Sexual Power and Self-Esteem

(From notes made last year)

Low Self esteem means we don't believe we deserve happiness. This is a poison that infects us. We then seek self justification, narcissism and kingship and so we in turn subject others to suffering and torture to enforce our weak grasp of our validity. Now this creates a particular species of sexual interest. The "whore" and pornography (specifically the images of whores which is what it means) is based around the low self-esteem male seeking to reinforce their weakly based ego in expressions of power. Power being the ability to obtain resources, territory and achieve matings is thus logically what a male seeks both to obtain sex but also through sex. So the "dirty whore" is logical expression of the power-sex of weak males.

Now with females it is equally complex. Just as the weak, low status, low esteem male seeks kingship and domination so the weak female seeks enslavement so that she may experience power through it use on her (Hegel master/slave dialectic). Through her success as a slave she becomes ironically empowered.

In both cases the seeking of ecstasy in the giving to another in love (Aphrodite) , the being selfless, is confused and is expressed as Eros and the abandonment of self to another in a power relation. This is futile since neither party gains. Aphrodite by contrast is mutual respect n esteem.

I realise that power is expressed in a battle of esteem. We are aware that each person is looking both to be king and slave and it is based upon esteem and status. Attractive well turned out girls of higher class we don't expect to seek kings in unattractive scruffy males. Yet the truth is that probably they have low esteem too and are actually seeking quite low kings. It is the source of the surprise when we hear that a desirable girl debased herself is some cheap sexual act. And our response is one of measuring it through power and esteem, that were such a girl to offer themselves to us we would perceive it as a king experience which would raise our status and self-esteem.

It is surprising to me how much of sexual relations is of this type and how low in esteem most people are. Such a realisation is useful though because it teaches us not to seek esteem in the endless and fruitless struggles of Eros but to pursue the path of mutual respect and love which does not demand master/slave relations and offers freedom and growth to all partners. This is the difference between Eros and Aphrodite and indeed suggests that sexual liberation is actually a dead end and the wrong path.

Interesting to hear Germaine Greer on the radio last week in a program on Wilhelm Reich saying that the sexual revolution that she promoted had expected people to embrace sexual freedom with "humility" and responsibility and admits they were wrong in their expectations. While I agree with Wilhelm Reich that sexual awkwardness and repression leads to neurosis and destructive use of energies it's a bit primitive to say that releasing it solves the problem. Like a steam engine if the pressure is getting too high you release it to stop that energy doing harm, but really you want to use all that energy for something useful and this points to understanding orgone energy and applying it ... which is exactly what Buddhism and Hinduism for certain and probably all the various energy/spiritual teachings aim to do. It is the forgetting how to master our energies that leads all those lost generations to get sexually frustrated, and then to blame the spiritual teachings for repressing sexuality and then to realise it all in a popular revolution embracing this ignorance.