific experience of sexual pleasure and union - are very powerful and for this reason open up great potential for coming together on such paths as marriage and family, clan or tribe, and nation as well as for division and distress, trouble and hurt, fighting, war, and death. The potential and actual consequences of sexual union are so extreme that most if not all societies develop rules of conduct and taboos to restrain excesses for the sake of peace and cooperation. 

 Eroticization enhancing or disturbing the congruence of one's gender identity

Families and societies that take great care to watch over, protect, raise, and form their children do so in the knowledge that from birth to adulthood children and youth go through and live in progressive states of uncertainty, confusion, curiosity, delight or fear, and desire to grow and emulate their elders. So much of human life and culture has been discovered through hard lessons that there is very great advantage to learning through the experience of others. It is not necessary to constantly re-invent the wheel nor to go through all the pain that others have gone through.

Even with excellent upbringing and mentoring, young people still go through unique experiences and face unique challenges, and they must all make their own decisions and find their own way. They can choose to ignore the collective wisdom of their elders and culture but they must then accept to endure or enjoy the consequences of their choices. Those whose upbringing has faults or deficiencies may very well experience greater challenges or pain as they learn through their own mistakes.

There is wisdom in adhering to the lessons and example of mentors we admire, but it is foolish to take the risk of following ideological speculation and theorizing about artificial constructs around speculative re-definitions of human gender and sexuality. What is even more damaging than theory and thought is trying to put such speculation into practice. With how the eroticization process works there is great risk in "experimenting" with sexual practices because each erotic experience builds on others before it. It is equally possible for a person to build up wholesome sexual development or unhealthy sexual experimentation.

Catholic Christian experience and wisdom teaches that sexual union is so powerful that it is evidently designed to unify one woman and one man for life, exclusively, faithfully, generously, and lovingly. Casual sex or sexual experimentation or union without a life commitment eventually lead to breaking up and this is so painful that there is great risk that one may not recover. Even when one does recover what is lost is the original innocence and the human person's "built in" optimism and joyful outlook.

Employing one's sexual faculty outside the parameters of a chaste, exclusive, faithful, life long union of one man and one woman builds erotic associations, habits, preferences that make it increasingly difficult to enter into the eminently human and paradigmatic union of marriage and family. 
 

Distorted human beings - undeveloped or "petrified" persons

The more we fire those synapses, the more "beaten" the "path" in the brain, the stronger the impulse or habit becomes to repeat particular practices. Any and every use of our sexual faculty outside of marriage and family has been shown time and again to lead to excesses that lean rather to pain than to happiness, to division rather than to union, to the disintegration of family rather than its progress.

When sexual habits outside the "norm" of marriage and family proven to be the most beneficial for society become increasingly "fixed", a human being becomes hardened, distorted, or petrified. The life of marriage and family provides the ideal environment for human beings to develop more fully their sensibilities to the good and well being of others. In other words, it is in these environments that they are more likely to develop more fully as human persons. Engaging in our human appetites without restraint is dangerous for ourselves but also for others. It is true in many ways and at many levels that "it takes a village to raise a child".

----------------------------------------------------------------

My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

----------------------------------------------------------------

© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

+ + + + + + + + + + + +  

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

When did the U.S.A. become the U.S.S.R.?

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

----------------------------------------------------------------


In recent decades we in Canada have heard echoes from our American neighbors of controversies over issues of faith. Prayer, the Bible, and even simple mention of or reference to God have all become prohibited in American public institutions, especially in schools and even colleges and universities. Anyone can be accused and criminalized for daring to include their thoughts, beliefs, or experience of faith or God in their free exercise of public life. Some of the most vehement defenders of the public virtue of tolerance turn out to be people who are most intolerant of anything having to do with God or Jesus Christ or Christianity or Judaism or the Torah or....

Christians and Jews have come under fire before, such as during the industrial revolution when some of them argued in favor of just labor laws and safe labor practices in defense of laborers who were ostensibly being exploited by capitalist interests, that is, by business people and owners. It is primarily due to their efforts, struggles, and sacrifices, even of their lives, that the work week went from six days a week of twelve hours to five days a week of seven hours, to give only one example.

The latest rounds of resentment towards the very existence of Christians and Christian institutions may very well come coincidentally by virtue of what has been called the sexual revolution. Christians generally abide by the principle that human beings are free in conscience to think, speak, behave, act, and live in accord with their conscience or lack of same. They avail themselves of their own freedom of conscience and liberty to think, speak, behave, act, and live in accord with their conscience and beliefs; as well as to speak openly of them in the interest of dialogue, personal sharing, and the free exchange of ideas and best practices. Christians, like Jews and other people of moral and religious conviction, will resist being coerced to think, speak, or act in contradiction of their values, but for all that do not stand in judgement of those who disagree or choose to live differently.

Any number of adherents and promoters of various interest or lobby groups - whether for gay rights or for the right of unlimited free access to abort unborn babies or any number of other life and lifestyle claims - are not satisfied, as Christians and other citizens might be, with their liberty to do as they wish or believe. What they now manifestly insist upon is the unfettered approval of all segments of society for their life choices, on the one hand, and on the other hand, they militate for the condemnation and suppression of all disagreement or dissent from their own convictions and subsequently they militate for the suppression of all dissenters. What we now have is an inverse form of tolerance, that is, grandiose claims of open social tolerance for every point of view except Christianity, to name only one faith tradition. 

The irony is that whereas one of the chief principles and policies of the now defunct U.S.S.R. had been precisely the suppression of all religion in general and of Christianity in particular; this public policy is now increasingly being embraced and implemented by the United States of America. The U.S.S.R., like other ideological movements and states, fell upon the suppression of the Christian faith in particular because they saw it as the greatest enemy to their policies and the greatest influence that would empower citizens to resist their rule, however unjust.

It seems to me, as a casual Canadian observer, that America has lost its way and the citizens seem to be in a process of surrendering their rights to those most able to manipulate the public institutions by means of wealth, influence, and any or all means necessary or useful in their drive to remake the country into their own image. Going... going... is the free republic dreamed of and enacted by the "Founding Fathers"... it is giving way to new forms of repression.

However, I am not a pessimist, nor am I an optimist, nor even perhaps a realist. I have met many wonderful Americans who are also frustrated to find themselves being manipulated by those with ready access to the "levers of power" and they have no intention of giving up their freedom or their hope. Believers are also confident in the victory of God in human affairs, not only his ultimate victory at the end of time but more importantly his victory now in the lives of those willing to believe and put their trust in Him.

There is undeniable power in the very notion of God, in the very name of Jesus Christ, in the principles of the Torah such as expressed in the Ten Commandments. Those most opposed to the deity or faith or religion turn out to be those who would brook no resistance or challenge to their own thirst for unlimited power to impose their own will or ideas upon society.

It could be said that those who broker in power over others are perhaps the most to be pitied. I pray and invite any and all believers to join me in prayer that they may be freed of such constraints on their understanding and appreciation for the value of life and of each human life. May the Spirit of the living God come upon them and by revealing itself to them show them that our Creator does not desire to take anything away from us in his moral expectations of us but rather is offering to give us everything.

----------------------------------------------------------------

My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

----------------------------------------------------------------

© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

+ + + + + + + + + + + +  

Friday, May 20, 2016

Eroticization and the unique developmental process of human persons - part 1

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

----------------------------------------------------------------


 
(This is an edit of a previous post from January 14, 2014 which was to be continued but was interrupted. Here this series of reflections is re-framed with a focus on our unique developmental process as human beings and the role of the process of eroticization in our development and growth as persons. Fr. Gilles Surprenant)


 We human beings are unique in our sexuality and in many other ways

It is safe to say that sexuality, though it is only one of many dimensions in the life of human beings, occupies much more place in the lives of human persons than with any other living creatures that we know to exist. 

This is without any doubt due to our unique self-awareness, our capacity and desire for self-reflection and self-understanding, which uniquely equips us for complex forms of interaction with our fellow human beings, and add to that our capacity to make deliberate choices with regards to our relationships with others of our kind, our capacity for deep interiority and spirituality and to enter into a genuine relationship with God, and  perhaps most precious of all, our freedom of will, however limited or compromised we may feel our free will to be at any given time. 

We human beings are flawed creatures, but to the extent that we are aware of our flaws, then to that extent we are able to desire to improve and to make efforts to do so. However, to the extent that we are in denial of our flaws or simply ignorant of them, then to that extent do we represent a danger to ourselves as well as to others, especially those who are in any way weak, fragile, or in any way vulnerable or somehow incapable of standing their ground in the face of encounter with or intrusion from others. 

We find a broad spectrum on the human landscape

When we consider the broad range of persons within the spectrum of human beings we can observe at the near end persons manifesting an exquisite fine tuning of sensibilities to the reality and feelings of others combined with deep respect for the life conditions and for the free will of others. Such people have a rich diversity of relationship to offer anyone interested and willing to engage in conversation and other activities with them. 

At the far end of the spectrum we sadly find human beings that seem not to resemble much that could be considered human. They seem totally absorbed by their own impulses and manifest little of anything resembling conscience, judgement, awareness of others as distinct human persons, or self-restraint. Women of this sort employ any strategies to get from others whatever it is that they seek: sexual activity, money, status, or any number of marks of attention or affection, or simply to exercise control over others. Men of this sort rather resemble dangerous predators in the animal kingdom, in their insatiable appetite to satisfy their impulses they are ever ready to pounce on the weak and unsuspecting and suck out of them every drop of sense satisfaction that they can get. 

Sociopaths are human individuals who have no sense of others as distinct human beings with their own value, feelings, dignity, and autonomy of will, such that society perceives them as hostile towards society, towards other human beings, and therefore dangerous. 
Psychopaths are human individuals who are seriously mentally unstable and whose speech and behaviors are unpredictable, and hence, also dangerous. Male sexual offenders, who use others for their own sexual satisfaction, might resemble a large male organ on wheels running out of control like a vehicle careening down a mountain road without brakes. All the faculties that normally distinguish a human being from other primates and individuals in the animal kingdom are co-opted and re-wired to serve the male organ and all its impulse drives towards satisfaction, however ephemeral such satisfaction may be.

In between these two extremes on the human spectrum between personality development at one end and personality disorder at the other end we find a full range of variations in human development for any given individual: self-awareness, self-possession, self-understanding, self-restraint, self-governance, self-mastery, maturity, autonomy, responsibility, religiosity, faith, and altruism....

In this first part on "Eroticization and the unique developmental process of human persons" let us begin with a consideration of what seems most urgent, that is, all that is wrong with human sexuality such as sexual abuse and sexual violence towards others.

Sexual abuse is a crime against humanity

The sexual exploitation and abuse of one human being by another is a crime against humanity, a crime against the person itself, because it is a violation of who that person is in their very identity as a human being by way of their sexual dimension . Our sexuality is an integral facet of our distinctiveness and who we are as human persons. We are living beings with a capacity to not only relate to others and to care for them but also to do so in a great variety of distinct ways, with degrees of intimacy and expression appropriate to our age, gender, the nature of the relationship, and what it is that we want to express or give; all of which is deeply tied into our freedom as individuals and our capacity for meaning and responsibility. With human beings, sexuality is not a mere function of a brute instinct genetically ordered towards the continuation of the species.

Sexual and other forms of abuse are particularly heinous when committed against children and other fragile, vulnerable, or innocent beings. They become doubly tragic when those perpetrating the abuse were first of all victims themselves and as a result the distorted product of having in their past suffered sexual or other forms of abuse, often at an early and deeply impressionable age. 

One benefit, admittedly an incalculably costly one, of the current scandal of sexual abuse of children and other innocent and vulnerable people is that the great wall of taboo and silence has begun to crumble. By virtue of the actions that have been courageously taken by victims, those who support them, and those individuals and agencies who represent them, but also by virtue of church leaders who have made manifest their willingness to receive complaints and exercise responsible action in response to them, we can finally observe that social taboos are shattering and it is becoming more possible to talk of these things openly and therefore to begin to work together towards solutions and better safeguards. Although the existence of abuse is tragic and sad, increasingly its victims are willing to courageously come forward to denounce what was done to them and bring this terrible crime to public awareness and to the attention of authorities.

Only a few decades ago our society was so deeply locked in by intense taboos that there seemed to be a "conspiracy of silence" around any hints or signs of the possibility of sexual or other forms of abuse. It was as if a whole society was trapped in a stage of denial, with the result that the full weight of responsibility for a victim's abuse fell on the shoulders of the victim himself or herself. It was not out of cruelty or ill will that people and those in authority acted this way for the most part, but rather more out of fear of the unknown, fear of supporting a false accusation, and fear of discovering that such horrible things are actually happening to people. Even mothers seemed incapable or unwilling to believe their own children when they complained of having suffered unmentionable acts damaging their innocence. Whatever the reasons, denial just was.

It was as if people individually, families, social institutions, and society as a whole could simply not bear even the remote possibility that sexual or other forms of abuse could be happening in their own intimate circle, in their society which they considered "enlightened", or in their church they believed to be "Christian". It was not yet the age of "reality therapy" or "reality TV" or talk shows. Thankfully we have passed into another season of human society, one in which we are more willing to admit to ourselves the truth and to deal justly and fairly with the reality, whatever that might be in any given situation.


The complex nature of the human person and sexuality 

The fundamental and horrible truth of the matter is that human nature, including our sexuality, has been weakened, damaged, tainted since the dawn of human history. The abominable practices and the pain and suffering engendered by misuse of human sexuality is primarily what has caused - almost across the board worldwide - religious leaders to condemn sexual infidelity and all forms of unusual sexual practices as evil or at least to be avoided if not condemned.

Human history, literature, and culture chronicles the many ways in which human beings cause others to suffer whenever they use their sexuality as a way of taking pleasure, often at the expense of others. While men and women differ by design in their naturally occurring genders - with males more intrusive and females more inclusive - sexual predators can and do exist among members of both genders, even if they admittedly can appear and operate very differently with different degrees of destructiveness in the consequences and aftermath of their acts of deception, seduction, manipulation, and sexual exploitation.

Particularly in our day there is an increasingly universal acceptance that sexual expression and even experimentation are acceptable providing they take place among consenting adults. Yet, increasingly there are those bold and aggressive enough to contend that such sexual activity and experimentation is even acceptable by adults to children and youth, even without consent. These opinions and ideological positions do not take into account the human developmental process nor the subsidiary process of eroticization, nor the importance of free and informed consent and the minimal autonomy that comes with adulthood.

If we are ever to understand what is going on, how the trends in human thought, feeling, conviction, and practice are constantly evolving - and often in ways that bode ill for the common good - we need to have a closer look at the nature of the human person and of our sexual dimension in a dynamic way that makes provision for and takes into account our developmental process and the unique experience and awareness of individual persons.

If sex were not pleasurable, then there would be little need for this dialogue because few would engage in sexual activity. It is because of the pleasure associated with sex and sexual feelings that the human impulse to engage in it is so strong. Sexual pleasure is part of the design of the human person and is directly related to human beings' fertility and power of reproduction. Unlike most other creatures in the animal kingdom human beings enjoy self-awareness, free will, awareness of others as other, and so can and do engage in sexual activity with or without the intention of reproducing, with or without varying degrees of awareness of and of attention to the experience and well being of the other.


Sex is good, yes, but not in every instance

Even reluctant or prudish religious authorities have traditionally granted that sex was good with the belief that it was designed and created by God, but only for the transmission of life and the survival of the species. They could not accept that sexual pleasure was good in and of itself, but rather that humanity's capacity for that pleasure had irremediably been corrupted and could never be regained. Paradise and human innocence were lost forever. Christians with a more complete understanding of human nature appreciate that human sexuality is perfectly designed for human couples when engaged in by one woman with one man for life and that the power of sex by design binds them together, activates their combined fertility, allows them to mutually give pleasure and comfort to each other, and over time can evolve and grow with them and their relationship. As they share their lives together, grow as a couple, and develop their family, their sexual union intensifies their mutual attachment, fidelity, and solicitude, that is, their disposition and motivation to look out for the other and to deliberately put the other's interests first, ahead of their own.

Pope John Paul II, the Bishop of Rome from October 16, 1978 to April 2, 2005 was of this view and went much further and deeper in his development of thought on what he called the "theology of the body", which emerged over time from the philosophical reflection he engaged in from his youth on human meaning, freedom, love, and the powers of "the acting person". He held the view that human beings give meaning to their lives by their deliberate choices and that the highest meaning comes in the freedom to make of oneself a total gift to the other. He called this the "law of the gift". His work continues to be promoted all over the world for the common good.


 Why do people pervert sex into violence?

Human sexuality is deeply tied into the nature of the human person, our freedom, our capacity for giving meaning to our life, and our capacity to be open to and care for the other. Sexual abuse is particularly evil because the aggressor "takes" sexual pleasure at the expense of the pain and trauma caused by the violation of the dignity and integrity of the one who is in this way victimized. Even when the sexual violation causes minimal harm, the act of force against the other's will remains a traumatic and damaging experience.

Why do people then perpetrate such violence one upon another? The answer can only be found in the toxic mixture of the beauty, goodness, attractiveness, power, high purpose, and desirability of our "sexual powers" on the one hand, and the distorted or underdeveloped humanity of the perpetrator on the other hand. By analogy we understand that a hammer in the hand of a sculptor like Michelangelo can be instrumental in creating such inspiring sculpture as the Pieta, but in the hand of a vandal can destroy a thing of beauty, or wound or kill living things and even people. In addition, each destructive act further damages the perpetrator.


The beauty and power of human sexuality 

So it is with our human sexuality, which can be seen as a capacity for tenderness. Human beings don't simply have sexuality, but we are sexual beings. Our sexuality informs, colors, and is informed by our whole being at every level. Comforting a child engages our human sexuality, our capacity for tenderness, but in a healthy person does not generally involve sexual arousal or pleasure. These tend not to activate without specific stimulation, unlike other functions which operate automatically. As a human being develops normally, a wide and extensive variety of meaningful experiences, sensations, and gestures enrich each person's capacity and skill in expressing tenderness in ways appropriate to each relationship and in communicating with others in exchanges that can be either mutually enriching or mutually harmful, damaging, and destructive.

Our sexuality can be considered healthy when we have effective safeguards allowing us to distinguish different types of relationships. Clear distinctions and understanding give us freedom to express a wide range of tenderness - actively in giving and passively in receiving - without any confusion from sexual arousal. The appropriateness, meaning, and significance of sexual expression from a casual glance or tone of voice all the way to the intimacy of the marriage bed takes place in a continuum defined and circumscribed by the nature of each relationship, time, circumstance, and the meaning we wish to give it. In all its manifestations human sexuality can be considered most noble when it seeks and effectively accomplishes the good of the other.

Genital sexuality adds to the expression of tenderness a rich universe of meanings specific to the union of a man and a woman committed to each other for life and the outcome of their sexual fertility the transmission of life itself by the procreation and education of children. The intensity of the sexual union of a married couple strengthens them to face their many challenges and duties as parents and is the fire at the heart of the family. Sexual activity outside of a woman / man couple with a mutual commitment for life sets aside the procreative function, the stability of a life commitment, or other dimensions which have repercussions on those engaging in sexual expression and those affected by it, such as the offspring and other circles around them.

In our day both men and women who understand themselves to have same sex attraction have sought to normalize sexual activity between two persons of the same gender. Any sexual expression between two persons of the same gender must necessarily stretch the imagination and have recourse to means that in the end can only simulate the loving union of a man and woman. In the end such simulations remain a parody of what nature has established as the standard and can only generate fertility through artificial manipulation.

Still, there is no denying the human impulse to love and be loved, to found a family or household, and to engage in the rearing of children. The "gay lobby" has in various places obtained the right to engage in a civil same gender union and same sex couples do acquire children by artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, surrogate pregnancy, or simply through adoption, and do their best to perform the full range of tasks needed as parenting by human children. However, the act of fertilization bringing each new human life into existence can only be an act of loving union of the parents when these are a mother and father joined together.

There is also no denying that our most deeply rooted experience and imagery of couple love remains one man and one woman who commit themselves to each other for life in order to found a family. They have between them all that they need through their own fertility to conceive and rear their own children. In addition, in this traditional model of marriage and the family, the children are not denied their right to have a parent of each gender for their optimal formation and development through their various stages of formation: infancy, childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. There is apparently embedded in the human psyche a need to have a parent "of each kind". This innate felt need goes way beyond a child simply comparing itself and its home situation to that of other kids at school, which merely mirrors and accentuates an innate need.


Human sexual development requires mentoring

On considering human nature, it is easily observable that human beings don't just fall into a perfect experience and sexual life stance, but that this requires careful upbringing, learning, mentoring, integrating, and living. We also need to learn to seek and give forgiveness when our expressions of tenderness and sexual union are clumsy or selfish and manipulate, take, and hurt rather than serve, give, and care. When our sexuality and capacity for tenderness are poorly formed, mistakenly informed, or incompletely matured, all kinds of harm can be done on both parts in the missteps, accidents, manipulations, and misunderstandings that occur.

We can see this in every generation and just about in every life. Married couples must invest selfless effort to develop their sexuality so that it becomes a mutual venture that enhances their union and bears good fruit for others around them beginning with their family. The more selflessly parents live their sexuality as a couple, the more benefits their children receive. They develop a healthier sexual outlook from the mentoring they receive.


Wandering away from the original design

Other human couple forms have the disadvantage of not having the differentiation and complementarity that are inherent in the basic man-woman couple. This natural difference seems to be a fundamental component in the permanence and stability of being committed to each other for life, and the deepening of their relationship that comes from long term fidelity and exclusivity. In embracing the design in the male / female couple model human beings discover a unique form of freedom that comes from sharing a deep personal relationship with their Creator God as the true and existential source of their love, fidelity, and fertility. When fertility is taken apart from its power to give pleasure and unite, one consequence in our times is that fertility is regarded as a curse or threat and medicated as a disease. In this scenario now playing out it is easy to understand how sexuality can become an arena of disagreement and unpleasantness if not of selfish manipulation and abuse.

When children are brought into the world in a family where at its center the parent couple do not live their sexuality with the purest of motives and the clarity and freedom of unselfish love, one can begin to understand how all kinds of misunderstandings, manipulation, hurts, selfishness, and deviations can occur. It is the tragic truth that it is most often and primarily in the family that children are violated and abused in various ways, including sexually, where parents or other adults take advantage of children precisely because they cannot assert themselves and are in their innocence most vulnerable and easy to manipulate and exploit.

Once sexuality is in this way perverted in the young, they struggle for their whole lives attempting to regain what was ripped away from them, ever desiring to recover their original innocence and come to live a more wholesome sexuality in accord with our fundamental design for happiness and togetherness. Those who are fortunate are able to find help and gradually sanitize or make healthier their sexuality, but others become inclined to reproduce in their own lives the abuse and perversions of sexual tenderness that marked them in their innocent years and inflict it upon others. It is much like the children of alcoholics who tend to gravitate towards another alcoholic when they are seeking out a spouse or life partner simply because that is the type of human personality with which they became familiar while growing up. No matter how twisted and hurtful a parent might be, the child's need for love is so dependent and total that it even soaks up drop by drop what love may exist, however perverted, in the most depraved of parents.


Exquisitely sensitive spouses or dangerous rapists

It is the very same raw material of human sexual personality that begins at conception and develops through gestation, birth, infancy, childhood, youth, and adulthood. Why, then, do some become exquisitely sensitive and loving spouses, some struggle with clumsy attempts to please, others have trouble setting aside their own desires and come across as "taking" rather than "giving", and still others become predators: manipulators, violators, rapists, pedophiles, ephebophiles, in short, dangerous offenders and monsters?

It is impossible to understand these differences outside of a "developmental model" of the human person as a sexual human being in contrast to a human being who simply happens to have sexual organs. A human being is not simply born to just exist and be the way it is, unchanging, to continue unchanged in the manner of a stone. On the contrary, a human being is a single living entity that grows until it stops growing and dies. All of a human being's experiences accumulate and interact with all the others throughout its developmental stages and then continues to do so throughout its entire life cycle. You cannot examine or understand a person's sexuality without striving to understand the entire person, at all of its levels and facets, because everything within them is interrelated. You "pull" on one aspect and the whole fabric is pulled along.


Human development is a long and complicated process

Before the advent of discoveries and advancement in our understanding of the human person, it was generally thought - and many people have not caught up with the social sciences and still think - that a person is "born that way", the way they are, and that they cannot change. Advances in scientific observation, analysis, theorizing, and experimentation have revealed that the living entity called a human being is a physical and psychic organism with a wide and complex range of emotive experience as well as expression, and in addition has a more mysterious spiritual dimension that is more difficult to observe and quantify.

The human being begins its development with the genetic material it "receives" from its mother and father and from the moment of conception also absorbs untold billions of "impressions" from both the mother and the father during gestation in the womb and then continues to take in untold quantities of "impressions" from its parents, other people, other living things, and everything else that exists all around it, as well as its own inner processes, moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, which in turn are also very complex.

Each individual has received from its genetic material certain "predispositions" to a variety of conditions, inclinations, sensitivities, and sensibilities. In almost every instance of identical twins, there are marked differences in temperament, sensitivity, and so many other factors of personality that cannot be explained any other way. As time passes and it takes in quantities of sensations and experiences, the individual undergoes the ongoing cumulative effect of all that it is taking in, its ongoing growth, and a developing and constantly operating process of "updating" or "rebooting" for understanding and interpretation, judgement and orientation, choice and integration, responsibility and freedom. Sensations, perceptions, emotions, thoughts, interpretations, awareness, feelings, moral judgements, free choices, the acceptance of responsibility and responsibilities, freedom to change, deliberate commitments, ongoing learning, admission of fault, and efforts to improve are only some of the multiple facets and operations taking place more or less simultaneously that taken together are in a continuous way formative of the human person.There is more going on within each human person than the person itself can keep track of or than any computer could compute.


Human development - becoming a person

In the social sciences it is now generally accepted that the human being is a dependent entity from the moment of its conception until it reaches maturity. We could say that every human being receives from conception all the necessary "raw material" to become human and, as he or she develops, must accept to participate in its own formation and development while accepting the formation and caring of others, and in turn, learn to care for others. One becomes a mature adult, with at least the essential elements and abilities of an adult, after having experienced 8 developmental stages from conception until around twenty-five: fetus, body identity, identity of the doer, individual identity, psychosexual identity, psychosocial identity, identity of the self, and early adult. The adult is the human being who has sufficiently developed to now be able to take care of itself and survive, but also to take care of others independently of whether there is much in return.

We more easily recognize these stages as gestation, infancy (0-1), toddler (1-2 1/2), budding individual (2 1/2 - 3), first parental love or Oedipus Complex i.e. nightmare stage (3-6), the "flocking" by gender stage (6-12), teen age (12-18), and "getting a life" (18-25). Along the way, each person develops "preferences" of sensation, outlook, expression, reaction, and action. During the first year of life after birth, some prefer to be more "captative" / active / grabbing, while others prefer to be more "receptive" / passive / receiving. This preference generalizes in everything and gives each personality its particular inclination. The other way remains possible but won't come naturally and will always require more effort.

During the "potty training" stage, some become more "retentive" and hold things in, hold onto things; while others become more "eliminative" and release things, let them go more easily. This generalizes to every aspect of life from personal hygiene to money to generosity of time and spirit. Again, as in the previous stage, the other way remains possible but won't come naturally and will always require more effort.

From the stage where children "fall in love" with their opposite gender parent (3-6), some males befriend their "intrusive" mode (generally experienced as wanting to be like Daddy) - which is inscribed in the very design of their body - and let it become their natural way of being manly in the world. Some - either because they have been harmed by extreme forms of male intrusiveness or simply lacked an available or admirable model - prefer the female "inclusive" mode (they prefer to be like Mommy or like a very inclusive father). As a result being intrusive takes more effort and energy every time they need to employ that mode, particularly if the mother was intrusive in a way that felt angry or controlling or threatening. If the mother did not esteem or respect the father, he would appear less admirable in the boy's eyes, which would make it more difficult for him to identify with his father's maleness or male mode.

During that same stage when little girls "fall in love" with their Daddy, some females befriend their "inclusive" mode (generally experienced as wanting to be like Mommy) - which is inscribed in the very design of their body and let it become their natural way of being womanly in the world. Some - either because they have been harmed by extreme forms of female inclusiveness or simply lacked an available model - prefer the male "intrusive" mode (they prefer to be like Daddy or like a very intrusive mother). As a result being inclusive takes more effort and energy every time they need to employ that mode, particularly if the father was inclusive in a way that seemed weak or withdrawing, or humiliating. If the father did not esteem or respect the mother, she would appear less admirable in the girl's eyes, which would make it more difficult for her to identify with her mother's femaleness or female mode.

In their teenage years, boys and girls try out their newly discovered personal preferences and abilities and find that they are energized when they are with others and may become increasingly extroverted, or they may find that being with others is more draining than energizing, so that they may become more introverted. These dispositions may also tend to vary in accord with the size of the group and their familiarity with the others and degree of acceptance by the others; as well as their own internal dynamics as they experience what energizes or drains them emotionally. Some will be more inclined to be leaders and others followers and still others, either role depending on the circumstances and the others involved.


Most of us have some "wrinkles" in our development

Social scientists, philosophers, theologians, varied other professionals, and people in other walks of life will define what is a human person from a variety of viewpoints and a wide range of parameters. What does it take to become fully human? If an individual gets stuck in the first stage of life, infancy, when it was the center of the universe and the mother was still felt to be part of its own body, then as an apparent adult, this individual turns out to behave so selfishly with such little conscience that we call them sociopath - without awareness of others as having a life of their own - or psychopaths - so intent on using others for their own ends that they are actually dangerous to life and limb.This is the case of those who in the face of the prospect of being abandoned will kill their spouse, children, and finally themselves, because they suffocate emotionally at the very thought of being abandoned. They are psychologically like the infant that whimpers, then cries, then screams, then begins to choke when its primary care giver is out of sight and no longer responds.

Those who get "stuck" at the potty training stage may appear as extremely retentive or miserly or up tight, on the one hand, or on the other hand eliminative or spendthrift or irresponsibly carefree. Such an individual may be developmentally incapable of caring for themselves or for others - unable to put out what it takes to care for themselves or for others or unable to conserve what resources or time or energy that living life fully and caring for others takes.

Those who get stuck at stage four - 2 1/2 to 3 - may never have become an "individual" in their own right, either because they became so merged with a needy parent or parents that, discouraged from paying attention to their own feelings and needs, they became paralyzed, incapable, or incompetent as an individual human person. Such an individual, perennially deprived of individuality or personal identity, would be hard pressed to properly care for others, or for that matter valuing and caring for their own life, and as a result being ever depleted for lack of self care. If they manage to heroically care for others, it would then be at extreme cost to themselves, being unable to distinguish differences in priority among the needs and wants of others and their own needs and wants, unable to reconcile the needs of others and their own.

Those who experience difficulties in befriending their own gender come to such difficulties from any number of factors: the degree or lack of masculinity of their father, absence of a father, frightening or humiliating distortion of a father figure, overly authoritative or controlling father, or unsteady, unstable character of their father; the degree or lack of femininity of their mother, absence of a mother, frightening or humiliating distortion of a mother figure, overly controlling or suffocating mother, or volatile, unreliable character of their mother; which factors can be exacerbated by one or several occurrences of one or more forms of abuse: emotional, physical, psychological, sexual; or deprivations that are normally associated with social instability, poverty, famine, homelessness, and violence such as war, unemployment, racial or other forms of negative discrimination, religious or other forms of persecution, and so on.

Healthy, impoverished, or damaged development at any of these earlier life stages has cumulative effects when the individual enters into the subsequent more social stages of human development, which in turn can accentuate or open up delays in development of various facets of the emerging human person. Childhood and teenage bullying, social pressures to conform and even to perform anti-social or criminal acts, neglect or abandonment by significant adults, extreme social upheaval and countless other factors can enhance, hold back, or demolish an individual's human development up to that point in their young lives.

The initial result when the individual "comes of age" and is recognized as "an adult" will be a human individual that is capable of a minimum of self care, awareness of others as independent individuals with their own value and right to exist, ability to live and act in the world and society, and ability to assume the rights and duties of a citizen and member of society. For many, this initial plateau or goal is delayed until later as they struggle to survive, to help their family or basic group to survive, all the while trying to welcome the challenges and events of life as opportunities to continue to grow and to develop into fully functional human persons.

When we stop to consider all the "accidents" that impinge on the young impressionable and developing lives of children and youth, it is astounding that so many people develop as well as they do and become fairly well intentioned and functioning human beings. It appears that the human being has more innate resilience than one would at first expect, given our simultaneously high degree of fragility. In part two we will examine more closely the unique process of eroticization and its huge impact in the development of the human person.

...to be continued....

----------------------------------------------------------------

My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

----------------------------------------------------------------

© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

+ + + + + + + + + + + +