So although Freud was a cokehead, and said some pretty goofy stuff about the fact we have an unconscious mind is because we have this oedipal complex and we secretly want to kill our father’s and fuck our mothers. Sigmund still did build the basic foundation of what psychology is today. Two of Sigmund’s focuses, that I want to focus on in this post, were sexual repression and sublimation. Now Freud had this basic idea that all energy and will is sexual in nature. What Freud argues is that we suppress into our unconscious mind things that are taboo, anti social, depraved etc… and these repression’s would appear in the form of neuroses. To get over these neuroses you had to work out where they came from and once that was figured out then they would some how cease to be. Now this is where sublimation comes in, as when we were young we would push down these stigmatised anti social desires into our unconscious, where they would then incubate and reverse into pro social traits, that would reappear in what we choose to do later in life e.g. science or art. This is why if you know anything about Freudian analysis, there was a popular school of thought in the 60s and 70s to look at art, and analyse it as there was this basic idea that all works of art were manifestations of the suppressed sex drive. Now there was a famous French writer called Honoré de Balzac who said something along the lines that every time he had sex “there goes another novel”, because he’d lost that will and creativity that comes from the suppressed sexual drive. Which brings me back around to the point I’m trying to make in this post. Is sexual repression a bad thing? Now we’d say gorging yourself with food is probably bad. We’d say snorting a mountain of cocaine like our old friend Freud is probably bad. We’d say overindulging in anything is probably a bad thing. Why? Because it’s base and hedonic, which destroys your will and desensitises you to life. Why then don’t we apply that same logic, when we say give up junk food, stop watching tv, stop gambling, stop doing drugs etc… to stop seeking meaningless sex, stop watching porn etc… As you rarely see that, even among those who pride themselves on actualisation. Instead what you see is, people who say its completely normal to indulge in sexual thoughts, lets all be open about sex, have sex before marriage, follow your instincts, follow your heart etc... Considering, back to Freud, that all energy is sexual, and the reason, from a biological perspective we’re here is to fuck and die, why would you deprive yourself ever of the main will to life, which is your sexual libido, the very essence and core of your will, especially as a man. What all our drives and instincts focus around is getting us as animals, to the point that we pass on our genes, and the main mechanism for this is our sex drive. Why would we ever chip away at that? As by chipping away at that we are simultaneously chipping away at our will to pursue more important things such as art etc... Our sex drive is arguably what gives us the will to do anything in the first place. This is why I’d argue in large part we have so many castrated men and masculinised women today, because we've been left to indulge our sexual deviances and desires following the birth control pill, sexual liberation and ubiquitous pornography. Thereby we’ve avoided the necessary pro social process of sublimation and deteriorated our will to pursue that in life which is important. That's why I believe if your going to self actualise a certain level of asceticism has to be achieved, especially when it comes to your sexuality, so avoid sexual depictions of women, avoid meaningless sex, until you've built yourself up as a man to the point that your will is strong enough to not overindulge, and then you can have purposeful sexual relationships in moderation, if the special woman comes around, you know the car, kids, dog scenario, if that's what you want, you can have it, once you've self actualised. But really my main point is this, its possible that perhaps religious nuts are right, that you should repress sex, and this is why the repression of sexuality is a common trend amongst all successful civilizations, as the repression of sex will help the individual become creative and successful, and the society to be creative and make breakthroughs and maintain a healthy social conventions.  Here are some quotes that relate :- "Lust indulged became habit, and habit unresisted became necessity" - Aristotle "Through self discipline comes freedom" - Aristotle "There is no medicine for people whose vices become habits" - Seneca "As rain pours through poorly thatched roofs, so does desire overwhelm the undeveloped mind." - The Buddha "I have yet to meet a man who is as fond of virtue as he is of women." - Confucius "The difference between the worldly and the saintly … depends solely on the elimination or not of sexual desire." - Buddha   So to wrap up :- Is sexual repression a bad thing? Should we avoid sex, and sexual thoughts? Because you'd expect sex to be so fundamental to an organism, so completely central, more so than just obeying ideology of your society. That to ever chip away at it should probably be seen as a bad thing, especially in terms of self actualisation.