When I was growing up in the 1960's a woman who wanted to play sports was frowned upon. They were judged as not exactly embodying the feminine ideal. Young African American males were told by the images on TV and the news that society thought them to be thieves, pimps, or drug dealers, and African American women were fit only to be domestic help or prostitutes. And the LBGT community lived a mole like existence in their closets. These are just extreme examples of some of the things people of my generation have had to deal with, and it is not surprising that the nervous system has built a bulwark around the original innocence.