It is one thing to argue that the drives that inform sexual behaviour contribute to the meaning and accepted function of that behaviour. But given their invisible nature, how can I identify what such drives might be, both in myself, or in someone else? Besides drawing inferences from a person’s patterns of sexual behaviour, or asking them about their beliefs and perceptions, a clue to the drives comprising a person’s drive profile is the emotions that might result from frustrated drives.65 For example, I might have a sexual relationship with someone who decides to have sex with someone else. If my preeminent drive is to promote my partner’s wellbeing, I might be support her in her adventures and want the best for her. If my preeminent drive is to enjoy the pleasure of sex, I might thank her for giving me a good time, and perhaps find someone else with whom to enjoy the pleasure of sex. If my preeminent drive is to prove that I am acceptable as a person, I might feel a failure, that I am somehow not good enough as a person, and get depressed. If my preeminent drive is to belong to my partner in the sense of shared experience, I might feel sadness or disorientation because I have lost someone who has become part of my shared identity. If my preeminent drive is to ensure my partner belongs to me in the sense of ownership, I might become jealous or angry because someone else has taken what I believe is mine. These different emotions reflect the various meanings and drives involved: of course, my emotional response would probably be varied, belying the multiple drives involved.66
These dynamics and associated conflicts may find expression in different ways. Our friend Karl, for example, may have visited the prostitute while he was lonely and while drives of adventure and pleasure-seeking were ascendant, eclipsing other inhibitive drives such as social prohibition, and eclipsing the drive to emotional intimacy and belonging that associated with his loneliness. In fact, he may have associated sexual intimacy with emotional intimacy, assuming that the pleasure of sex, even with a prostitute, might address his loneliness. However, after his pleasure drives were temporarily sated, his drive profile might change so that the latter drives become ascendant, shifting the emphasis in his SDP, so that he now feels cheated, and a measure of regret and self-hatred for the sexual liaison emerges. He might project this hatred onto the prostitute, so that another drive is activated: disgust for what the prostitute represents. At that point, he might resolve never to visit a prostitute again. Nevertheless, conditioning has taken place, so that sexual pleasure remains associated with her. When next Karl is feeling lonely and his drive profile again resembles what it was before, the conditioned sexual behaviour that promises to bring pleasure will no doubt draw him back to her, and the cycle recurs.
We are left with a final question: could Karl have done otherwise? Did he have the capacity to choose not to visit the prostitute, and to find other expression for his poorly understood drives? Despite his disappointment, he knew he would return to her. Could he not control his actions? Was he a helpless victim of his fluctuating drives? Was there no place to make choices according to personal values or prevailing sociocultural mores? If we were to argue that only natural cause-and-effect laws apply, we would conclude Karl had no choice: he was pulled by drives in some deterministic way. But accepting the idea that laws of reasoning can be superimposed upon natural laws allows us to argue that Karl did have the capacity to manage and regulate his drives, whatever their origin, and so determine his sexual behaviour.
Drives are not the same as their expression, and while biological and subjective drives energise and direct behaviour, a person has the capacity to embrace or inhibit their expression, making a decision which is sensitive both to sociocultural mores and personal values. This is the basis upon which adults are held legally responsible, and it is also the basis for their dignity.67 There is a complex and unseen dynamic of drives and memories, of biology and the subjective self, which underlie the drive profiles. A person needs to manage this confluence of underlying motivational forces, each interacting with the other. These forces are invisible, like the wind above the ocean or the currents below that push a sailing vessel in one or other direction: yet a sailor is able to understand these forces and to keep the vessel on track. The mere existence of the prevailing drives cannot be used to justify the manner of its expression: such expression is always subject to the choices made.
Biological Drive Profile (BDP) Factors
Many biochemical processes are involved in human sexual behaviour: some activating the sexual response; others inhibiting it. Some of these processes are similar in both male and female; others are different. Genetic and developmental factors play a role, not least in the regulatory functions of the brain and hormonal system. These biological processes are also found in nonhuman mammalian species, so that generalisations from animal research have some justification, although non-human species are unaffected by the overlay of political, sociocultural, moral, and gender issues.68 The combined activity of the biochemical processes activating and inhibiting sexual motivation at any particular time forms the basis of the prevailing BDP, and this I now outline.
A study of brain regions associated with sexual desire and arousal or inhibition gives insights into the biology of the sexual response. However, it is difficult to separate the brain’s activity as a biological source motivating sexual behaviour, from its role as a processing mediator creating a physiological response to the ideas and perceptions generated by the subjective self. The neuroendocrine system is a key player in sexual motivation and sexual behaviour (and in reward systems more generally), producing various neurochemicals including hormones, peptides and neurotransmitters.69 We find that although neuro-biological systems are involved in both priming sexual interest and in the expression of sexual behaviour, it plays a lesser role in the reason, focus and object of this interest and behaviour (why and with whom I might want to have sex), the latter being mediated by subjective attributions relating to the sexual object. This drive source is also independent of the perceived meanings of behaviour: at this level, it is the sensory experiences that become the stimulus for sexual interest or arousal.
Genetics and sexual predispositions
Biological systems find their origin in genetics. However, the interplay of environment and physiological development can make it difficult to disentangle those aspects of our biological makeup that are fully determined by genetics, and those which are only partially so determined. It is now recognised that many characteristics with a genetic base nevertheless require environmental events to activate their expression. Wieten (2001) observes: ‘the impact of genetic makeup depends on the environment, and the impact of the environment depends on genetic makeup’ (p. 86). While there is no doubt some genetic contribution to a person’s hormonal profile,70 what we do know is that the environmental contribution to that profile is significant. Twin studies are routinely used on the basis that identical twins share identical genetics, while non-identical twins share the same uterine and family environment, but not identical genetics. Strictly speaking, if something is governed by genetics alone, we would expect a 100% correspondence for identical twins, and some smaller percentage for non-identical twins. Typically, when a less than 100% correspondence is found, we talk of genetic predisposition. But this leaves open the question of the nature and extent of such genetic contribution.
When it comes to sexual behaviour, twin research has largely centred on the question of sexual orientation. Questions relating to interpersonal variation in hormonal profiles and temperament and personality factors in sexual attraction and desire have received little attention. Although the nature/nurture debate has long featured in personality research, the extent of the role of genetics in these individual differences remains unclear. Nevertheless, whatever the extent of genetic involvement, research has linked certain personality and temperament characteristics to certain sexual behaviours. For example, extraversion has been linked to having more sexual partners71 and to sexual risk-taking,72