Rites of Passage
Part of the rites of passage of growing up are what have been termed 'rites of separation from the asexual world...followed by rites of incorporation into the world of sexuality'. These may be formal or semi-formal - 'for some students, going to college is partly a sexual ritual, like the ceremonial dances of the whooping crane' - or take the form of a more private induction: 'formal and artificial...the impression that a long-established rite was to be enacted, among Staffordshire figurs and papier-mâché trays, with the compelling, detached formality of nightmare'.
Freud was particularly interested in Ethnological accounts of 'the "ceremonial" (purely formal, ritual, or official) coitus, which takes place' in connection with 'the taboo of virginity'.
Read more about this topic: Sexual Ritual
Famous quotes containing the words rites of, rites and/or passage:
“Th’ inferior priestess, at her altar’s side,
Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“As if the musicians did not so much play the little phrase as execute the rites required by it to appear, and they proceeded to the necessary incantations to obtain and prolong for a few instants the miracle of its evocation, Swann, who could no more see the phrase than if it belonged to an ultraviolet world ... Swann felt it as a presence, as a protective goddess and a confidante to his love, who to arrive to him ... had clothed the disguise of this sonorous appearance.”
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“To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)