Afraid Of Sex
These attitudes have grown so
much that today, hundreds of years
later, we are still afraid of sex
instead of treating it as a normal
function of the human being. "We
are sexual organisms," Dr. Sheppe
stated, "and almost from the first
day of our infancy we become
interested in this aspect of our
life. But we have let past misconceptions
hang us up so that
sex has lost some of its meaning.
Looking at marriage, we find that
one out of four married couples
ends in divorce, and that perhaps
two of those four stay together
for the sake of their children or
their jobs or community impressions."
Because sex is still treated with
such clandestine and false
notions, we have created an entire
syndrome that affects much of our
lives, and makes it extremely difficult
to eradicate many existing
problems. Dr. Sheppe said that
for years we have hid our heads
in the hands and refused to face
facts. One severe problem that has
arisen in recent years which
we have refused to deal with is
abortion. Although there is no way
to determine exactly how many
abortions are performed each year
in the United States, Dr. Sheppe
said that there are at least well
over a million, 80 per cent of
which are performed on married
women over 30 with three or
more children. Dr. Sheppe gave
credit to Mrs. Finebaum, the Arizona
mother who in 1966 was
forced to travel to Sweden to have
an abortion on her deformed fetus
which resulted from taking Thalidomide
drug. Because of the publicity
surrounding her trip and the
drug, much attention was brought
to this problem which has recently
manifested itself in several
states by a modification of existing
abortion laws.
