A Comparison Of Holden And Ben's Sexual Illness

Holden and Ben´s sexual awkwardness is a result from a combination of abnormal first experiences, absent parental love and guidance, and being a teenager, resulting in an abnormal lust for sexual fulfillment. Throughout The Catcher in the Rye and The Graduate, Holden’s and Ben’s parents do not demonstrate love to them. Holden is just outcasted and his parents get him psychoanalyzed after his brother dies. They send him away instead of trying to talk to him and help him through his depression and struggles of being a teenager. His parents just give the problem to other people because he is the outcast and the “disappointment” child. Ben, on the other hand, his parents use him as a way to entertain their friends and to show off their material wealth

Resulting with a hole in Ben and Holden that combined with their teenage/early adult lives makes them yearn for physical connection. Both Ben and Holden start out by trying to get sexual satisfaction through unconventional methods for Holden his first sexual experience was going to be with a prostitute but when she got to his hotel room "she stood up and pulled her dress over her head. I certainly felt peculiar when she did that. I mean she did it so sudden and all. I know you're supposed to feel pretty sexy when somebody gets up and pulls her dress over their head, but I didn't. Sexy was about the last thing I was feeling. I felt much more depressed than sexy" (Salinger 94-95). Holden’s first real sexual encounter was going to be with a prostitute, but it ends up just making him depressed and before this point, he talked about all these girls that he supposedly had sex, or some sort of relationship with. Which seems to be a lie to hide that fact that he is socially an outcast and has not taken that “step” out of teenage years. Holden’s parallel, Ben goes through similar