I love some of the questions that are being brought up by the popularity of this book. The many shades of sexual dynamic depicted within it comprise an exploration of one of the most significant archetypes of our times. Riane Eisler addresses this archetype when she speaks of the shift from a dominator model of society to one of equal partnership. An awareness of this shift seems to be what is arising in our consciousness and pressing to be worked through, both individually and collectively.
Sexuality, in my view, is the arena par excellence through which to fully integrate such developmental shifts in consciousness. In order for the old polarity between dominator and submissive to be transcended into a new realm of operation--presumably that of equal partnership and voluntary cooperation--a deeper understanding of the full range of stances within the old dynamic must be thoroughly explored. This is what I believe sexuality affords.
What we learn in the first years of our life are that we are born "dominated" or completely dependent on our caretakers, to whose demands we must "submit" in order to receive more of their loving support.
Through the development of maturity, we must eventually learn to 'take back our power' from the dominators. This, of course, they are often reluctant to surrender whether they are parents or whether they are the corporate giants who dominate the earth's economies.
Of course we may ourselves, at first, strive to become dominators in the process of wresting back our power but at some point in our evolution, we no longer want to assume that position either. Eventually, we come to long for a healthy partnership of equals, with each contributing whatever pleases one to offer. Controlling or being controlled is not something we consider effective nor desirable. Control is no longer a factor in securing our happiness, nor even our security.
I believe that this whole sexual exploration of Dominant/Submissive is precisely what's being worked out in our evolutionary (instinctual) impulse. It aims to transcend this old duality that has become one of of not only waning relevance, but of damaging impact on our ability to survive, let alone thrive.
Some of the stages of development associated with this type of emancipation are well described in the Eric Erickson's model. Aspects of Ericksonian stages are recapitulated in human sexual development over and over again. When they are not sufficiently explored sexually, they appear as repetitive blocks in the drama of human lives, and in the unfolding tragedies of human civilization.
'Trust versus Mistrust' comprises stage one, at the onset of human development.
Here, infants before birth and in the first six months of life characteristically grapple with the issue of whether they can trust their caretakers to effectively care for them and to love them truly. If, at this stage of psychic growth, an infant decides that trust is not warranted, she will have lifelong struggles with trust not only in personal relationships but also with the whole idea of a loving God or a Benevolent Universe predisposed to supporting her.
Trust is one of the first and most crucial elements of a successful sexual relationship. Trust allows for complete sexual freedom at one end of the polarity, or rape at the other. (I speak here of unwilling rape in contra-distinction to consentual play-acting of rape that requires full trust, and which is aimed at the working out of trust issues, perhaps among other things…)
Stage Two is about 'Autonomy versus Doubt and Shame.'
Here, between the ages of 6 and 18 months or so, a toddler is preoccupied with experimenting with his first steps toward autonomy. If the caretaking figure overpowers a child’s bid for autonomy with a ‘dominating style’ that does not allow for the child to test his skills, the child will forever be doubtful about his capacities and ashamed of his dependency feelings. Alternately, if a child undergoes a traumatic consequence to his bid for autonomy, perhaps because a caretaker has insufficiently protected the child from a genuine danger, then he may forever be plagued with lifelong anxieties related to self-doubt and of course shame about his inabilities and/or lack of courage.
This outcome can be avoided if someone helps him process the trauma and offers a supportive base from which to try to re-learn and practice the management of pleasures and risks that entail the exercise of autonomy.
The sexual arena is a perfect platform from which to learn to take such risks (whether real or fantasized) when supported by a trusted sexual partner. According to the model, Trust is here a prerequisite for Autonomy and these both will be necessary for the following stages to be navigated successfully.
Here follows the complete set of Erickson’s Developmental Stages, which lists the titles (Hope, Will, Purpose, Competence, etc,) that indicate which human capacity is being developed through the exploration of each polarity.
1 Hope: Trust vs. Mistrust (Oral-sensory, Birth-2 years)
2 Will: Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (Muscular-Anal, 2-4 years)
3 Purpose: Initiative vs. Guilt (Locomotor-Genital, Preschool, 4-5 years)
4 Competence: Industry vs. Inferiority (Latency, 5-12 years)
5 Fidelity: Identity vs. Role Confusion (Adolescence, 13-19 years)
6 Love: Intimacy vs. Isolation (Young adulthood, 20-24, or 20-40 years)
7 Care: Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle adulthood, 25-64, or 40-64 years)
8 Wisdom: Ego Integrity vs. Despair (Late adulthood, 65-death)
It is interesting to note how only in the sixth developmental stage does the capacity to love (to give love, to create love, as opposed to ‘sharing’ whatever love one has learned automatically from their upbrining) become ripe for activating its full potential. If Erickson’s stages accurately describe the normal sequence for the emergence of a healthy maturity, then sexuality may not primarily be designed to support the development of love in its fullest aspects, until the other capacities have become substantially consolidated in the individual.
If this thesis is correct, the beginning stages of sex may well have much less to do with love than we heretofore assumed. For this reason, the book Fifty Shades of Gray is neither good nor bad, in my view, but rather very useful for raising consciousness. It allows individuals who are aroused by it to form their own judgments, through visceral experiencing and somatic integration, about the varying aspects of a dominating/subservient relationship. The true costs and benefits of such polarized relationships, by the way, undoubtedly emerge through thousands and perhaps millions shades of grey, and not just the “fifty” depicted within this particular narrative.
The fact that this book captured the sexual imagination of thousands of women (and certainly many men who also enjoy it, if secretly) indicates that this topic is ripe and perhaps sorely overdue for deeper integration. It is for this reason I believe that whatever arouses is always very healthy to contemplate, albeit not always in a literal way! The same is true for art, whereby creative development is also is its function.
Guggenbuhl-Craig observed that, “in psychoanalytic practice it happens again and again that the more differentiated, and not the weaker a person is, the more we find the so-called sexual aberrations” (2001, p. 90).
Also, Thomas Moore (Author of Care of the Soul) in his book Dark Eros, writes:
“We usually try very hard to suppress and forget [our] demonic side, but we are usually not successful. Even more perplexing, if somebody is successful in completely splitting off or apparently eliminating his or her dark side, he or she becomes empty, bloodless, and—in the end—not connected to any kind of eros.” (2001, p. viii)
Furthermore (from my thesis):
“Individual and collective sexual fantasies depict in a symbolic way, the human psyche… And in sexual fantasies […] the mythology of the human soul is very much alive and touches us with soul and body” (Guggenbuhl-Craig, 1990, p. ix). The overarching aim of eroticism is to foster a physiological embodiment and material manifestation of the psychic fruit born of symbolic, archetypal investigation.
Adolph Guggenbuhl-Craig noted that “ if somebody is successful in completely splitting off or apparently eliminating his or her dark side, he or she becomes empty or bloodless, and—in the end—not connected to any kind of eros” (quoted in Moore, 1990, p. viii).
Those who sanitize their eroticism through self-restraint ultimately lose all sense of erotic vitality, and end up struggling with boredom in bed. Many would rather not revisit old fears or probe into buried wounds. Yet the body “remembers” and instinctually urges us to review, revise, and rework the unresolved. Are we not relentlessly compelled by the same sexual scenarios, reenacting them as in Freud’s “repetition compulsion,” until we finally process the material sufficiently for it to bear fruit in our lives, and ultimately allow us to move beyond our old limitations?
Nancy Friday described the process of developing, and fleshing out of our unconscious fantasies: "You already know, or can easily imagine, many of the most popular themes or devices of sexual fantasy…. and although a woman will cast and style her sexual imagery as individually as she would a dinner party, she will probably—as I have found after collecting more than four hundred fantasies—select as her own one of the archetypal dozen or so constantly recurring “stock” situations to build upon; she then embellishes her chosen situation with the objective detail which makes it most alive to her, just as a woman will use accessories to dress a basic dress up, or down, to suit her desires of the moment." (1974, p. 93)
This imaginal play, depicted by Friday, may be an apt portrayal of the mechanism that fosters the transcending of our old limitations, in the same manner found in dream mentation. Dream mentation, James Fosshage wrote, processes information and contributes to the "development of psychological organization through the representational consolidation of newly emergent psychic configurations" (1983, p. 658).
In contributing to development, new perceptual angles are achieved and new ways of behaving are imagistically portrayed within and through dreams and in sexual fantasies [because
that is their psychic function.] New self and object representations (or schemas) and new relational scenarios emerge. Dream mentation [and sexual fantasy] in addition, can continue the unconscious and conscious waking efforts at conflict resolution, through restoring a previous state, utilizing defensive processes, or creating a new organization (Lichtenberg, Lachmann & Fosshage, 1992).
Similarly as in dream mentation, in erotic play new perceptual angles are achieved through visceral experimentation with new ways of behaving. New self and object representations not only emerge but can be experienced and evaluated through the conscious sexual trialing that erotic fantasy affords. Undoubtedly, erotic fantasy can play a great role in our unconscious and conscious waking efforts at conflict resolution. Erotic play can foster restoring a previous state, revisiting defensive processes, testing alternate strategies, and firmly ensconcing new psychic organization through the surrender of the old to the new.
Anat Baniel writes of how our brains are organized through movement. This includes movements we already know and do and movements we have yet to learn. The more habitual our everyday movements, Baniel states, the less we are able to satisfy the brain’s need for growth. As we introduce new patterns of movement, combined with attention—which may include different thoughts, perceptual cognitions, or new narratives such as those we develop through sexual appetite and imagination—our brains begin making thousands, millions, and even billions of new connections. These changes quickly translate into thinking that is clearer, movement that is easier, pain that is reduced or eliminated, and action that is more effective. As a result, new stances, new postures, new activities and new outcomes that we may not have even dreamed were possible become possible...
It is through movement that we integrate perceptual experience and lodge the information into cellular memory. Movement is how we foster human creativity through surrender to the arousing imperatives that spur personal development. It is no surprise that sexuality is the most potent vehicle for binding new cognition with expanding sensation. For new cognition to occur, movement must occur, or old neuronal pathways reduce us to automatic response.
The sexual arena is not where moral dictates should repressively block creativity, on the contrary. The sexual arena is where everything should be explored in order to better develop our skills for differentiation, whether morally, ethically, and even more pertinently, psychologically and spiritually.
