The Problem of the Demon LoverOne of the most serious conflations of Demon and Self can be observed in the problem of the demon lover. The Demon in the demon lover figure is a logical extension of the introjection of an agent of distilled patriarchy to the role of sexual(ized) partner. Another way of phrasing this is that the kind of power the Demon exercises over the ego (in demon lover form) is a sexual power. It need not be "attractive", but it is often seductive. The promise of the Demonic demon lover is a kind of sheltered numbness, a petrification in which life's barbs can't penetrate (although, of course, the Demon is likely to repeatedly abuse the shadow-identified ego to remind it of how incapable the ego is of enduring "real" penetration).
The demon lover is a psychic figure frequently noted by analysts both Jungian and psychoanalytic (and Kalsched notes a number of those who emphasize the construct in
The Inner World of Trauma). There is, though (at least in my opinion) an excessive tendency to see any demon lover (and also trickster) figure as entirely negative. When this is done in error (as I feel it too often is), the result is extremely damning for the female analysand, because it can effectively banish the animus or even turn the ego into an agent of the Demon set on terrorizing the animus (see my
write up of the fairytale The Nixie of the Mill-Pond for some further reflections and speculations on this). The problem of Demonizing the demon lover is conveyed in the common practice (among Jungians) of depicting the animus as a negative/destructive figure or even using the term "negative animus" for almost all animus representations. I have always found this habit one of the most dismaying Jungian errors, as the negativization of the animus is nothing other than a tribal prejudice. A woman who enters analysis with a Jungian (or any kind of analyst) who exerts this prejudice against the animus is likely to have no success at individuation (or success only in spite of the analysis). What's more, the prejudice against the animus runs a very high risk of associating the analyst with the patient's Demon (and therefore, associating the analytic/individuating process with submission to the Demonic ordering principle).
In practice, analysis (especially Jungian analysis) can take significant shape and direction from the patient's unconscious (i.e., from the transference) . . . and I would imagine that this is enough in many cases to overcome any dogmatic errors and prejudices against the animus that a Jungian might bring to the lens she or he offers to the patient. Any analyst of even modest ability and a normal sense of ethics will try to do what is in his or her power not to harm the patient, and this "common sense intuition" can and should trump the tribal prejudices of the methodology and theory the analyst identifies with. But the fact remains that Jungian analysis, interpreted by the book, cannot function adequately in the individuation advocacy of women (so long as the animus is demonized) . . . and this is a very serious problem.
And yet, to be fair, the differentiation of the Demon from the animus in a demon lover "possession" is often extremely difficult. The patient is unlikely to be able to tell the difference at first, and her dreams might reflect this conflation and confusion. It is in such situations that the analyst must have an adequate theory of both Demon and animus from which to begin a differentiation. The theory itself (when applied to analysis of dreams or any discussion of the demon lover figures possessing/obsessing the patient) can help model a healthy animus and differentiate Demonic qualities . . . so a serious flaw in the theory will end up doing harm to the patient.
The root of the difficulty in a Demon/animus conflation is largely a matter of attraction. We might say that in women who have possessing demon lover figures in their psyches (dreams and fantasies), the very nature of relationality is poisoned. This doesn't (as perhaps a more psychoanalytic thinker would presume) begin with sexuality, in my opinion. It begins with poisoned relationality and spreads from that core to the individual's sexuality, and perhaps also to friendships (with members of either sex), parent/child relationships, and even more abstract relationships "to the world" (or the tribe). It is therefore a problem of Eros. The animi figures are representations of the individual's Eros or relationality with others (and Otherness of all kinds). Perhaps, with this condensed characterization of the animi, it will become more apparent why I have claimed that negativizing the animus is potentially so destructive.
Demon-poisoned relationality (even as it is experienced in a specific sexual way) is not a sign of some deep inner defect or perversity . . . but it is often perceived this way by those who suffer from it. In fact, poisoning of one's relationality is the most common way in which Demonic possession will manifest. This is due to the fact that the Demon is so preoccupied with (and resentful of) any Otherness. As Eros is the medium through which we could say culture is "introjected" and environmental factors imprint with instinctual structures in the individual, the marred imprinting that leads to the formation of the Demon in the psyche is always going to involving some degree of Eros poisoning. Even people who have not experienced significant trauma in childhood or adulthood are typically "Demonic" when it comes to their sense of intimacy and vulnerability. Intimacy is, for most people, a preciously guarded "natural resource" that we often experience as "all mine" (hoarding). We can see the Demonic principle in the common attitude toward intimacy characterized by the expression "once bitten, twice shy". Of course, many of us are "shy" even when they have never been "bitten". I would even argue that, in order to become truly functional on an intimate level of relationality, some degree of "being bitten" is necessary in order to prove to us (against Demonic propaganda) that intimate contact with others need not destroy the precious sense of self we sometimes guard so ferociously. Relational experiences of the Self-as-Other tell us that there is no reason to fear being washed away by Erotic affect. We are not really a mere spec of dust in the ocean of Eros. We are indigenous to the relational environment. Sometimes the modern experience of having no "true tribe" leads to the feeling of tininess and dissociation. But those individuals who grow up in a healthy "relational ecosystem" are less likely to fall for the Demon's sermons about guarding one's intimacy against "all intruders".
But Demon-poisoned relationality that has been met with some degree of consciousness in an individual can become a kind of "Mark of Cain" of which the individual feels and "knows" that deep down, she or he is tainted, twisted, fucked up, sick. It is even likely that the individual will be led (compulsively) toward relationships in which this "truth" is Demonically rubbed in his or her face. Sometimes it becomes a fetish . . . other times a "repetition compulsion" that is undesirably destructive. In these cases, the only "cure" is the establishment and heroic "redemption" of a healthy animi. That healing work is equivalent to individuation . . . and it will therefore require reliance on the heroic ego. The redemption of the animi commingled into a demon lover figure is no small task, and it is likely only to create an alternative to the Demonic "lover", not a cure or eradication of the Demon in the psyche. The process may be workable in analysis (through the vessel of transference) or a healthy relationship with someone who gives the true animi figure a hook to pull it out of the Demon's snare could do the trick (probably something of both will be needed).
The poisoning of Eros by the Demon has a precise equivalent in the language of fairytales, where it is typically called "enchantment" (or bewitchment). A great many animi fairytales depict the animi figure as subject to some kind of enchantment that associated the animi with an animalism or even a Demonic persona (the Beauty and the Beast or "enchanted bridegroom" motif, for instance). This can also be interpreted as a devaluation of instinct, which can then only be seen as base, vulgar, animalistic, and dangerous to super-egoic civilization. The common fairytale cure for a poisoned Eros (animi figure) is heroic acceptance of the enchanted animi's Otherness or wound. To free the Beast from his Demonic enchantment, the Beast must be loved and accepted in spite of his woundedness or devalued shadowiness and the way it tends to create reactionary and "unlovable" affect in him. In other words, the hero must see that the "beastly" affect exists in her own heart and is a kind of projection onto the animus (figure of relationality). The relationality is not poisoned at the source . . . but by the Demonic pattern that has imprinted with the instinctual relational drive. The ego (as hero) must recognize that it has the power to "redeem" the animus . . . which is also a recognition that the Demon does not have absolute power in the psyche.
We must be careful in any talk of enchanted animus fairytales to differentiate true animus figures from "Bluebeard" figures that represent the Demon as the unredeemable groom who imprisons and threatens to murder his brides*. I am tempted to argue that these should not actually be considered animus stories at all, as they usually do not contain animus figures. In those stories in which a Bluebeard-like figure is differentiated from a redeemable animus figure by the heroine, the distinction must still be made between the two figures. This is a differentiation we have to assert or interpret into the collective of animus and Bluebeard texts, as it is not clearly indicated in every single tale. Why make this assertive interpretation? 1.) Because on the whole, the signature characters of these tales
do break down along these lines more often than not. 2.) Because it is essential for any clear understanding of the psychic phenomena these tales reflect to make this differentiation. 3.) Because making this distinction (as part of a psychology of folktales rather than a purely literary taxonomy like the Aarne-Thompson system) allows us to develop a more accurate (less mystical) paradigm of psychic structure (as the distinction contributes to understanding the hero, personal shadow, and ego as they are commonly represented . . . and not only the Demon and animus). 4.) This differentiation is essential for psychotherapies that deal with those (many) patients whose psychic material reflects a conflation between the Demon and the animus . . . i.e., the differentiation has therapeutic benefits when applied to practical analysis.
* Animus tales usually end with the heroine and animus bridegroom living happily ever after, at least after the redemption of the animus from his enchantment. In Bluebeard tales, the Demonic groom is typically destroyed either by himself or by some "healthier" expression of masculinity (such as the bride's brothers). The bride then inherits the great wealth that the Bluebeard Demon has hoarded. We could interpret this as a gaining of access to all the valuation (and once-poisoned Eros or libido) that the Demon had locked away. But in most Bluebeard stories, the heroine does not end up with a valid animus figure. Therefore they do not depict individuation events as complete as conventional enchanted bridegroom tales do. We could say that many Bluebeard tales end in a Catharsis of affect-driven retaliation against the Demon, but not necessarily in full transformations of personality. So, if a patient in analysis had experiences paralleling the heroine's from "Bluebeard", she would not actually be "healed" by the emotive events that corresponded to the murder of Bluebeard by the heroine's brothers. She may even move from identification with the victim to identification with the wounder . . . which does not depotentiate the Demon at all. Still, I don't wish to suggest any rules governing the scenario here, as every case is unique.
Against these reasons, we have the fact that in many cases, spontaneous psychic representations in women's dreams and fantasies demonstrate some degree of conflation between animus and Demon. But in many other cases, the differentiation is quite clear. I suspect that there is a correlation between the degree of this conflation and two factors in an individual woman's personality: 1.) destructive impact of trauma suffered (especially in early childhood), and 2.) extent to which an individuation/healing process has progressed for the individual. In other words, the more traumatized the psyche, the more conflation between animus and Demon, but the more effective individuation/healing the woman has done, the more this conflation will be sorted out and a functional differentiation made.
I can't look at the kind of conflation between Demon and Self figure (animi) that Kalsched and other analysts have made as at all illogical. This observation of conflation is an accurate one in many instances . . . probably most instances. But the interpretive paradigm Kalsched and others have assembled to account for this (a paradigm that essentially suggests that the Self is both light and dark, good and evil, creative and destructive) is a fallacy. As extensive as the data set of traumatized and suffering patients' Self/Demon conflated psychic material is, the analysts who are using this data set to determine their proposed paradigms are not using an extensive enough collection of data. What the samples seem to lack is the psychic material from those individuals who have differentiated the Demon and Self to a more significant degree and the experience of differentiation they had. Also missing is the usage of fairytales that not only demonstrate differentiation of Demon and animus, but are explicitly about this (i.e., the hero's task in the tale is equivalent to this differentiation). These Demon/animus differentiation tales predominate in the enchanted bridegroom type of tale. This cannot be ignored, and we cannot simply discard data that doesn't seem to fit with our hypotheses when this data is clearly part of the same data pool the accepted data was also from.
The challenge to this revision is not a matter of its logic, nor is there any issue with lack of textual data (where folktales are concerned). The challenge is a matter of allowing the revision to also revise the way we have been thinking about individuation a bit. This attitude toward individuation seems to be largely a post-Jungian problem in practice . . . although the ideological precedent is clearly set by Jung himself in his frequent demonizations of the animi. Despite Jung's push for seeing the Self as "half dark", I get the feeling that the demonization of instinctual ordering processes is actually more psychoanalytic than Jungian . . . and the conflations between Demon and Self increasingly common in Jungian texts are related to the increase of psychoanalytic attitudes in Jungian thinking. By which I mean, for instance, the idea of the id (if we assume that by id, we mean something with biological/instinctual definition) as aggressive, infantile, immoral, narcissistic, etc. Contrasted with this is the psychoanalytic tendency to see civilization as "super-egoic" and corrective of id excesses. But in Jung's paradigm, the Self is the seat of spiritual revelation, numinousness, "higher order", and perhaps morality . . . not merely unchecked aggression and sexual desire. I would also argue that even in Jung's attempts to assign the Self a "dark half" resembling either the Yahweh of destructive "acting out" or the idea of the Antichrist, he is not giving it the same reductive and belittling treatment that Freud gave instinct and the id (although to be fair, Freud also sometimes wrote about the id like Jung wrote about the collective unconscious).
Jung's light and dark halves to the Self are a theological interpretation of it . . . a particular, and clearly unscientific, perspective on the Self that tells us how one (of theological disposition) like Jung might feel about the way the Self is not confined to the same sense of morality as the civilized ego might be. The Self, for instance, doesn't necessarily show restraint or concern itself with self-image. It is dynamic and active/reactive and seeks what I would consider equilibrium with environment (and homeostasis within its system), but what others might
interpret as narcissistic desire or greed (an interpretation which requires the assignment of an egoic agency to the Self that is, in my opinion, inappropriate). The aspects of the Self that Jung felt compelled to call "dark" are not, I think, those aspects that drive human behavior to commit what we would probably call "evil" acts. Rather, what is "dark" in the Self is its disregard for human civilizing conventions that are at odds with the functional operation of the Self system. The Self can stand against the ego with rage, disease, withdrawal of "resources" (libido), compulsion that seems to invite disaster in the environment . . . but these instinctual drives are not inherently evil. They are only interpreted as such when the drives of the Self in an individual come into conflict with social organization and expectations, taboos, totems, and dogmas. We shouldn't forget that the rationales we apply to our behavior are not necessarily what the Self dictates or needs in order to pursue its homeostasis. "Acting out" affective eruptions requires some degree of interpretation. If I feel dehumanized and "castrated" by something another person does to me, and I choose to express this with aggressive retaliation (perhaps even physical violence), it is not the Self, per se, that dictated such a reaction or drove such violence. The Self can only be held responsible for producing the reflexive affect. That the actor-interpreter of this affect "goes unconscious" and opts to express it in violence (or a passive-aggressive kind of assault, more commonly) is not the fault of the Self or what Jung called the "Collective Unconscious". These "
abaissment du niveau mental" episodes are due to "design flaws" in the construction of the ego that were precipitated by inadequate socialization or environmental imprinting. Instinct does not engender these reactions . . . and the fact that we have been blaming instinct for these actings out for centuries demonstrates a particular kind of egoic prejudice toward and devaluation of our "animal" instinctuality. It is a shadow projection onto instinct or a scapegoating that means to disown responsibility for our destructive acting out.
The functioning of personality is, of course, much more complex than the example above would suggest, but I mean merely to remind that we often exhibit (and psychoanalytically-inclined psychotherapists most of all) a cultural prejudice against our instinctual drives that does not necessarily accord with a
more scientific assessment of the function and "meaning" of those drives. We must be careful not to criminalize our instinctual systems . . . especially before we make a more precise assessment of the environmental forces acting on and introjected into the psyche. One of the most important differences between Jung's psychology and Freud's can be seen in the attitude of each toward modernism and civilization. Jung was significantly more critical of modernism's trends and systems of order. Freud was critical (or reductively "analytical") about various human civil institutions, but he very much aligned himself with modern materialistic rationalism. He at least aspired to this mindset. Jung, probably in part as a reaction against Freud's extreme stance on this matter, was very critical of modern rationalism and materialism and took a more "romantic" attitude.
This is not a black and white case, of course. For instance, Freud always aspired to and claimed a much higher level of rationalistic materialism and scientific credibility than he achieved in the conception of psychoanalysis. This "concealed impotence" in the science department has always functioned as a powerful motivating factor for psychoanalysts to defensively compensate with (at worst) scientistic spin or (at best) an over-valuation of Father Science as approver of the Good Son's rightness and achievement/offering (which is coupled to a undervaluation of that which the Father would less likely approve of). This particular disease is not common in the Jungian "genetic stock", but Jung himself, in voicing numerous attacks against science and rationalism doth (I think ) protest too much. In fact, Jung was mostly a very competent rationalist and scientific investigator. A few of his theoretical digressions are metaphysical and can't be substantiated scientifically, but his sense of reasoning and intellectual self-criticism was at least as rigorous as that of Freud (who had a weakness for dogmatizing and noticeably more zeal for packaging and selling his theory). But Jung reacted against this side of himself with suspicion and at times antagonism. Equally, he seems to have reacted from this stance against his own romanticism and spiritualism with suspicion at times. His negativity toward the anima and her "temptations" is perhaps a case in point. He mistrusted her urgings for him to identify as an artist (rather than a scientist) . . . and ultimately, he was much more comfortable with his Philemons and wise old man figures than he was with the artistic emotiveness of his anima. I think that was more than a cultural misogyny. Jung was a creature of a science vs. religion conflict . . . and he managed to strike a complex and surprisingly stable (if still far from perfect) balance between the two.
I pursued this digression into a revisitation of a dream of Jung's I had previously discussed on the forum (and which Jung discusses in MDR). I will extract this digression and replant it in the thread already devoted to the discussion of that dream. In the extracted digression, I give a partial interpretation of Jung's dream (which I refrained from doing previously). This may be of interest to anyone who was intrigued by that dream previously, but it is off topic in this discussion of the demon lover, so I've removed it in the present essay. I will also reproduce the previous two paragraphs above along with the rest of the digression to give the post some introductory orientation. The new post in that topic can be found here:
http://uselessscience.com/forum/index.php?topic=96.msg1986#msg1986To return to the figure of the demon lover, we will commonly find genuine and functional animus figures in the dreams and fantasies of women that manifest as demon lovers but are not Demonic. The demon lover is characterized by seduction, and sometimes this seduction is expressed or perceived as "overpowering". But before we Demonize all animus seduction, we need to look at it more carefully. We cannot, I feel, apply the same standards and interpretations to animus seduction that we might apply to literal erotic seduction of women by men. For instance, in real life we might say that the attempt of the seducer to get the seducee to do something against her will (and in service of the male seducer) dangerously borders on rape. If a woman says no to the seduction, she should be respected in her request, and any deviation from this respect would be perceived as a violation. But when the seducer is the animus and the seducee is the ego, this dynamic changes. The Self (represented in this case by the animus) is always throwing compulsions, affects, and demands at the ego in a compensatory fashion (as Jung often noted, especially of dreams). The Self can be seen as largely a reactive organism that typically rebounds against whatever impedance the ego tries to exert against the dynamic complexity of the Self's principle of organization. This rebounding is like a reflex that typically reflects the magnitude of the egoic impedance. So if the ego is especially rigid or defensive or otherwise Demon-possessed, the response of the Self is likely to be more extreme.
If we map this reflexiveness to the stirrings of the animus work stage, any Demonically-derived resistance to the animus will rebound reflexively and be perceived (by the ego) as forceful seduction. To make matters worse, where the Demon is strong in a woman's personality, it will very likely supplement any animus approach to the ego by coloring this as terrifyingly as it can. This is how the Demon perverts and "enchants" the animus. It always requires a complex unraveling of thoughts and feelings (of affects) to determine where the various impulses associated with animus and Demon are coming from. We tend to think about these intertwined motivations too simplistically . . . and this allows us to Demonize the animus more often and more severely than is healthy.
Added to this problem is the fact that the animus is an archetypal representation of an unrealized instinctual push for relationality. This means that the animus is likely to have a distinctly erotic/sexual as well as Erotic aspect. Sexuality usually means intimacy, and intimacy is terrifying for many people, even when it is meant as fostering or empowering. Any engagement with an other requires that we risk not only exposure and vulnerability, but injury and loss. There is simply no way around this. And both anima and animus represent a kind of new Otherness and potential intimacy that is far beyond anything the individual has dared experience before. The potency that an animus figure offers demands that the ego position change (become more fluid, dynamic, and also more heroic or open to the dangers of intimacy and empathy). These things cannot be Demonized without rendering a woman's eros severely dysfunctional. It is precisely the same for men who have come to the beginning of the anima work.
There are a number of common scenarios in which the demon lover can be truly dangerous (i.e., in which the Demon is significantly present in it). When this happens, it is highly probably that the woman has suffered some kind of relational trauma, probably sexual in nature. Among these scenarios where Demonic demon lovers can contaminate the healthy animus, two specifically come to mind. In the first, the woman probably suffers from a kind of repetition compulsion in which she is drawn into and may be unable to comprehend and then escape abusive relationships with men. Male sexuality, then, can be perceived as a kind of terrorizing power play to which the only defense is increasing numbness and dissociation. At the same time, the woman may experience her own sexuality as dangerously "responsible" for attracting abusive men to it . . . and so it becomes an inescapable weapon used against her by the Demon (who tells her that she brings it on herself and deserves what she gets). Alternatively, she may completely dissociate from her sexuality, because to allow herself to feel any sexual pleasure or longing (or to imagine any) is to invite punishment. In a woman with this kind of wound, the Demon can use sex to control and intimidate her.
The other Demon/animus conflation scenario we see frequently manifests as a fantasy of the demon lover that is often extremely elaborate and mythical/fantastic. This figure is like a god or devil or perhaps a vampire. Its darkness is probably mostly superficial, and the woman fantasizes about an endless pursuit where she plays the role of woodland nymph forever tempting and barely evading him. There is always a great deal of innocence to this construction of sexuality with its gothic fantasy dimension. The girlish sense of sexuality the woman imagines in the fantasy never penetrates her or roots down. The flower never unfolds. The fantasy of male sexuality never "grows up" and the demon lover that pursues the nymph never gets to actually touch her in a way that would "awaken" her from the fantasy. Sometimes a component of this personality construct is a father who projected his erotic anima onto his daughter in a way that crippled her. Equally, an absent father who might have "mysterious secrets" could engender a daughter who falls into the snare of this demon lover fantasy. She remains untouchable, because no one can live up to the father-animus as a figure of mystery and power (and equally, no one can obtain her, because she identifies with the elusive anima of which no mortal man is really worthy). Sexuality here never gains any earthiness, any body . . . and when it does, it may be experienced as a violation of something sacred and taboo.
This psychology becomes especially dangerous when it leads the woman into relationships with "bad boys" whose true "badness" she underestimates. These men might not play along with her ethereal and untouchable fantasy sexuality, and the woman may be either too falsely naive to recognize impending physical danger or else too starry eyed to be able to enter into her body to join with a true and valuating lover (who would then feel she is suspiciously absent in the flesh). Such absence will encourage some men to tire of her and leave her to her impenetrable fantasies, while other men will pursue her presence more and more voraciously. Her Demonic ideal is to keep a demon lover as a pet that she can take out to play act with and then put away before any consummation occurs. If this state of "enchantment" persists, the woman's animus will respond by seeking to bring her into her body in a functional way . . . but any movement into the body is perceived by the ego as terrifying and violating. In this fear of bodily violation, the Demon can keep the animus/Self and its dynamic, instinctual reorganizing force at bay.
The great problem with either of these (or other) constructs of Demon/animus conflation is that they present very real and unworkable problems in actual relationships with men. The kinds of relationships the woman is drawn to are the very ones that will perpetuate the Demon's power over her personality. And therefore most brushes with sex or love will seem to punish her and reinforce the Demonization of the animus and masculine sexuality. The path out of the woods of such a complex is very convoluted . . . and it will probably not prove followable unless and until the Self sends the animus to the ego with great affect behind it. The woman, then, will have to work through the Demon before getting to the animus . . . and she will probably only deepen her woundedness before she finds any healing. Of course, we see this theme in many fairytales . . . where the heroine must endure or see through the Demonic beastliness of her groom before that beastliness can be redeemed. Regrettably, in real life relationships, it is very very rare to find the "handsome prince" beneath the beastly fur and fangs of a man. More often, this works the other way around.
In other scenarios, the positive animus may approach the ego of a woman terrorized by Demonic men/masculinity in a non-sexual or wounded sexual form. The challenge in this construction of the animus can be one of seeing functional male sexuality in a devalued image. Here the woman has to take responsibility for her own Demon to progress/heal, because the Demon will invade the ego and stimulate it to look down upon the wounded animus. The Demon will tell the ego that this animus is ugly, impotent, disgusting, worthless . . . and it will encourage her to construct a fantasy of a "real man" who is viral, powerful, beautiful . . . but who will inevitably control and imprison the woman (or her ego). It becomes her own Demonically driven disdain for her shadow (projected onto the animus) that leads her into the danger of being seduced by the very kind of man who will retraumatize her. The heroic impulse in this scenario might manifest as a desire to imbue the wounded animus figure with healthy and healing eroticism. The fantasy of the super-potent lover who is yet semi-divine, untouchable, and inflexible or impenetrable by the woman's eroticism or intimacy often goes along with a Demonic inflation.
All of this is very difficult territory to get into, especially while wielding these generalizations and averaged constructions. These construction should not be used reductively, and any individual woman doing dream work, analysis, or dedicated inner work is going to have her own relatively unique mixture of constructions like these or numerous others. One of the overriding issues that complicates (and darkens) animus work of any kind in our culture is that the idea and ideals of "the Masculine" are deeply perverted in our patriarchal society. This Masculine is just as damaged in men as it is in women . . . and that compounds the problems that arise in relationships between the sexes (and same sex relationships as well). We have a prejudice in our society today that essentially claims a person's sexuality is their own. It is something "true" about us that we possess and which belongs exclusively to us. But this is absurd. Our sexualities are just as subject to cultural/environmental construction as every other aspect of our personalities. Perhaps we make this error because we think of sexuality as innate, biological, and instinctual. And there is no doubt that sexual attraction has an instinctual element. But the construction of our individual sexuality is subject to environmental imprinting and can easily be "created" by our culture, just as any trait of the ego can.
In America, especially, we live in a sexually dysfunctional society where puritanical patriarchal images of male and female, masculine and feminine, a man's sexuality and a woman's sexuality are created and introjected into us from partially Demonic stuff. I think that part of our prudishness regarding sexuality can be seen in our tendency to claim so much creative ownership of it and treat it like a special object we keep locked away in a box from the rest of our personalities. Is sexuality really as divisible from our personalities as we make it out to be . . . or is this a pathological dissociation?
When I write about the underestimated cultural construction of sexuality, I don't mean to apply this to some kind of commentary on homosexuality and heterosexuality. On that issue, I'm really not certain. I do suspect that the fervent insistence of liberal intellectuals that homosexuality is biologically predetermined and not culturally constructed is overestimated in the name of political correctness. It seems more likely to me that both homosexual and heterosexual orientations undergo substantial cultural construction and environmental conditioning, and that in no circumstance is all of this certifiably "healthy" or "functional". I'm not sure it is possible to have absolutely healthy sexualities in a society where sexuality is so collectively diseased. But to the degree a healthy sexuality is possible, I suspect it would take some kind of heroic effort to heal/create it. That is, sexuality in our modern world would need to be individuated just like every other aspect of identity in order for it to derive its sense of organization largely from the Self (from instinct)*. Psychologists cannot be squeamish about confronting this. The alternative to seeing sexuality as part of individuation is to see sexuality as a kind of dark and mysterious inner object from which identity is dissociated.
This need for our sexualities to individuate (along with the rest of the ego) is precisely why all the animi fairytales we encounter are filled with patterns of sexual awakening and healing. I don't mean to reduce identity to sexuality in a Freudian way here. I mean merely to suggest that sexuality or sexual identity is a part of who we are, and a non-detachable part, at that. As we are human, there is no non-sexual Self . . . there is no relationship with Self that has no sexual element . . . and there is no expression of Self in the world that is desexualized.
One thing worth devoting ourselves to, woman or man, is the reconstruction of non-patriarchal sexuality. What this might look like, I don't know . . . and that is an example in itself of how deeply the cultural construction of sexuality runs. We can no more conceive of non-patriarchal sexuality than we can conceive of a non-patriarchal world. That is, even in our fantasies of difference, we will unconscious drag in patriarchal constructs and assumption that we remain unaware of.
* Many evolutionary biologists, psychologists, and cultural anthropologists have noted that sexual "neurosis", tabooing, and taboo-breaking are common in all human societies, even tribal ones. Various "biological" reasons have been given for this. For instance, the incest taboo as an institution of genetic fitness which people were originally unconscious of. Other "biological" ideas have been proposed that purport to explain (and justify) monogamy or various double standards in sexual behavior between men and women. I have a hunch that these biological thinkers are approaching human culture too reductively and simplistically. I really don't have a personal counter-theory on this subject. But there may be something to the biologism that suggests there is no absolutely "healthy and natural" sexuality free from anxiety and unconscious "acting out". One good reason I can think of to support this perspective is simply that sexual relationships are governed by extreme genetic and social importance and are therefore subject to tremendous competition, qualification, and resultant anxiety (clashes of will). Since most of human existence saw sexuality "curtailed" by the complication of pregnancy, it is perhaps only in an era of widespread birth control that sexuality can emerge a bit from beneath its historical anxiety (as has been suggested by others). But as the "free love" era has taught us, what emerges from previously repressed sexuality that is unfettered is not necessarily healthy, is not necessarily a pure and natural instinct of the Self system.
Sexuality is still subject to the "laws" that govern all relationships with others. Specifically, valuation of the other must be part of any sexual relationship deemed "healthy". Such valuation of the other is just as ancient and ingrained a human problem as sexual anxiety. I have previously proposed that our instinctual sociality is structured by a differentiation of self and other that determines who is granted fully human status. Prejudice is built into our sociality systems . . . and to the degree that we remain unconscious of this operation, prejudice governs our socializing behavior and will likely set self/other definitions very severely and restrictively (and arbitrarily). Only when treated with conceptualization can we transform this innate prejudice against others into something like humanistic ethics. That is, we must be able not only to valuate the other and see how we are like him or her, we must find a way of broadening our definitions of self and other so they are not so severely restrictive and tribalistic. The conceptualizing power of human intelligence is also instinctually driven. And our projection of agency (and therefore some degree of "like-me-ness") into others most likely has some connection to our sense of empathy (which is at the root of ethics).
But here we have only elaborated two instinctual trends that are destined to create conflict in practice. There is also, I believe, a genuine and instinctual need to feel connected to others and to something (to a tribe) . . . an Eros instinct. In the pursuit of this Eros drive, we must make discriminations regarding who we are like and who we are not like. None of these complexities have a perfect or perfectly healthy expression in unconsciousness. Only our conscious minds can find a way to reconcile these drives or tendencies . . . and experience shows that we fail more than we succeed in this reconciliation.
My guess is that something similar operates in our sexual instincts and drives, and sorting these conflicts out requires inner work and reckoning and the implementation of novel (conceptualized) solutions.
