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Sexuality
Why it’s so difficult to experience complete sexual compatibility
Sexuality is a topic about which few of us tire of either reading or writing. Our sexuality reveals some of the deepest truths about ourselves and is one of the few ways in which under propitious circumstances we can express ourselves most completely.
Yet for most people, especially in cultures fearful about sexuality, such self-expression is difficult or impossible. Indeed, it’s frequently the case that many people aren’t even aware of their deepest sexual impulses and desires because self-censorship from an early age means these things are locked away in the darkest recesses of the psyche, utterly unknown by the person concerned.
We humans have had an overly-complex relationship with sexuality for as far back as we can see into the past. It’s plausible to presume that many of our sexual problems began with the Agricultural Revolution at the end of the last ice-age that changed our way of life out of all recognition. Once wealth could be passed down from one generation to the next, the question of paternity became even more important than during our long hunter-gatherer existence.
Group primate species have to juggle the complex interactions necessitated by a blend of competition and cooperation. Some solve the problem by adopting…