Chapter 16 Chapter 12 Girl (Part 2)-1

Chapter 12 Girl (Part 2) When the mother loses her prestige (which often happens), this resistance is intensified.She is such a person: Wait, obey, cry and lose your temper.It's an annoying character who doesn't get any respect in everyday life.As a victim, she was despised; as a shrew, she was abominable.Her fate seems to be typical of a rapid cycle: Life with her can only repeat itself without going anywhere.She is firmly fixed in the role of housewife, stops the expansion of existence, and becomes a symbol of obstruction and passivity.Her daughter doesn't want to be like her, but adores women freed from female slavery: actors, writers and teachers.She longed for sports and research; she climbed trees, tore clothes, and competed with boys.

She usually has a best friend who is most intimate.This friendship, like love, is exclusive and often involves sharing sexual secrets.The little girls exchanged and discussed with each other the information they could get.And it's not uncommon to form a triangle where a little girl falls in love with her friend's brother.As in, Sonia is Natasha's best friend and in love with her brother Nicholas.This friendship is in any case shrouded in mystery, and it is generally said that children at this stage like to have secrets.Mystery often satisfies the girl's curiosity, and in response to this she makes the most insignificant trifle a secret.Having a secret is also a way of making herself important, which she tries to achieve: she tries to meddle in the affairs of grown-ups; she makes up stories for them that she half-believes, in which she plays an important role; etc. .Among her companions, she pretended to look down on the boys, just as the boys looked down on her.She and her friends formed a separate group, giggling and making fun of boys.

But in fact, she was happy when boys treated her equally, and she wanted their approval.She longed to be part of that privileged class.The primitive tribal woman's rebellion against male dominance is also expressed in every novice by her refusal to accept her fate: her transcendence condemns her absurd immanence.She didn't like to be threatened by traditional etiquette, didn't like to be troubled by clothes, didn't like to be bound by household chores, and didn't like to suddenly stop flying.Numerous surveys in this area have almost the same result: all boys, like Plato at the time, profess to be afraid of being girls; almost all girls regret not being boys.According to the statistics of Havelock Ellis, only one out of every 100 boys is willing to be a girl; more than 75% of girls are willing to change their gender.Carl Piper's research (cited by Burdoun in The Child's Mind) showed that 18 out of 20 boys between the ages of 12 and 14 said they would be anyone but not Be a girl. Of the 22 girls, 19 wanted to be boys, reasoning: "Boys are in a better situation, they don't have to suffer like women... My mother will love me more... Boys' jobs are more interesting... Boys are more willing Learn I can scare girls with jokes...I don't have to be afraid of boys anymore...they're more free...boys' games are more fun...they don't bother about what to wear." This last, oft-repeated:

Most of the girls complained that their clothes disturbed them, that they had no freedom of movement, and that they had to be careful not to stain their pastel-coloured dresses. At 10 or 12, most little girls are indeed "garconsmanques" [boyish girls].That is, they are children who lack some part of the boy.Not only do they feel that this is deprivation and injustice, but also that the state they are forced to be in is very unhealthy.In the girls the exuberant vitality is repressed, the idle vigor becomes nervous.Their too delicate work cannot exhaust their too exuberant energy. They grow bored, and out of boredom, and to compensate for their low status, they give themselves up to melancholy and romantic daydreams.They taste the sweetness of this easy escape and lose their sense of reality.They succumbed to their emotions, they could not control their excitement; instead of acting, they chatted, and in chatting they mixed serious sentences with meaningless words into a mishmash.Neglected and "misunderstood," they console themselves in narcissistic fantasies: they see themselves as romantic heroines in novels, self-admiring and self-pitying.They become squeamish quite naturally.Posturing, these weaknesses are especially noticeable during adolescence.Their discomfort manifests itself in irritability, tantrums, and tears.Their penchant for crying (a habit many women retained later) was largely due to their love of playing the victim role: not only as a protest against their harsh fate, but also as a means of attracting affection.Little girls sometimes cry in the mirror to get double the pleasure.

Most of the drama of teenage girls is related to their family relationships.They want to sever ties with their mother: they alternately express hostility towards her and retain a strong need for her protection.They really want to monopolize the father's love, they are jealous, sensitive and demanding.They often make up stories, imagining that their parents are not really their parents, they are adopted children.They attribute their secret lives to their parents and meditate on their relationship.They often imagine that the father is misunderstood and unfortunate, that he feels that his wife is not an ideal partner, while his daughter can be such a partner.Or, conversely, imagine that the mother thinks it is right for the father to be vulgar and cruel, and that the mother fears all physical relations with him.Fantasies, plays, childish tragedies, false passions, eccentricities—the causes of all these should be sought not in the mystical soul of womanhood, but in the girl's surroundings, her situation.

For someone who sees himself as an autonomous, transcendent subject, it is a strange experience to discover that his own inferiority turns out to be an inherent innate nature: for anyone who sees himself as the One Knowing yourself to be other and other is a strange experience for me.This is what happens when a little girl begins to learn how to live in the world and what it means to be a woman in the world.The realm to which she belongs is everywhere enclosed, restricted, and dominated by the male world: however high she lifts herself, however far she ventures, there is always a ceiling above her head and walls all around her. block her way.The gods to which the man worships are so far away in heaven that they do not actually exist for him: the little girl lives among the gods played by the man.

This situation is not unique.Negroes in America know that they are partly melted into a civilization that considers them to form an inferior caste.In Richard Wright's Native Son, it was this decisive inferiority, this accursed otherness, that Big Thomas suffered from early in life, and it was his Doomed by the color of his skin: When he saw the planes fly, he knew he was not allowed to fly as a black man.Because she is a woman, the little girl knows that she is not allowed to go sailing, to explore the polar regions, to have a rich and colorful life of adventure and countless pleasures: she is not born for this.There is an important difference between the Negro and the woman: in submission the Negro has a sense of rebellion, no privilege compensating for his harsh lot; in the presence of a woman there is a temptation to complicity.I have long thought of the fact that, alongside the real demands of the subject for sovereign freedom, there is also the unreal desire of the existent for conformity and escape.The passive pleasures concocted by parents, educators, books and myths, as well as women and men, seem to be very desirable for young girls.She was taught from an early age to enjoy passive pleasure.The temptation is getting more and more insidious.As her transcendent flight hits harder obstacles, she must succumb to that pleasure with greater misfortune.

But the girl who accepts her passive role in this way agrees to submit without resistance to a fate imposed on her from without, and this catastrophe terrifies her.The young lad, whether he is ambitious or disinterested and timid, faces an open future.He will be a seaman or an engineer, he will stay on the estate or go to the city, he will travel the world and become rich; he will feel free in the face of a future full of unknowns.Maidens become wives, mothers and grandmothers.She will run the house like a mother, and take care of her children as she was taken care of when she was a child - she is only 12 years old, but her story is already written in heaven.She doesn't need to make up, she can find such stories every day.She felt both strange and horrified as she contemplated the predictability of this life at every stage, toward which every day moved irresistibly forward.

This explains why a little girl is more concerned with sexual mysteries than her brothers.Indeed, boys are interested in these things too.However, they are not very concerned about the future roles of husbands and fathers they will assume.For a girl, marriage and motherhood involve her whole destiny.From the moment she began to faintly feel their secrets, her body seemed to be under a hideous threat.The magic of motherhood is gone: whether the girl gets the news well or not, sooner or later, she will always know that the baby did not come to the mother's womb by accident, nor by the wave of a magic wand.She would ask herself uneasily.Usually, she no longer finds it wonderful to have a parasite growing inside her, but instead finds it terrifying.The thought of the monstrous bump filled her with terror.

How are babies born?Even if she hadn't been told about the howls and pains of childbirth, she'd heard it occasionally, or read the Bible: "In mourning you will give birth." She couldn't imagine the details of that. The torment had a premonition.She conceived of a strange operation near the navel.She would be disturbed if she assumed that the fetus was born through the anus: little girls have been known to suffer from psychogenic constipation when they think they have discovered the process of birth. Exact explanations won't help either.The bulging, tearing and bleeding will always haunt her.The richer a girl's imagination is, the more she is tormented by these scenes, and no girl can stand before them without trembling.Colette said her mother found Zola passed out after reading Zola's candid, nuanced and shocking account of her birth.

Even repeated reassurances from adults do not reassure children.Because she's growing up, she's learned not to believe what adults say, and she often finds them lying when it comes to things like reproduction.She also knew that they thought the scariest things were normal.If she receives some severe physical blow--tonsillectomy, tooth extraction, whitlow opening-- She will project the pain engraved in her heart onto her future childbirth. The physical nature of pregnancy and childbirth immediately evokes "something physical" that happens between husband and wife.The word "blood" that often appears in expressions such as "same blood", "pure blood" and "mixed blood" sometimes inspires children's imagination.They might assume, for example, that marriage involves some solemn ceremony of blood transfusion.But more often, "some kind of physical thing" is thought to be related to the bowel and bladder organs.Children especially tend to think that men urinate into women. Sex is considered dirty.This confuses children who are strictly forbidden to do "dirty" things: how can adults think such things are an integral part of life?At first the child is indifferent to the absurdity he finds: he does not make sense of what he hears, reads or writes, everything seems to him untrue.In Carson McCullers' very entertaining "Wedding Participants," the young heroine encounters a pair of lodgers lying naked on a bed, but the oddity of the situation doesn't strike her as unreasonable. How important: It was a summer Sunday, and the Marlowes' door was open.She could only see part of the room, only part of the clothes and the leg of the bed with Mrs. Marlowe's corset on it.However, in the quiet room, there was a voice she couldn't distinguish.She went to the door, looked in, was startled, ran into the kitchen, and shouted, "Mr. Marlowe is crazy!" Belinice hurried across the hall and looked into the front room. One look, then pouting, and slamming the door... Frankie tried to ask Belinice what was going on in the house, but Belinice only replied that they were ordinary people, and that since the family And others, who should at least know how to keep the door shut.Although Frankie knew that the other was referring to her, she still didn't understand.What kind of madness did he have?she asked.But Belinice just wanted to answer: It's just a normal kind of madness, little guy.Frankie knew from her tone that she had other plans to tell her about it.Later, she only remembered that Marlowe and his wife were ordinary people... When people warn children not to approach strangers, or explain sexual events to them, the sick, manic, and psychotic are likely to be mentioned.If a girl gets groped by someone sitting next to her at the movie theater, or sees a naked man on the street, she thinks she's bumped into a madman.Of course, encountering psychosis is unpleasant: a child who sees an epileptic fit, hysterical outburst, or row that disrupts the order of the adult world can feel threatened.In a harmonious society, however, there are social foundations which the abnormal cannot disturb, just as there are beggars, invalids, and patients covered with sores.It is only when parents, friends, and teachers are suspected of surreptitiously engaging in Satanism that children actually get terrified.Let us take a typical example from Dr. Lippmann's "Youth and Sex": When I first heard about sex between a man and a woman, I denied the existence of such a thing, since it might have involved my parents.I thought too highly of them to believe they would do such a thing.I don't think I'll ever be able to do something so terribly disgusting.Unfortunately, it didn't take me long to hear the voices of my parents doing this, and I finally woke up...it was a scary moment.I covered my face and ears with a quilt, wishing I could be thousands of miles away from them. The transition from the thought of well-dressed and respectable people admonishing decency, moderation, and a sane life to the thought of two naked animals lying face to face is so sudden. !Indeed, this is an adult who is tarnishing his reputation and shaking his respected position, and there are dark clouds in the sky today.Girls are often reluctant to accept this discovery: "My parents wouldn't do that!" she insists.Or, she wants to conjure up for herself a decent picture of sexual intercourse, as one little girl put it: "When a child is wanted, parents go to the doctor's office; they strip naked and blindfold themselves because they don't They should look at each other; then the doctor sticks them together and takes care that everything goes well." She turned the act of lovemaking into a surgical procedure, unpleasant of course, but just as legitimate as going to the dentist. Behavior.However, no matter how much you deny and evade reality, uneasiness and doubt will creep into the child's heart, producing painful effects like weaning: it is no longer a question of physically separating the girl from the mother, but her A problem in which everything around which defenses have been built has crumbled.She finds herself without a roof, abandoned in utter loneliness in the face of a dark future. What made the little girl even more distressed was that she really couldn't see the specific form of the ambiguous curse that weighed on her.The information she got was incoherent, the books said contradictory things, and even technical explanations couldn't dispel doubts. Countless questions were asked: Does sex hurt?Is intercourse pleasurable?How long will it last - 5 minutes or overnight?Some books say that a woman becomes a mother after one hug; others say that she is not pregnant after hours of sexual pleasure.Are people "doing that" every day?Or just occasionally?To find out, girls read the Bible, look up dictionaries, and ask friends.And so she groped her way through lust and disgust.In this regard, Dr. Lippmann's research provides some interesting data.Here are some of the answers teenage girls gave him about their initial understanding of sexuality: In my strange and vague thoughts I continued to go astray. No one brought up the subject, neither my mother nor my teachers.No book can fully explain the subject.There is an air of dangerous and sinister mystery surrounding the sexual act which at first seemed to me natural. The big 12-year-old girls, with some crude banter, bridged the gap between them and my classmates. Yet all that remains vague and repulsive.We argue about where babies are formed.Since getting married is a reason people get very excited about, maybe that kind of thing only happens to people once.I got my period when I was 15 and it surprised me again... Sex starts!This kind of thing is never allowed to be mentioned in our family! ... I have searched in books, but I have exhausted my energy and found no way ... To my teacher, this problem does not seem to exist at all ... One book finally told me the truth, and my over-excitement disappeared .Unfortunately for me, it took me a long time to understand that true love consists only of sexual urges and acts. My initiation stage: (l) 3 1/2 to 11 years old, starting to have questions and unsatisfactory thoughts...no answers...at 7 years old, my beloved rabbit had a baby rabbit, my mother told me that the relationship between animals and people The hatchlings, all grown inside the mother and later born from the flank, seemed to me unreasonable... The nurse told me about pregnancy, childbirth and menstruation... Then, to my last question— - What role does he play?Father answered with vague metaphors of pistils and pollen. (2) From 11 to 13 years old, some self-motivated attempts.I've looked in encyclopedias and medical books... only to get theoretical information delivered in strange but important words. (3) 13 to 20 years old, possess some acquired knowledge: (a) through everyday life; (b) through science books. When I was 8, I played with a boy my age. I repeated to him what my mother had told me: that a woman has many eggs in her body...if the mother wants a child badly, one of the eggs will be born...he called me a fool and said that if the butcher and his wife wanted A child, and they're about to go to bed with that nasty thing.I was stunned... when I was 12 and a half, there was a maid in the house.She told me all kinds of ugly things... out of shame, I didn't say a word to my mother.But when I asked her if sitting on a gentleman's ass would make a baby, she explained everything to me as clearly as possible. I learned where babies come from at school, and I thought it was a horrible thing.But how is the baby born?We both formed a whim about all this.Especially after this: One winter morning, before dawn, we came across a man who had his sex organ lighted up and asked us if it was good and worth swallowing.We felt very nauseous and literally wanted to vomit.Until I was 21, I thought babies were born from the belly button. There was a little girl who asked me if I knew where babies came from.In the end she called me a goose and said that babies come from women and that in order to make babies they have to do some very nasty things with men.She then recounted the incident in detail, but I couldn't believe it existed.Once, I was sleeping in my parents' room and within moments I heard the sound of something I didn't think could happen, and I felt ashamed of my parents.All this made me a different person.I feel like I'm dying of mental pain and think I'm a fallen guy because I know these things now. It should be said that even explicit guidance will not resolve this conundrum.Even with the best intentions in the world, fathers and teachers cannot put sexual experience into words and concepts.It can only be understood by actually experiencing it.Any analysis, no matter how serious, will inevitably have a ridiculous side, and will not represent the truth.From the pollination of flowers, the mating of fish, to the mating of chickens, cats and sheep, and even the sexual intercourse of human beings, people can very clearly clarify the mystery of their reproduction in theory-but the mystery of sexual pleasure and love is still there. is incomplete. How is the pleasure produced by a kiss or a caress explained to a child who is not yet lustful?Family members often kiss each other, sometimes even on the lips.Why does that contact of mucous membranes sometimes produce a dizzying effect?It's like explaining colors to a blind person.Without the intuition of the excitement and desire that give meaning and unity to the sexual function, the various elements that make up the sexual function will appear shocking and bizarre.The little girl is especially disgusted when she realizes that she is a virgin, closed, and that to become a woman she must have a man's sex organ inserted into her.Since exhibitionism is a very common sexual perversion, many teenage girls have seen a penis in motion.In any case, they had seen the genitals of male animals, and, unfortunately, the genitals of horses often caught their eyes.This is likely to scare them.Fear of childbirth, fear of the male genitals, fear of the "crisis" that threatens married people, aversion to indecent behavior, ridicule at meaningless gestures - all this often leads the little girl to declare: "I'll never get married." Maybe it's protecting yourself from that pain. The surest route to threats of folly and obscenity.To explain to her that one day she will think that neither virginity destruction nor childbirth is so terrible, thousands of women have gone through this and think it is not a bad experience, it is In vain.When a girl is intimidated by something happening outside, we can get her out of it.But if we predict that she will accept such things naturally in the future, then she will be afraid of the altered and misguided version of herself she meets in the distant future.The caterpillar turns first into a chrysalis and then into a butterfly, which disturbs the child: Is it still the caterpillar after its long sleep?With beautiful wings, can it still recognize itself?Some little girls I know have horrific fantasies at the sight of a chrysalis. However, such physical changes do occur.The little girl does not understand what it means, but notices that something subtle is happening in her relationship to the world and to her own body: she begins to perceive senses of touch, taste, and smell that she had not noticed before; Strange images flashed through her mind; she barely recognized herself in the mirror; she felt "uncomfortable", as if everything made her "uncomfortable".This is how Richard Hughes described little Emily in "Traveling Innocence": It was her 10th birthday... Emily was submerged in water up to her chin to cool off.Hundreds of small fish rubbed her all over with their curious mouths, it was like a light kiss, and it was hard to tell what kind of feeling it was. Anyway, she's grown resentful of people touching her lately--but this time she's the most resentful.She finally couldn't bear it anymore, climbed to the top, and got dressed. Even Tessa, the quiet Tessa in Margaret Kennedy's The Eternal Nymph, feels this strange commotion: She suddenly became very sad.She looked down into the dark hallway, split in half by the moonlight through the open door.She couldn't stand it anymore, jumped up, and whispered angrily: "Oh! How I hate it all!"... She ran to the hills and hid herself, she was afraid. Angry, haunted by the bleak foreboding that seemed to fill the peaceful house. She stumbled and climbed towards the mountain pass, and kept talking to herself: "I wish I could die! I wish I could die!" She knew that she didn't think so in her heart, she didn't want to die at all. But such fierce words seemed to satisfy her... In Carson McCullers' "Wedding Participants," this tumultuous moment is described in detail: Just this summer, Frankie was sick and tired of being Frankie.She hated herself, became loafing, very obnoxious, wandered around the kitchen in the summer: she was dirty, greedy, selfish, sad.In addition to being selfish as hell, she was a sinful person...the spring that year was long and annoying.Things began to change, and Frankie didn't understand the change... The green trees and flowers in April made Frankie feel inexplicably sad.She didn't know why she was sad, but because of this strange sadness, she began to feel that she should leave this town... that she should leave it and go far away.Because the late spring of that year passed too slowly and gently.The long lingering spring afternoons, the green tenderness, had made her weary of many things that made Frankie suddenly want to cry.Sometimes, she remembered very early, standing in the yard for a long time, looking at the sunrise sky.It was as if she had a question in her mind, and the sky couldn't answer it.Things that she never cared about before began to hurt her: the lights in the houses she saw on the side of the road in the evening, the voices she hadn't heard in the alley.She wanted to look at the light and listen to the voice, but something in her heart seemed to freeze, waiting.But the lights would go out, the sound would die, and while she was waiting, it was all over.She was afraid of these things because they would suddenly make her wonder who she was and what she was going to be, why was she standing here at this moment looking at the lights, or listening to the sound, or looking at the sky, and all alone?She was frightened, and felt a strange tension in her heart. ...she was wandering around the city.There seemed to be no end to what she saw and heard, and the tension in her heart would not go away. She tried to hurry and do something, but she always did it wrong... An incongruous melancholy shook her nerves as Frankie wandered the town roadside after the long spring dawn, Her heart stiffened and almost stopped beating. What happens during this tumultuous period is that the girl's body starts to become a woman's body, and it starts to feel sensual.Unless the function of the gland is poorly developed and remains in the infancy stage, the child's puberty crisis will come at the age of twelve or thirteen.This crisis comes earlier for girls than for boys, and the changes it causes are greater.The maiden faced it uneasily and despondently.Breasts and body hair started to develop, and her mood was sometimes proud, but mostly shy.The girl suddenly became shy, even unwilling to expose her body in front of her sisters or mother; when she inspected her body, she was startled and frightened; when she saw the hard, slightly painful breast nucleus growing, It's very painful, the nipple is under the nipple, and it's as unobtrusive as a belly button at the moment.She felt uncomfortably that she had a sore spot.The pain in this place, of course, is insignificant compared with the pain of a burn or a toothache.However, whether from injury or illness, pain is not normal.And people all know that immature breasts under normal circumstances are not a site that is prone to cancer.This is to imply that some kind of change is taking place in the law of survival. Although it is not a disease, it still has the nature of struggle and tear.The girl, of course, develops from infancy to adolescence, but she is unaware of her own development: day after day, her body remains the same, fixed and sound, yet now she is "growing" .The word may seem intimidating.Life phenomena can only be reassuring when they reach a state of balance, as bright as flowers and as smooth as jade, and achieve a completely fixed appearance.But when girls develop breasts, they feel that the meaning of the word "living" is ambiguous.She is neither gold nor diamond, but a strange form of matter, ever-changing and indistinct, in which the unclean elements are being refined.She was used to a strand of fine silky hair flowing from her head, but the new growth of body hair in her armpits and pubic area turned her into some kind of animal or seaweed.Whether or not she has been sufficiently warned in advance, she has a premonition in these changes that she will lose herself completely: She sees herself thrown into the circle of life that overwhelms her personal development; she senses an attachment that condemns her to men and children, to death.Her breasts, on their own, seemed like a useless, imposed growth.Arms, legs, skin, muscles, even that voluptuous buttocks—all of these clearly have their uses by now.Only her genitals, besides being undoubtedly used for peeing, have a somewhat ambiguous function, but it is hidden and invisible to others.Under a sweater or a coat, breasts are showing off, and girls who used to think they were part of their body now recognize them as flesh.This physical body becomes the object of observation and attention of others.One woman told me, "For two years I've been wearing a cape to cover my breasts, and I'm so ashamed of it." Another woman said, "I still remember when a friend who was my age but outgrown me, As I bent over to pick up the ball, I saw two full breasts through the slit in her bodice, and I felt strangely flustered. Seeing this body so close to my age, I thought my body would be too. I couldn’t help being ashamed of what I’ve become like this.” Another woman told me: “When I was 13, I went for a walk one day in a short skirt with my legs exposed. A man laughed at me because my calves were so long. Too thick. The next day, my mother made me put on stockings and a long skirt, but I will never forget the shock I felt when people saw me naked.” The teenager felt that her body was breaking away from her, that she was no longer her a direct expression of personality; it becomes irrelevant to her, and at the same time, she becomes an object for others: on the road, men keep their eyes on her and even comment on her figure .She was desperate to be invisible, terrified of becoming flesh, and terrified of showing her flesh. This disgust is expressed in many girls by wishing to be thinner.They no longer want to eat, and if forced to eat, she vomits intermittently.They always pay attention to their weight.Other girls became morbidly timid, for whom it was torture to go into the living room, or even to go out into the street.Psychosis often begins from this.In "Obsessions and Neurasthenia," Janet describes a typical case of such a person in the context of Nadya: Nadya is a sassy, ​​artsy, musically talented young girl.Her family is rich and knowledgeable.But she has been stubborn since she was a child and loves to lose her temper. "She demanded undue love from her family and servants, but she was very demanding, very bossy, and quickly alienated people. When people made fun of her to change her, she developed shame about her body." And , her need for love also made her want to be a favored child forever and made her afraid of growing up... Precocious puberty added to her troubles: "Since men like plump women, she would rather be always thin." The pubic hair and enlarged breasts added to her fears.She felt from the age of 11 that everyone was staring at her legs and feet.The onset of menstruation was driving her crazy.She thought she was the only monster with pubic hair in the world, so until the age of 20, she was still painstakingly plucking and removing this "savage decoration"... She was very afraid of becoming plump - when she "would be ashamed to show it" , to the point of trying to prevent normal development with all prayers and curses, because "if she gets fat, no one will like her".最后她决定不吃东西，让自己“永远是一个小女孩”。由于屈服于母亲的恳请，她吃下了一些东西。 她一跪就是几个小时，写下誓言又把它们撕掉。她五岁时死了母亲，于是她强迫自己严格节食，以至由于过度饥饿，啃自己的手帕，在地上打滚。她长得很美，但她却认为自己面部浮肿，长满丘疹，并坚持说医生看不见它们是因为对她的处境缺乏了解。她离开家庭，躲进一个小公寓里，再也不肯露面了。她大部分时间都在黑暗中生活，因为她认为自己的相貌丑陋之极，见不得人。 父母的态度，往往可以使女孩子经常产生对自己容貌的羞耻感。有一个女人对斯特克尔这样说： 我对自己的身体的自卑感十分强烈，经常痛苦不堪。而家里人的不断唠叨，加重了这种自卑务……我母亲由于过分自尊，希望我的仪表尽善尽美。她总是找出许多毛病，需要让裁衣匠“遮掩起来”。比如，肩膀下垂了！臀部突出了！背部太平了！胸部太显眼了！etc.对四肢的姿势，我尤其感到烦恼……我的步态经常是他们唠叨我的原因……每种批评都有一定道理……但有时我感到十分尴尬，尤其在我“尚未涉足社交界”那个阶段，以至我不知道该怎样走动才好。假如我碰见了一个人，我第一个念头是：“要是我能把脚藏起来，那该有多好啊！” 这种羞耻感使女孩子的行动笨拙，经常感到害臊。而这害臊使她更加胆怯，而且它本身就含有一种病态的恐惧。斯特克尔在谈到一个女人时说：“作为一个女孩子，她害臊得如此反常、强烈，以至一年来，她借口牙疼在脸上缠着绷带。” 有时，女孩子在所谓的“前青春期”阶段，也就是在月经出现以前，还没有对自己的身体感到羞耻。她为变成女人感到骄傲，得意地看着隆起的胸部。她用手帕垫在衣服里面，在大人们面前引以自豪。她还不理解她身上所发生变化的含义。她第一次出现的月经揭示了这种意义，于是她出现了羞耻感。如果这种羞耻感已经存在，以后就会变得更加强烈甚至过分。 所有的证据都证明，不论孩子事先是否得到过警告，这一事件对她始终是可恶的、蒙羞的。 母亲往往忽略把这种事事先告诉她；有人曾注意到，母亲更愿意向女儿说明的，是怀孕、分娩乃至性交的神秘，而不是来月经的事实。她们本人好像对这种女性负担既厌恶又恐怖。这种恐怖反映了古代男人对神秘的恐惧，现在母亲们又把它传给了自己的后代。当女孩子在内裤发现了可疑的污迹时，她会认为自己是患了腹泻，或是患了致命的出血症，或是患了某种可耻的疾病。据哈夫洛克·埃利斯1896年的研究报告，一所美国中学的125名学生当中，有36人在月经初临时，对这种事一无所知，39人仅有模糊认识。就是说，有一半以上的人对这种事是无知的。在海伦·多伊奇看来，1946年的情况与此十分相似。企图自杀的例子时有所闻。当少女觉得自己的生命之血也许是由于内部器官受伤流出来的时，她被吓坏了，这的确是很自然的。即使明智的指导免除了她过分强烈的焦虑，女孩子也还会感到羞耻、受污染。 她会急忙找个脸盆来，想把她的脏内裤洗净或藏起来。柯莱特·奥德里在《回顾》里，详细描写了一种典型体验，摘要如下； 一天晚上，在脱衣服时，我觉得自己肯定是病了。但我什么也没有说，希望早上会好起来……四周后，它又发生了，而且这次更过分，我把内裤放进装脏衣服的篮子里。母亲来到我的房间，把这些事情讲给我听。我记不得她的话对我起了什么作用，但我妹妹出于好奇往里看时，我心烦地把她给轰了出去。我让母亲去惩罚她，因为她没有敲门就闯了进来。我母亲的那副安然而又满意的神态，几乎把我给气疯了。 她出去了，而我却彻夜痛苦不堪。 突然，我想起两件事：有一位老医生在路上碰到我们时说：“夫人，您的女儿正在长大成人。”我突然不知为什么会非常讨厌他。没过多久，基基看见母亲把一包小布片放在抽屉里，便问这是做什么用的。母亲以大人们那种吞吞吐吐、故弄玄虚的神气回答说： “这是为柯莱特准备的，她不久就要用。”我气得说不出话来，却提不出半点疑问。我恨透了母亲。 那天夜里，我在床上翻来覆去，彻夜难眠。这怎么会可能！我会振作起来的，妈妈错了，它会过去的，并且会一去不复返的……第二天，身上悄悄起了变化，弄脏了内裤，我必须正视这些异物。我恨妹妹，因为她在不知不觉间竟突然优越于我。我也恨男人们，因为他们永远不会经历这种事，却很了解这种事。我还恨女人，因为她们非常轻松地接受了这种事，而如果她们知道了我的情况，一定会开心地想： “现在总算轮到你了。”……我走路时心里很不安，可又不敢跑……事情总算过去了，可我又在愚蠢地希望，以后不会再发生这种事。一个月后，在证据面前我不得不低下了头……从此以后，“以前”留在了我的记忆中。而我余下的生活，仅仅是个“以后”。 大多数少女都发生过类似情况。许多少女一想到她们的秘密会暴露在家里人和同伴们面前，就心惊肉跳。我的一个朋友，没有母亲，和父亲及保姆住在一起。她告诉我，在她的情况被发现以前，她整整三个月又羞又怕，把弄脏的内裤藏起来。人们都以为农妇对动物生态的原始方面习以为常，然而甚至连她们也对这种祸根感到恐怖，因为月经在农村仍然是一种禁忌。我认识一位年轻的农妇，她为了不让别人知道她那不可告人的秘密，整个冬天，都是在刺骨的溪水里偷偷洗她的内裤的，甚至没干就又穿在身上。类似的例子不胜枚举。即使公开承认这一惊人的不幸，也不等于得到了解脱。毫无疑问，极少有哪个母亲会在野蛮地侮辱女儿时说：“笨蛋，你还太年轻。”但不只一个母亲会显得不高兴，大多数母亲没有给孩子提供足够的信息，于是孩子对第一次月经带来的新情况忧心重重。她很想知道，将来是否有更痛苦的意想不到的事在等着她；或者，她会认为，今后只要和男人一见面或一接触，她就会怀孕，于是对男性产生了真正的恐惧。即使明智的解释使她可以免除这种精神折磨，她也还是不会很容易平静下来。以前，小女孩有点自欺，可能认为自己是个没有性别的人，或者可能根本没想过自己。她甚至也许在梦想，自己一觉醒来会变成一个男人。但是现在，母亲和阿姨们小声地恭维说：“她现在是个大姑娘了！”女人群体得到了胜利：她是这个群体的一员。 于是，她无可挽回地被置于女人这一边。也许她为此感到自豪，认为自己已经变成大人，而这将使她的生活发生彻底的变革。例如，蒂德·莫尼埃在《自我》中说： 我们几个人是在假期中变成“大姑娘”的，而别的女孩子是在在校期间进入那种状态的。当时我们鱼贯而入地到后院厕所去“看血”。她们宛如登基似的坐在马桶上，仿佛女王在接受臣民们的朝拜。 但小女孩很快就会醒悟过来，因为生活一如既往，她根本没得到新特权。唯一的新鲜事，就是这每月出现一次的不洁之物。有些孩子，在认识到她们注定要受这种命运的惩罚时，痛哭不止。而令她们更为深恶痛绝的是，男人也知道这一可耻的污点。她们希望，这一使她们蒙受耻辱的女性状况，至少对男性仍具有神秘的色彩。然而事实却不是这样。父亲、兄弟、表堂兄弟，家里所有的男人全都知道，有时甚至以此开心。于是，女孩子产生或加剧了对自己过于肉感的身体的厌恶。虽然初潮的震惊已经过去，但月经的烦恼并没有随之消除。每当月经重新出现时，女孩子都重新感到对身上发散出来的那种淡淡的难闻气味——一种沼泽地或枯萎紫罗兰的气味——的厌恶，对那种血的厌恶。这种血不像她小时候受伤时那么红，因而更可疑。不论是白天还是黑夜，她必须记住换卫生带，必须留意自己的内裤和床单，必须解决许许多多实际的而又令人生厌的小问题。在经济不太富裕的家庭，卫生带每月都要洗，用干净手帕包起来放回原处。她必须把这些被经血弄脏的衣物，交给专门洗这些东西的人来处理：洗衣妇、女仆、母亲或姐姐。杂货店里卖的、有着“Modess”或“EdelweiSS”之类古怪名称的卫生纸，用过以后就扔掉了。但在旅行、访友或游览时，要把它们扔掉并非很容易，尤其是在厕所里明文禁止扔掉这些东西时。少女在行经时，可能很害怕把卫生带给露出来，因此，除非在黑暗处，甚至在姐妹面前也不愿意脱衣服。这一令人烦恼的讨厌东西，在剧烈运动时可能移位，而这比在路上掉了裤头更让她蒙受耻辱。这种可怕的情景，有时会导致心理变态。由于一种自然的恶作剧，有些疾病和疼痛往往只在月经过后才开始，最初可能未被留意就过去了。少女的月经尚无一定规则：她们散步、上街、访友，都冒着被突然袭击的危险，如德·谢弗勒兹夫人那样，冒着弄脏衣服或坐垫的危险。有些女孩子由于这种可能，经常处在惊恐之中。少女对这个女性污点越是觉得可恶，她越是倍加提防，以免由于意外事件或别人得知她的秘密，而使自己蒙受奇耻大辱。 W·李普曼博士在《青春与性》中，除了别的以外，还记录了他在研究青少年性问题期间得到的这方面的如下陈述： 16岁时我第一次感到不适。一天早晨，我发现来了月经，这可把我吓坏了。说实话，我知道它迟早会来。但我对它深感耻辱，以至一上午都躺在床上，不论别人怎么问我，我都说不能起床。 我12岁时第一次来了月经。当时我惊呆了。I am very scared.母亲只说了句“它每个月都要来”，我则认为这是件十分下流的事；我拒绝承认男人不会发生这种事。 母亲曾对我讲过月经的事。有一天我感到不适，兴冲冲地跑去叫醒母亲说：“妈妈，我有月经了！”可她只说了句：“就为这事何必把我叫醒！”我大失所望。然而，我还是认为，这件事是我生活中的一次真正革命。 当第一次来月经看见经血流了几分钟还没有停下来的时候，我吓得要死。可我没对任何人说。我刚刚15岁，而且，我只感到一．点点疼。只有一次我疼得很厉害，昏了过去，在我房间的地板上躺了3个小时。可我仍不肯说这件事。 我快13岁时第一次来了月经。我和同学们议论过这件事，我为变成大人感到非常自豪。我郑重其事地向体育老师解释说，今天我不能上体育课，因为我身体不适。 母亲没有警告过我。她到19岁才开始来月经，因害怕由于弄脏内裤而受责备，她跑到田野把内裤理了起来。 我第一次来月经是在18岁，事先没有任何预兆。 那天晚上，我流了许多血，严重痉挛。早上我向母亲哭诉，求她指点。可她因我弄脏了床，只把我狠狠骂了一顿，没再说什么。我很痛苦，想知道我到底犯了什么罪。〔这个实例来自柏林的贫困家庭。〕我已经知道了有关月经的事儿。我迫不及待地等着它的来临，因为我希望那时母亲会告诉我，婴儿是怎么产生的。那重要的一天终于来到：但母亲什么也没说。虽然如此，我还是很高兴，认为：“现在你也能生个孩子了：你也是个女人了。” 这一危机在年龄还很小时就发生了。男孩子进入青春期时只有十五六岁。女孩子向女人的变化则出现在十三四岁。然而，他们在体验方面的主要差别，并不在于这种年龄差别；给女孩子的体验带来震撼力的也不是那种生理现象：青春期对男女孩子之所以有完全不同的含义，是因为它向他们展示了不同的未来。 不错，男孩子在青春期也对自己的身体感到难堪，但他们从小就对自己是男人感到自豪，此时更是得意地把这个阶段的发育的投射到男性气质上面。他们相互炫耀大腿上长出的毛，这是男人的特征。他们的性器官，比以往任何时候更是比较与挑战的对象。变成大人，这是一个具有威胁的变化：许多进入青春期的男孩子，一想到苛求的自由即将来临，便会感到苦恼；但他们仍高兴接受做男性的尊严。 相反，小女孩要变成大人，必须局限于她的女性气质所强加给她的范围。男孩子从他生出的毛发，惊讶地看到未来的模糊前景，而女孩子则对决定她命运的“野蛮而指定的戏剧性事件”羞愧难忍。正如阴茎从社会方面获得了一种特殊评价，让月经变成祸根的也正是社会方面。这个象征男性气质，而那个则象征女性气质。正因为女性气质具有相异性和劣等性的意味，所以它的表现才受到耻辱的对待。在女孩子看来，她的生命始终是由那种模糊的本质决定的，而这种本质，由于没有阴茎，不可能具有积极的形式：但她从两胯之间流出的经血中意识到自己的存在。要是她已经接受了自己的处境，她就会兴奋地欢迎月经的来临——“你现在是个女人了！”如果她一直拒绝接受她的处境，这血的判决就会让她受到强烈打击。她往往会犹豫不决：这每月来一次的不洁之物，使她容易产生厌恶和畏惧的感觉。“'做女人'原来就是这个意思！”那至今隐隐从外部压迫她的既定命运，现在正伏卧在她的腹中。她无法摆脱，只觉得在劫难逃。