Power, sex, and symbiotic attachment

The resignation of General David Petraeus and the admission of an extramarital affair have bloodied the waters and the media is in a frenzy. Another powerful man was shot down for having inappropriate sexual behavior with a beautiful young woman. The answers cover a wide range of speculations, from that the man will be the man to that powerful men are sexed. The answer that caught my attention is that power is an aphrodisiac. Accepting that conclusion tends to accuse men who are loyal to their marriage.

I think there is another response much more powerful and profound than the need to satisfy an overactive sex drive. To suggest that so many powerful men would risk everything they had accomplished for sex alone is a gross oversimplification. The political, social, family, and often financial cost at stake just doesn’t make sense. Men in positions of power did not rise to the position of importance by making senseless decisions and having poor judgment.

If we examine this behavior from a broader and deeper position, other than the superficial view of power and sex, we can come to a different conclusion. Understanding this behavior as a psychodynamic of two individuals in a symbiotic bond, each experiencing some unresolved childhood psychological problem can be more productive. The literature is full of incidents in which sexual activity used to alleviate hidden and unresolved problems, many of them from childhood. For example, we can agree that rape has nothing to do with sex, but control and aggression.

Whenever we notice sexual deviance in adults, such as perversion and fetishism, a closer examination will reveal some experience in the area of ​​fixation in childhood (Freud, 1924). To establish the connection, I must cite Freud’s principle of psychic determinism or causality, which states that “consciousness is an exceptional rather than a regular attribute of psychic processes.” In other words, too often we are guided by unconscious desires and less by conscious understanding. We all, at one point or another, promised ourselves that we will never do this or that again … and we find that we repeat the undesirable behavior over and over again. Why? It can serve some unconscious needs. Therefore, we must at least consider the idea that the knowledge that awareness receives of what happens in everyday life, including sexual behavior, may be incomplete, full of gaps, or driven by unconscious needs (from childhood ).

In this case, instead of power and sex, I see it as a symbiotic relationship, a tacit (unconscious) agreement between two individuals. Symbiosis understood as a disguised representation of a repressed desire or impulse, or a close, often neurotic attachment of one individual to another. The position I take on this issue based on certain facts of daily life. For example, it is easy to show that the value that the mind places on erotic needs instantly decreases as soon as satisfaction becomes easily obtainable; any dispute over this is long dead. A certain school of psychology accepted the belief that a husband is never more than a proxy. The husband is never the right man, the first right to the feeling of love in a woman belongs to another person; his father. The husband is, at best, a second. Rather, the husband rejected or not depends on the strength of this fixation (Freud, 1924). To experience a full and normal attitude in love, you have to unite two emotions; tender, loving feelings and sensual feeling. Psychology informs us that to be free and happy in love, one must set aside his deferential approach to women and embrace the blinding light of the incest taboo.

I think I have laid the groundwork for answering several questions that part of the conversation involves an extramarital affair between powerful men and younger women. For example, why do women prefer powerful men when it comes to relationships? And why are powerful men involved in extramarital affairs more than powerful women?

First, we must accept the position that power indicates authority, the president of the United States, an army general, the policeman on the block, the teacher in the classroom, or the parent at home. All of these are positions of power and authority.

Power and authority play no role. The individual participates in relationships to live out a childish wish or an unresolved childish conflict. In adulthood, sex is often the vehicle used to fulfill the forbidden desire.

Extramarital affairs The men involved are older women, often younger and single. Now, if one can look beyond the glaring light of society’s strong taboo against incest, he will see the father / daughter relationship.

In the symbiotic bond, the younger woman (daughter) finally gained advantage over the older woman (mother), the daughter now has her first love (father) the older man. The childhood wish is now complete. However, there is a price to pay for violating society’s taboo against incest (father / daughter). Often it is the man who must pay in the form of political, social, personal and family shame and public disgrace. A big price to pay – and a form of punishment for being on the wrong side of the incest taboo. At some point, the wayward individuals themselves begin to drop the dominoes that reveal the behavior.

As for women of power and women seeking powerful men, they both dance to the same rhythm. But sex or power is not the driving force, the goal is to win the love of the “father”. However, the powerful woman and the woman seeking powerful men go separate ways to achieve their goals. The personality of the individual and the inner child determine which path to take.

The woman who was looking for powerful men was most likely “daddy’s girl” when she was a child, she put her father on a pedestal, if there is tension between mother and father, she takes her father’s position. However, deeply repressed is her anger at your father for choosing another woman (mother) instead of her, but the hostility is unconscious and she fears that if Dad finds out about her true feelings, he will reject her.

Women seeking power in their own right do not place men (father) on pedestals or worship them in any meaningful way, women seeking personal power, rather than powerful men, do not have a strong desire for approval from men ( dad). they are more comfortable competing with men. These women are not “daddy’s girl”, their attitude towards the father figure is more aggressive and competitive.

However, don’t be fooled, these women of power also seek father’s love. These women also feel rejected and must compete with the mother for the father’s love, but they take a different approach. Women of power, as children, reject the “good girl, obedient mother” approach as a way to win the love of the father. Instead, they become more like the parent, aggressive, demanding, authoritarian, and seek power as a tool to control and achieve immediate gratification. These women become his parents.

Women with power, unlike men with power, are rarely involved in highly publicized situations of sexual shame. In fact, this behavior reflects society in general, in which older women have little appetite for the seduction of younger men. Women of power rarely find themselves in situations of public sexual embarrassment involving younger men. Women who are motivated to achieve power and authority as the ultimate goal of success may not see sex as a premium to achieving their goals.

S. Freud, 1924, The passage of the Oedipus complex

This article should not be taken as a broad brush to paint all relationships between older men and younger women as neurotic. The goal is to offer another way to examine the relationships between powerful men and younger women, and not through the lens of sex and power.

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