Rites of Passage
Part of the rites of passage of growing up are what have been termed 'rites of separation from the asexual world...followed by rites of incorporation into the world of sexuality'. These may be formal or semi-formal - 'for some students, going to college is partly a sexual ritual, like the ceremonial dances of the whooping crane' - or take the form of a more private induction: 'formal and artificial...the impression that a long-established rite was to be enacted, among Staffordshire figurs and papier-mâché trays, with the compelling, detached formality of nightmare'.
Freud was particularly interested in Ethnological accounts of 'the "ceremonial" (purely formal, ritual, or official) coitus, which takes place' in connection with 'the taboo of virginity'.
Read more about this topic: Sexual Ritual
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