Reader Crystallizing Chaos always asks very profound questions. Here is the most recent one:
What is the cause of widespread sexual repression around the world?
A repression of all of our natural, animal instincts is the price we pay for civilization. None of our physiological functions (eating, sleeping, excreting, sex, procreation) occur whenever we feel the need for them to happen. Every single time we experience these basic needs, we thwart our desire, repress our wishes, and shroud the activity in a system of socially acceptable rituals.
The result of all this repression is a more comfortable existence in society. Coexisting with other humans would be even more unpleasant than what it now is if everybody satisfied their physiological needs the moment the fancy struck them.
The result of these constant limitations we place on our physiological urges is two-pronged:
1. We channel the resulting frustration into positive things (art, creativity, the life of the intellect, etc)
2. We channel the resulting frustration into negative things (war, self-destruction, illness, drugs, alcohol, etc)
This is the inescapable dilemma of human existence: repression makes life more comfortable, beautiful, hygienic, and pleasant but it also destroys us. The only way out is for an individual to master the art of channeling the frustration into more positive and less self-destructive things.
Clarissa's Blog 
I’m not too sure I would call all of what you call here “repression”, simply self-control. Repression to me is only when you flat-out deny some of these instincts any place in your life in any form, and that’s when it really becomes harmful.
LikeLike
We learn to repress all these drives long before we have either memory or consciousness. So it’s hardly SELF control. It’s the control we are taught to have in very early infancy.
LikeLike