On Sexology's Distinguished Board of Consultants in those days sat some of the most gifted sex-researchers in the nation, including Dr. Wardell Pomeroy (second senior author of the Kinsey Report) and Dr. Harry Benjamin of Johns Hopkins University, best known as the father of the transsexual.

From old memory's bin I've just retrieved a Sexology article I wrote and which still holds up novel health values, I like to imagine, even after a score of years has since passed. This article lists 10 steps readers may take toward Self Esteem.

As editor my intention had been to draw public attention away from too much focus on the mere mechanics of "good sex" such as "Six Ways to Prolong an Orgasm" and to recommend more general steps—psychologically bolstering ones-- seemingly outside of the realm of sex—steps to take toward self-esteem--- steps that once taken-- often enhance all other experiences, sexual/ social.

A recent (1978) movie, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, gives an interesting hypothesis about the psyche of the late Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the film, Hoover is approached by an attractive young woman. He finds it impossible to respond.

She removes her blouse and presents her body to him. He recoils and starts shouting, "This must be a trap! Why are you doing this? What would a beautiful woman like you want with a man like me?"

He storms out of her apartment in a rage. She calls down the stairs after him, "What's wrong with you anyhow? Do you think so little of your self? Do you have so little self-esteem?"

As the movie unfolds, its hero never again becomes involved with a person—female or male—in any loving sense. Is it possible that what that fictitious woman asked of Hoover reflected the central tragedy of an isolated existence? Was he unable to love himself—despite the massive ego he presented to the public—and thus unable to accept love from others?

"I celebrate myself," wrote Walt Whitman, in the first line of his poem, Song of Myself. Whitman celebrated the self because he knew—as all great thinkers have known—that the self is the starting place for love. If a person cannot love him/her self, the security necessary for loving others isn't there. Without self-inspired security, a man or woman is subject to a host of evils—including jealousy, competitiveness, and suspicion—all of which intrude on relationships and turn them sour.

In this era of noise, confusion, and alarm, it's easy to focus on what is going on outside of ourselves. It is easy to be distracted by appeals to externals—by the constantly changing social scenes that we mistake for our realities.

After watching TV or reading Cosmopolitan or Playboy, it's easy to believe that what we wear, what we own, how we cut our hair, or how much money we have determines our personal worth.

We're conditioned to think that we are not likely to succeed in love if we lack certain things—things that may shift each season. We're taught to believe that others choose those who do have the proper rank, the mink coat, the flashy car, or the athletic guise.

But before we can re-learn what it is that brings one a genuine feeling for self-worth, we must unlearn much of what we've been taught. The first step is simply to stop thinking of your worth in terms of status, possessions and outward appearances.

A status seeker never knows real self-esteem because he's seeking distractions to enhance a figure that really isn't his own. As long as he seeks approval by surrounding himself with ornaments, he depends on things other than himself to impress others.

But inside he knows that ornaments are not really the self. They are simply trimmings. If they are removed, he may be left standing like a discarded Christmas tree—bare, colorless, and without any glow of its own.

Many relationships and romances fail because the people involved in them can't depend on or care for themselves. Women are taught to depend on men. Men are taught to depend on jobs. When men lose their jobs, they feel robbed of their masculinity. They waver, and they fear rejection by their wives or lovers.

Women are taught that they are worthless without a man. They are not allowed to feel self-worth unless a "Mrs." Precedes their names. If they remain unmarried too long, they are called by the ugliest of names: spinster.

Such social training leads them away from self-appreciation to thinking themselves incomplete without outsiders' compliments. That attitude, in turn, makes them eager to "catch a man" so as to feel complete.

Bette Davis spoke for a lost generation in All About Eve: "A woman with only a career has a book of clippings or French provincial office furniture, but she never feels like a real woman."

I once knew a couple, Janice and David, who were a classic example of two young people who had taken conventional attitudes to heart. They loved each other, but they had developed little love for themselves. David asked Janice to marry him when they were barely 20. David was sure he was attractive to Janice because he drove a fancy car, had a good-paying job, and dressed according to the latest fashion-magazine styles.

Janice thought that David loved her because she knew how to entice him with perfumes, and that she was a mistress of feminine wiles and coquetry. She knew how to get David to do what she wanted by pretending to be helpless, by wearing sexy nightgowns, and by assuring him that he was very masculine.

Five years passed and David suddenly lost his good-paying job. He was forced to buy a cheap automobile. He was plagued by insecurities. One afternoon he saw Janice talking to a man who lived in the neighborhood and he flew into a jealous rage.

The tricks Janice had used to entice her husband turned on her now, and instead of making him feel appreciated, they aggravated his agony. He didn't need a helpless woman, nor did he feel comfortable with repeated reminders of how "masculine" he was.

He was pained by her coquetry, and in his insecure state he imagined she used it to entice other men. David felt utterly vulnerable without his job. He tried to cover it up by behaving coolly toward his wife.

When she lashed out at him in anguish, he imagined it was because she had discovered his emptiness, and he felt more empty still. All these elements fed upon each other, and led to divorce.

Both David and Janice thought that they had loved each other. Probably they had. But neither of them had the real cement needed—self-love—to weather life's uncertainties.

The first sign of bad weather found them scurrying, unable to find shelter in self-esteem. If they could have seen themselves as worthy of another, they would not have needed to protect their egos by lashing out at one another, which destroyed their marriage.

It's essential to realize that how you feel about yourself directly affects your relationships with others. There's a vast difference between self-love and conceit. Conceit is an outward show, a frantic attempt to look good in the absence of your own real conviction.

Self-love is a quiet, deep awareness of your inner worth, and may even appear somewhat humble on the surface.

How you really feel about yourself can show in your movement'—sometimes others can see when you seem to be the puppet of outside forces. If you move at your own pace, that too can be apparent.

When you are in a public place alone, do you look independent? Self-contained? Self-aware? There are many who do not; they project a frenzied appearance. They don't seem to know what is behind them, and look as though they might back into a fan or bump into a stranger.