Continuing the previous Post, being able to sexually interact is a process that theoretically coincides with the end of sexual identity development and the beginning of adult life, but it is not concluded by then. At the beginning, expectations of performances and the lack of familiarity with erotic interaction can generate anxiety. The first experiences are usually of individual discharges, i.e, each one becomes excited and reach an orgasm without confidence in their partners’ pleasure during sex. Very often, they are so worried about their own performance that they don’t enjoy sexual pleasure or, at least, don’t fully enjoy it. Later, the path towards maturity will be relationships with sexual/erotic tuning and intimacy, added by shared life project - what would be a full definition of a Loving relationship. At the beginning of sexual life, though, it is common that people have sexual behavior instead of sexual interaction. It means that, even considering that is possible to be in tune with the other’s excitement and trigger the interactive circuit called sex, ultimately, an Encounter demands a well succeeded match between feminine and masculine drives in both of them.
Finally, it is crucial to add that infantile feminine and masculine identities were not structured just by imitating behaviors associated with men and women during childhood. Combativeness and sensibility models (masculine and feminine drives), coming from both father and mother (or those who had these roles), were introjected in these girls or boys’ personalities. Occasional lacks on feminine and/or masculine models structuration in these children may, sometimes, block identity fusions in one or both stages, preventing the necessary process from being completed. Let’s remember that a healthy sexual identity doesn’t mean a XPTO sexual orientation. It means psychological intimacy (being in tune) with feminine drive[1]: receiving, welcoming, symbolically “being penetrated” and with the masculine energy: propelling, facing life with combativeness or, symbolically, “penetrating life” [2]. Such a complex combination happens, the best way possible, to every person, since having a sexual identity is predicted on “genetic protocol” for all humankind. Therefore, it is possible that someone who has a heterosexual orientation is not able to sexually interact and has gaps in their feminine /masculine models and that someone who has a homosexual orientation goes through a well succeeded sexual identity construal, i.e, they have combativeness and sensibility well integrated in their personality.
[1] I’m using drives, energies and elements as synonyms. [2] During adolescence sexual identities are flourishing, which means gender identifications and sexual orientation aren’t closed yet. It is truth that in most of the cases considered by psychiatry as gender dysphoria people feel dissonant with expected roles and behaviors for their sex (gender) since early years. As well as it is also truth that people with homosexual orientation don’t usually feel their sexual orientation is a choice. Instead, they usually refer to it as an existential condition. These are sensitive issues that demands a complex “cross-linking data”, of hard generalization. Our goal in this text, besides showing the complexity entailed on sexual identity development, is to make a clinical distinction between the kind of suffering triggered by real anguishes- coming from discrimination, bias, etc, i.e, external impediments, and the kind of suffering coming from internal impediments or neurotic anguishes that, in these cases, are related sexual identity blocks.
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