d.  The Role of Parents in Imprinting Sex-Scripts

     Most parents are not sex-abusers by any stretch of the imagination, 
but they probably are affecting the contents of the sex-files of their children 
whether they intend any imprinting or not.  
Because we understand so little about the process of sexual imprinting, 
parents can probably do little to create 'desirable' sexual fantasies.

     In fact, because of the haphazard way that sexual imprinting occurs, 
children often get sexual imprinting quite at odds with what the parents desire. 
This could happen if the parents thought that keeping the child in the dark
about sex would result in a more conservative and conventional sex-script.  
But denying and repressing sexuality might cause odd things to be imprinted.
So because of our almost total ignorance of how sexual imprinting takes place, 
neither the parents nor the child are responsible for what gets imprinted.

     One inadvertent way for parents and other adults in authority 
to have an impact on the sex-files of children is thru punishment.  
Sometimes corporal punishment has an explicit sexual element, 
for instance when it includes taking off the child's clothes.  
And sometimes it has sexual overtones, as when spanking a bare bottom.  
When punishment is administered by someone in uniform, 
such as a nun or a military officer, 
the garb of the punisher might also become part of the sexual imprinting.

     Some adults find themselves attempting to reproduce
childhood scenes of punishment
because such events were the occasions of their first sexual arousal.  
And their sex-files have focused upon these early moments of sexual arousal 
as paradigms that must be recreated—at least in fantasy.   

     Children raised in sex-negative families, grow up seeing sex as a “no-no”.  
They are taught that sex is dangerous and evil.  
So their sex-scripts make something exciting from this big NO.  
This can result in seeking excitement by choosing as sex-partners 
individuals who would be most displeasing to parents.  
Sexual excitement comes from breaking the rules.
The enjoyment depends on doing something forbidden, dirty, unnatural, 
violating all the NOs the parents tried to inculcate.   

     If the parents knew in advance that their NOs 
would define what their children feel compelled to do, 
they would certainly be more careful about the negatives they apply to sex.

38        IMPRINTED SEXUAL FANTASIES:        A NEW KEY FOR SEXOLOGY         by JAMES PARK

     Other NOs are helpful and constructive:  
Don’t play in traffic;  don’t play with fire;  don’t eat harmful substances.  
We all come to agree later with these warnings.  
But we also learn that many of the NOs about sex were lies.  
We did not go crazy from solo sex.   Sex was not a sure road to hell.

     While we are considering the connection between sex and hell, 
we need to note the role of organized religion in sexual imprinting.  
Casual observation suggests that children raised in sex-negative religions 
are likely to find that they have odd things in their sexual fantasies.  
This is probably because the religious upbringing that denies and represses sex 
causes unusual (sometimes bizarre) elements to slip into the sex-file     
because everything is supposed to be kept out. 

     As sex-script research progresses,
this observation that sexually-repressive churches produce more people
with odd sexual fantasies will either be confirmed or refuted.

     We will also do cross-cultural research 
to see if other cultures have markedly different sexual fantasies.
Since we have almost no data from our own culture, 
it could be a generation or two
before we will have a comprehensive picture of what ‘turns people on’.

     Do less sexually-repressive cultures
imprint their members with sexual fantasies that are less bizarre?
Are their imprinted stories and images closer to nature 
—having less to do with pain and suffering?
But we might discover the opposite:  
Perhaps there are some cultures that routinely imprint their children 
with what we would regard as very strange sexual responses. 

     Further research into sexual fantasies will probably also confirm
that our imprinted sexual responses are independent of our gender-personalities.
Parents do have a profound impact on the gender characteristics of their children.
Such traits as tenderness, reason, sensitivity, empathy, etc. 
are enculturated into our children by constant reinforcement
and by discouraging their opposites.   

     Folkwisdom has a contrary view: 
that certain sex-scripts go with certain gender-personalities.  
It is commonly believed that macho men will be heterosexual
and that sensitive men will be homosexual.  
Also it is commonly believed that lesbians have certain personality patterns.
But more careful research is likely to refute such assumptions.

Chapter III          SEXUAL IMPRINTING AT CRITICAL PERIODS          by JAMES PARK               39

     One possible exception to this observation 
results from the phenomenon of gays and lesbians 
associating mainly with people of the same sexual orientation.  
This has an enculturating effect, so that conventional gays and lesbians 
frequently show the personality traits popular in their sub-cultures.

     But the fact that a boy has developed artistic or creative interests 
conventionally considered ‘feminine’ 
does not influence the imprinting of his sexual fantasies.
His personality will continue to grow and change
as he is exposed to many shaping factors.
But his sex-script will be set by a few early imprinting events. 
In short, parents can profoundly affect a child’s personality, 
but the same child’s sexual fantasies will probably be imprinted at random, 
which may result in sexual responses the parents would not have chosen.

     Rebellious sex-scripts might result when children reverse
everything their parents taught them about sex  
and explicitly affirm what their parents want them to reject.  
The very act of forbidding might make the fruit more attractive. 
So the child’s sex-file will be filled with nothing but 
what the parents (or the society at large) did not want to be there.  
If prohibitions create sex-scripts filled with the forbidden, 
then enlightened parents will try a different approach.  
Just saying “no” to sex might make ‘naughty’ sex more attractive.

     Some parents tell their boys and girls never to touch themselves “down there”
—a part of the body too terrible even to name.  
If they touch themselves, they commit a grave sin.  
So a sense of guilt might become part of the sex-script.  
If so, the fantasizer might find it exciting to fantasize committing vile crimes 
because the sense of guilt causes sexual arousal.

     Perhaps after 50 or 100 years of more research and thinking, 
we will know enough about how sexual imprinting occurs  
to take some conscious and rational control over how we imprint our children.  
If sex-lives are deeply affected by sexual imprinting before age 20,
then we naturally ask what we might do
to make this imprinting better for succeeding generations of human beings.   

     In the past, we were not aware that we were imprinting the young.  
So-called ‘sex-education’ was mainly telling young people about reproduction.
This has not helped young people to understand their sexual urges, 
which is what they are primarily dealing with during adolescence.
They are more interested in their sexual feelings and fantasies than in babies.

40        IMPRINTED SEXUAL FANTASIES:        A NEW KEY FOR SEXOLOGY         by JAMES PARK

     Learning takes place by much repetition, 
but imprinting into one’s sex-file takes place suddenly and quickly,  
perhaps with only a single moment of input.             
So there is no way to know just when the sex-file becomes open. 
And even if we did know when a child’s sex-file opened,  
we probably would not agree about just what should be slipped into it.

     Again, much more research will help to clarify the role of adults 
in the imprinting of the sex-scripts of children—for good or ill.        
And when we discover more about how sexual imprinting occurs, 
then we will still have to discuss carefully what we would like to put
into the sex-files of the next generation of human beings.      

            e. Positive Sexual Imprinting for Children. 

     As soon as the sex-script hypothesis is formulated, 
enlightened parents begin to wonder how they should imprint their children.  
At first this question will be asked in terms of ‘sex education’.  
But education is fundamentally different from imprinting.
Children can certainly learn many things about sex in the normal ways, 
but the imprinting of their sexual fantasies 
is not like instruction in proper table manners.

     Thoughtful parents want to imprint the ‘best’ sex-scripts in their children.
But, since we know so little about the process of sexual imprinting, 
it will be a long time before we will be able to create sex-scripts at will.


    The 3-1/2 pages quoted above come from
Imprinted Sexual Fantasies: A New Key for Sexology by James Park.
The complete table of contents will appear if you click the title above.
The page numbers appear at the bottoms of the pages.
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Created 4-6-2008; Revised

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