一旦這些“髒”字全部被禁止後，一些“可接受的”術語現在就毫無疑問會大行其道，以彌補同一個語義場，如此這般。例如，詞語“性的（sexual）”只是通過填充新近騰出的術語真空，就會不斷地被賦予一些嶄新的含義。當現代歐洲人和美國人談論許多從前清晰而互不相干的各種現象時，只好經常使用“性的（sexual）”這個專一單詞。反之，如果對大眾的共同意識沒有產生影響，這種詞語的用法就不可能流傳下來。人們逐漸習慣於在各種各樣從前已被視為“純潔的”或與性無關的行為中，察覺到各種各樣的性暗示（sexual implications）。換一句話說，飲食男女們逐漸養成了以敏感和對性的過度興趣的態度對待彼此。隨著20世紀的鐘聲響起，在精神分析學派的思想觀念的逐漸影響下，性（sexuality）的概念逐漸變得包羅萬象了。現在，它的概念不僅是指生殖和性愉悅的追求，而且是指性需要和個人生活的滿足，即追求對“生活本身的渴望”。的確如此，佛洛伊德及其追隨者曾經嘗試著從學術上發現幾乎所有人類活動裏的性元素（sexual element），然後把它形容成原始本能的表達，說它是一種基本的和強有力的內“驅力”的表現形式。

Once the all “dirty” words had been banned, a few "acceptable" terms now had to be stretched considerably in order to cover the same semantic field. Thus, the word "sexual", for example, continued to acquire certain new meanings simply by filling the newly created terminological vacuum. Modern Europeans and Americans often had no choice but to use the single word "sexual" when talking about many formerly distinct and unrelated phenomena. Such usage, in turn, could not remain without influence on the general public consciousness. People became accustomed to finding sexual implications in all sorts of behavior which before had been seen as "pure"' or sexually indifferent. In other words, men and women began to develop a highly sensitive, hypersexual attitude toward each other. With the beginning of the 20th century, and under the growing influence of psychoanalytic thinking, the concept of sexuality became even more inclusive. It now referred not only to procreation and the pursuit of erotic pleasure, but also to the need for love and personal fulfillment, i.e., to the "lust for life" itself. Indeed, Freud and his followers learned to see a sexual element in nearly all human activity and then described it as the expression of a primary instinct, the manifestation of a basic and powerful inner "drive".