Distilling the essence

It is what our brains are designed to do.
We take in zillions of messages. We sort them out and average them. The process eliminates some of the noise, exposing the hidden consistencies.
When someone does this well for many years, we call it wisdom.

For all the noise around the topic of sex, one message is very consistent; "restraint."
Restrain your impulses. Don't touch. Don't look. Don't talk about it much. Don't let anyone see any body parts even remotely associated with sex.

Even after you grow up and get a partner, the restraint theme continues. Not this time of the month; not in public; not now; not with anyone else; not so fast. It all reinforces the powerful and growing message,,, "Restrain yourself."

Some people respond to this repression by rebelling and purposely breaking as many of these rules as possible. Some just meekly follow the rules.

It's fascinating how the brain intertwines things associated with pleasure. Sex is such a powerful part of our brain that anything we even associate with sex can trigger pleasure. If red shoes are associated with pleasure, pretty soon red shoes themselves will cause the pleasure. The same is true with restraint, cars, even pain.

Some people, operating in the language of dreamspeak, internalize the message "restrain yourself." They begin to associate restraint with sexual pleasure. That blossoms into fantasies and eventually becomes its own source of pleasure.