The integration of sexual excitement and erotic desires occurs before the subject has the capacity to integrate object relations. The child splits their object relations into an idealised and persecutory dynamic, denying the aggressive unit and protecting the idealised relationship from contamination with aggression. The adult /child may use intense sexual experiences to idealise intimate relations as this may deny the intolerable ambivalence and protect the splitting mechanism. It is an unconscious hope of oral gratification utilizing sexual activity for the ideal relationship, different from the frustrating pregenital one that existed with their mother.
The narcissist craves sexual excitement for a body that withholds itself or a person considered valuable or attractive by others. The narc needs to possess the body, control it, and spoil and devalue it. Sexual excitement temporarily heightens the illusion of desirability for the object and resembles a childish falling in love. Unconscious greed and envy are also projected onto the object, which induces a fear of being manipulated and dependent, reinforcing the need to escape to freedom from the devouring mother. A desperate search for love caught up in body parts, breasts, penis, vagina etc. A regressive fixation, a split-off early symbiotic experience involving erogenous zones and body surface idealisation to compensate for the capacity to establish object constancy and total object relations. Idealisation stays fixated on the sexual realm and not beyond personal depth. Setting up an ego ideal as a substitute for the superego is a basic prerequisite for the capacity to fall in love, as the projection onto the realisation of one’s infantile ego desires.
Freud`s penis envy is described as searching for a dependent relationship with the father to escape the frustrating relationship with the mother. Unconscious envy of their mother displaced onto her father`s penis, reinforced by aggressive components of oedipal conflicts. This normally coincides with her own female genital devaluation, a primary inhibition reinforced by cultural dictates and the idea of male superiority.
Aggression and Love
Man`s ambivalence towards the exciting and frustrating mother from early childhood establishes a suspicion of the teasing and withholding nature. His unconscious oedipal guilt and sense of inferiority towards his mother may result in sexual inhibition with intolerance of a woman`s sexuality. The mother’s absence and discontinuity trigger the earliest sources of frustration and longing as an infant, alternating between frustration and a wish for merger and fusion. Erotic desire is characterised by sexual excitement linked to the oedipal object, the desire for a sexual merger. The id`s intense regressed aggression operates within an infantile libido, originating in erogenous zones’ stimulation. Libido originates in primitive affect states, as does the aggressive drive, culminating in many negative and aversive experiences, such as rage, disgust and hatred. Rage activates the all-bad object with the wish to eliminate it and store the all-good object. The normal capacity for transforming pain into erotic excitement is undermined when severe aggression dominates the mother-infant dynamic. Erotic desire contributes to integrating part object with the total object, which can deepen the sexual experience into mature sexual love.
The development of tenderness signifies the integration of libidinal and aggressive aspects of the self, manifesting as ambivalence tolerance. The end of the separation-individuation stage supports the start of object constancy—the initiation of the oedipal phase and the end of the pre-oedipal, establishing a capacity for concern. The fusion of aggression with love, where tenderness expresses love for the other and the development of object constancy. The child can now experience guilt over one’s aggression and impact on others. Guilt also increases idealisation and the superego’s development, where direct expression of guilt can reinforce gratitude. Authentic forgiveness is a mature sense of morality and acceptance of the pain that comes with losing illusions about self and others.
The hope love will be recreated and maintained despite and beyond its aggressive components.
Narcissism
The narc attempts to form relationships based on aggression based on deep past frustrations, which they believe can be overcome by sexual gratification from the new object. This sexual aggression is dominated by the unconscious envy of the other gender, a teasing withholding mother of early gratification, manifesting as hunger and veracity for sexual stimulation and excitement. The partner may operate as the vehicle for a relationship between aspects of the self. An intense need to be admired reinforces self-esteem and self-idealisation of the grandiose self. The admiration of the other replaces the normally protective and self-regulating function of a weakened /distorted superego. They cannot experience guilt with no superego development but may trigger an increased sense of inferiority and need to devalue the other to regain supremacy.
An unconscious wish to transform and devalue all love will eliminate gender and generational differences to deny envy and separation. Some narc men present severe sexual inhibition, a fear of being rejected or ridiculed by women, and projection of their own internal hatred of women. Promiscuous men present a gradual deterioration of their sexual life as the defensive idealisation of women in brief encounters breaks down, leading to impotence and sexual withdrawal and isolation. The narc may also fantasise about being both genders simultaneously, denying the need to envy the other gender. It may foster an unconscious search for women to represent mirror images of themself. This completes them with genitals and the corresponding psychological implications of the other gender without accepting the reality of another, different, autonomous person.
The unconscious hatred of women is an important source of narcissistic homosexuality in men. The choice of partner may symbolise their own penis’ replica, no longer dependent on their mother and protects them against the envy of gender. This permits desexualised friendship and relationships with women. There is a need for twinship, a fantasy where the other has to be what the narc desires and needs, with unlimited availability and admiration. Feminists may foster sexual promiscuity with the perception of aggressive male sexuality. The displacement of aggression from mother to father does not resolve the underlying ambivalence towards the mother. Homosexuality in women may gratify the unconscious fantasy of being both genders, which denies deep dependency on the hated and envied father.
Groups
All groups are arranged around a task or belief, with a restrictive, regressive sense of morality, where members project infantile superego needs onto the group. They establish shared concerns and values based on the latency stage (4 – 6 years ) of development. Unresolved latency consolidation and oedipal strivings are directed into the group formation and identification within the group. Intolerance of ambiguity, divided into good and bad individuals and causes, polymorphous perverse infantile sexuality encourages naivete and the motivation of innocence. Latency-aged values lend to structured communications, where form predominates over content, preference for histrionic action, sentimentality over deep feelings and single thinking over profound inspection and exploration.
Mass media permits simultaneous communication that gives a sense of belonging with collective interaction and convention. The mass culture appears as regulated, stable, and strict with a rigid morality, where the final decision on what is deemed good or bad is passed to a higher authority (parents). This protects one from emotional introspection, responsibility and a higher overwhelming moral compass.
