Love and Sex - Excerpts Part 9

Written by Sam Vaknin

Page 1 of 3

Excerpts from the Archives of the Narcissism List Part 9

1. Love and Sex

There is nothing wrong in showing love with our bodies. Love can and should be expressed in many ways, the physical one never to be excluded.

Love can and should be poured into many vessels: in words, in tender gestures, in empathy and consideration, suffused with the right kind of silence or bursting with the joy of momentary unity. Love is the art of merging the distinct and still maintaining the distinction. What better way of applying this principle than sex? What is the orgasm of a loving couple if not a moment of fusion, individually experienced?

So, love and sex do go together.

It is when sex is mistaken for love that pathology sets in. Sex can be had without love. Loveless sex is the emotional equivalent of eating. It can be a gratifying experience. But sex without love is NOT love. To provoke our physiological reactions in isolation is NOT to know and to be known, to love and to be loved. To acquire a sense of self worth and a modicum of self esteem by penetrating or being penetrated, by seducing or by letting go is a poor, illusory substitute for the Real Thing. It is also demeaning. The Other is objectified. It is to USE men (or women) to obtain a supply of sorts: narcissistic or hedonistic. When we become the slaves of sex, its minions, pawns on the gaming board of our compulsion, our ego an extension of our genitals - then love becomes impossible. For one cannot really love an object and one cannot respect that upon which one is dependent and one cannot cherish one's self because of such dependency. How can we love others if we despise our subjugated, compulsion-torn, selves? How can we act compassionately, as love demands, if constantly enraged in our diminishment?

Loveless sex is not love. Is sexless love - love?

No, it isn't. A love devoid of sex to me is lacking. The love of God, the love of a mother, the supposedly platonic - all are painted with the thick brush of sex. Not to crave for someone's body, to single out his soul - and only his soul - for intercourse is not to love. Thus incomplete, it is deformed attachment, enmeshment, dependence - but not love. We love with all our senses, with all our being, with body and with soul. When we love - we ARE. If lacking one dimension - the whole edifice crumbles. A love without sex withers, shrivels in the glaring sun of discord and ruptured intimacy. It is not in vain that the Bible says "to know" when it really means to merge in the ultimate, most sublime, most profound act of loving - in sex.

I am not sure we will all find true love. I am not sure we are not conditioned to confuse love with sex. But I am sure of one thing: the way is as important as the destination. Searching for true love is an act of love in itself. As long as we pursue the path to self betterment, to healing through the power of love - we are in love: with life, with our emerging selves and, gradually and hesitantly with others. This is the triumph of the human personality, however disordered.

I think that the narcissist unconsciously selects a mate that can help him recreate old conflicts with his Primary Objects / caregivers (parents, in humanspeak). This repetition complex stems from the unconscious belief that repeating is resolving or that resolution will emerge somehow in one of the repetition cycles.

There is much more about this in my book and in my FAQs.

Don't be so eager, so competitive, so transparent, so matter-of-fact, so dependent. It scares men away. Men are looking for pure sex or pure romance. Pure sex should be something casual, light-hearted, no strings attached, no egos intertwined, no identities involved, no baggage brought, no competitions won or lost. It is a tension free thing, devoid of anxiety and compulsion. Pure romance is like snowflakes: tender, beautiful, soft spoken, misty, engulfing, soothing.

Romance is also hard to reconcile with the tintinnabulation of the bells of competition or with the high strung eagerness of narcissistic supply. As you are, you don't stand a chance with either type: the purely sexual or the purely romantic. Take it easy, cool off, relax, pursue no goals, enter no contests, keep no notes, spread your sheets and spare your spreadsheets.

2. Schizotypal Personality Disorder

A-propos culture and society determined mental health disorders - did you know that a belief in telepathy (which I do NOT confess to, personally) constitutes one of the criteria in the Schizotypal PD?

Schizotypal Personality Disorder is to my humble mind, perhaps THE most culture-dependent PD of all.