Medical Weblog

Young Adulthood: Telling It Like It Feels vs. Telling What You Feel Like Telling

You have traced the courtship ritual in our culture, and have learned that vulnerability has received a bad name. Instead of learning to value people because they are vulnerable, fragile, open, and disclosing, we learn to think of them as foolish and immature. We see them trying too hard and showing too much of themselves. A key lesson for super marital sex is to be able to open it all up, to share every feeling as you feel it. The real outside world doesn’t allow this openness, but it is available to you in the privacy and safety of your own marriage place. The young adult must resolve this conflict, take the risk, get hurt, bounce back, and eventually learn that only through vulnerability will lasting love and fulfilling sex be possible.

Adulthood: The Saneness of Sameness vs. the Quest for Newness

From early childhood, we learn that new is always better than old or used. Same is not as good as different, unique, or unknown. We learn that variety is the spice of life. At this adult phase of development, we must learn to countermand these cultural orders, to learn to value sameness, reliability, predictability, history, and a long-lasting, predictable sexual relationship.

Somehow a cultural myth evolved that people must “sow their wild oats” before they can “settie down.” Sexism has translated this myth to males doing the sowing and females avoiding the reaping. Finding someone to love, to have sex with over a long time does not have to follow anything else. Those people who negotiate through this stage learn the lesson that movement toward love does not have to include a sally into promiscuity.

Mature Adulthood: Us vs. Me

The term “inclusivity” refers to sharing activities and life endeav¬ors. This phase of sexual development requires striking a balance between autonomy and individual identity and finding such identity with someone while he or she is finding his or her own. Watching a lovely sunset can be a strong individual, almost spiritual experi¬ence. It can also provide for a sharing, a mental, emotional sharing or telepathy. The balance of independence and interdependence is the challenge of mature adult sexuality.

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What does your surgeon mean when he or she says: ‘I think I’ve got it all’? This expression is unfortunately often used—unfortunately because it is so misleading. I’m not sure whether surgeons say this knowing it is misleading or whether they simply don’t realise that most patients take it to mean that they have definitely been cured by the operation. What I do know is that, if it is said to you, you should ask exactly what is meant. It is certainly not a guarantee of cure. It is sometimes even said when the surgeon knows that cure is not possible!

If your surgeon says this within a day or two of the operation, it means only that he or she has removed all the cancer that was detected before and/or visible during the operation. If your surgeon says it after receiving the pathology report, it probably means that, when it was examined under the microscope, cancer cells were not seen extending right out to the edge of the removed tissue.

The fact of the matter, as you and I know, is that no one can be sure that no cancer remains in your body immediately after an operation. You can only be sure that this was true, after enough time has gone by for any remaining seedlings to activate and form detectable tumours.

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