Sexual Performance as Identity: The Consequences

[Deb]

I thought this was a VERY interesting post Ron Card put up on Facebook today. Something I'd not thought about, but it sure makes sense. Seth said this 40+ years ago and the truth behind his words is very obvious:

From The Nature of the Psyche, Chapter 5, Session 772, April 19, 1976:

Since you value sexual performance in the most limited of terms, and use that largely as a focus of identity, then both your old and young suffer consequences that are not so much the result of age as of sexual prejudice. It is interesting to note that both the old and the young also find themselves outside of your organizational frameworks. The young are more freewheeling in their thoughts before they accept sexual roles, and the old are more freewheeling in theirs because they have discarded their sexual roles. I did not say that old or young had no sexual expression — but that both groups did not identify their identities with their sexual roles. There are of course exceptions. If the man or the woman is taught that identity is a matter of sexual performance, however, and that that performance must cease at a certain age, then the sense of identity can also begin to disintegrate. If children feel that identity is dependent upon such performance, then they will begin to perform as quickly as possible. They will squeeze their identity into sexual clothes, and the society will suffer because the great creative thrusts of growing intellect and intuitions will be divided at puberty, precisely when they are needed.

You apply this belief to physical systems and psychological ones. In terms of sex, you insist upon a picture that shows you a growth into a sexual identity, a clear focus, and then in old age a falling away of clear sexual identification into "sexual disorder." It does not occur to you that the original premise or focus, the identification of identity with sexual nature, is "unnatural." It is you, then, who form the entire framework from which your judgment is made. In many cases the person is truer to his or her own identity in childhood or old age, when greater individual freedom is allowed, and sexual roles are more flexible.

What you think of as (underlined) male ego-oriented characteristics are simply those human attributes that the species encouraged, brought into the foreground, and stressed. Using those actually as guidelines, you have so far viewed your world and formed your cultures. There are some exceptions of note, but here I am speaking historically of the Western world with its Roman and Greek heritage. Your gods became masculine then; competitive. You saw the species pitted against nature, and man pitted against man. You consider the Greek tragedies great because they echo so firmly your own beliefs. Man is seen in opposition in the most immediate fashion with his own father. Family relationships become a mirror of those beliefs, which are then of course taken as statements of fact concerning the human condition. You thus have a very polarized male-female concept.

[Sena]

Since you value sexual performance in the most limited of terms, and use that largely as a focus of identity, then both your old and young suffer consequences that are not so much the result of age as of sexual prejudice.

Deb, thanks for highlighting this. As I am 68 years old, it is relevant to me!

[Deb]

I thought it explained a lot, this was especially interesting to me because I've seen kids becoming promiscuous at increasing younger ages during my own lifetime:

If children feel that identity is dependent upon such performance, then they will begin to perform as quickly as possible. They will squeeze their identity into sexual clothes, and the society will suffer because the great creative thrusts of growing intellect and intuitions will be divided at puberty, precisely when they are needed.

It also reminded me of something I'd read years ago that once a woman is past childbearing years, she is no longer considered attractive or sexy to men (that reason being on a biological level rather than a conscious one). But men can be fertile into their old age. I wonder if that's why we rarely see older actresses become idols, while men like Sean Connery (87) or "The Most Interesting Man in the World" (Jonathan Goldsmith, 79) still get the fun jobs (and the girls).

I wonder why we did this to ourselves? :

What you think of as (underlined) male ego-oriented characteristics are simply those human attributes that the species encouraged, brought into the foreground, and stressed. Using those actually as guidelines, you have so far viewed your world and formed your cultures.

[Sena]

I wonder if that's why we rarely see older actresses become idols,

Helen Mirren is now 72 years old, and continues to get good roles, e.g. as an army colonel in Eye in the Sky.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Mirren#2010.E2.80.93present

I agree that there is a male/female disparity.

[Deb]

Helen Mirren came to mind for me too. But her roles are not involving attraction so much, very slightly in The 100 Foot Journey. But certainly not with a younger man, such as is often the case with male actors.

Have you seen Harold and Maude? The priest's reaction to Harold having relations with Maude?

Priceless.

[Sena]

Have you seen Harold and Maude?

No, I haven't seen that.

[Deb]

It's a campy old (1971) movie that turned into a cult classic, it's really enjoyable. A comedy, but makes a lot of statements about society, life, age. And it made me really love Ruth Gordon as an actress and her character Maude: "who teaches Harold about living life to its fullest and that life is the most precious gift of all...Her view of life is so joyful that, true to the film's motif, it crosses a blurred, shifting line into a carefree attitude toward death as well. " Wiki Great music track too, Cat Stevens.

My mistake, the person I was thinking about in the movie was actually a priest, not Harold's therapist. Here's a trailer.

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[Deb]

OMG Ben is cheating on me!!!? Just joking, I sleep with an electric heating pad. Not Gay Ben lol.

Seriously, I LOVE Jessica Lange. I didn't really pay much attention to her until American Horror Story, and she totally impressed me with her roles in that delightful series: She is 68, edgy, smart, powerful, has it all together, beautiful and sexy without needing to be made to look like she's a 20-something in the filming. Very counter culture. That really stood out for me: a post menopausal actress cast in the rare role of being attractive, vivacious, vital.

[Deb]

Still going down that off topic (but somehow related) path. I came across this in a round about way, but the Bechdel Test for movies came up in another video. Since I'd not heard of it before, looked it up. There's more than a bit of information out there, but this short video sums it up:

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