Adult punishment of childhood sex play can trigger lasting somatic symptoms

Evidence

Objections to this system always imply respect for sexual taboos; but it is useless to try to inhibit curiosity and pleasure in children; this only results in creating repression, obsessions, and neuroses; exalted sentimentality, homosexual fervor, and the platonic passions of adolescent girls along with the whole procession of nonsense and dissipation are far more harmful than a few childish games and actual experiences. What would really be profitable for the young girl is that, not seeking in the male a demigod—but only a pal, a friend, a partner—she not be diverted from assuming her own existence; eroticism and love would be a free surpassing and not a resignation; she could experience them in a relationship of equal to equal. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1977 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Mrs. P.H. has been married for the past eight years to a man who is a member of an athletic club. She visits the gynecologic clinic on account of a slight inflammation of the ovaries. There she complains that her husband gives her no peace … She perceives only pain and does not know the meaning of gratification. The man is rough and violent … Finally he takes a sweetheart… [This does not trouble her in the least.] She is happy … she wants a divorce and calls on an attorney. In his office she meets a clerk who is the exact opposite of her husband. The clerk is humble, delicate, weak, but he is also loving and tender. They become closely acquainted and he begins to court her. He writes her tender letters. His petty attentions flatter and please her … They find that they have similar intellectual interests … With his first kiss her anaesthesia vanishes … This man’s relatively weak potentia has roused the keenest orgasm in the woman. After the divorce they married; now they live very happily together … He is also able to rouse this woman’s orgasm with kisses and other caresses. This was the same woman whose frigidity in the embrace of a highly potent man drove her to take a lover! — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1626 (#expands, via linked claim)

These trends were replicated by Walker, Rowe, and Quinsey (1993). RWA scores correlated . with admitted acts of sexual aggression on the Sexual Experiences Survey among 59 students, and . among 75 nonstudents. High RWA men were also more likely, at .53, to report experiencing sex guilt (Mosher, 1988), which usually predicts low levels of sexual behavior. But sex guilt also correlated positively (.23) with sexual aggression in this study. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 389 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Repressing childhood sexuality produces neuroses more harmful than sexual play itself — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1977; Sex guilt paradoxically correlates with both low sexual behavior and sexual aggression — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 389; Sexual frigidity can stem from emotional mismatch rather than physical constitution — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1626

Broader Connections

• Repressing childhood sexuality produces neuroses more harmful than sexual play itself #corroborates (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1977
• Sexual frigidity can stem from emotional mismatch rather than physical constitution #expands (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1626
• Sex guilt paradoxically correlates with both low sexual behavior and sexual aggression #qualifies (0.70) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 389