Chapter 18. Sex, Love, Social Hypocrisy, and Socionics
(Translated from Russian. Source PDF: «18_СексСЦН.pdf».)
Translator’s note
- The source PDF’s text layer is CP1251 mis-mapped to Latin-1; the Cyrillic was recovered before translating. No content was omitted.
- Function notation is the author’s own: capital = extraverted, lowercase = introverted. I = extraverted intuition, i = introverted intuition, S = extraverted sensing, s = introverted sensing, L = extraverted logic, l = introverted logic, E = extraverted emotionality/ethics, e = introverted ethics. “IA” = information aspect. “TIM” = type of information metabolism.
- Type abbreviations in the tables: Ки = Don Quixote (ILE), Дю = Dumas (SEI), Гю = Hugo (ESE), Ро = Robespierre (LII), Гм = Hamlet (EIE), Го = Gorky/Maxim (LSI), Жу = Zhukov (SLE), Ес = Yesenin (IEI), Др = Dreiser (ESI), Ло = London (LIE), На = Napoleon (SEE), Ба = Balzac (ILI), Ге = Huxley (IEE), Гб = Gabin (SLI), Шт = Stierlitz (LSE), До = Dostoevsky (EII).
- Tables 18.03–18.05 and Fig. 18.01 lost their cell layout in the PDF text layer. Where I reconstructed a layout, I say so and give the reasoning. Two apparent errors in the original are flagged in footnotes.
- The chapter contains dated gender essentialism, a homophobic slur applied to Oscar Wilde, unverified physiological claims, and a political claim about a “Third World Information War.” These are rendered as written, not softened — they are the author’s positions, not endorsements.
“Love is wicked — you could fall for a goat.” — Russian folk saying.
Nature is clever: lust in animal females reaches its greatest strength at precisely the moment most favourable for conception. In animal females this is very noticeable. A mare, for example, whose heat is approaching, flirts with the stallion and arouses him, but will not let him mount her until the exact second when the egg has taken up the position needed for fertilisation.
This is why a woman may unexpectedly find herself in bed with a man she has only just met at a party. The next day, utterly at a loss, she cannot understand how or why it happened. — Allan Pease
SEX
From a biological standpoint, sexual behaviour is aimed at the reproduction of the biological species, and is therefore rigidly programmed by nature — so that, let us say, no one can wriggle out of their biological duty. In animals this is unambiguously the case. With human beings the matter is somewhat more complicated: compared with animals, their sexual behaviour may at first glance appear excessive. But only at first glance. It is simply that conception and birth in humans are not tied to a particular time of year, and human sexual readiness — as in certain species of monkey — is universal with respect to the seasons. This is connected, in particular, with the fact that humanity presupposes the maximum diversity of characters, and this is secured by people being born in every weather season, which sets differing initial conditions at conception and during the child’s nursing. But even this does not fully explain the frequency of sexual contact in the average person.
If the mechanism of sexual need did not operate at the level of obligatory compulsion — or, what is the same thing, of a categorical imperative — then humanity would be entirely capable, out of some ideological consideration or other (and of course some “great enlightener” would be found to explain why this was necessary), of voluntarily terminating its own existence, having arrived at the “logical” conclusion that both too great a number of individual people and humanity as a whole are too bad for such a “vile” object to be necessary to nature. But Nature foresaw this possibility and took its measures.
Even so, in the sad history of humanity there have been cases where the sexual mechanisms were entirely suppressed under the influence of life circumstances. Thus, for example, in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw during the Second World War, life became so devalued and lost its meaning to such a degree that menstruation ceased in every one of the Jewish women without exception. What people had to be driven to.
From the point of view of some strict morality — Christian, say — one ought to abstain from sex if the specific sexual act does not presuppose conception. From a biological standpoint, however, such a stance is mistaken. Not everyone knows that male sperm, in a woman’s vagina, is processed by her psychophysiological structures in search of a worthy candidate for birth, and if no such candidate is detected, conception will not occur. But male sperm performs subtler work in a woman’s organism as well: it penetrates the bloodstream and is carried throughout her body, reaching, among other places, the brain, which strengthens a woman’s magical properties and affects the vitality of the female organism — and this, of course, is of no small importance for the survival of the line.
I shall not go into detail here, but I want to draw readers’ attention to the fact that not everything in the psychophysiology of sex has yet been discovered, and that there are mysteries without knowledge of which one should not draw unambiguous conclusions or pronounce categorical judgements about the sexual behaviour of individual people and whole nations, accusing them of hypocrisy or, conversely, of licentiousness. Therefore it would be incorrect, for example, to assert that sexual behaviour in nature has one single function — procreation.
Among marmoset monkeys, for instance, the female chooses a male who, as we understand it, corresponds to her species standards for securing optimal offspring. Having made such a choice, the female enters into reproductive contact with the male, aimed at obtaining offspring. But — lo and behold! — after this she returns with him to the common troop and enters into sexual contact with all the males who desire it. This mating is not aimed at obtaining offspring. Why, then, did the species need such an adaptation? Biologists call such mating reward mating. Among marmosets it pursues two goals: 1) males who have undergone reward mating will consider this female’s young to be their own offspring and will treat them accordingly; 2) among marmosets, males will share food with the female after reward mating. Clearly this is far from unimportant for a pregnant female. Let us note that the species adaptation of sharing food between adult individuals is encountered extremely rarely in the animal world. Chimpanzees and gorillas, humanity’s closest relatives, for example, do not do it. Women — the females of homo sapiens — also make wide use of reward mating, which does not pursue immediate procreation but is directed at keeping a man — the male of homo sapiens — near them. For humans, however, reward mating has other aspects as well, connected with the social character of the human being and, in particular, with the presence of culture in human society. One of the cultural projections of sexual behaviour in humans is the aesthetics of the sexual act, which finds quite concrete reflection in works of art.
A preliminary conclusion can be drawn here: people are compelled, in an imperative and coercive order, to engage in sex and, so to speak, to bear their sexual cross, but Nature took care that it should sometimes seem pleasant to them. Yet it is precisely here that danger lies in wait: the striving to replace natural satisfaction with pleasure, with enjoyment, and finally with bliss, is a dead-end option and leads to degeneration. The extreme variants of such a choice are sexual perversions — but, alas, perversion begins with the shift of emphasis from satisfaction to pleasure.
Here we approach the subtle question of the sinfulness of sex. Unfortunately, in certain religious confessions the concept of sin is cultivated as a manipulative bogey aimed at holding the flock within the rigid frame of dogma. Yet the concept of sin may also have an entirely constructive character, if one defines it as that which hinders spiritual development. From such a point of view, sex becomes sinful only when it distracts a person from striving toward the higher ideals of spirituality. But it may also be used as a training-technological means for advancing along the path of spiritual development.
In this chapter I want to show that sexual behaviour is subject to fairly rigid regularities not only in animals but in the human being too. In some cases it is connected with love, and in others not. Of course here, as always in science, definitions, distinctions and explications are necessary. To carry out such work, let us introduce — without claiming a final resolution of the question — the concept of the imperative state, or psychic imperative. By psychic imperative we shall mean a psychic mobilisation, independent of the will of the living being, directed at the satisfaction of a definite need. Mobilisation, in turn, is the physiological readiness and orientation of all systems of the organism toward the solution of a concrete task connected with the survival of the species. Mobilisation is, in fact, will in its physiological manifestation.
Relying on the concepts introduced, the following distinctions can be made. Sexual behaviour is part of reproductive behaviour, which in different animal species may include the search for a partner, attracting the partner’s attention, fertilisation, obtaining offspring and rearing it. Reproductive behaviour in all animals has an imperative character. Reproductive behaviour is secured by the work of the energy centre which in the Hindu tradition bears the name svadhisthana. Hindu energy terms have a right to scientific status, since they reflect a definite side of reality. Svadhisthana also secures the entire phenomenology of emotion. As is becoming clear in our time, the svadhisthana system has, as its projection at the level of physiology, the endocrine system of the organism. One sometimes encounters the opinion that the projection of svadhisthana onto the physical body falls on the sacral nerve plexus, plexus lumbalis, but this opinion reflects only part of the truth, since it does not take into account the whole structure of the endocrine system and, in particular, its representation in the brain. In socionics, the endocrine system corresponds to the mobilisational-motivational function.
The imperative state which people call love has an entirely different energy provision. Love offers an example of the difference between an emotion and a relation. Of course, an abundance of opinions is possible here, and therefore serious scientific research is required. The system of relations is secured by the energy of anahata. The centre of anahata’s physical projection is the cardiac nerve plexus, plexus cardialis. Such reasoning may appear highly superficial — which, strictly speaking, it is, since it is not accompanied by the necessary explications. We shall give here only a few, very limited clarifications. The cardiovascular system is linked with anahata, and it of course includes the blood. Anahata secures connection, at a minimum, between individuals of one species. This connection manifests in attachment and care, one projection of which is the work the blood performs in the organism — supplying all systems of the organism with vital resource, taking care that all of them receive everything necessary for their functioning. What has been said allows us to assert that love is not an emotion but a relation. Such an approach may at first glance seem strange, since people are accustomed to associating love above all with emotions. But the distinctions introduced permit the conclusion that emotions are secured by the endocrine system, and relations by the cardiovascular system. In socionics, the cardiovascular system corresponds to the conservative-critical function. In the key proposed, however, it is not hard to understand the connection between emotions and relations. For this it is enough to note that the blood carries the hormonal mediators which secure emotional reactions. Yet from the standpoint proposed it becomes clear that imperative states no less powerful than those connected with emotions may be connected with relations. In the terms considered, love may be defined as an imperative state resting on the energy of anahata. It is now not hard to understand that in various animal species, humans included, love, sex and reproductive behaviour as a whole may accompany one another in various proportions, but as imperative states these are different processes. In particular, even within the species homo sapiens, the balance between love and sex has quite definite differences in the female and male “genders.” In women the emphasis is shifted toward love, in men toward sex, which in many cases leads to mutual misunderstanding and conflict.
To understand human sexual behaviour better, let us turn to biology. The sexual behaviour of every biological species is a species adaptation and, as such, has its own peculiarities. An oyster has no need to love its “oysterlings” individually. First, it does not need to feed them, raise them or care for them at all: in this respect they are entirely self-sufficient. And if a predator-enemy does not eat one of them, a young growing oyster will have no problems with sustenance. And second, there are so many of them — an oyster produces about half a billion eggs — that communicating with each of its descendants is simply unrealistic, yet the survival of the species is guaranteed.
Other species have worked out more economical mechanisms of self-reproduction, in which a pair of individuals gives birth to only one or two young, but surrounds them with care, feeds them, loves them, teaches them useful skills. It is precisely this mechanism that is inherent in humans as a biological species. Hence individual love as the consolidation of this mode of species self-reproduction. Therefore, from a scientific point of view, love — including love for children — is not the result of the moralising side of culture but exists as a biological adaptation of the species, and is therefore irrational and imperative.
The human being, like other animals, is enclosed within the psychophysiological triangle: sex > hunger > fear > sex. This means that sex, directed at the continuation of the line, proves stronger than hunger, and hunger in its turn overcomes fear, but fear suppresses sexual attraction. It is precisely this rigid regularity that explains the cruel fact concerning the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw during the fascist occupation.
In the sphere of sexual behaviour, in animals and in humans alike, there are quite definite regularities identified by biologists. Every individual of every concrete biological species is held rigidly within the limits set by such regularities. In many animal species, humans included, males make the primary choice — that is, they display their preference for the female most attractive to them in their immediate surroundings. This, in particular, explains the difference in the aesthetic features of the appearance of males and females. Attractiveness, from a biological standpoint, is an indicator of the given individual’s genetic merits, not simply a chance aesthetic characteristic. Therefore, if a female is distinguished by heightened attractiveness, several males may lay claim to her at once, and this can easily be observed during the spring heat in bitches, when several dogs run after one of them. From this one can also understand the struggle for attractiveness among women. One might say that women like to be liked. To be liked means to demonstrate one’s genome, and this is an imperative state — that is, one may say that women are compelled to do everything to be liked. This is one side of the biological adaptation of the species homo sapiens. Men, meanwhile, regardless of their personal convictions, must demonstrate their genotype by showing what they are capable of, which not infrequently spills over into outright boasting.
At times the courtship scenes of dogs, say, can look highly comic, despite the generally dramatic character of the whole mating ceremony. Sometimes a mongrel bitch — often hungry and, by human standards, not particularly aesthetic — is followed by several (sometimes up to ten) dogs of various breeds: large, medium, small and very small indeed. Among them one can observe true beauties, strong and maned; amusing middling types, unproud and accommodating; and genuine little freaks, small, strange and sometimes vicious. A natural hierarchy is established among them in accordance with the law of the “pecking order,” but all of them, in their striving to fulfil the biological programme laid down in them, look purposeful and submissive, since their state has an imperative character. The tragicomic effect manifests in the fact that many of these “applicants” do not suit “the lady of their heart” in size: some, on attempting to occupy the key position, turn out to be considerably above, and others considerably below, the optimal position. Be that as it may, they have carried out the primary choice. Now it is up to the female — she must carry out the secondary choice and, from the diversity offered her, single out and reward the one who, from the point of view of her biological programme, is the most promising genetically. In a less demonstrative but no less dramatic, and sometimes tragicomic, form, all this can be observed in humans as well. In literature one may find descriptions of every side of this process. And one more thing. On the male’s side (in the case of an animal) one may still speak of some form of infatuation — at least in the shape of a situational desire to possess a specific female, which corresponds to an imperative relation toward her. But the female demonstrates a frank readiness to leave with the winner of the tournament, as happens, for instance, with deer, when the doe simply waits, observing the duel of the horned suitors and awaiting which of them will prove his right to possess her. Then she will give herself to him alone. But biologically this simply means that the offspring of the winner is preferable for the species to the offspring of the loser. Projected onto the human race, this may be understood to mean that the love of men and of women is qualitatively different — men and women love differently, although they use identical words to denote their state and relation. This is an example of a homonymic shift in the use of words.
Observing animals, biologists have found, for instance, that male dogs prefer to meet new bitches each time, whereas bitches, having chosen a partner, prefer to deal only with him each time. Behind this too, strange as it may seem, stands a wholly mathematical regularity: within the species as a system, the male is responsible for quality and diversity, and the female for the quantity of offspring. Put more simply: if a stockbreeder wants, in the course of selection, to achieve maximum qualitative differences between, say, cows of a single breed, he needs fifty breeding bulls for fifty cows. But if he needs to increase the herd of an already established breed as quickly as possible, it is enough to have one breeding bull for 99 cows. He will manage.
Another fundamental difference between females and males is that Nature uses males first and foremost for the selection of the fittest individuals. More of them are born and more perish, and their lifespan is shorter, but genetic productivity is preserved longer; whereas females act as accumulators of genetic material, live longer, but lose productivity earlier.
Incidentally, about nightingales. People often think that the nightingale’s song is purely romantic in character and aimed at charming the female nightingale. But here too matters are more complex. Besides