Pre-adolescents usually echo their new feelings and sensations with friends of same sex and age range. These new experiences may bring shame, be felt as indecent and, for this reason, are usually shared among colleagues that know what it is like to feel that way. “Knowing’, in these sense, refers to first person experiences. Complicity with friends of the same sex are, to a great extent, due to “secrets” they share and it replaces the previous complicity found with parents. Same sex friends are important references at this stage because pubers are starting to separate themselves from their infantile references towards an adult identity (post 3). According to Dias[1], this is the reason for “spontaneous division” of sex at this stage. Small groups of the same sex and the “great friend” are key concepts for sexual development understanding. The “Great Friend” is normally the one that represents success in performances, such as leading roles in social life events and in sexuality, and, at the same time, is different from their family’s references. As Dias states: “These relationships are over intense and full of feelings of jealously and possession. Any argument with a Great Friend triggers feelings of betrayal and delusion, which are easily forgotten with a new Great Friend, also quickly raised to a condition of intimacy” (Ibid. p.91). In addition, becoming interested in adult topics are also common at this stage. An intellectual leap- analytical and arguing abilities- skyrockets at this stage as well. At this moment, men and women that represent status and references of desire and aspirations are raised to a condition of idols. They go from their close networking- such as uncles, other parents or teachers – to idols distant from their reality. From that time on, self-sexual phase start the process of identity fusion. How does it happen? In boys’ cases, they project their idols’ traits onto a “great friend” and start to develop an idealized friendship with him. Idealized traits are projected onto the “great friend, starting the process of idealized masculine identity construal”. The “great friend” is the first model of how to be and behave as someone from masculine sex and gender and, in the end, embodies the eroticized men the boy aspires to become. Once idealized masculine identity starts having a clearer shape, it stops being projected onto a friend to be incorporated by the boy.
To be continued in the next Post
[1] Dias, V.S. Sexual Identity Evolution. In: Conjugal Bond in Psychodramatic Analysis.(2000).Ágora. São Paulo.
(2000). Ágora.SP.
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