SEX IS NOT A DRIVE:
IT’S JUST REAL IMPORTANT
by Dr. Daniel A. Bochner
Sigmund Freud, the progenitor of psychotherapy as we know it, said
that sex or libido was, along with aggression, a drive. That is, he thought
that sex and aggression were the two primary motivators in life. I will
grant that many people are driven by sexual goals, but I do not think that
sex is actually a drive. The truth is, sex is a great motivator because it
involves everything that is a drive. So, you might suggest, maybe sex is
even more important than a drive. I don’t think so, but let’s cover a few
other areas before we get to that.
A drive (for lack of a better term) is a primary motivator. It is
inside us and makes us tick or go, but it connects to something on the
outside by which it can be satisfied. In Freud’s view the two drives were
sex and aggression. Aggression could be satisfied by becoming dominant
and then occasionally, as it fits the fancy of the dominant one, someone
or something around him could be given a beating to satisfy the aggressive
urge. Thus, according to that view, everyone seeks dominance over
someone or some thing. The sexual drive, on the other hand, could be
satisfied by obtaining a sexual partner and planting a seed, and thus
dissipating the restrained urge. But there is a much better explanation for
how drives work than that, since there are so many situations in which a
person clearly feels comfortable without being aggressive or dominant,
and there are also so many situations in which a person manages to be
okay without the pursuit and capture of sexual partners.
This alternate explanation involves the balance of three primary
motivators. The first two are sustenance and self-protection. From the
moment we are born (and perhaps before that, inside the womb), we
attempt to find a balance between intake of food and being sated. On one
extreme is starvation and on the other extreme would be eating till you
pop (the second is rarely a real danger, but you know what I mean).
Likewise, we attempt to find the balance of self-protection or safety and,
from the time we’re born, we stand ready to shrink or bolt in fear, or on
the other hand, attack with aggression. As a parent you can see how your
baby gets you to protect him or her and how he or she can occasionally
cry with such force that it nearly knocks you out. These two drives
become a part of everything we know so that we can thirst for knowledge
or feel crammed with information; likewise, we can cream a baseball or
fear the pitch.
But more to the point of this discussion, the third drive, relatedness,
includes sustenance and self-protection as they involve our relationships
with other people. From the time we’re born (and perhaps before) we
thirst for the human comfort of our mother, but can also be overwhelmed
by her presence. We feel a need to protect ourselves from the aggression
of others and either fear them or aggress in return. And when we come to
develop an awareness of real safety with others, the knowledge that they
will be there and will not overwhelm us or aggress against us or that we
are capable of securing that safety and sustenance through our own
negotiation within the world, we begin to develop our sense of relatedness
into true caring for others. When such confidence develops, we need to
balance our desire to do for others with our need to care for ourselves. At
the extremes, we need to avoid becoming isolated and alone in selfishness
and we need to avoid becoming responsibility fragmented with our desire
to take care for everyone and be responsible for everything.
So, in life, the importance of everything is based on its relation to
these three drives. Food is important only to the sustenance drive, even
though we have all known people who use food to comfort themselves
because it becomes associated with love (the relatedness drive). Shelter is
important only to the extent that it protects us from the elements and
unknown carnivorous beasts, even though there are many aspects of
shelter that are akin to relatedness and even sustenance. Your mother is
important because she is related to all of these needs and tensions. The
point is that we are constantly trying to balance these needs and tensions
with reality. Sometimes we want more, sometimes less. Sometimes we
are afraid and sometimes we feel angry. Similarly, sometimes we want to
be alone or selfish, and sometimes we want to be with others or give.
Why does sex seem like a drive? Because it is related to all three
primary motivators or drives and helps us balance ourselves in these areas
when it seems like there is no other way to balance. For example, did you
know that most people who are attracted to being sexually dominated are
relatively dominant in their daily lives? There can be no argument that
sexuality involves aggression, fear, pursuit and capture, desire, emotional
consumption, taking responsibility for someone else’s pleasure, hedonism,
and relatedness. Sex feels driven because it involves all of the most basic
human functions.
But we do not need sex. There are ways to balance all of these
areas without sex. And there are ways of being balanced without sex and
enjoying sex, too. Nevertheless, sex is not a drive. It can be controlled,
and should be controlled under many circumstances. If sex interferes
with too many of the other driven areas, then it is likely being pursued too
much. This is an important point because so many people get caught up
in the idea that sex is necessary or that it is the only true hallmark of a
good relationship, when that is simply not the case. It is true, however,
that if your relationship helps you balance in all other driven areas, then
you are likely to enjoy sex even more than you do when you use it to
balance because you must. Although sex is not a drive, it reaches its full
maturity, and heightens intimacy to the fullest, only when all the other
true drives (sustenance, self-protection, and relatedness) have been
relatively satisfied.