1456 



HORMONAL REGULATION OF BEHAVIOR 



or too low in libido against some fanciful 

 and unreal standard, or alternatively be 

 tricked by the publication of statistics on 

 reported erotic behavior to compare himself 

 unrealistically against an average as if it 

 were normative. 



Certainly the cross-cultural behavior sup- 

 ports the position that culture can modify, 

 in both directions, behavior the capacity for 

 which is itself highly variable from individ- 

 ual to individual. 



However, it is easier for females to con- 

 form to demands for more sexual activity 

 than fits their own individual desires, and 

 for men to abstain from sexual activity, 

 than for males to simulate greater erotic 

 feeling than is actually present. Whereas 

 Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard 

 (1953) have pointed out that females cannot 

 simulate the tumescence of peripheral parts 

 of the body, this inability to simulate is far 

 less conspicuous than the males' inability to 

 }H"oduce or to maintain an erection. 



VI. Cognitive Rehearsal 



In the use of a concept like cognitive re- 

 hearsal, or in the statement that parental 

 behavior may be subsumed under the es- 

 tablishment of gender role. Money, Hamp- 

 son and Hampson, in their chapters in this 

 volume, rely on a shared knowledge of much 

 of the ethnographic material of our own 

 culture, on the ability of the reader to suj)- 

 ply concrete materials on child rearing, 

 dress, sports, etc. When, however, material 

 from other cultures is used, it becomes im- 

 portant to spell out in considerable detail 

 the way in which handling and experience 

 during infancy, type of relationship to 

 members of both sexes of different ages, 

 and enjoined relationship to the own body, 

 become involved in the formation of the in- 

 dividual cognitive expectation of certain 

 types of mature sex functioning. 



In placing sex behavior within the wider 

 pattern of the total culture, a useful model 

 is the community of all living generations, 

 seen from two points of view (Mead, 1947a, 

 1949a). From the standpoint of the life 

 cycle, the types of pre-adult behavior which 

 are culturally facilitated may be seen as 

 prefigurative of adult sexual roles, and the 

 types of behavior found in old age after sex 

 activity has ceased may be seen as post- 



figurative. Thus, both male and female in- 

 fants learn in infancy something about the 

 mother's breasts which will be part of the 

 adult pattern of foreplay, tabooed foreplay, 

 etc. And (depending on whether the earlier 

 period has been styled as frightening, zest- 

 ful, pleasant but effortful, mildly rewarding, 

 or more tantalizing than satisfying) old age 

 and cessation of sex activities may be re- 

 garded in such different ways as a surcease 

 from unwanted demands, an unbearable 

 deprivation, a well earned rest, the next 

 step in an orderly progression, or something 

 to be compensated for by continued vicari- 

 ous participation in the ongoing sexual ac- 

 tivities of junior members of the com- 

 munity. In this sense, the period following 

 that of adult sex activity may be said to 

 be postfigurative of the reproductive i)eriod. 

 Seen longitudinally, any period is prefigura- 

 tive of what comes after and postfigurative 

 of what went before. However, this method 

 of conceptualizing stages in the life cycle 

 is applical)le only to the individual life 

 cycle, seen in isolation. Actually the small 

 child is exposed not only to its own re- 

 sponses of sucking, sphincter release and 

 control, locomotion, etc., but to individuals 

 of both sexes and all ages who are reacting 

 to him and to each other in terms of their 

 individual age-sex positions (Erikson, 

 1959). The child learns from slightly older 

 children's openly expressed disapproval and 

 disgust, as well as from the bitter, gossiping 

 voice of his grandmother, how attitudes to- 

 ward the body and sex relationships to other 

 persons are patterned within that society. 

 Each age learns from each other age. The 

 child who is learning self-control and ways 

 of meeting the requirements of modesty is 

 constantly reminded by the immodesty and 

 lack of self-control of a younger child. The 

 old observe again every day the activities 

 of maturity from which they are believed to 

 have desisted, which they fervently regret, 

 etc. In this sense, the behavior of any age 

 group may be said to be cofigurative for the 

 members of each other age group. For an 

 understanding of sexual learning, which re- 

 quires not only the formation, but also the 

 maintenance of habits and attitudes, a sys- 

 tematic knowledge of the whole is necessary. 

 For purposes of this type of discussion, sex 

 will be discussed not as behavior leading 



