This is one of the primary functions of civilization as it has developed – to cut us off from our primal instinctual behaviours.  If we surrendered to our Eros energy, we would no longer be useful, functional members of society.  We would become self-indulgent and too raw and uncontrolled in our emotions.  These twin energies of sex and anger that have been outsourced in our culture.  Sex (desire) is projected onto objects.  Our yearning for the latest gadget, this season’s handbag or top, all sold so often with sexual imagery, is the displaced projection of our sexual longing.  The “stuff” of modern life that we all accumulate becomes in effect a set of fetishistic objects onto which we project our desire.  “If only I had this handbag/watch/new iphone, I’d be happy.”

Anger is projected out onto “the dangerous other” – until 25 years ago that was the Soviet Union (although now Russia is taking up that role once more, so far as the West is concerned).  More recently is has been Al Qaeda, or ISIS and the Islamic State and so on.  So our primal urges are displaced and made “safe” within our culture.

This displacement comes at enormous cost.  We become disconnected from our bodies and unconsciously disown our sexual drives, allowing ourselves to be satisfied with the scraps of desire that we feel are permitted to us.

It is even more so in sex.  Too often we tell ourselves that we couldn’t express that desire, because it wouldn’t be understood, it wouldn’t be acceptable, we would be rejected – and we would feel shame for having the desire in the first place.  Our culture so deeply suppresses free sexual expression that we so naturally internalise this that by the time we are adults we barely need anyone to judge us, we simply do it ourselves.