一旦这些“脏”字全部被禁止后，一些“可接受的”术语现在就毫无疑问会大行其道，以弥补同一个语义场，如此这般。例如，词语“性的(sexual)”只是通过填充新近腾出的术语真空，就会不断地被赋予一些崭新的含义。当现代欧洲人和美国人谈论许多从前清晰而互不相干的各种现象时，只好经常使用“性的(sexual)”这个专一单词。反之，如果对大众的共同意识没有产生影响，这种词语的用法就不可能流传下来。人们逐渐习惯于在各种各样从前已被视为“纯洁的”或与性无关的行为中，察觉到各种各样的性暗示(sexual implication)。换一句话说，饮食男女们逐渐养成了以敏感和对性的过度兴趣的态度对待彼此。随着20世纪的钟声响起，在精神分析学派的思想观念的逐渐影响下，性(sexuality)的概念逐渐变得包罗万象了。现在，它的概念不仅是指生殖和性愉悦的追求，而且是指性需要和个人生活的满足，即追求对“生活本身的渴望”。的确如此，弗洛伊德及其追随者曾经尝试着从学术上发现几乎所有人类活动里的性元素(sexual element)，然后把它形容成原始本能的表达，说它是一种基本的和强有力的内“驱力”的表现形式。

History of the Term 8

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".