Where do you go when you need to prepare yourself for a very stressful time? (Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 1519).
Stress can cause us to isolate ourselves or it can impel us to interact with others. A common denominator for all humanity is sexuality--especially so as maturation progresses. No honest person can assert that he/she has never encountered stress due to it nor has uniformly dealt with this stress in a perfect manner. The great paradox of sexuality is that something so private impels us to social behavior. In the news recently is the story of a young man who "snapped" and killed others after long-term loneliness and emotional isolation. Clearly the sex drive in all its broad manifestations is not something that we can safely veneer over without serious repercussions. Our desires are real, just as real as our fingerprints. The challenge is to honestly express our desires without hurting ourselves or others. I think we need to learn to disassociate our most outlandish desires from action--yet learn how to verbally own up to them. I have expressed elsewhere my belief that many "deviant" desires, dreams, and daydreams are normal but we learn to repress them mercilessly not only in terms of action--which is appropriate--but also verbally (committing great dishonesties 0f commission and omission)--which is cravenly unethical. I have stated that in my opinion many young men think they are gay simply because most other young men (also having homosexual dreams) prevaricate and outright lie about their own experiences.
To respond to stress with isolation is a dangerous thing even though it is often a characteristic of immaturity. The quicker we learn to honestly confide and confess the better off we all will be.
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