Sex, Money and Meaning

From George Kinder's The Seven Stages of Money Maturity, some interesting passages about money and sex:

This same pain ... came up again and again during my teenage years, particularly whenever I heard the car songs, like the Beach Boy's "Little Deuce Coupe," that lauded the car-centered culture of the late 1950's and early 1960's. These songs centered on cars, but I knew what they were really about -- girls, and how to get them. I didn't have the money to buy a car, so I felt as if I had little chance to meet and win the girl of my dreams. I resented my own poverty, and I resented the boys who came from families rich enough to buy cars and get girls. I resented girls too for responding to a symbol as shallow as eight cylinders sheathed in two-tone and chrome.

Sex, Money, and Meaning

Given the intimacy of our painful experiences around money, it is hardly surprising to realize that money and sex are profoundly interwoven. Both money and sex arise as powerful issues during adolescence and early adulthood, the period of life when our identities are most in flux and formation. Although both sex and money attract us, they are laden too with longing and pain.

The pain around both is so intense that sex and money are the two most common causes of divorce. They are also frequent subjects of internal fantasy and thought. Remarkably, we actually think about money more than sex.

Since 1972 Money Magazine has been conducting its "Having It All Survey" an annual nationwide opinion poll on what Americans are feeling, thinking and doing about money. The finding are revealing. In 1997 respondents said they thought more about money than sex by a margin of 47 percent to 19 percent ...