COMPULSIVE SEXUALITY

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Freud introduced the concept of "symbol" into the concept of mental organization. In The Interpretation of Dreams, he describes various symbols that represent a sexual theme - genitals or sexual intercourse. Freud warns that the idea of "substituting" one object for another can go too far: a cigar is not always a symbol of a penis; "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Sometimes sex is a symbol of something else. If a person's deepest end-factors are existential in nature and are associated with death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness, then it is possible that the fears they generate may be shifted and symbolized by derivative problems, such as problems of sexuality.

Sex can help suppress death anxiety. In the practice of therapists, there are cases of working with terminally ill clients who have been absorbed in sexual interests. Ellen Greenspan's study showed that women with breast cancer were more likely to have forbidden sexual fantasies compared to healthy controls of the same age.

There is some magic in the attraction of sex. This is a powerful reinforcement against the awareness and anxiety of freedom, since we, being under the influence of the charm of sex, do not in any way feel that we are constituting our own world. On the contrary, we are "captured" by a powerful external force. We are obsessed, fascinated, "infatuated." We can resist temptation, surrender to it or play for time, but we do not have the feeling that we have “chosen” or “created” our own sexuality: it is felt outside of us, has independent power and seems more powerful than it really is.

Compulsive sexuality is a common response to feelings of isolation. Promiscuous sex offers the lonely individual a strong but temporary respite. It is temporary because it is not intimacy, but only a caricature of a relationship. Compulsive sex lacks all the signs of genuine caring. One uses the other as a means. He or she uses only part of the other and enters into a relationship only with her. This kind of interaction means that a person forms a relationship - and the faster, the better for the sake of sex, and not the other way around, when sexual intercourse is a manifestation of deep relationships and promotes them. The sexually compulsive individual is a great example of a person who is not in a relationship with the whole being of another. On the contrary, he has a relationship only with the part that serves to satisfy his need. Sexually compulsive individuals do not know their partners. As a matter of fact, they often use ignorance of the other and hiding most of themselves as an advantage, therefore they show and see only what contributes to seduction and sexual intercourse. One of the hallmarks of sexual deviation is that an individual enters into a relationship not with another person as a whole, but with some part of another. For example, a fetishist has a relationship not with a woman, but with some part or some accessory of a woman, for example, a shoe, a handkerchief, or underwear. One review on human relations says: "If we make love to a woman without establishing a connection with her spirit, we are fetishists, even if we use the proper body holes in the physical act."

Thus, the sexually compulsive individual neither knows the other nor is intimate with him. He never cares about the growth of another. Not only does he never keep the other fully in sight, but he never loses vision of himself in a relationship. He does not exist "in between", but always observes himself. Buber called this orientation by the term "reflection" and mourned sexual relations, where partners are not included in a full, genuine dialogue, but live in a world of monologue, a world of mirrors and reflections. Buber's description of the "erotic man" is particularly clear:

“I have spent many years on the land of people and have not yet exhausted all the variants of the“erotic man”in my research. The lover rages, loving only his passion. of his own bewitching action on others. Another admiringly looks at the action of his alleged surrender. Still someone collects thrills. He takes pride in borrowed life energy. This one is content to exist both as himself and as an idol, not at all like him. a person is basking in the brilliance of his life's lot. Someone is experimenting. And so on, and so on - all the numerous monologues with their mirrors in the room of the most intimate dialogue!"

So, a person is in love with passion, a person collects thrills and trophies, a person warms up "in the splendor of his lot" - anything but a genuine relationship to oneself or to another.