D. Sex-Scripts Are Involuntary Psychological
Responses.
We did not choose the sexual fantasies that
dwell in our brains.
Somehow these sexual interests and responses
were inserted into our minds before we knew what sex was all about.
We discover these involuntary responses already deep in our psyches.
Just as a certain smell can evoke a particular memory,
so certain sexual ideas or images pique our sexual interest.
When a certain smell reaches our brains, memories come spontaneously.
Likewise, when something accidentally triggers our sex-scripts,
our sexual responses come spontaneously, unbidden—perhaps unwelcome.
Thus, when we encounter a sexual idea,
episode, or activity,
we find our minds responding with sexual interest
and our bodies responding with sexual arousal—involuntarily.
We might wish that certain ideas would not arouse us,
but we cannot control our sexual interests or sexual arousal.
Perhaps the effects of a sudden new image or idea will soon wear off.
But if the stimulus comes close to our sexual-arousal script, we get
‘turned on’.
Chapter I INTRODUCING
THE SEX-SCRIPT
HYPOTHESIS by
JAMES
PARK
9
If we pay close attention to what draws our sexual interest
and causes involuntary sexual arousal,
we will have a window into our imprinted sexual fantasies.
What images and stories cause us to become sexually aroused?
If we remind ourselves we did not choose our sex-scripts,
we can accept sexually-arousing experiences
as ways of uncovering our sexual imprinting.
We might speculate about how certain elements got into our sex-scripts.
(If we could plan the sexual imprinting of our children,
what images and ideas would we promote and which would we avoid?)
1. Why We Experience Conflict
between Lust and Reason.
Many people find it easier to be sexual
while under the influence of alcohol or other mood-altering drugs.
This suggests that while they are being mature and adult,
sex does not happen as easily for them.
But when they remove their rational inhibitions, they can be more
sexual.
Put another way, perhaps they cannot allow their sex-scripts to run
unless they have anesthetized their rational, adult controls.
They enjoy responding sexually as if they were still teen-agers,
but their adult values conflict with those impulses imprinted earlier.
And if they ‘give in’ to what they might call
“adolescent urges”
(perhaps having sex with inappropriate partners),
they might later be filled with remorse and regret
for behavior they cannot defend or even explain rationally.
Politicians often say, “I was under the
influence of alcohol”
when they are caught in unconventional sexual relationships.
When they become irresponsible, their sex-scripts take over.
They follow whatever ‘turns them on’
—they respond to whatever gets their sex-scripts going.
Perhaps they enact the sexual fantasies they had as teen-agers.
And because other adults understand such adolescent urges,
they tend to forgive those who succumb, since “it could happen to
anyone”.
Some men (especially) can remain sexually
irresponsible for weeks.
They just have to stay more or less drunk all the time.
Then they can live out their teen fantasies without worry,
if they can afford to buy all the sex they want.
They can employ prostitutes to act out their sexual fantasies with them.
But after they return to their more adult
life-styles,
perhaps they wonder what led them into such inappropriate behavior.
Their imprinted sex-scripts possessed them.
Alcohol merely allowed them to follow their impulses.
10 IMPRINTED SEXUAL
FANTASIES: A NEW KEY FOR
SEXOLOGY by JAMES PARK
When they return to their adult personalities,
they sometimes seek professional help to understand what happened to
them.
They want to understand how they could have let themselves engage
in such immoral and perhaps illegal sexual behavior,
seeing that normally they are such upstanding members of the community.
And sometimes only when they are arrested for illegal sexual behavior
are they forced to face this duality within themselves.
One part wants to be a responsible adult, married to one woman, etc.
But another part wants to live out their teen-age sexual fantasies.
Perhaps they do not understand how their sexuality ‘controls’ them.
But if sexual fantasies do not change after age 20,
then it is no surprise that middle-aged men hire teen-age prostitutes.
Such adolescent images have remained in their minds all their lives.
2. The Struggle among Secret
Homosexuals.
Men with repressed homosexual sex-scripts are
sometimes puzzled
by the ‘holidays’ they take from their ‘normal’ heterosexual lives
to indulge their homosexual sex-scripts.
They have probably had homosexual sex-scripts all along,
but they have learned how to behave like ‘normal’ straight men.
However, occasionally they ‘give in’ to their homosexual fantasies
—the sexual urges they have been keeping under wraps for many years.
As homosexuality becomes more acceptable in
our society,
more of these men are giving up the pretense of being heterosexual.
They no longer need to maintain the marriage-and-normality front.
Some divorce their wives and join their same-sex partners,
deciding to live according to their long-repressed sexual fantasies.
Some of these men are bi-sexual—having both kinds of sex-scripts.
3. Public Figures Caught in their
Sex-Scripts.
Every week prominent people—priests,
politicians, professors—
are caught in sexual acts or relationships of which they are ashamed.
In their mature, adult selves, they do not defend such sexual behavior.
But, they felt possessed by a ‘sex-drive’ over which they ‘had no
control’.
As themselves they would never consciously choose
the pattern of behavior they fell into ‘because of their gonads’.
When such people find themselves violating
their professed beliefs,
perhaps they are responding to their imprinted sexual fantasies
—scenarios fixed in their psyches at an early age.
Their sexual behavior is ‘stuck’ in the period when it was imprinted
even tho they continue to grow in all other dimensions of their lives.
The controlling fantasies were imprinted before age 20.
If their sexual urges were not learned, they cannot be unlearned.
Chapter I INTRODUCING
THE SEX-SCRIPT
HYPOTHESIS by
JAMES
PARK
11
4. We Did Not CHOOSE Our Imprinted Sexual Fantasies.
We find ourselves with built-in sexual
interests
—automatic responses we did not choose.
And there is no way we can return to the innocence of childhood
—before we had any interest in sexual matters.
Our imprinted sex-scripts have become permanent in our brains.
A personal illustration of involuntary sexual
interest:
Once I noticed a couple cuddling in the park, their dog nearby.
I was drawn to watching the couple lying together.
And other passing adults were also interested in this behavior.
But the dog was ignoring them completely.
People being affectionate or sexy was completely boring to the dog.
The dog was interested in the passing parade of people.
And when other dogs went by, that was even more interesting.
Perhaps this illustrates the organization of
our minds.
Animals brains are structured so that they cannot ignore movement.
(And we humans also notice anything that moves.)
But because we are also sexual creatures,
we cannot ignore sexual events that happen in front of us.
Sexy objects or events draw our attention.
In early childhood we were not yet interested
in sex.
When we saw people naked, it left no impression on us.
When we were young children, we had no special interest
in the parts of the human body we later learned were sexual.
But as adults we do not ignore such opportunities.
We have a deep interest in everything sexual.
If we have an accidental opportunity for a sexual peek,
our attention shifts in that direction rather than somewhere else.
Once sexual imprinting has begun, we will
never again be indifferent to sex.
Sex has become an important part of our minds.
And from then on, we must cope with our sexual interests.
5. Our Sex-Scripts Do NOT
Determine Our Behavior.
Even tho we enter our adults years with
unchangeable sex-scripts,
we can still choose among several different sexual behaviors.
As moral creatures (unlike the other animals, who have no ethics),
we decide how we are going to respond to our inclinations.
For most of us, deciding how to behave is usually no problem,
since our inclinations fit so well with acceptable social patterns.
But if our sex-scripts run counter to the dominant patterns of our
society,
we might have problems—unless we find others with similar sexual
fantasies.
12 IMPRINTED SEXUAL
FANTASIES: A NEW KEY FOR
SEXOLOGY by JAMES PARK
In Chapter IX of this book, we will explore
how it might be possible to transcend our imprinted sex-scripts
and to create new sexual responses within specific relationships.
But short of that, we must acknowledge our given sexual fantasies
and learn how to integrate them into our sex-lives.
The three and a half pages above are from Chapter I
of Imprinted Sexual Fantasies
by James Park.
This link leads to the table of contents,
from which you can read the rest of this chapter.
Page numbers appear at the bottom of each page—with
the footer.