A king once raised a boy in total isolation, keeping him locked away from birth so that he would never see a woman. According to a tale preserved in the Exempla of the Rabbis (compiled by Moses Gaster in 1924 from medieval Jewish sources) and widely paralleled in world folklore, the king believed he could defeat human nature through pure environmental control.
The boy grew up seeing only his tutors and guards — all male. He learned languages, sciences, and philosophy. He studied the ways of the world through books alone. The king was convinced that if the boy never encountered a woman, he would never develop desire, and his mind would remain entirely devoted to higher pursuits.
When the boy reached maturity, the king finally brought him out into the world. The young man saw animals and asked what they were. He saw buildings and asked their purpose. Then he saw women. "What are those?" he asked.
The king's advisors, following their master's instructions, told the boy: "Those are demons. They are dangerous. Stay away from them."
The boy considered everything he had seen that day — the animals, the buildings, the markets, the entire dazzling spectacle of civilization. Then he turned to the king and said: "Of all the things I have seen today, I like the demons best."
The tale became a classic proof-text for the rabbinic concept of the yetzer hara (יצר הרע), the innate human inclination. You cannot educate it away. You cannot hide from it. You cannot quarantine a human being from their own nature. The inclination is not learned behavior — it is woven into the fabric of being human. The only viable strategy, the rabbis taught, is not to eliminate desire but to channel it through the structure of Torah and mitzvot (commandments).