I’ve been struggling and toying around in my mind with the notion of writing something about emerging sexuality.
You know, the point where our innocent child-like minds transform those charming thoughts of butterflies, rainbows, and puppies into more mature experiences of holding hands, hopping, skipping, jumping around…kissing…and, yes, loving.
Growing up, we think about sex a lot before we actually engage in anything even closely resembling it — it starts for most in our minds.
In terms of when we begin to crave physical behavior with an actual person, we collectively agree it’s around puberty, but I’m exploring the underlying thoughts and consciousness behind it.
The emergence of innocent, unfamiliar, physically arousing thoughts
For me, at about the age of 10, similar to how today’s modern computers filter, Photoshop, and manipulate appearances on a screen, my brain conjured up a little girl in my mind’s eye — every night as I closed my eyes, entering that delicious dream state right before losing consciousness —I imagined I was running around rolling hills and meadows with a holographic image of a fleeting, dancing, giggling, girl. I knew nothing specific about sexual behavior other than the book we all read using animals to depict where babies come from, and a general idea that my male anatomy interacts in some magical way with girls’ parts.
Even at 56, 46 years later, I vividly remember the overwhelming sensation I’d get during those few minutes before falling asleep. Part of me consciously conjured up images of girls and in my mind would play with them the way I would boys — throwing a football, swimming, running around, goofing off. But there was something about the way these imaginary girls made me feel. I knew, even at 10, that just the THOUGHT of them made me feel different than anybody else did.
I didn’t quite understand why thoughts of girls — some of whom resembled my elementary school classmates, though my imagination merged them into one abstract whirlwind of emerging, innocent, desire — could spur such indescribably powerful feelings and emotions.
Wild, pretty, uninhibited, ballsy but kind, girls as a figment of my brain’s imagination by the time I turned 11, began to stir feelings and emotions so intense and mysterious, to this day, I have rarely experienced anything as powerful in real life with an actual partner — with the three loves of my life as notable exceptions.
Maybe mind games are the dark side of having a vivid imagination
Those prepubescent years are very important in terms of how physical and emotional sexuality emerges because it sets the foundation for how we view, analyze, and experience, sex, and whether physical love or carnal pleasure drives our relationships and marriages, and lives.
While admittedly entirely anecdotal, after watching quite a few shows on YouTube related to young adults involved with drugs and prostitution, when interviewed, almost all described some form of early sexual initiation or abuse as part of the genesis of how they experience sex, love, and commitment.
I’m not suggesting there’s an empirical correlation but I do wonder whether the exposure to overtly sexual images, abuse, and children engaging in sexual activity at earlier ages, is at least in part interfering with this natural evolution many of us experience from innocence to curiosity to experimentation, to arousal, and if we’re lucky, to love.
Summary
What once began within the innocent child you once were, is still there…hiding, but not dead. That little creative hungry figment, desperate for another spark, another cerebral big bang to enrich the bloodstream and invigorate the senses, is still alive.
Can we engineer a diet of the mind that allows for near pornographic fantasies that center around our current good fortune…yet remain encapsulated? Or will we always be searching for that non-existent, blond-or-brunette-haired, fleeting, hologram of desire, exciting our dreams and keeping us on the ready for someone…or something…new?
I’m never giving up on the former — because that imaginary girl that initially stirred something deep inside my soul, was never real. Yet just the thought of her was the seed of every sensual and sexual desire I’ve ever had in my life— in my glorious, creative, healthy, skull — my beautiful mind.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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