Subjective Drive Profile (SDP) Themes of Pleasure
The subjective drive profile comprises ideas and subjective needs and desires relating to sexual behaviour. These theme descriptions represent an integration of published accounts of sexual motives and drives with those encountered in my clinical work. Some drive themes are pleasure-oriented; others are relationship-oriented, or related to wider social needs. Some drive themes relate to immediate gratification, being more closely aligned to biological events; others take a longer-term point of view. Some are defined by the qualities of the object of desire; others less so. Some motivate sexual behaviour; others inhibit it. Twenty-two drive themes are described in the next four chapters.
These drive themes are not necessarily independent. Just as neural associative processes underlie conditioning, so the associative nature of ideas and the neural networks that carry these ideas means there will be many linkages.130 This creates a situation where a single theme might accommodate ideas that are similar but not identical, but also where different themes may connect conceptually with each other. What these themes have in common is that they contribute to the shaping of sexual behaviour — especially with whom and under what conditions such behaviour might occur.
The first five themes of the subjective drive profile are about pleasure and desire. These do not relate to relationship factors or to social needs as such: being primarily about self-expression and personal happiness, they tend to be self-focused rather than other-centred. And although two people generally provide each other pleasure in a sexual encounter, here the primary motive is their own pleasure, not the other person’s. (To the extent that where the primary motive is to give pleasure to someone else, such a motive is altruistic, and more closely aligned to giving love.) While these drives are not incompatible with the drive to belong, they can find expression outside a relationship. Indeed, some of these drives may find expression without another person being present at all, in such activities as masturbation, and reading or viewing erotic material. Nevertheless, there are other aspects that necessarily reside in another person — whether or not they are present — in which a person might find pleasure, or which that person might desire, such as enjoying beauty or gender traits in someone.
The pleasure themes include: the compulsion of eroticism; the desire for recreation; the drive to curiosity and discovery; the attraction to beauty; and the attraction to gender traits. I have included attraction to gender traits in this chapter on the basis of its erotic and pleasure elements, but to the degree that this drive theme plays a role in relationship dynamics, it might equally be listed under the relationship-need themes of the SDP. I also note that while the experience of pleasure is a result of biological events (involving opioid release, etc.), the desire to pursue pleasure is itself not a biological event (the role of dopamine notwithstanding), and so is included under the SDP. Furthermore, pleasure is not an enduring outcome, although the associations made between behaviour, the circumstances of that behaviour, and pleasure — the conditioned effect — is enduring. And because pleasure tends to be a fleeting experience, any behaviour whose primary purpose is to provide pleasure is likely to be repeated often.
As I have noted, the associative nature of ideas and neural functioning means that there will be overlap between themes. And so we find that having an attractive partner might satisfy a personal desire (attraction to beauty), but it might also contribute to social kudos, associating with themes such as the need for social acceptance and the consumer drive. And as we saw in our discussion of maleness and femaleness, these pleasure themes generally tend to have a higher value in a male’s SDP than a female’s, although they feature in both.131 Let us look more closely at these drive themes.
We begin with the eroticism drive theme. This theme is about the desire for and enjoyment of erotic experience for its own sake — that is, enjoying the feelings of sexual stimulation and arousal.132 Eroticism can involve the use of sexually stimulating ideas or images in art, literature and drama, or objects designed to stimulate sexual arousal, as much as it might involve another person to create a state of sexual interest or excitement. It is about seeking the orgiastic state of sexual experience rather than any wider benefits of a sexual relationship, and so tends to focus on a person’s sexual attributes and behaviours, rather than their attributes as a person.133 Difference rather than similarity is likely to stimulate the erotic experience,134 especially for men, and so we would expect this drive theme to associate with the drive to curiosity and discovery; although for women there tends to be a greater integration of sexual and relational drives, so that a link with the need for intimacy and to belong may remain. Freud argued that this theme (referred to generically as the ‘sex drive’) underpins much human behaviour, including during early developmental stages, albeit in a subconscious way.
This drive theme can find reward in reading or viewing erotic material in the absence of any relationship at all.135 Nevertheless, such activity can prime a person for sexual encounters with another person. The idea of sexual arousal and pleasure is itself arousing and pleasurable, and so any stimulus evoking such thoughts or imaginations, whether it be words, pictures, behaviours, or clothing, can stir this drive; but physical stimulation is also a common source of sexual arousal through masturbatory activity, erotic massage, or the use of sexual objects designed to stimulate sexual arousal. Because of the powerful and inherently rewarding nature of erotic pleasure, this drive theme is closely related to the sexual conditioning drive of the BDP, with ideas, behaviours, or objects capable of becoming conditioned to sexual arousal. There is thus a potential to create a compulsion to access erotic material such as pornography, or erotic experience, at the expense of a relationship. There are of course individual differences in what ideas or images might be considered ‘erotic’: its key element is the capacity to excite sexual arousal. For some people, even certain levels of pain, of powerlessness (or powerfulness — see the power motive), or of social prohibition, can contribute to the experience of eroticism because of their contribution to autonomic nervous system arousal.
A drive theme associated with the eroticism theme is the desire for recreation, which includes freedom of expression and freedom from responsibility. That is, it is the desire to ‘let go’ and abandon oneself to the moment. ‘Letting go’ is a normal part of the sexual experience, as a degree of emotional and physical disinhibition is necessary for interpersonal closeness. This is also paralleled at the neural level, as we have seen. This drive theme may be experienced as an escape from stress and life pressures in general (but also from dealing with life issues), a form of relaxation, of recreation and of tension release.136 Like the compulsion of eroticism, it is a more prominent drive theme in men than women. It associates with having a good time and with general enjoyment, and as such represents an intrinsically rewarding aspect of the event. Such intrinsic reward can act to ward off sadness, boredom, loneliness (and even depression, provided there is sufficient libido), and other negative feelings, by providing pleasure, comfort, companionship, and so on, in the sexual encounter. But it can