Johann Lemmer: Identity and Sexual Identity, First Edition

In order to understand the human Self in the Old Testament and the New Testament, it is prerequisite to understand the being and acting of the Source of Life (God) - according to the Scripture. Human Life (Man) is rooted in the Source of Life (God).

Who is God?

God revealed Himself to Moses: “I am who I am”. Exodus 3:14. The name “Jahwe” implies the “One” who “Is” (being) as well as the One who “Acts” (doing). I am the God that exists as well as the God that acts. His words are his actions. Jesus identified Himself in the same way before the Jewish Council in his court case. Ecco eimi – I Am (I am God). Mark 14:62.

Who is man?

Man is the image of God - created and certified by God as “very good.” Genesis 1:26-31. As a good creation to the image of God, according to the Bible, man needs to be “God-like” and “be” and “act” according to his or her own, unique, true being and not as a marionette to any authority from the outside – including religious dogma! The Bible says that all human beings were created (born) good and special – “God-like.” If you do not believe this or disagree with this, then you are probably still influenced by some of the dogma of Augustine or Calvin (see below.) I personally believed and served Calvin for forty years, believing like a child he is serving “God.” I’ll fully understand it if you still do. I respect your decision. It is your life. However, as a matter of fact, the early Christians interpreted the Scripture for many years (contrary to the ideology of Augustine and Calvin) as if they were born good – “God-like” and not inherently bad. It was not the early Christians, but later dogma that changed innocent babies into born-bad sinners. According to the Old Testament, God created us good. According to the New Testament: Jesus healed the relationship between God and the Self one hundred percent. We have a double certification as being “very good.” This encompasses our whole being and includes our global sexuality. What more do we need? We have every reason to love ourselves, believe in our own good and act accordingly as image-bearers of our Creator. We can’t blame “God”, or “Adam and Eve”, or our “Forefathers” or “Satan” in us, whenever we make mistakes. With good self-esteem as well as a good self-image, we need to take full responsibility for who we are and all our actions. Human beings are not animals. We are responsible for our own actions. We only make our own lives miserable when we are living with masks, when we pretend (that means not to be true to our own Self), when our words and our acts do not correspond, and when we are not being and functioning God-like in the sense of: “I am who I am.” Not only the two poles of being and functioning, but also the two poles of Man and God unite, climax and experience ultimate fulfillment in “ I am who I am”. On this holy ground of Jahwe and his creation of humanity we also find the soul of sex…

1.1.2 “Very good” sex in the Scripture

In Genesis 1:27 God created sexuality as the very basis of humanity: “man and woman.” Genesis 2:24 describes the re-lationship between a man and a woman (prototypes) as well as their sexual communion and unity. While the procreation concept prevails in Genesis 1:27, the relational as well as the recreational concept prevails in Genesis 2:24. God declared his creation of man and woman as sexual human beings, as “very good” This includes every single aspect of our sexuality:

· our internal and external sex hormones and organs

· our reproductive, recreational and relational sexual needs and desires.

· all the recreational sexual pleasures obtained via the penis and the scrotum, the clitoris and the vagina, the mouth and the anus etc.

· our private sexual fantasizing and lusting minds. God gave us “lust” in order to have babies, give sexual pleasure to our partner and enjoy ourselves with or without a partner.

Shortly, our whole sexuality and sensuality, the complexity of our maleness as well as the complexity of our femaleness, are all included in God’s declaration (after his creation of “man and woman”) as “very good.”

Dear Reader

If the very core of the Scripture appeals to you:

· Be and Act in harmony with your very good Self.

· Be your own unique special Self without any pretensions.

· Accept, enjoy and enhance your sexuality as God’s special gift to you without any dogmatic pretensions, masks and life-destroying guilt feelings. Regardless whether it is for the purpose of procreation, relation or recreation. All three together is a real blessing and the ultimate sex! However, we are not all the same. In reality only a few people experience all three in a lifetime. If you choose only one or two, or none, it is also fine. I am convinced that homosexuals can enjoy at least either relational or recreational sex, or even both, grounded in the creation narrative in Genesis 2.

Women received a special blessing in being granted a sexual organ exclusively for the purpose of sexual pleasure and orgasm – the clitoris. The penis and vagina have other functions as well, but the clitoris is God’s natural gift to women solely for sexual pleasure and recreation.

I presume that both Adam and Eve were human beings, therefore, neither Adam nor Eve was exclusively male or exclusively female. I presume that Adam and Eve had the same complexity of sexual identity that I describe in the second part of this book. Without any doubt, Genesis portrays Adam and Eve as fully sexual beings, even while still in paradise. They were indeed identified as “male” and “female” like you and me, but none of us is exclusively male or exclusively female (see part Two.) You have the right to differ, but before you do, please read the rest of this book. Enough about sexuality and the Scripture, at least for now.

Whoever you are, it will only do you good to follow the example of God (and Jesus) and say to yourself: “I am who I am. God made and declared every single aspect of the whole I (me) special and ‘very good’! I wholeheartedly believe Him.”

Take time to look deep into the mirror of your own Self. Is it difficult to see your Self according to the Scripture as “very good?” Why?

How do you see your sexual Self? Is there anything you want to change regarding your Self or sexual Self in the light of the information above?

If all the above do not appeal to you, please ignore that for the moment and let the journey continue...

1.1.3 The poison of Augustine:

a helpless, pre-determined born-in-sin Self, because of the disgusting sexual Self

Early Christians believed that God blessed humanity with all the gifts of nature (including sexuality). They believed in the freedom of mankind that allowed Eve to exercise free will in the garden. We can say that the early Christians had a positive life-oriented attitude towards life and sexuality. St. Augustine, with his negative death-oriented attitude, interpreted the Adam and Eve narrative different than the early Christians. Augustine introduced what Elaine Pagels calls

... a doctrine that categorically denied the goodness of creation and the freedom of the will.... Augustine emphasizes humanity's enslavement to sin. Humanity is sick, suffering, and helpless, irreparably damaged by the fall, for that “original sin,” Augustine insists, involved nothing else than Adam's prideful attempt to establish his own autonomous self-government. [2]

The question arises how Augustine came to believe that all mankind was tainted by sin as a result of Adam and Eve's disobedience in the garden and their subsequent "fall" from grace? Augustine was a Manichean before his conversion to Christianity. The doctrine of Mani (crucified in Persia in A U 276 for his opposition to Zoroastnanism) was based on the struggle of two eternal and conflicting principles, God and matter, light and darkness. Coitus was an act of darkness; even to contemplate it was evil. However, the Manichaeans accepted that not everyone was strong enough to deny the sexual impulse. Augustine had lived with a mistress, and his struggle to subdue his sexual urges continued throughout his life. The only rationale for sexual activity, he finally decided, reconciling his Christian and Manichaean ideas, was the Old Testament injunction to 'go forth and multiply' (procreation).

This negative, death-oriented interpretation of Augustine on sexuality had a phenomenal impact on Christianity, and through Christianity, on the world. The historian Vern Bullough wrote: With Saint Augustine the basic sexual attitudes of the Christian Church were set. Virginity was the preferred state of existence, but for those unable to adapt to this state, marriage was permitted. Within marriage intercourse was tolerated, but only for the purpose of procreation... Christian ideas on sex, however, were not primarily derived from any biblical teaching but were based upon the intellectual and philosophical assumptions of the period of its birth ... Inevitably Christians became - in spirit if not always in practice - ascetics, justifying sexual activity only in terms of progeny. Inevitably any kind of sexual activity not resulting in procreation had to be condemned. [3]

Both Vern Bullough and Elain Pagels cite Augustine's battle with his sexual impulses, which he discusses in his Confessions. Augustine referred to the male and female sex organs as obscoenae partes (obscene parts) and viewed all “carnal” desire with disgust. Augustine chronicled that his natural, adolescent sexual urges and the humiliation of discovering that the sexual organ has a will of its own and doesn't necessarily obey one's bidding. From this, he rashly concluded that the whole concept of free will was only an illusion. Pagels quotes Augustine's conclusion about why he suffered from enslavement by impulses that were beyond his will: "I was not, therefore, the cause of it, but the sin that dwells in me: from the punishment of that more voluntary sin, because I was a son of Adam."[4]

Pagels came to the conclusion that Augustine managed to sidestep his feelings of helplessness by blaming the sexuality he wished to repress on someone else—in this case, on Adam, who was tempted by Eve, who in turn was tempted by the serpent. She pointed out that Augustine chose the impersonal guilt of original sin rather than to admit personal helplessness against natural impulses that had grown larger than life, as impulses will, when we label them as evil and stuff them into the bag of the shadow. While Augustine's personal commit-ment to the doctrine of original sin is understandable, Pagels pondered the question why Christians in general would subscribe to his notion, antithetical as it was to the prevalent beliefs in the goodness of man. She directs our attention once more to the instinctual questions that arise from human suffering, "Why has this happened, and why has this happened to me?" Pagel concludes that:

Augustine's answer simultaneously acknowledges and denies human helplessness; in this paradox, I suspect, its power lies. To the sufferer, Augustine says, in effect, "You personally are not to blame for what has come upon you; the blame goes back to our father, Adam, and our mother, Eve." Augustine assures the sufferer that pain is unnatural, death an enemy, alien intruders upon normal human existence, and thus he addresses the deep human longing to be free of pain. But he also assures us that suffering is neither without meaning nor without specific cause. Both the cause and the meaning of suffering, as he sees it, lie in the sphere of moral choice, not nature. If guilt is the price to be paid for the illusion of control over nature ... many people have seemed willing to pay it. [5]

Albert Einstein was once asked what the most important question was that human beings needed to answer. He replied, "Is the universe a friendly place or not?" If we believe in original sin or subscribe to a literal interpretation of God's punishment of Adam and Eve, then no matter how closely we may have examined our conscience, there is always room for doubt about the safety of our soul and the ultimate "friendliness" of the universe to "sinners." The state of help-lessness created by that doubt gives rise to what Joan Borysenko calls “spiritual pessimism, an existentially helpless position that is akin to, but much deeper than, psychological pessimism”. [6]

At Harvard’s Mind/Body Clinic, Joan Borysenko encountered many patients whose physical illnesses didn't respond to her treatment. Looking deeper, she discovered that the illnesses seemed linked to metaphysical problems, to a spiritual pessimism or guilt that colored the lives of the patients concerned. Borysenko helps people to overcome their own toxic guilt and to learn to embrace a new spiritual optimism based on unconditional love, and compassion and forgiveness for others and themselves. According to her, anyone suffering from feelings of unworthiness or dissatisfaction should look at the guilt factors in their lives, lighten the load and live a happier, healthier, guilt-free life.

Matthew Fox[7] contrasts the original celebratory theology that sees life as a “blessing" with the much newer Augustinian fall/redemption theology that casts man into the role of a sinner, fallen from grace and in need of redemption by baptism from the moment of birth. He speaks passionately of religion being "out of touch with its sources of wisdom," and calls on the church to let go of its outdated, dualistic paradigm of original sin and conditional redemption that separates the Creator from the creation. According to Fox, on his deathbed Erich Fromm asked the central question: "Why is it that the human race prefers necrophilia to biophilia?" In other words, why do we choose to say no to life, rather than yes? Why are we so death-oriented instead of life-oriented?

Fox answered:

Western civilization has preferred love of death to love of life to the very extent that its religious traditions have preferred redemption to creation, sin to ecstasy, and individual introspection to cosmic awareness and appreciation. Religion has failed people in the West as often as it has been silent about pleasure or about the cosmic creation, about the ongoing power of the flowing energy of the Creator, about original blessing... ... What has been most lacking in society and religion in the West for the past six centuries has been a Via Positiva, a way or path of affirmation, thanksgiving, ecstasy.[8]

1.1.4 Augustine’s self- and sex- poison was potent through-out the Middle Ages up to 21^st century Christianity

It is obvious that Augustine's association of sex with original sin and guilt had a lasting and unfortunate effect on later Christian thinkers. It has to be understood, however, that the entire intellectual and moral climate of the early church was inimical to any cultivation of the senses. The first Christians believed that the end of the world was imminent, and even when it failed to arrive, their general outlook on life remained gloomy and ascetic. Virginity, total abstinence, and the systematic neglect of the body were considered marks of virtue.

The historian and sexologist, Erwin Haeberle, wrote: “Monks and hermits were praised and admired for their relentless fasting and their fight against sexual temptation. Even self-castration was considered a moral act. At the same time, intolerance and religious fanaticism scaled new heights. When Christianity finally became the official religion of the Roman empire, the emperors passed strict laws prohibiting certain sexual acts as relics of paganism. Especially homosexuals and other "deviants" from Christian sexual morality were singled out as capital offenders and publicly burned to death. Thus, shortly after the Christians had escaped their own persecution, they began the persecution of others.[9]

The Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts

Haeberle[10] demonstrated how the Christian church introduced a new legal system in England, Scotland, and Ireland where special ecclesiastical courts were set up that dealt with such offenses as heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, and sexual deviance.

These courts did not have the power to impose any secular punishment, however. Instead, they prescribed only a certain penance. By the same token, they were not bound by ordinary rules of evidence, but relied mainly on voluntary confessions.

Haeberle stated that offenders usually confessed their sins because they feared for their souls. An ecclesiastical court could save them from eternal damnation. The judges, in turn, felt obliged to consider not only actual deeds, but also mere sinful thoughts. The various kinds and degrees of penance were laid down in special books called penitentials, which today give us a fairly accurate picture of medieval ecclesiastical justice.

Generally speaking, the ecclesiastical attitude towards sex was extremely negative. Haeberle[11] noted that even coitus between husband and wife was severely restricted. For example, sexual intercourse was forbidden for 3 days after the wedding, during a woman's menstrual period, during her pregnancy, and for several weeks after childbirth. It was also prohibited on Thursdays (Jesus' arrest), Fridays (Jesus' crucifixion), and Sundays (Jesus' resurrection) as well as during official periods of fasting (40 days each before Easter and Christmas). Menstruating women were not allowed to enter the church. Fornication demanded a penance of up to 1 year, adultery for up to 7 years. Masturbation and involuntary orgasms during sleep were also punished. Haeberle[12] revealed that homo-sexual acts and sexual contact with animals could require a penance of 22 years to life.

From the Reformation to Today

These sexual punishments prevailed during the Reformation. When King Henry VIII became the head of the English church, he took over some of its jurisdiction and turned various religious offenses into secular crimes.

Thus, homosexual acts and sexual contact with animals, for example, which before had required only penance, were de-clared to be felonies. Offenders were executed and all their possessions confiscated. Queen Elizabeth I even appointed a special Court of High Commission which punished moral and spiritual offenders with fines and imprisonment. This court, however, soon became completely corrupt and turned into a kind of Protestant Inquisition.[13]

It is difficult to understand today that there should have been such a great difference between the penance for rape and that for homosexual acts, for example. To the medieval mind, particular sins were offenses against “nature” and therefore against God himself. By comparison, sins of "natural" lust, such as seduction, adultery, or even rape, which offended only other human beings, were taken much less seriously, according to Haeberle.[14]

All this is unacceptable and inexcusable! The church (throughout the ages up to now) was and is still preoccupied with Augustine’s sexual hang-ups. There can be no better proof of the double standards of the church than the fact that masturbation and homosexuality were considered much more of a crime than rape. Rape can produce children and that is “natural”, but masturbation, oral sex and anal sex are suppose to be “crimes against God” because it is not procreative.

Unbelievable! It is only during the last decade or two that Western laws changed. The vast majority of all citizens were offenders of sex laws in many Western countries because they didn’t use sex solely for procreation.[15] Oral sex, anal sex and homosexuality was (is) regarded as “against nature” and forbidden. Homosexual rape is even today not legally recognized as rape in many countries. Between 1750 and 1900 masturbation was also severely punished. Christianity punished small children with spiked rings around their penises to prevent them from getting erections.[16] Christianity castrated and performed clitoridectomies on people for God-given sexual desires. Christianity murdered homosexuals simply because of their unproductive orientation. All in the name of “God”, “nature” and the church? Really? It is time for a wake-up call! Christianity should have gotten rid of Augustinian ideology long ago.

It is, after all, man himself who is responsible for his sexual morality and therefore he also has the right to change it when it begins to threaten his well-being. “Indeed, under certain circumstances this right may become his moral duty.” [17]

1.1.5 The poisonous ”virtue” of Self-hate (Calvin) and the venom of love as a weakness (Nietzsche).

Erich Fromm[18] juxtapositions the extremes of Calvinism and the philosophy of Nietzsche on self-love. Calvin preached self-hate and Nietzsche denounced love for others as weakness and he advocated selfishness.

Calvin:

Calvin’s emphasis on the nothingness and wickedness of the individual implies that there is nothing he should like and respect about himself. The doctrine is rooted in self-contempt and self-hatred. Calvin makes this point very clear in his Institutes: he speaks of self-love as "a pest." [19]

According to Calvin this sinful self-love surfaced when the individual finds something "on the strength of which he finds pleasure in himself,"

Calvin decided that self-love and pleasure is sin. He fears that fondness for oneself will make one sit in judgment over others and despise them. Therefore, to be fond of oneself or to like anything in oneself is one of the greatest sins. Self-love is supposed to exclude love for others and to be identical with selfishness.

Even love for one’s neighbor (one of the fundamental doctrines of the New Testament,) has not been given a corresponding weight by Calvin. In what Fromm called “blatant contradiction to the New Testament,”[20] Calvin says: ‘For what the schoolmen advance concerning the priority of charity to faith and hope, is a mere reverie of a distempered imagination…” [21]

The view of man held by Calvin had tremendous influence on the development of modern Western society. Calvin laid the foundations for an attitude in which man's own happiness was not considered to be the aim of life but where he became a means, an adjunct, to ends beyond him, of a dogmatic, marionette-controlling, all-powerful “God”, or of the not less powerful secularized authorities and norms, the state, business, success.[22]

Nietzsche:

During the Enlightenment period the individual's claims to happiness have been emphasized much more strongly. This trend has found its most radical expression in Nietzsche. But while Nietzsche take the opposite position to that of Calvin with regard to the value of selfishness, they both had the same false assumption that love for others and love for oneself are alternatives. Nietzsche[23] denounces love for others as weakness; and self-sacrifice, love and altruism as expressions of weakness and self-negation. While he postulates egotism, selfishness, and self-love, he confuses the issue by not clearly differentiating between selfishness and the virtue of self-love.

For Nietzsche, the quest for love is typical of slaves unable to fight for what they want and who then subsequently try to get it through love. Altruism and love for mankind thus have become a sign of degeneration. For Nietzsche the essence of a good and healthy aristocracy is that it is ready to sacrifice countless people for its interests without having a guilty conscience.

Fromm[24] said that there are various reasons why Nietzsche expressed himself in the sense noted above. First of all, his philosophy is a reaction (rebellion) against the philosophical tradition of subordinating the empirical individual to powers and principles outside himself. His tendency to overstatement shows this reactive quality. Second, there were, in Nietzsche's personality, feelings of insecurity and anxiety that made him emphasize the "strong man" as a reaction formation. Finally, Nietzsche was impressed by the theory of evolution and its emphasis on the "survival of the fittest." This interpretation does not alter the fact that Nietzsche believed that there is a contradiction between love for others and love for oneself; yet his views contain the nucleus from which this false dichotomy can be overcome. The "love" which he attacks is rooted not in one's own strength, but in one's own weakness. "Your neighbour-love is your bad love of yourselves. Ye flee unto your neighbor from yourselves and would fain make a virtue thereof! But I fathom your 'unselfishness.' " He states explicitly, "You cannot stand yourselves and you do not love yourselves sufficiently."[25] For Nietzsche the individual has "an enormously great significance."[26] The "strong" individual is the one who has "true kindness, nobility, greatness of soul, which does not give in order to take, which does not want to excel by being kind; - 'waste' as type of true kindness, wealth of the person as a premise." He expresses the same thought also in Thus Spake Zarathustra: "The one goeth to his neighbor because he seeketh himself, and the other because he would fain lose himself."[27]

The essence of this view is this: Love is a phenomenon of abundance; its premise is the strength of the individual who can give. Love is affirmation and productiveness, "It seeketh to create what is loved!"[28]To love another person is only a virtue if it springs from this inner strength, but it is a vice if it is the expression of the basic inability to be oneself.

However, the fact remains that Nietzsche left the problem of the relationship between self-love and love for others as an unsolved antinomy.

The doctrine that selfishness is the arch-evil and that to love oneself excludes loving others is by no means restricted to theology and philosophy, but it became one of the stock ideas promulgated in home, school, motion pictures, television, books; indeed in all instruments of social suggestion as well. "Don't be selfish" is a sentence which has been impressed upon millions of children, generation after generation. Its meaning is somewhat vague. Most people would say that it means not to be egotistical, inconsiderate, without any concern for others. Actually, it generally means more than that. Not to be selfish implies not to do what one wishes, to give up one's own wishes for the sake of those in authority. "Don't be selfish," in the last analysis, has the same ambiguity that it has in Calvinism. Aside from its obvious implication, it means, "don't love yourself," "don't be yourself," but submit yourself to something more important than yourself, to an outside power or its internalization, "duty." "Don't be selfish" becomes one of the most powerful ideological tools in suppressing spontaneity and the free development of personality. Under the pressure of this slogan one is asked for every sacrifice and for complete submission: only those acts are "unselfish" which do not serve the individual but somebody or something outside himself.[29]

Fromm emphasized that two opposite paradigms exist in modern society: “Do not be selfish!” and “Do what is best for you in order to help others.” One result of this contradiction is confusion in the individual.

“Torn between the two doctrines, he is seriously blocked in the process of integrating his personality. This confusion is one of the most significant sources of the bewilderment and helplessness of modern man.”[30]

Fromm is convinced that the same doctrine that love for oneself is identical with “selfishness” and an alternative to love for others has pervaded theology, philosophy, and popular thought; the same doctrine has been rationalized in psychology, and specifically in Freud’s theory of narcissism.[31]

1.1.6 Identification, Narcissism & Self-Love

Narcissism

Narcissism is Freud's term for self-love. It is taken from the myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image which he saw reflected in a pool of water. We say a person is narcissistic when he spends a lot of time admiring himself.

Freud's concept presupposes a fixed amount of libido. In the infant, all of the libido has the child's own person as its objective, the stage of "primary narcissism," as Freud calls it. During the individual's development, the libido is shifted from his own person toward other objects. If a person is blocked in his "object-relationships," the libido is withdrawn from the objects and returned to his own person; this is called "secondary narcissism." According to Freud, the more love I turn toward the outside world the less love is left for myself, and vice versa. He therefore describes the phenomenon of love as an impoverishment of one's self-love because all libido is turned to an object outside oneself.

It is very important to understand Freud’s understanding of identification.[32]

Identification

The formation of the ego and the superego was accounted for by the mechanism of identification. The ego and the superego attract energy away from the id by making ideational and moralistic identifications with the instinctual object-choices of the id.

Identification can be described as the incorporation of the qualities of an external object, usually those of another person, into one's personality. A person who successfully identifies with another person will resemble that person. One of the reasons why children resemble their parents is that they assimilate the characteristics of their parents. The tendency to copy and imitate other people is an important factor in molding personality.

Freud mentioned at least four important conditions under which identification takes place.

Narcissistic identification

This type of identification has very little to do with frustration and anxiety. It depends solely upon the spread of narcissistic cathexis (self-love) to those features of another person which are cathected in one's self. (Cathexes are the urging forces and anti-cathexes are the checking forces in the conflict between the superego, ego and the id).

For example, a boy who cathects his own masculine features will be more likely to value the masculine features of other males, not because he wants to possess them but because they are like his. We always tend to identify with people who have the same characteristics that we have. This applies to material possessions as well as to personal traits. A person who owns a BMW is more likely to identify with other people who own BMWs than with those who own cheaper cars. This type of identification is called narcissistic identification.

Narcissistic identification should not be confused with object-choice. When a person makes an object-choice he does so because he wants the object. In narcissistic identification the person already has the object he wants; his cathexis merely fans out to include other people who have the same object. Men identify with other men because they share certain common characteristics, but they cathect women because women are a means by which tensions of various kinds can be reduced. If the factor of narcissism is very strong, a person may derive satisfaction only from choosing a love object that resembles him. This is one reason why a person may choose homosexuality in preference to heterosexuality, or why a man may marry a masculine woman or a woman marry a feminine man. You love the reflected image of yourself as Narcissus did. It is quite possible that all object-choices are influenced to some degree by narcissism. Two people, for example, will usually not fall in love unless they resemble one another in some way. In general, people of the same social class and with similar interests and tastes fall in love and get married.

Narcissistic identification is responsible for the ties that exist between members of the same group. Members of a fraternity identify with one another because they all share at least one common characteristic: membership in the same organization. Whenever two or more people have something in common, whether it be a physical or mental trait, an interest, a value, a possession, membership in the same club, citizenship, or whatever, they tend to identify with one another. Two people may identify with each other because they both want the same thing, yet fight with each other over possession of the desired object. It may sound paradoxical to speak of an affinity between enemies or rivals, but there can be no doubt that such affinities do exist. Enemies sometimes become friends, and competition sometimes turns into co-operation. The policeman identifies with the thief and the thief with the policeman.

Goal-oriented identification

A second type of identification grows out of frustration and anxiety. Consider, for example, the plight of a girl who wants to be loved. She sees her friends falling in love and wonders what they have that she is lacking. She decides to imitate her friends, hoping thereby to achieve the same goal they have. This type of identification, in which a frustrated person identifies with a successful person in order to be successful himself, is called goal-oriented identification.

Goal-oriented identifications are very common and have a great effect upon the development of personality. A boy grows to be more and more like his father if the father is achieving goals that the boy also desires. A girl will identify with her mother for the same reason and with the same result. On the other hand, if the father or mother are not pursuing goals desired by the child, the child will look elsewhere for suitable models. One of the reasons why movies are so popular is that the spectator can identify with the successful hero or heroine, or with the villain if he chooses, and vicariously satisfy his own frustrated wishes. By vicarious satisfaction is meant that the person himself does not reach the goal but he is identified with someone who does. If one cannot be famous himself he may derive satisfaction merely from being associated with a famous person.

It should be emphasized that goal-oriented identifications are usually made with individual qualities of another person and not necessarily with the whole person. A boy may identify with his father's strength and not with his interests in reading and golf, because it is strength that the son considers important and not the father's recreational activities. However, identifications tend to generalize. This means that if a person identifies with some traits possessed by another person he will be likely to identify with other traits as well. Moreover, it may be difficult to isolate precisely those characteristics which make another person successful; consequently, a total rather than a partial identification will be made.

Object-loss identification.

When a person has lost or cannot possess a cathected object, he may attempt to recover or secure it by making himself like the object. This type of identification may be called object-loss identification.

Object-loss identification is common among children who have been rejected by their parents. They try to regain parental love by behaving in accordance with the expectations of the parents. A child will identify with what he thinks the parents want him to be. Or a person who has lost a parent by separation or death may resolve to model his character upon the ideals of the missing parent. In these examples we see that it is not necessarily the actual character of the parents that determines the kind of identification made by the child; but rather that the child assimilates the standards and values of the parents. This is the way in which the ego-ideal is formed.

Object-loss identification may serve to restore the actual object. By being good the child actually regains parental affection. Or it may serve to take the place of the lost object. If one adopts the characteristics of the missing person that person becomes thereby a part of one's personality. The personality in the course of development becomes stamped with the imprint of many lost object-cathexes.

Identifying with authority figures

The fourth type of identification is one in which a person identifies with the prohibitions laid down by an authority figure. The purpose of this kind of identification is to enable one to avoid punishment by being obedient to the demands of a potential enemy. One identifies out of fear rather than out of love. Such identifications are the foundation upon which the conscience is based. The network of restraining forces, which constitutes the conscience, represents the incorporation of parental restraints. By regulating his behavior through self-imposed restraints (anti-cathexes), the child avoids doing those things for which he would be punished. As the child grows older, similar identifications are made with the demands of other dominant people. By identifying with authority figures, the child becomes socialized. This means that he learns to submit to the rules and regulations of the society in which he lives. By submitting to these rules, he avoids pain and obtains pleasure. The stability of society is based largely upon the identifications that the younger generation makes with the ideals and prohibitions of the older and dominant generation. The younger generation may rebel against convention but they usually end up by conforming to society.

Before leaving this topic we might mention a very primitive form of identification. This consists of eating something in order to become like the thing eaten. For example, a native hunter eats the heart of a lion that he has killed in order to become as brave as a lion. This primitive type of identification persists symbolically in the Christian sacrament. By eating the wafer and drinking the wine which are symbols of the body and blood of Christ, the person is supposed to become more Christ-like.

Freud’s four types of identification were discussed (a) narcissistic, which is defined as the spread of self-cathexis to other people and things that resemble the self, (b) goal-oriented, which is defined as the modeling of one's personality upon that of a person who is achieving goals the identifier would like to achieve, (c) object-loss, which is defined as the incorporation of cathected objects that one has lost or not been able to possess, and (d) with an aggressor, which is defined as the incorporation of prohibitions imposed by an authority figure.

1.1.7 The value and virtue of Self-love

“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself…”

If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue (and not a vice) to love myself since I am a human being too. The idea expressed in the Biblical "Love thy neighbor as thyself!" implies that respect for one's own integrity and uniqueness, love for and understanding of one's own self, can not be separated from respect for and love and understanding of another individual. The love for my own self is inseparably connected with the love for any other self.

Our premises are as follows: not only others, but we ourselves are the "object" of our feelings and attitudes. The attitudes toward others and toward ourselves, far from being contra-dictory, are basically conjunctive. With regard to the problem under discussion this means that love of others and love of ourselves are not alternatives. On the contrary, an attitude of love toward themselves will be found in all those who are capable of loving others. Love, in principle, is indivisible as far as the connection between "objects" and one's own self is concerned. With Fromm I value genuine love as an expression of productiveness that implies care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge. It is not an "affect" in the sense of being affected by somebody, but an active striving for the growth and happiness of the loved person, rooted in one's own capacity to love.

To love is an expression of one's power to love. To love somebody is the actualization and the concentration of this power with regard to one person. It is not true, as the idea of romantic love would have it, that there is only this one person in the world whom one could love and that it is the great chance of one's life to find that one person. Nor is it true, if that person be found, that love for him/her results in a withdrawal of love from others. Love, which can only be experienced with regard to one person, demonstrates by this very fact that it is not love, but a symbiotic attachment. The basic affirmation contained in love is directed toward the beloved person as an incarnation of essentially human qualities. Love of one person implies love of man as such. The kind of "division of labor" as William James calls it, by which one loves one's family but is without feeling for the "stranger," is a sign of a basic inability to love. Love of man is not, as is frequently supposed, an abstraction coming after the love for a specific person, but it is its premise, although, genetically, it is acquired in loving specific individuals.

From this it follows that my own Self, in principle, must be as much an object of my love as the Other. The affirmation of one's own life, happiness, growth, freedom, is rooted in one's capacity to love, i.e., in care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge. If an individual is able to love productively, he loves himself too; if he can love only others, he can not love at all.

Granted that love for oneself and for others in principle is conjunctive, how do we explain selfishness, which obviously excludes any genuine concern for others? The selfish person is interested only in himself, wants everything for himself, feels no pleasure in giving, but only in taking. The world outside is looked at only from the standpoint of what he can get out of it; he lacks interest in the needs of others, and has no respect for their dignity and integrity. He can see nothing but himself; he judges everyone and everything from its usefulness to him; he is basically unable to love. Does not this prove that concern for others and concern for oneself are unavoidable alternatives? This would be so if selfishness and self-love were identical. But that assumption is the very fallacy which has led to so many mistaken conclusions concerning our problem. Selfishness and self-love, far from being identical, are actually opposites. The selfish person does not love himself too much but too little; in fact he hates himself. This lack of fondness and care for himself, which is only one expression of his lack of productiveness, leaves him empty and frustrated. He is necessarily unhappy and anxiously concerned to snatch from life the satisfactions which he blocks himself from attaining. He seems to care too much for himself but actually he only makes an unsuccessful attempt to cover up and compensate for his failure to care for his real self. Freud holds that the selfish person is narcissistic, as if he had withdrawn his love from others and turned it toward his own person. It is true that selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.

This theory of the nature of selfishness is borne out by psychoanalytic experience with neurotic "unselfishness," a symptom of neurosis observed in not a few people who usually are troubled not by this symptom but by others connected with it, like depression, tiredness, inability to work, failure in love relationships, and so on. Not only is unselfishness not felt as a "symptom"; it is often the one redeeming character trait on which such people pride themselves. The "unselfish" person "does not want anything for himself"; he "lives only for others," is proud that he does not consider himself important.

He is puzzled to find that in spite of his unselfishness he is unhappy, and that his relationships with those closest to him are unsatisfactory. He wants to have what he considers to be his symptoms removed - but not his unselfishness.

Analytic work shows that:

· his unselfishness is not something apart from his other symptoms but one of them; in fact it is often the most important one;

· he is paralyzed in his capacity to love or to enjoy anything;

· he is pervaded by hostility against life and that behind the facade of unselfishness a subtle but not less intense self-centeredness is hidden.

This person can be cured only if his unselfishness is also interpreted as a symptom along with the others so that his lack of productiveness, which is at the root of both his unselfishness and his other troubles, can be corrected.

The nature of unselfishness becomes particularly apparent in its effect on others and can most frequently, in our culture, been seen in the effect the "unselfish" mother has on her children. She believes that by her unselfishness her children will experience what it means to be loved and to learn, in turn, what it means to love. The effect of her unselfishness, however, does not correspond at all to her expectations. The children do not show the happiness of persons who are convinced that they are loved; they are anxious, tense, afraid of the mother's disapproval and anxious to live up to her expectations. Usually, they are affected by their mother's hidden hostility against life, which they sense rather than recognize, and they eventually become imbued with it themselves. Altogether, the effect of the "unselfish" mother is not too different from that of the selfish one; indeed, it is often worse because the mother's unselfishness prevents the children from criticizing her. They are put under the obligation not to disappoint her; they are taught, under the mask of virtue, dislike for life. If one has a chance to study the effect of a mother with genuine self-love, one can see that there is nothing more conducive to giving a child the experience of what love, joy, and happiness are than being loved by a mother who loves herself.

Calvin and Luther had taught that man must suppress his self-interest and consider himself only an instrument for God's purposes. Progressive thinkers, on the contrary, have taught that man ought to be only an end for himself and not a means to any purpose transcending him. What happened was that man has accepted the contents of the Calvinistic doctrine while rejecting its religious formulation. He has made himself an instrument, not of God's will but of the economic machine or the state. He has accepted the role of a tool, not for God but for industrial progress; he has worked and amassed money but essentially not for the pleasure of spending it and of enjoying life but in order to save, to invest, to be successful. Monastic asceticism has been, as Max Weber has pointed out, replaced by an inner-worldly asceticism where personal happiness and enjoyment are no longer the real aims of life. But this attitude was increasingly divorced from the one expressed in Calvin's concept and blended with that which was expressed in the progressive concept of self-interest, which taught that man had the right (and the obligation) to make the pursuit of his self-interest the supreme norm of life. The result is that modern man lives according to the principles of self-denial and thinks in terms of self-interest. He believes that he is acting on behalf of his own interest when actually his paramount concern is money and success; he deceives himself about the fact that his most important human potentialities remain unfulfilled and that he loses himself in the process of seeking what is supposed to be best for him.

The deterioration of the meaning of the concept of self-interest is closely related to the change in the concept of self. In the Middle Ages man felt himself to be an intrinsic part of the social and religious community in reference to which he conceived his own self when he as an individual had not yet fully emerged from his group. Since the beginning of the modern era, when man as an individual was faced with the task of experiencing himself as an independent entity, his own identity became a problem. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the concept of self was narrowed down increasingly; the self was felt to be constituted by the property one had. The formula for this concept of self was no longer “I am what I think” but “I am what I have, what I possess.”

In the last few generations, under the growing influence of the market, the concept of self has shifted from meaning “I am what I possess” to meaning “I am as you desire me.” Man, living in a market economy, feels himself to be a commodity. He is divorced from himself, as the seller of a commodity is divorced from what he wants to sell. To be sure, he is interested in himself, immensely interested in his success on the market, but “he” is the manager, the employer, the seller -and the commodity. His self-interest turns out to be the interest of “him” as the subject who employs “himself,” as the commodity which should obtain the optimal price on the personality market.

The problem of 21^st century culture lies not in its principle of individualism, not in the idea that moral virtue is the same as the pursuit of self-interest, but in the deterioration of the meaning of self-interest; not in the fact that people are too much concerned with their self-interest, but that they are not concerned enough with the interest of their real self; not in the fact that they are too selfish, but that they do not love themselves; not in the empowering of the Self, but in the disempowering of the Self.

If the causes for persevering in the pursuit of a fictitious idea of self-interest are as deeply rooted in the contemporary social structure as indicated above, the chances for a change in the meaning of self-interest would seem to be remote indeed, unless one can point to specific factors operating in the direction of change.

Perhaps the most important factor is the inner dissatisfaction of modern man with the results of his pursuit of “self-interest.” The religion of success is crumbling and becoming a facade itself. The social “open spaces” grow narrower; the failure of the hopes for a better world after the First World War, the depression at the end of the twenties, the threat of a new destructive war (9/11, Irak, 7/7), and the boundless insecurity resulting from this threat, shake the faith in the pursuit of this form of self-interest. Aside from these factors, the worship of success itself has failed to satisfy man's ineradicable striving to be himself. Like so many fantasies and daydreams, this one too fulfilled its function only for a time, as long as it was new, as long as the excitement connected with it was strong enough to keep man from considering it soberly. There is an increasing number of people to whom everything they are doing seems futile. They are still under the spell of the slogans which preach faith in the secular paradise of success and glamour. But doubt, the fertile condition of all progress, has begun to beset them and has made them ready to ask what their real self-interest as human beings is.

This inner disillusionment and the readiness for a revaluation of self-interest could hardly become effective unless the economic conditions of our culture permitted it. While the canalizing of all human energy into work and the striving for success was one of the indispensable conditions of the enormous achievement of modern capitalism, a stage has been reached where the problem of production has been virtually solved and where the problem of the organization of social life has become the paramount task of mankind. Man has created such sources of mechanical energy that he has freed himself from the task of putting all his human energy into his work in order to produce the material conditions for living. He could spend a considerable part of his energy on the task of living itself.

Only if these two conditions, the subjective dissatisfaction with a culturally patterned aim and the socio-economic basis for a change, are present, can an indispensable third factor, rational insight, become effective. This holds true as a principle of social and psychological change in general and of the change in the meaning of self-interest in particular. The time has come when the anaesthetized striving for the pursuit of man's real interest is coming to life again. Once man knows what his self-interest is, the first, and the most difficult step to its realization has been taken. “I am who I am.” This implies both the (w)holistic[33] being and functioning of the Self.

Psychology philosophy, history and literature always focused on identity in one way or another. Great masters taught us much about the psychology and philosophy of identity. Many religions are convinced that they exclusively have all the answers.

1.1.8 Ideology versus personal value system

Be controlled or in control?

Life, experience, intuition and science taught me that most people who tries to live according to a set and prescribed ideology (whether it is religion, psychology, philosophy or what ever) lives a conflicting, uncertain and anxious life. The reason for this seems to be the inconsistency (the always moving of the goalposts) and the generalization (collectivity) of the ideology. Many people’s experiences is that religious institutions always gives you an umbrella when the sun is shining but takes it away when the rain is pouring down. They also have different lists of sins in different times (the sin of yesterday is not the sin of today and nobody knows what it will be tomorrow.) They also never acknowledge complexity and individual circumstances (it is easier to categorize and label people). The sad outcome of religious ideologies is identity crisis, denial, suppression, sub- or unconscious neurotic inner conflicts and pathological Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hide personalities.

A mature identity is, amongst many other things, also an identity that takes control over and accepts responsibility for its own choices, values and purposes in life. This will differ from time to time and from person to person. As long as one remains true and honest towards your inner Self with a practical and workable relation towards the Other.

The love for the inner Self is not a contradiction towards other people, religion or philosophy.

As Fromm summarized it: “Be yourself and be for yourself.”

Or Jung’s important awareness of and relationship with the “Shadow.”

Or Jesus commandment: “Love God. Love your neighbor. AS you love yourself.” Although it is never preached in Christian dogma, this “self-love” is the foundation that makes all the other love possible.

A mature identity may for example choose Protestant Christianity (or whatever religion) as a personal faith, but still accepts responsibility for its own choices, values and purposes in life. This means never to depend on your religious institution / ideology (neither to blame them) for your emotional and spiritual well being. Self-love always implicates self-responsibility as well as love towards the Other. This is true freedom from manipulation, frustration and inner and outer conflict. It is freedom to self-worth, happiness, mental health, self-regulation, self-realization and self-fulfillment.

The problem of our (all) times is not the abundance of self-love but the lack of it. This is proven to be the very source of most psychological disorders and pathology as well as serious crimes like murder, rape etc.

Identity is the heart of humanity. Identity lies between and beyond the poles of Self and the Other; Being and Doing (functioning); Present, Past and Future; Life and Death.

1.1.9 The Self according to Freud

In his theorizing Freud tended to view the individual as centrally struggling throughout life to relieve instinctual biological tensions, which were basically antipathetic to social mores. Later psychoanalysts have felt this model to be essential but limited and have emphasized the individual's fundamental love and yearning, at every level of development, to relate to objects and objectives. It is rather less pessimistic than Freud's position, and is not so much a testable theory as a way of attending to people. [34]

Freud’s greatest contribution to mankind, however, is the fact that he wrote and taught that human sexuality lies at the very core of humanity as well as the fact that human sexuality is a legitimate subject for scientific analysis and research.

Contrary to the views of his time (and even today) he emphasized the importance of childhood sexuality as well as the whole process of sexual development since birth.

He is the founder of psychoanalysis, which is an extensive body of theories concerning “normal” and “abnormal” behavior as well as special techniques for the treatment of persons diagnosed as neurotic.

Freud’s theory, which was focused on the childhood period, was organized around his libido theory. He defined libido as “the force by which the sexual instinct is represented in the mind.” The association of libido with sexuality is somewhat misleading in that Freud's intent was to encompass not only sexuality but also the general notion of pleasure, including the physiological underpinnings and the mental representations. The linkage of genital sexuality with libido was viewed as the end-result of a course of development in which libidinal expression takes a variety of forms. From 1905 onwards, Freud maintained a dual-instinct theory subsuming sexual instincts and ego instincts connected with self-preservation. Until 1914, with the publication of "On Narcissism," Freud had paid little attention to ego instincts. In that paper Freud invested ego instinct with libido for the first time. He postulated an ego libido and an object libido. Freud thus viewed narcissistic investment as an essentially libidinal instinct and called the remaining nonsexual components the ego instincts.

Freud's work with patients was the basis for his psychoanalytical theories based on a conceptualized framework of the mind: a hypothetical model of the id, ego and superego, described in The Ego and the Id (1923). These are not physical parts of the brain but categories of mental processes and functions. The id constitutes the biological, instinctual drives of libido (Latin for "lust") and aggression. It is present at birth and operates on a "pleasure principle" that causes the individual to want to discharge sexual and aggressive tensions. Freud describes the ego as the repository of rational processes based upon memory, perceptions and communication. The ego is said to be the source of the "reality principle" controlling and keeping the id from becoming dangerous to the individual. While the ego is partially conscious, it often works in an unconscious manner to protect the person through the use of "defenses". Freud considered the superego to be a kind of a mediator between the id and ego by providing moral support (the conscience) to help curb the id and aid the individual in making moral choices of behavior. He also theorized that the id is present at birth while the ego develops in the early stages of childhood, followed by the superego as the child grows and learns the moral norms of the society.

Aggression

When psychoanalysts today discuss the dual-instinct theory, they are generally referring to libido and aggression. However, Freud originally conceptualized aggression as a component of the sexual instincts in the form of sadism. As he became aware that sadism has non-sexual aspects to it, he made finer gradations, enabling him to categorize aggression and hate as part of the ego instincts and to categorize the libidinal aspects of sadism as components of the sexual instincts. Finally, to account for the clinical data he was observing, in 1923 he designated aggression as a separate instinct in its own right. The source of that instinct, according to Freud, is largely in skeletal muscles, and the aim of the aggressive instinct is destruction.

Life and death instincts

In 1920, before the designation of aggression as a separate instinct, Freud subsumed the ego instincts under a broad category of life instincts. That classification of the instincts is more abstract and has broader applications than his previous concept of libidinal and aggressive drives. Life instincts were juxtaposed with death instincts, and the two were referred to as Eros and Thanatos, respectively, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The life and death instincts were regarded as forces underlying the sexual and aggressive instincts. Although Freud could not provide clinical data that directly verified the death instinct, he thought it could be inferred by observing the repetition compulsion, the tendency of persons to repeat past traumatic behavior. Freud felt that a dominant force in biological organisms had to be the death instinct. He viewed it as a tendency of all organisms and their component selves to return to an inanimate state. In contrast to the death instinct, Eros (the life instinct) is the tendency of particles to reunite or bind to one another, as in sexual reproduction. The prevalent view today is that the dual instincts of sexuality and aggression are sufficient to explain most clinical phenomena without recourse to a death instinct.

Pleasure and Reality Principles

In 1911 Freud described two basic tenets of mental functioning: the pleasure principle and the reality principle. He essentially recast the primary process and the secondary process dichotomy into the pleasure and reality principles, thus taking an important step toward solidifying the concept of the ego. Both principles, in Freud's view, are aspects of ego functioning. The pleasure principle is defined as an inborn tendency of the organism to avoid pain and to seek pleasure through the discharge of tension. The reality principle is considered a learnt function, closely related to the maturation of the ego, that modifies the pleasure principle and requires the delay or the postponement of immediate gratification.

Infantile Sexuality

Freud set forth the three major tenets of psychoanalytic theory when he published Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. First of all, he broadened the definition of sexuality to include forms of pleasure that transcend genital sexuality. Second, Freud established a developmental theory of childhood sexuality that delineated the vicissitudes of erotic activity from birth through puberty. Third, he forged a conceptual linkage between neuroses and perversions. The idea that children are influenced by sexual drives has made some people reluctant to accept psychoanalysis throughout its 100-year history.

Freud noted that infants are capable of erotic activity from birth, but the earliest manifestations of infantile sexuality are basically non-sexual. The manifestations are associated with such bodily functions as feeding and bowel and bladder control. As the libidinal energy shifts from the oral zone to the anal zone to the phallic zone, each stage of development is thought to build on and to subsume the accomplishments of the preceding stage. The oral stage occupies approximately the first 18 months of life, centers on the mouth and the lips, and is manifested in chewing, biting, and sucking. The dominant erotic activity of the anal stage, which extends from 1 to 3 years of age, involves bowel function and control. The phallic stage, from 3 to 5 years of life, initially focuses on urination as the source of erotic activity. Freud suggested that phallic erotic activity in boys is a preliminary stage leading to adult genital activity. Whereas the penis remains the principal sexual organ throughout male psychosexual development, Freud postulated that the female has two principal erotogenic zones, the vagina and the clitoris. He thought that the clitoris is the chief erotogenic focus during the infantile genital period but that erotic primacy shifts to the vagina after puberty. Studies on human sexuality have subsequently questioned the validity of that distinction.

Freud described the erotic impulses that arise from the pregenital zones as component or part instincts. Ordinarily, in the course of development, those component instincts undergo repression or retain a restricted role in sexual foreplay. The failure to achieve genital primacy may result in various forms of pathology. The persistent attachment of the sexual instinct at a particular phase of pregenital development was termed a fixation.

Freud discovered that, in the psychoneuroses, only a limited number of the sexual impulses that had undergone repression and were responsible for creating and maintaining the neurotic symptoms were normal. For the most part, they were the same impulses that were given overt expression in the perversions. The neuroses, then, were the negative of perversions.

Freud’s Sexological Relevance

Freud's writings, as well as the work of many of his followers, have led to the formulation of theories and models of the psychosexual stages of development: the oral stage, the anal stage and the phallic stage. During the phallic stage, which occurs at the age of four or five, children's sexuality focuses on the genital area. It is during this stage that boys become sexually attracted to their mothers (the Oedipus complex) and girls to their fathers (the Electra complex). By the age of six, most children will have realized that they cannot have their opposite-sex parent as a love partner and move on to the latency stage, during which children are supposed to have virtually no sexual feelings or urges until puberty, when they reappear but are directed towards peers of the opposite sex (the genital stage). Central to Freud's theory is the belief that many adult neuroses are the result of the patient not having successfully moved through each of the stages with a normal resolution of urges appropriate for that stage of development.

One controversial aspect of Freud's thinking was his belief that women have two types of orgasms: vaginal and clitoral. He believed that "vaginal orgasm" was an indication that a woman had successfully reached the genital stage. Women who could only have "clitoral orgasms" probably had not successfully resolved the conflicts of the phallic stage. Modern researchers as Masters and Johnson claim that there is no scientific evidence for such a differentiation of women's orgasms, but merely differences in the techniques that bring on orgasm in women and variations in the intensity of orgasmic responses to different techniques in different circumstances. Furthermore, according to Masters and Johnson, the belief that vaginal orgasm exists and is superior to or more mature than clitoral orgasm may itself create conflict in women, who may need manual stimulation through masturbation during or after intercourse to achieve orgasm. Another of Freud's beliefs that has come under criticism was the notion that all young females go through a period of "penis envy" during the phallic stage. He claimed that this has an impact on the development of female personality and leads to adult feelings of inferiority to men. Neither Freud, nor Masters and Johnson have spoken the last words on either of these issues.

Freud extended his theories to include the arts, religion and even society itself. In Civilization and its Discontents, Freud discussed the restriction that society place upon the instinctual drives of people and how these may result in conflicts and neuroses. In Moses and Monotheism, he reinterprets the historical Moses. Freud had strong negative feelings toward religion, which he saw as a social device to meet infantile wishes to overcome mortality and existential helplessness by creating and believing in an omnipotent father who will save his children.

While Freud's work, particularly his writings related to female sexuality, has come under criticism, its importance is undiminished. A product of the Victorian era, in which expression and discussion of sexuality were greatly suppressed and denied, Freud wrote and taught that sex is an important part of the developing child and, perhaps even more important, that sex is a legitimate subject for scientific analysis and research.

Sigmund Freud consolidates our modern notion of sexuality as the hidden truth of both the individual psyche and of civilization itself. His notions of infantile sexuality and familial sexual dramas are well-known.

1.1.10 The Self according to Jung

Although Jung never explicitly wrote long essays about sex, Thomas Moore wrote in his book “The Soul of Sex” that “sex is on every page of Jung” and “Jung’s famous dictum, inscribed above his doorway, has sexual implications: Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit, Called or not; the god will be present.”[35] Called or not. The god of spirituality will always be present in Sexology.

Animus and anima

Jung focused on the spiritual and unconscious world for psychological relevance and scientific research. This spiritual dimension is of the utmost importance in Sexology.

Spirituality is, without any doubt, together with the physical, psychological and social dimensions, one of the very basic scientific premises in Sexology.

Both the medical and the psychological professions realized that they couldn’t do without the historical, cultural, social and spiritual dimensions in their respective methodological approaches. It would be suicide (or fatal stubbornness) for Sexology to maintain the two paradigms of natural sciences (medical) on the one hand and social (cultural) sciences on the other hand. They indeed meet each other in Sexology. We are not going to make the same mistakes of the past again.

Dialectics

Jung recognized that psychology and psychotherapy are bound up with the philosophical and moral problems of man. Jung’s contribution to Sexology is the way in which he dealt with reductionism by bringing “irrationality” and mythology into the realm of science. Erich Fromm honored Jung for that (although Fromm saw it as a reaction against Freud’s reductionism and not as much progress as such.) [36]

Freud looked into mythology, analyzed it, and found in it the products of sick and primitive minds. Jung was enchanted by mythology and accepted it as an authentic photographic copy of the human mind. Wolman came to more or less the same conclusion as Fromm. “Freud exploited myth for scientific purposes; Jung accepted myth as scientific evidence”.[37]

Carl Gustav Jung's psychoanalytical school, known as analytical psychology, includes basic ideas related to Freud's theories but going beyond them. Jung parted ways with Freud, after initially being his disciple, because he disagreed with Freud's emphasis on infantile sexuality.

Collective unconscious - archetypes

Jung expanded on Freud's concept of the unconscious by describing the collective unconscious as consisting of all humankind's common and shared mythological and symbolic past. The collective unconscious includes archetypes (representational images and configurations that have universal symbolic meanings.) Archetypal figures exist for the mother, the father, the child, and the hero, among others. Archetypes contribute to complexes, which are feeling-toned ideas that develop as a result of personal experience interacting with archetypal imagery. Thus, a mother complex is determined not only by the mother-child interaction but also by the conflict between archetypal expectation and the actual experience with the real woman who functions in a motherly role.

Persona – conscious - ego - self

It is worth-while to mention that Jung's persona resembles James' multiple selves and also G. H. Mead's social roles, J. L. Moreno's role-playing, and H. S. Sullivan's Self. Jung's persona represents the conscious attitude of the individual, the mask that he wears when he faces others. The persona may become fixed, so that the real person is hidden from himself or herself.

The persona is the mask covering the personality that the person presents to the outside world. It is balanced by the unconscious; whoever tries to be too moral experiences powerful pressures from the opposite unconscious forces. Whenever the persona moves too far from its unconscious foundations, the unconscious forces will burst out and overthrow it.

Jung noted that there are two types of personality organizations: introversion and extraversion. Introversion and extraversion can be organized around one of the fourfold features: thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. Thinking and sensation are masculine personality traits, while feeling and intuition are feminine, but each individual is capable of all four functions. Each person has a unique mixture of all of these components (it may be more of the one and less of the other.) The persona represents the conscious attitudes of the individual toward the outer world. It must be, therefore, related to the ego. But the ego in Jung's theory is merely a certain "condition of consciousness." It is a "complex of representations which constitutes the center of any field of consciousness and appears to possess a very high degree of continuity and identity." Accordingly the ego forms the core of one's persona, which represents the attitudes of the individual toward the outer world. The strong, domineering qualities in the individual gather together into the conscious ego and the ego is drawn into the persona. In some cases the entire "conscious area as seen by others, i.e., the persona, becomes identical with the ego. This is the case with individuals whose entire life is guided by a certain focal idea or talent." [38]

Shadow – animus/anima – unconscious

The weak and least adapted tendencies also gather together to form an unconscious complex, the shadow. The shadow contains the urges and wishes that cannot be approved of by the conscious ego. It is a personality within a personality. The shadow represents the forbidden sexual and aggressive impulses; it forces the individual to irresponsible and dangerous actions; it embarrasses the ego by tactless and stupid blunders; it gives the individual unpleasant, often weird feelings. The shadow has its own psychic energy. If strong enough, it may pierce the conscious and take over control. In such a case a mental disorder develops.

One of the main tendencies of the shadow is projection. "We still attribute to the 'other fellow' all the evil and inferior qualities that we do not like to recognize in ourselves. That is why we have to criticize and attack him." [39]

The shadow is the opposite of the ego and usually functions on the level of the personal unconscious. The deeper the shadow penetrates into the unconscious, the more opposite it becomes to the ego. The ego of a man is represented in his persona as a male figure; his shadow takes on the female form, becomes the feminine component in his personality, his anima. All men have feminine elements in their psyche and all women have masculine elements. The unconscious, the shadow, of a woman is represented, accordingly, by the male figure of animus.

The aim of Jungian treatment is to bring about an adequate adaptation to reality, which involves fulfilling one's creative potentialities. The ultimate goal is to achieve individuation, a process that continues throughout life in which a person develops a unique sense of his or her own identity. That developmental process may lead persons down new paths that may differ from their previous directions in life.

It is Erich Fromm’s wisdom that “psychoanalysis, in an attempt to establish psychology as a natural science, made the mistake of divorcing psychology from problems of philosophy and ethics. It ignored the fact that human personality can not be understood unless we look at man in his totality, which includes his need to find an answer to the question of the meaning of his existence and to discover norms according to which he ought to live. Freud's ‘homo psychologicus’ is just as much an unrealistic construction as was the ‘homo economicus’ of classical economics. It is impossible to understand man and his emotional and mental disturbances without understanding the nature of value and moral conflicts. The progress of psychology lies not in the direction of divorcing an alleged ‘natural’ from an alleged ‘spiritual’ realm and focusing attention on the former, but in the return to the great tradition of humanistic ethics which looked at man in his physico-spiritual totality, believing that man's aim is to be himself and that the condition for attaining this goal is that man be for himself.”[40]

1.1.11 The Self according to Allport

Gordon Allport focused on the psychological evolving sense of the Self. He believed that a person's only real guarantee of personal existence is a sense of self. Selfhood develops through a series of stages:

0 – 3 years

Aspect 1 Sense of bodily self

Aspect 2 Sense of continuing self-identity

Aspect 3 Self-esteem, pride

4 – 6 years

Aspect 4 The extension of self – my daddy, my house, my dog

Aspect 5 The self-image – “good” boy.

6 – 12 years

Aspect 6 The self as a rational “coper” – reflective and formal thought

Adolescence

Aspect 7 Propriate striving

“Suppose that you are facing a difficult and critical examination. No doubt you are aware of your high pulse-rate and of the butterflies in your stomach (bodily self); also of the significance of the exam in terms of your past and future (self-identity); of your prideful involvement (self-esteem); of what success or failure may mean to your family (self-extension); of your hopes and aspirations (self-image); of your role as the solver of problems on the examination (rational agent); and of the relevance of the whole situation to your long-range goals (propriate striving). In actual life, then, a fusion of propriate states is the rule. And behind these experienced states of selfhood you catch indirect glimpses of yourself as ‘knower.’” [41]

Allport used the term "proprium" for strivings related to the maintenance of self-identity and self-esteem. He used the term "traits" for the chief units of personality structure. Personal dispositions are individual traits that are the essence of one's unique personality. Maturity is characterized by a capacity to relate to others with warmth, intimacy, and an expanded sense of self. In Allport's view, mature persons have security, humor, insight, enthusiasm, and zest. Psychotherapy is geared to help the patient realize those characteristics.

1.1.12 My Self according to me

The Self is the one multi-dimensional me. Body, mind and spirit. It is my whole being as well as my functioning as a person. My mind plays an important role in my existence. Descartes said: cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. Descartes’ wisdom should not be confused with “cognitive therapy” or “the power of positive thinking.” Descartes is closer to existentialism than to cognitivism and Descartes opened the door for Freud and even for Jung. Without my mind’s perception about an existing me, the Self would never exist. This perception of my mind about me, is an ongoing changing process. My Self never stays the same. It is always on the move. My perception about myself, as well as other peoples’ perceptions about me, are constantly changing in the same way that my body is constantly changing. Yet, despite all the constant and inconstant changes, I am still I. The paradox is simultaneously true: I am still the same me of twenty years ago. Yet, I am not the same as twenty years ago. I am almost a totally new me. Although I am living in the present, I can never be without my past. My past is the story of my life. My past is I. That is the important insight from the psycho-dynamical approach in psychology. My conscious may have blocked out and have suppressed a lot of bad things in my past, but my subconscious still remembers and influences my actions and my behavior according to my suppressed past. Then there is also the third party: my unconscious. My unconscious plays a major role in my whole being and functioning as a person. A lot of things in my past influenced my life without my even knowing it. In many ways I am indeed the product of my ancestors (individual and collective Archetypes) as well as my personal history. My past is present in my present via my memories and via my dreams. Yet, I am more than just a product of my history. I do have a free will to make decisions and choices. I am not destined by “Fate” and “God” doesn’t play with me like an actor with a marionette. I am no puppet on the strings of either “God” or “Fate”! I am not a helpless tiny little branch in a mighty stormy river. With my own free will as a human being, I can make good decisions that drastically change the outcome of my life. To a certain extent I am the master of my own destiny. To a certain extent I certainly do create my own reality. Yet, it is only to a certain extent. Although I want the sky to be the limit, I do have real limitations. I can imagine that there is no wall in front of me and I can try and run through it with all my faith and strength, but reality will most certainly knock me down. I am still fragile and human. But I am not helpless! Neither am I a shamed inferior creature in an unfriendly cosmos, nor am I a “god” in a cosmic paradise (where the trees have souls) who is able to change all reality. “God” in me can do a lot of things but not everything. For then I would become “god” and fortunately I am just a man. Neither predestination and determination, on the one hand, nor positive thinking, New Age or “creator of own reality” on the other hand, is the answer.

I am living in the present and I am moving towards the future. My future is present in my hic et nunc – it is already here in my “here” and my “now”. My future is present in my dreams and my fears, my desires, expectations and my hopes about my tomorrow – my future.

Without a constant vision, a purpose or a goal in life (Victor Frankl), a dream about my tomorrow, my identity will vanish like the morning dew on the grass. This purpose, dream or vision may constantly change as well. That doesn’t matter. The Self will always need a chocolate in front of the nose to keep on running. We need constant motivation, whatever it may be. We need both short term and long term goals and purposes in life. There can be no real identity without teleological motivation! For me, personally, as an ex-theologian, heaven as “a pie in the sky when I die”, is not enough any more. I need to make a difference in the “here” and the “now” of my very existence and I know I can and I am busy doing it! (to a certain extent.)

With Erich Fromm I opt for Life and Love. My values in life are simplified to Life and its bonding cement – Love. Aimed at Life, my values are diverse and changeable through the prism of Love. I just want to live the Life of the real me. I want to be myself and be for myself. In my personal case: Jesus, the apostle John, Sartre, Jung and Fromm inspired my values. My being for-myself starts with Self-love and it abundantly and spontaneously overflows into love for the Other. This is neither egoism nor altruism. Neither ideology nor theology. Neither philosophy nor psychology. Neither traditional Christianity nor humanism. I am also not an angel or a devil. I am an integrated human being with a “good” side and a “bad” side. There is no external power (Spirit or Devil) in me. There is nobody to blame. It is me. The true I. I am bi-polar in my uni-polarity. The Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde (Jung’s Shadow) in me are well acquainted with each other in a love-hate relationship in such a way that they become identical twins. Yes they fight-and-flee-and-switch-off a lot. Fortunately they inter-transacts. They constantly have discourse. They are not strangers to each other – that would be the road to psychopathy. Fortunately they do communicate. I am in charge and I give them both room and space in my life to be themselves. This is the only way that I can handle them and control them. I choose whom to feed when, and I take full responsibility for my choices. It is impossible to be without either of them and I do not want to give one up. I love (and hate) them both. They am I.

An integrated and mature Self is open to its past as well as to its future. Without a constant re-telling, re-evaluating and re-living the stories of my life, I’ll soon lose my identity. My narratives through the years about a specific experience differed and are varied according to my present. I always tell the narratives of my past through the eyes of my present. I will always try to be true to my real self in my narratives. Honesty, growing memory and existential reflection, rather than history, fuels my narratives. However, in retrospect, the above paragraph may reflect my “idealized” self-image just to prove a point.

Body, mind and spirit. My conscious, my subconscious and also my unconscious. These include all my feelings (my emotions), my sensations and my intuition. It is with my whole being and doing that I dedicated my past, present and future to Life itself and to the Source of Life. With Victor Frankl I recognize the importance of a teleological purpose. With Ken Wilber (universal integrationalism) I recognize the multiverse as a whole with a teleological pull towards an omega point that is impossible to reach. This motivates and inspires me to dream the impossible, aim for the sun and reach the moon. To me (with Fromm) the purpose and meaning of life is Life itself. With the combination of the theories of Fromm and Wilber, love-sex is to me the cohesive (paradox: adhesive) force between the Self (ego) and the Other (eco). I understand love-sex from the perspective of my integral universalistic “between and beyond the poles” Sexology and John Money’s Love Map Theory as a healthy inter-transaction between hypophilia and hyperphilia. I wholeheartedly agree with Erich Fromm (“love is the answer to the problem of human existence”[42]) on the central theme of love. To me love is everything and the unification of love and sex is the ultimate. To me sensuality and sexuality are closely connected. I wholeheartedly agree with Freud on the theory of the importance of sex from birth to death as well as with most of his other theories. I disagree with Freud’s reductionism of sex (as well as with the popular perception of sex as merely penetration or anatomical stimulation.)

My whole value-system is built on the key concept: Self, love-sex, Other. This also corresponds with Wilber’s Ego-Sex-Eco. The shadow is Non-Self, hate - anti sex, Non-Other. Fears and desires play a major role in the inter-transaction between the poles of love and hate, Self and non-self, Other and non-other, sex and anti-sex. With Michel Foucault[43] I recognize the importance of power. Power is the ultimate tool that weakens fears and strengthens desires. Power empowers the Self and the Other, love and sex. Powerlessness strengthens the non-self and the non-other, hate and anti-sex. Power feeds desires while powerlessness feeds fears. The empowering of the Self leads to the empowering of the Other. The empowering of the Self leads to the deepest love and most satisfying sex. The empowering of the Self also leads to the fulfillment of desires. On the other hand: The disempowering of the Self leads to the disempowering of the Other. The disempowering of the Self leads to hatred and an anti-sex attitude. The disempowering of the Self also leads to the strengthening of fears. This is the reason why both the male and female (sexual) egos should be strengthened and not weakened. This is also the reason why the empowering of women is “good” but the disempowering of men is “bad.” Both men and women (as well as children) should be empowered. People with a strong identity and a strong Self shall not abuse or reduce the Other to a non-other. Power implies responsibility. Abuse of power means in reality a loss of power.

Sex is simultaneously one of the most basic and most advanced desires of all. Maslow’s theory is not that simple. People who don’t have any food to eat, still want to have sex, maybe to reproduce before death or to exercise their last resort of power or just to enjoy a last moment of pleasure. The fact is: on their deathbed people still wish to masturbate or copulate.

This brings me to the potent orgasm. With Wilhelm Reich I am convinced that a potent orgasm heals the whole being. After many years of relationship- and sex-counseling, case-studies and academic reading as well as personal experiences, the potent orgasm is indeed the Florence Nightingale of life. The stronger the inter-transaction between physical intimacy, mental intimacy, psychological intimacy and spiritual intimacy, the greater the possibility for a potent orgasm.

Epistemologically speaking, I opt for a “between and beyond the poles” position regarding a lot of things: Freud’s reductionism and Jung’s elevationism, Calvinistic determinism and New Age own-reality-creationism, egoism and altruism. With Jesus of Nazareth I rest my case: I can’t love the Other, not even God, unless I love myself. This is the premise of both the first and the second commandments. The thing I regret most in my entire life, is the fact that I neglected Self-love too often in my past. This destabilized my relationship with the Other. As ex-theologian I need to make some apologetic remarks: When things get too complex for theologians, they judge and categorize wrongly: Tabula rasa ideologist or Armenianism or Freudianism or Humanism or Hedonist. Their judgement is simplistically partly in the right and partly in the wrong. Yet, I am no more and no less a Humanist than the most devoted Christian. I still adore and respect Freud, but I have moved on. Bio-genetics and the ecosystem made a pure tabula rasa concept null and void. Many people influenced me: Psychiatrists and psychologists, philosophers and theologians, epistemologists and literaturists, friends and lovers. An old African saying is true about my life: Motho ke motho ka batho ba bangwe. A human being is a human being through other human beings. With my whole being I am thankful to all of you who knowingly and unknowingly contributed to my existence. I honor and salute you.

“I am who I am.” Today. Yesterday. Tomorrow… Between Being and Functioning and beyond.[44] Between Life and Death and beyond. [45]

1.2 The Self and the Other

1.2.1 The Self and the Other according to Horney

Karen Horney was an American psychiatrist who believed that a person's current personality attributes are the result of the interaction between the person and the environment and are not based on infantile libidinal strivings carried over from childhood. Her theory, known as holistic psychology, maintains that a person should be seen as a unitary whole who influences the environment and is influenced by it. She believed that the Oedipus complex is overvalued in terms of its contribution to adult psychopathy. She believed that rigid parental attitudes regarding sexuality lead to excessive concern with the genitals.

She proposed three concepts of the self: (1) the actual self consists of the sum-total of experience; (2) the real self is the harmonious healthy person; and (3) the idealized self is the neurotic expectation or glorified image of what the person feels he or she should be. The pride system alienates the person from the real self because it overemphasizes prestige, intellect, power, strength, appearance, and sexual prowess. It can lead to self-effacement and self-hatred. Horney established the concepts of basic anxiety and basic trust. The thrust of the therapeutic process is toward self-realization, which removes distorting influences on the personality that prevent growth.

Horney developed a constructive theory of neuroses:

I do not believe that any conflict between desires and fears could ever account for the extent to which a neurotic is divided within himself and for an outcome so detrimental that it could actually ruin a person's life. A psychic situation such as Freud postulates would imply that a neurotic retains the capacity to strive for something wholeheartedly, that he merely is frustrated in these strivings by the blocking action of fears. As I see it, the source of the conflict revolves around the neurotic's loss of capacity to wish for anything wholeheartedly because his very wishes are divided, that is, go in opposite directions. This would constitute a much more serious condition indeed than the one Freud visualized.[46]

This condition of “opposite directions” is according to Horney

a) moving towards people (helplessness),

b) moving against people (hostility),

c) moving away from people (isolation).

These conflicts result in a person “moving away from himself.“ The person simply becomes oblivious to what he really feels, likes, rejects, believes - in short, to what he really is. The person loses interest in life because it is not he who lives it. It also happens that a person builds up an idealized image of himself because he cannot tolerate himself as he actually is.

1.2.2 The Other according to Sartre, Hegel and Heidegger

Jean-Paul Sartre formulated a fundamental presupposition “others are the Other, that is the self which is not myself.”[47] The only way the Other can reveal himself to me is by appearing as a object to my knowledge – the Other can be for me only an image constituted by the diversity of my impressions… [48]

The Other is the one who excludes me by being himself, the one whom I exclude by being myself. This Other is also a self-consciousness (Hegel) It is only in so far as each man is opposed to the Other that he is absolutely for himself.”[49]

Hegel synthesized the being-for-itself and being-for-others in the Self.[50]

In Sein und Zeit Heidegger postulated a twofold necessity: (1) the relation between “human-realities” must be a relation of being; (2) this relation must cause “human-realities” to depend on one another in their essential being.” Thus the characteristic of being of human-reality is its being with others (mit-Sein).[51] The alien concept gives identity. Both the being-for-itself (alien) and being-for-others (mit-Sein) functioned strongly in sexual identity.

1.2.3 The Development of Sexual Identity

The Self & the Other: intimacy, conflict & withdrawal:

Identity remains the most important issue of mankind. Since birth we gradually started to identify ourselves as “I”, “Me”, “myself” and later also “mine” in contrast to “yours.” We gradually started to identify our relation towards our own Self and the Other, of moving towards people (first breast-feeding and then later sexual intercourse) and simultaneously moving away from people (alienation). We are in many ways constantly moving towards people or moving away from people. At the same time other people are also constantly moving towards us or away from us. There is an important difference between “I am moving away from you because you are not good enough” and “I am moving away from you because I need some space on my own. I need to rediscover, redefine and re-establish my own identity and my own Self.” This is only achieved through alienation, withdrawal and space. It is most important during the vulnerable identity developing life stages of both infancy and adolescence. The baby needs to feel secure even during the withdrawal (alienation) of the mother.

The terrible two’s and the terrible teens:

Withdrawal and alienation are essential and necessary for identity development during both infancy and adolescence. But the worst harm done to a baby’s identity (and the identity of an adolescent) is withdrawal as punishment. This intensifies the feeling “you reject me because I am not good enough” in contrast to: “the reason why you left me has nothing to do with me, but because you need to go to work.” I do not support corporal punishment (the contrary is true), but even that is not as harmful to a child’s identity as solitary confinement. The same applies to teenagers. Ignoring their very existence is the most harmful thing (although very effective in a negative way) to the development of their self-esteem. Bad teenage behavior may be punished by the withdrawal of privileges and confrontation, but never by ignoring their very existence. The damage done to the self-esteem of the teenager is not worth it.

The same principle applies to the baby. Never punish bad behavior by ignorance or withdrawal. Withdrawal is essential, but not as punishment. This only affirms the feeling of non-existence and non-identity. It is not always easy. Our normal reaction is either to fight or to withdraw from unpleasant behavior. Nobody (not even a loving mother) prefers to be in the company of the unpleasant behavior of a child. Yet conflict is much less harmful than to ignore and to withdraw from the child. In fact, many times conflict between people is just a way to establish or reconfirm own identity. This is especially the case during adolescence as the prime-time of establishing identity. Teenagers need to identify themselves by putting distance between themselves and their parents. Withdrawal, conflict and rebellion are very necessary during adolescence yet it does not manifest in the same way with all teenagers.

The same principle of “rather conflict than withdrawal” applies to adult relationships. Nothing is worse than the feeling of “non-existence” and “non-identity”. It is always better to be a somebody that is confronted and challenged, rather than a nobody that is ignored. Many people intentionally seek conflict just to be a somebody. This can confirm Self-identity but it also can be a real pain to the Other. Most of the time, the problem in relationships is the problem of having opposite needs at a given moment. For example: she needs intimacy and he needs withdrawal and alienation or vice versa. The only way to solve this is in recognizing this as a need “because of the developing of the Self” and not “because of the unacceptability of the Other”.

As human beings we need both intimacy and distance. It is in this paradox of “intimacy and alienation” and “confrontation and withdrawal” that we establish our own identity. Identity can only be formed in the juxta-positioning of opposites. (This is also the reason why the black-white issue is maintained and kept alive and well by the very same people that propagate “one colour-blind nation.”

“Motho ke motho ka batho” A person is a person through people. We need other people (that includes intimacy as well as alienation; conflict as well as withdrawal) to establish our own identity. Human identity can not be established without other people. There are examples of human beings (non-fiction) that grew up with animals and adopted to a large extent the identity of that species (at least behavioristically speaking). Indeed we all are the products of our environment. This doesn’t negate or underestimate the important role of genetics.

The forming of one’s own identity is established via the reciprocal process of intimacy and alienation between the Self and the Other.

While teenagers withdraw from their parents in many ways, they simultaneously seek intimacy with their peer group. The forming of both identity on the one hand and sexual identity on the other hand are therefore closely connected. There is a reason why the stage of adolescence is simultaneously the peak time for identity development as well as sexual identity development (and the intensification of sexual arousal and desire): Deep behind all this is the paradox of intimacy and alienation – of moving away from people and moving towards people.

1.2.4 R D Laing

R D Laing made an important contribution to the understanding of “identity and sexual identity” in his book: Self and Others. [52]

Complementary Identity

“ Every relationship implies a definition of self by other and other by self. This complementarity can be central or peripheral… A person’s ‘own identity’ cannot be completely abstracted from his identity-for-others. His identity-for-himself; the identity others ascribe to him; the identities he attributes to them; the identity or identities he thinks they attribute to him; what he thinks they think he thinks they think… Other people become a sort of identity kit, whereby one can piece together a picture of oneself… It is difficult to establish a consistent identity for oneself – that is, to see oneself consistently in the same way – if definitions of oneself by others are inconsistent or mutual exclusive… Hence mystification, confusion, and conflict… One’s self-identity is the story one tells one’s self of who one is. One’s need to believe this story often seems to be one’s desire to discount another story, that is more primitive and more terrible. The need to pivot one’s life around a complementary identity ( i.e. I am my father’s son, husband’s wife) betokens a dread of phantasy and hatred of what is.” [53] “The others tell one who one is. Later one endorses, or tries to discard, the ways the others have defined one. It is difficult not to accept their story… One may try to tear out from oneself this ‘alien’ identity one has been endowed with or condemned to, and create by one’s own actions an identity for oneself, which one tries to force others to confirm… We learn to be whom we are told to we are… “[54]

Confirmation and disconfirmation

In the basis of human life there exists the wish of every individual to be confirmed to be what he is, even what he can become, by people (the Other). “It can be visual (smile) tactile (handshake), sympathy (auditory)… Some people are more sensitive than others to not being recognized as human beings… many years of lack of genuine confirmation takes on the form of actively confirming a false self, so that the person whose false self is confirmed, and real self disconfirmed, is placed in a false position. Someone in a false position feels guilt, shame, or anxiety at not being false.”[55]

Receive and Give

Self receives and gives. Other is needed to give to and to receive from. “The more self receives, the more self needs to give. The more other cannot receive, the more self needs to destroy. The more self destroys other, the more empty self becomes. The more empty the more envious, the more envious the more destructive. A prototype of the other as giver but not receiver, unresponsive or impervious, tends to generate in self a sense of failure. He may be successful in different walks of life, but always feels: ‘I've nothing to give really. All I can do is take. Who cares anyway?’ He may feel that his life would only have meaning if it made a difference to others, for he feels that this is all that matters: ‘to leave your mark’. He may be sexually potent and ‘successful’, but feel that he never really ‘gets through’, perpetually frustrated in the midst of gratification. To make a difference to the other is victory. To allow the other to make a difference to him is defeat. Incapable of genuine reciprocity, he never finds it. He fears everyone in case they make a difference to him. If the other gives him love he will spurn it, if he feels that he is given anything; or he will despise it, if he feels the other depends on him to receive anything. Finally, he has lost both sense of his capacity to give and sense of' the other's' capacity to receive.[56]

1.2.5 The “open” (real) Self and the “closed” (“false”) Self

To talk about the Self is very complicated. Every Self is unique. Every Self is constantly on the move. A growing personality is self-renewing and changing each day. It helps to distinguish different aspects of the Self. For example: the difference between a “real” Self and an “idealized” Self. However, I have doubt in the distinction between a “real” Self and a “false” Self – “false” according to whom? “Real” and reality is not that simple. The distinction between a private Self and a public Self is a better way to express the intentions of the words “real” and “false.”

Although every distinction does have its shortages, I prefer to talk about a (w)holistic[57] Self that includes everything regarding the Self. Both the real Self and the idealized Self, the private Self and the public Self, Freud’s ego, but also his id and superego, Berne’s adult, but also his parent and child, Horny’s moving Self: towards people, away from people, against people and away from and against the own Self.

The inner Self and the outer Self combined with the perspective of the Johari-window.

The “be yourself and be for yourself ” from the perspective of Erich Fromm.

One must be very brave to face your true self. It is like looking into a mirror – just much better (or worse…)

Not many people are ready to face themselves. It is easier to live like Alice in Wonderland and keep on dreaming. A reality check can be so shocking! Is that really me? No, I can’t believe this. The mirror is lying. Am I really that fat/slender, that old/young, that ugly/beautiful? It is even more difficult to face your Inner Self than your Outer Self and your Relational Self. The most difficult of all, however, is to face your true Sexual Self. Only the bravest of the brave can go there – all the way…

Rachel Naomi Remen says that the spiritual is not the religious. A religion is a dogma, a set of beliefs about the spiritual and a set of practices which rise out of those beliefs. There are many religions and they tend to be mutually exclusive. That is, every religion tends to think that it has dibs on the spiritual—that it's "The Way." Yet the spiritual is inclusive. It is the deepest sense of belonging and participation. ... One might say that the spiritual is that realm of human experience which religion attempts to connect us to through dogma and practice. Sometimes it succeeds and sometimes it fails. Religion is a bridge to the spiritual, but the spiritual lies beyond religion.[58]

William James, the physician and scientist who fathered American psychology, coined the term soul-sickness to describe the syndrome of unhealthy guilt, chronic stress, perfectionism, and its associated physical symptoms.

Emmanuel's Book: A Guide for Living Comfortably in the Cosmos, compiled by Pat Rodegast and Judith Stanton explains self-love as follows: [59]

There is nothing but love.
Don't let the masks and postures fool you.
Love is the glue
that holds the Universe together.
The greatest need in a soul
is to achieve that loving of self
which will bring about the unity
wherein the judgements
that have caused such pain
are eliminated.
True self-love is not ego.
True love is great humility.

Love and compassion for others
cannot exist
until there is a goodly supply for self.
How can you feel the love of God
if you do not love yourself?
Are they not one and the same thing?

The problem is that addictive behaviors reinforce our “false self,” that set of fear-based personality traits and behaviors that we adopt in hopes of looking good to others or at least dulling the pain of our imagined unworthiness. The more we identify with the false self, known by different theorists as the “mask” or “as-if” personality, the more we stay separated from the true Self and from an understanding of the life experiences we have stored up within our souls. Shame literally makes us strangers to ourselves.

Dr. Charles Whitfield presents the following list of characteristics of the Real Self, as opposed to the false or shame-based self, in his excellent book Healing the Child Within.[60]

Whitfield expands on his distinction between the Real Self and the false self as follows:

Our Real Self is spontaneous, expansive, loving, giving, and communicating. Our True Self accepts ourselves and others. It feels, whether the feelings may be joyful or painful. And it expresses those feelings. Our Real Self accepts our feelings without judgment and fear, and allows them to exist as a valid way of assessing and appreciating life's events... It can be childlike in the highest, most mature, and evolved sense of the word. It needs to play and to have fun. And yet it is vulnerable, perhaps because it is so open and trusting. It surrenders to itself, to others and ultimately to the universe. And yet it is powerful in the true sense of power. It is healthily self-indulgent, taking pleasure in receiving and being nurtured. It is also open to that vast and mysterious part of ourselves we call our unconscious. It pays attention to the messages that we receive daily from the unconscious, such as dreams, struggles and illness. By being real, it is free to grow. And while our co-dependent (false) self forgets, our Real Self remembers our Oneness with others and the universe.[61]

2.1 What is sexual identity?

2.9.3 Taste

Taste also has an important sexual impact and this has nothing to do with “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” Neither is it about cannibalism. It is also much more than eating body chocolate. Food does have a lot of sexual implications, but the sense of taste refers primarily to the tasting of the lover’s body and bodily secretions – saliva, semen, vaginal secretions etc.

2.9.4 Sound

Different kinds of voices are sexy to different people. It is also not necessarily what you say that turns a person on, but the way in which you say it. The tone colour of a voice and the intonation of a single word may excite incredible inten-sity of desire. The effect of passionate talking or screaming during intercourse is well-known.

Shakespeare called music “the food of love.” Rhythm has a primeval sexual significance.

2.9.5 Touch

T H van de Velde is convinced that “the most important of all the senses, in sexual matters, is touch.”[72] He distinguished between the “active tactile sensations (that part of the body that touches the object – fingers, tip of the tongue etc.) and “passive tactile sensations” (those which are received by the object touched – the erogenous zones.) Some people cannot get enough touching and bodily contact, while others cannot give enough touching. Some people do not like to touch, while others do not want to be touched. They prefer more personal and/or body space.

2.9.6 Objects

The sky is the limit when we begin to mention all the different objects that arouse people sexually: leather, clothes, satin, perfume, jewelry, shoes, flowers, fire, water, cars, animals, etc. In this regard, our sexual preferences are also very dissimilar.

The point is quite clear: Tastes differ. Our sexual preferences are not the same. Sexual preferences play a major role in all sexual behaviours, including fantasies.

2.10 Sexual Lifestyles (sexual activity)

The actual sexual behaviour or lifestyle of a person may be different than his fantasy world, his sexual orientation or gender role. This sometimes evokes intense inner conflict, stress and depression.

A person also may have been involved in more than one lifestyle with or without the knowledge of all the different partners involved. This also may evoke inner conflict, stress and depression.

Monogamy or bigamy or multigamy.

Married and faithful with a happy sex life.

Married and faithful with an unhappy sex life.

Married with secret masturbation with or without a specific fetish.

Married with open masturbation with or without a specific fetish.

Married with a love affair.

Married and visiting prostitutes.

Married with more than one love affair simultaneously.

Married with gay relationships

Married with a lifestyle of practicing a fetish in real life or via the Internet or other media.

In a relationship or married but practicing full time as a prostitute.

Single with one regular sex partner.

Single with no sex partners, but with only sexual fantasies and masturbation.

Single with a few sex partners

Single with many sex partners (apart or simultaneously)

Practicing BDSM (Bondage & Discipline, Slave & Master)

Living out different fetishes.

Zoophilia (“bestiality”)

Cyberphilia

Celibacy

Paedophilia

Exhibitionism

Voyeurism

Transvestism

Swinging couples.

Two (or more) girls and a guy.

Two (or more) guys and a girl.

Gay orgies.

Couple orgies.

Devoted loving housewives when the husband is at home, but bored and available for a relationship when he is at work or away.

This list goes on and on. It is nearly impossible to name all possible sexual lifestyles. There is a lack of recent research on this important topic. Available research is not always scientific.

2.11 Sexual Self-image & Self-esteem

It is ipso facto that all of the above (gender differentiation, gender defining, gender identification, gender role, gender side, sexual orientation, sexual preference and sexual lifestyles) play a major role in constructing the sexual self-image of a person. On the one hand sexual self-image is part of a person’s sexual identity. Yet, on the other hand, sexual self-image is much more than just the sum of all the different parts of sexual identity. The sexual self-image of a person is integrated with his general self-image as a person and this involves his whole being, both intra-psychological (see Allport 1.1.11) and in an inter-transaction with the other (his outer world - the ecosystem). One of the best representatives on the Self in inter-transaction with the Other is Karen Horney (1.2.1).

Our inner conflicts are our worst enemy to a healthy and realistic self-image, both generally speaking and regarding our sexual self-image. We have a solid meta foundation on which we can build a basis theory on sexual self-image. Freud, Jung, Allport, Horney and Laing provide this basis. Although they differ from each other and sometimes even oppose each other, all four of them are part of the (w)holistic scientific “truth” and indispensable as meta-theories for a basis theory in Sexology on sexual self-esteem and self-image.

Freud’s[73] intra-psychical-orientated view regarding conflicts as “between desires and fears”.

Allport’s[74] process of integration (that offsets the segmenting process of differentiation) into a unity via the dialectic of dividing and uniting.

Horney’s[75] interactional-orientated view regarding the division of conflicts “in opposite directions” as well as her concept of the actual self (sum total of experience), the real self (the harmonious healthy person) and the idealized self.

Jung's complementary-orientated view regarding conflicts “to accept both these opposites and thereby approximate the ideal of wholeness”.

2.11.1 Desires and fears (Freud) [76]

Conflict between the superego, ego and the id; between the urging forces (cathexes) and the checking forces (anti-cathexes). The nullifying or restraining of a cathexes by an anti-cathexes is called repression. Primal repressions are innately determined, for example, incest. Repression proper or simple forces a forbidden or “dangerous” idea, perception or desire out of the consciousness, for example, wanting to make love to a forbidden person or kinky thoughts.

Sexual desires have been with us since the beginning of our lives. So are perceptions that these sexual desires are wrong and should be punished. Result: Fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, etc. The outcome of all these are distorted sexual self-images. It is all about the conflict between parental upbringing and the reality of the own sexuality.

2.11.2 Horney’s opposite directions and sexual identity.

Karen Horney’s theory is discussed in depth in Part I of this book. She developed a constructive theory of neuroses:

I do not believe that any conflict between desires and fears could ever account for the extent to which a neurotic is divided within himself and for an outcome so detrimental that it can actually ruin a person's life. A psychic situation such as Freud postulates would imply that a neurotic retains the capacity to strive for something wholeheartedly, that he merely is frustrated in these strivings by the blocking action of fears. As I see it, the source of the conflict revolves around the neurotic's loss of capacity to wish for anything wholeheartedly because his very wishes are divided, that is, go in opposite directions. This would constitute a much more serious condition indeed than the one Freud visualized.[77]

These “opposite directions” is according to Horney

a) moving towards people (helplessness), b) moving against people (hostility), c) moving away from people (isolation). These conflicts result in a person “moving away from him-self.“ The person simply becomes oblivious to what he really feels, likes, rejects, believes – in short, to what he really is. The person loses interest in life because it is not he who lives it. It also happens that a person builds up an idealized image of himself because he cannot tolerate himself as he actually is.

Moving towards people: Sexual dependence upon others: Does he/she find me: sexually attractive, good in bed? If he/she doesn’t, then I am certainly not! His sexual self-esteem rises and falls with their approval or disapproval, their affection or lack of it.

Moving away from people: Sexual withdrawal: Sexual aversion disorder. Desire disorder. Arousal disorder.

Moving against people: Sexual hate and violence. (This includes the hatred towards prostitutes, sexy models and the opposite (or same) gender). Most extreme: sexual abuse and rape.

The conflict between the actual sexual self, the real sexual self and the idealized sexual self is legio.

Freud struggles with reductionism. Freud was a theoretical reductionist for he believed that mental energy originated from physical energy and assumed that all mental processes are processes of discharge of energy in accordance with Newton's laws. But meanwhile Freud was a methodological non-reductionist. He doubted the usefulness of an unproved, glib, unempirical, and speculative reductio-nism. Instead he developed a series of logical constructs on a non-reductionistic level—the id, ego, superego, transference, etc.[78] Horney is a non-reductionist. It is possible to combine Horney’s environmentalism with Freud’s mechanism.

2.11.3 Carl Jung’s concept of “individuation” and sexual identity.

One of the main principles of Jung’s theory is the principle of opposites or dialectics. Life is construction and destruction. It is the dialectic law of development through opposites, through the swinging from one extreme to the other in order that the process of equalization, which is energy, can take place. All life is energy. [79]

Both the animus and the anima are essential part of our whole being. We developed sexual self-image issues by not integrating and accept these two opposite concepts in our sexuality.

The shadow[80] contains an unconscious complex of our weak and least adapted tendencies and the urges and wishes that cannot approved of by the conscious ego. The shadow also represents the forbidden sexual and aggressive impulses. One of the main tendencies of the shadow is projection.

Examples of our sexual “shadow” are legio. The sooner a person discovers his or her sexual shadow, the better. The problem is not the existence of Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde but the fact that they are not aware of each other. After discovering the shadow, one needs to deal with the “shadow” by accepting it. Change the things you can (if you want or need to do it) and accept the things you cannot change.

A more recent theory that helps us to understand sexual identity and sexual self-image is John Money’s “love-map theory”.

2.11.4 R D Laing’s contribution to the understan-ding of sexual identity

In his book: Self and Others[81] R D Laing discussed the inter-transaction between the receiving and giving of the Self and the Other. The Self receives and gives. Other is needed to give to and to receive from. “The more self receives, the more self needs to give. The more other cannot receive, the more self needs to destroy. The more self destroys other, the more empty self becomes. The more empty the more envious, the more envious the more destructive. A prototype of the other as giver but not receiver, unresponsive or impervious, tends to generate in self a sense of failure. He may be successful in different walks of life, but always feels: ‘I've nothing to give really. All I can do is take. Who cares anyway?’ He may feel that his life would only have meaning if it made a difference to others, for he feels that this is all that matters: ‘to leave your mark’. He may be sexually potent and ‘successful’, but feel that he never really ‘gets through’, perpetually frustrated in the midst of gratification. To make a difference to the other is victory. To allow the other to make a difference to him is defeat. Incapable of genuine reciprocity, he never finds it. He fears everyone in case they make a difference to him. If the other gives him love he will spurn it, if he feels that he is given anything; or he will despise it, if he feels the other depends on him to receive anything. Finally, he has lost both sense of his capacity to give and sense of' the other's' capacity to receive.

Consider this in relation to sex. Two basic intentions in sexuality are pleasurable relief from tension, and change in the other. Sex may be felt to be empty if the other is not dancing as well. The pure self-gratification of rise and fall of tension can be eminently frustrating. Any theory of sexuality which makes the ‘aim’ of the sexual ‘instinct’ the achievement of orgasmic potency alone, while the other, however selectively chosen, is a mere object, a means to this end, ignores the erotic desire to make a difference to the other. When Blake suggested that what is most required is 'the lineaments of gratified desire' in the other, he indicated that one of the most frustrating possible experiences is full discharge of one's energy or libido, however pleasurable, without making any difference to the other.

‘Frigidity’ in women is often the refusal to allow men the triumph of ‘giving’ satisfaction. Her ‘frigidity’ is triumph and torment. ‘You can have your penis, your erection, your orgasm, but it doesn't make any difference to me.’ Indeed erection and orgasm are very limited aspects of potency: potency without power to make a difference to the other. The impotent man, analogously to the frigid women, is often determined not to give the woman the satisfaction of satisfying him.

Jack is potent. Jill is ‘frigid’. Jack does not want to ejaculate alone. It means nothing to him. Or rather, he feels he has been rejected. He wants to give her an orgasm. She does not want to be ‘frigid’ because she would like to give him her orgasm; it would be a present. But if he forces her to have an orgasm it would be a defeat. He would have won and she would have lost. She would, however, like to be defeated, but he does not seem to be able to beat her. Meanwhile if she is not going to come, he is damned if he is, so he now becomes impotent. It usually takes several years of marriage to arrive at this position, but some people can work through the stages in a few months.

Frustration becomes despair when the person begins to question his own capacity to ‘mean’ anything to anyone.

The prostitute provides the required complementary ‘lineaments’ for a price. If they are not available in Jill, Jack begins to despair of his power to make any difference to anyone, but may settle for a good counterfeit. Jill may herself be prepared to play the part of the prostitute. It keeps it in the family, as it were.” [82]

2.11.5 The Lovemap Theory (John Money)

“A lovemap exists in the brain and in the mind. It is a schema or template in which are represented the imagery and ideation of one's transcendent sexuoerotic arousal and the rapture of orgasm. A lovemap may manifest itself in dream, fantasy or action. The juvenile period of sexual rehearsal play is a critical period for lovemap formation and, pari passu, malformation… Malformation may be a sequel to deprivation and neglect, or to prohibition and punishment, or to coercive and conspiratorial deceit with respect to sexuoerotic knowledge or activities related to the sex organs. Under these conditions, children are caught in the Catch-22 of being damned if they do, and damned if they don't disclose what they know or do. There is no way to avoid vandalization of the lovemap. It is put at risk of becoming thwarted, warped or bloated - in other words of becoming hypophilic, paraphilic or hyperphilic.

In hypophilia, affectionate love retains a place in the vandalized lovemap at the expense of carnal lust, which diminishes or disappears. The long-term outcome may be manifest globally as sexuoerotic inertia or apathy (also referred to as sexual aversion and sexual-desire disorder), or specifically as partial sexuoerotic impairment of the genitalia manifested as impotence, lubrication failure, penetration or intromission phobia, anorgasmia, and other syndromes of sexual dysfunction. Hypophilic impairments are a more common outcome of lovemap vandalization in girls than in boys.

In paraphilia, affectionate love and carnal lust both retain a place in the vandalized lovemap, but at the expense of being dissociated from one another. The recipient of affectionate love is a different person from the recipient of carnal lust - for example, a wife and a prostitute, respectively. In the extremes of paraphilic pathology dissociation may be as extreme as in the fictional case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. For example, Mr. Hyde may be a paraphilic lust-murdering, serial killer, whereas Dr. Jekyll is the conventionally affectionate husband and provider whose respect for his wife leaves her virginity virtually intact. She has no suspicion of his alter ego as a carnal killer, nor do his neighbors, relatives and friends. There are at least forty different types of paraphilic lovemaps. Legally, some are defined as criminal offences, whereas others are legally ignored as private eccentricities. There is no absolute criterion by which to establish illegality. Thus sadomasochism, if consensual, is legally tolerated, whereas a consensual age-discordant relationship with an under-age juvenile or adolescent is prosecuted as molestation or child abuse. Similarly, genital exhibitionism or voyeurism in public is, although harmless, a legal offence, as is sadistic rape and lust murder. Harmless paraphilias are playful if they are reciprocated mutually, whereas they are a disruptive and alienating nuisance when they are one-sided, the lovemaps of the two partners being mutually mismatched. According to the evidence available, when juvenile lovemaps are developmentally vandalized, the prevailing outcome in boys is paraphilia, as compared with hypophilia in girls.

In hyperphilia, carnal lust is preserved in the lovemap at the expense of affectionate love, which diminishes or disappears. The hyperphiliac's pairbondedness, though capable of being brilliantly intense, is short-lived. He or she has a long string of partners, either as a private entrepreneur, or as a paid prostitute or hustler of the orgasm trade. The male/female prevalence of hyperphilia as the outcome of vandalized lovemaps, though controversial, is probably evenly divided. In males hyperphilia is more likely than hypophilia to be an adjunct of paraphilia, the reverse being the case in female paraphilia.

Hypophilic, paraphilic and hyperphilic lovemap mal-formations occur independently of whether the lovemap is bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual or, indeed, autosexual. Thus, it is erroneous to classify masturbation, homosexuality or bisexuality as belonging, per se, in any one of the foregoing three -philic categories”. [83]