Coming of Age in Samoa
dictates of a favourable occasion, as in the expectation of infidelity in any wife whose husband is long from home, all serve to make sex an end rather than a means, something which is valued in itself, and deprecated inasmuch as it tends to bind one individual to another. Whether such a disregard of personal relations is completely contingent upon the sex habits of the people is doubtful. It probably is also a reflection of a more general cultural attitude in which personality is consistently disregarded. But there is one respect in which these very practices make possible a recognition of personality which is often denied to many in our civilisation, because, from the Samoans' complete knowledge of sex, its possibilities and its rewards, they are able to count it at its true value. And if they have no preference for reserving sex activity for important relationships, neither do they regard relationships as important because they are productive of sex satisfaction. The Samoan girl who shrugs her shoulder over the excellent technique of some young Lothario is nearer to the recognition of sex as an impersonal force without any intrinsic validity, than is the sheltered American girl who falls in love with the first man who kisses her. From their familiarity with the reverberations which accompany sex excitement comes this recognition of the essential impersonality of sex attraction which we may well envy them; from the too slight, too casual practice comes the disregard of personality which seems to us unlovely.
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