1 result for (book:notp AND session:770 AND stemmed:puberti)
[... 8 paragraphs ...]
Puberty comes at a certain time, triggered by deep mechanisms that are related to the state of the natural world, the condition of the species, and those cultural beliefs that in a certain sense you transpose upon the natural world. In other respects, your cultural environment is of course natural. The time that puberty comes varies, then, and afterwards it is possible to parent a child. A time then comes when the period is over. During what is called the sexually active time; the larger dimensions of personhood become strictly narrowed into sexually stereotyped roles — and all aspects of identity that do not fit are ignored or denied. The fact is that few people fit those roles. They are largely the result of the interpretations of religion as conventionally understood. And the scientists, for all their seeming independence, often simply found new intellectually acceptable reasons for unconsciously held emotional beliefs.
Biologically there is a period very rarely experienced, as jokingly suggested in the “sick jokes” about senility and second childhood. This particular latent biological ability shows itself only upon the rarest instances — because, for one thing, it represents a feat now scarcely desirable. Physically, however, the body is quite able to completely regenerate itself as it approaches old age. Indeed, a quite legitimate second puberty is possible, in which the male’s seed is youthfully strong and vital, and the woman’s womb is pliable and able to bear. There are, I believe, Biblical tales of such births resulting.
In times of overpopulation, this mechanism is hardly desirable, but it is a part of the species held in abeyance now, representing nature’s capabilities. In some areas of your world, isolated peoples live on past a hundred years, vital and strong, because they are untouched by your beliefs, and because they live in sympathy and accord with the world as they know and understand it. Occasionally such second puberties happen then, with resulting childbirth, as a small group attempts to maintain its own biological stance.
(10:18.) Usually the second puberty follows the same sexual orientation as the first, but not always — for it is quite possible for the new affiliation to be the opposite of the first. This is even rarer — but so does the species protect itself.
Through medical techniques some of your old people are kept alive long enough so that this process begins, appearing in distorted form, sometimes psychologically apparent but biologically frustrated. The second puberty is dead-ended, then. It has nowhere to go. It is not now biologically pertinent or needed.
Left alone, some of these people would die with a feeling of satisfaction. Kept alive through medical techniques, the physical mechanism continues its struggles to revitalize the body and bring about this second puberty — that naturally would only come about under different conditions, with the mind far more alert and the will unimpaired. Now, to some extent (underlined) there is a connection between this innate, rarely observed second puberty and the development of cancer, in which growth is specifically apparent in an exaggerated manner.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
This is because a blockage occurs. The individual wants to grow in terms of personhood, but is afraid of doing so. There are always individual variations that must be taken into consideration, but often such a person feels a martyr to his or her sex, imprisoned by it and unable to escape. This can obviously apply to cancers affecting sexual areas, but is often in the background of any such condition. Energy is being blocked because of problems that began — in your terms — with sexual questions in puberty. Energy is experienced as sexual.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
There are often hormonal changes occurring that go unnoticed. Many express a nervous, erratic type of behavior as they are aroused — some not only sexually but intellectually. The new adolescence never comes. The new puberty dies a slow death, for your society has no framework in which to understand it. And indeed it shows itself in a distorted fashion that can appear most grotesque.
[... 20 paragraphs ...]