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ОглавлениеSDP Themes Relating to Broader Social Needs
With these drive themes the overriding need is to belong to or be recognised by the wider society, rather than that the experience of belonging or validation being restricted to the sexual partner. Furthermore, there is generally a need for the social group to recognise our belonging together — we generally want to belong both to our sexual partner as well as to our society. The social recognition of such belonging becomes a basis for stronger commitment and more relationship stability.155 These drive themes have less to do with sexual desire than they do with social needs, so that the relevant drive themes reflect more indirect motives influencing sexual behaviour. It is about seeking out sexual activity that meets needs related to society: needs to be accepted, to prove something, societal position and empowerment, or needs reactive to social pressures. In this respect, a sexual relationship is viewed in terms of the social value a partner or the relationship itself might have.
In traditional society these drive themes also relate to issues of social class (traditional sociocultural sexual scripts have a strong emphasis on the social ramifications of the sexual relationship). But in contemporary society it might be understood in terms of social exchange theory. They also play an important role in adolescent sexual relationships, given the adolescent’s developmental need to establish themself socially. The drive to procreation is included here because, while the desire to have children might be a source of self-fulfilment or reflect relationship needs, it also represents a contribution to society at large, may be responsive to societal expectations, and has many implications in regard to the parents’ subsequent societal roles.
The power motive has played a central role in the politics of sexual relationships, and finds negative expression in coercion and aggression, issues of ongoing social concern. The sexual relationship can also be a statement of social position and power, and so is included here. Nevertheless, the power motive is also an intensely personal dynamic in sexual relationship, and could as easily have been listed under relationship-need themes of the SDP. Then again, for some the power motive has strong erotic elements (such as in BDSM situations), and so it could find its place among the themes of pleasure and desire. It is a theme that bridges different categories. In addition to the drive to procreation and the power motive, other SDP themes relating to broader social needs include the need to prove oneself, the need for social acceptance, the consumer drive, and the desire to rebel.
As a rite of passage and need to ‘prove’ oneself, this drive theme is largely about entering maturity. It is about expressing adulthood, self-discovery, asserting the completion of childhood and innocence, and embracing a new sense of self in a unique way with another adult through sexual experience.156 This means that it is a major drive theme in adolescence or young adulthood,157 although those afraid of leaving behind the joys and securities of childhood might suppress this drive. Its ascendance in a person’s SDP is generally short term, given the nature of its objective. It associates with the drive to find social acceptance, where acceptance in this case is found by undergoing the (sexual) rite of passage and being able to talk about sexual experience with peers as a badge of accomplishment and new-found maturity. Here sexual conquest or experience is the object: to a degree, who it involves is largely immaterial.
This need to ‘prove’ something might also find expression in various other sexual contexts. For example, it might involve a person trying to ‘prove’ his or her heterosexuality if there have been homosexual experiences or inclinations, or to ‘prove’ sexual desirability if there are self-esteem or body-image problems. For others, it might signify the need to ‘prove’ that the passion and virility of youth has not yet been lost in advancing age and may act as a drive to fend off a fear of sexual impotence or indifference, especially if this expression of masculinity or femininity is also about self-esteem and self-acceptance.
The need for social acceptance
The need for social acceptance is a drive theme that associates with the need to belong to a larger social or familial group. It associates with doing the ‘right thing’, with being seen as ‘normal’ and successful, and with being respected by others in the larger social circle.158 As such, this drive theme is strongly connected with the prevailing sociocultural sexual script. The need for social acceptance may influence the type or qualities of person someone is drawn to: a person with attributes that meet the criteria of social acceptance, whether of family (especially parents), of friends, or of society at large.159 And so the influence of the community in what is seen as morally or socially acceptable in the choice of sexual partner becomes an important factor. This drive is vulnerable to peer-pressure,160 and also operates in the context of arranged marriages where the respective parents form the social context. It sees pressure to restrict sexual relationships and marriages to certain acceptable (similar) sociocultural or religious groups.161 The drive to social acceptance may also result in entering a relationship with someone in order to not be left out: a fear of being ‘left on the shelf’, the ‘fear of missing out’. In this case, the drive is not so much about being attracted to a particular person, but to conform to the social pressure to ‘have someone’, or to be sexually successful. Poor self-esteem is also related to the need for social acceptance, so that when other drives draws a person with low self-esteem into a sexual relationship that is not socially condoned or applauded, internal conflicts can emerge that form the basis for anxiety and depression.
Not only does the need for social acceptance influence the type of person someone might be drawn to, but it also influences the nature of the sexual activity they might engage in. An inhibitive aspect relating to the need for social acceptance drive theme is social prohibition, a sociocultural overlay that motivates avoidance of some sexual relationship possibilities. This is an aspect of the moral dimension,162 and assumes the capacity not only to refrain from entering proscribed sexual relationships, but also to disallow interest in such relationship. In this case, the ‘shoulds’ of sexual behaviour are not so much about the other person, but about one’s own behaviour, potentially inhibiting various expressions of sexuality such as the visiting of prostitutes, engaging in casual sex, sex with near relatives or ‘under age’ persons, and homosexual behaviour. Not all prohibitions are universal, and some are restricted to certain sociocultural contexts: these may also change with time.
The consumer drive is the need to get the ‘best deal’ in a sexual relationship so to not ‘miss out’.163 This contrasts with being satisfied in a sexual relationship when essential sexual and relational needs are met, regardless of what else might be possible. As such, it is about marketplace possibilities and a preparedness to move on if a relationship is no longer deemed worthwhile or ‘good enough’; or something ‘better’ presents itself. The sexual partner or sexual event is treated as a commodity or product: aspects of a person or relationship are measured to determine its worth. Any personal cost in the equation should not outweigh the perceived value of the product obtained. Despite the potential exploitive and dehumanising aspects, a reasonable aspect of this drive theme is the idea that each person is expected to bring into the relationship something of benefit to the other person — a ‘fair market exchange’ — ensuring reward value for both parties. It forms the basis of social-exchange theories of interpersonal relationships.164 The consumer drive, however, is not simply about the fact of reward gained in a sexual exchange (a necessary element in the dynamic of desire and attraction), but the basis upon which it is obtained. If I receive something freely given, I have been rewarded. The consumer drive, however, demands not just a reward in the social exchange, but a good deal, or perhaps the best reward it can expect in the circumstances.
What might be sought in a social exchange? A person might seek in the other person complementary qualities165 — looks, athleticism, ambition, intelligence, competence, humour, wealth, status, charm, character strengths; qualities with social value that might enhance their own status in society. Reeve (2005) observes that people ‘consider first the “necessities” and then the “luxuries” in mate preferences. At the “must have” necessities level, men value physical attractiveness and women value status and resources, [while] both sexes also rate intelligence and kindness as necessities in their possible mates… then men and women… consider luxuries like a sense of humour, liveliness, creativity, and an exciting personality’ (p. 98).166 It seems that the more highly women think about their appearance, the more important it is to attract a man of high status. Similarly, the more important wealth is to a man, the more important a woman’s youth and looks are to him.167 The value of what they can expect to obtain in the sexual equation is relative to how they measure their own value.
The product or reward sought is also informed by the social context. This context includes the media, what is ‘fashionable’, and the perceptions of what others are enjoying in their relationships, creating expectations of what a sexual relationship or encounter should provide. In fact, the media play a potent role in the marketing of sex as if it were a commodity, reinforcing this outlook. This drive lends itself to a competitive outlook, a ‘try before you buy’ attitude, to be confident you are satisfied with the product, and to potentially being critical of a partner in relation to their characteristics or ‘performance’.
Feeding off entitlement schemas, it can promote dissatisfaction and jealousy when comparing what one has or is experiencing with what others are perceived to have or to experience with their sexual partner. It can play a role in promiscuity and general relationship instability, as the consumer is always searching for something ‘better’ — in a sexual experience or in a sexual partner. In another sense, the commerce of prostitution and other marketplace sexual activities relates strongly to the consumer drive.168 This drive inhibits attraction to someone judged as not ‘good enough’ in terms of the expectations a person might have, but in this regard self-image is a moderating variable: a person with poor self-esteem will settle for less in the exchange than a person with good self-esteem.
The desire to rebel is a drive theme that appears to be the antithesis of the need for social acceptance, but it is in many ways reactive to non-acceptance and not having belonging needs met. It may be birthed in anger, bitterness or emotional pain in someone who feels unjustly let down or rejected by wider society, or by those that they see to represent wider society. As a result, a person may be drawn into behaviour or a relationship circumstance that is not acceptable to the prevailing social culture because it is not ‘acceptable’.169 ‘Not belonging’ is no longer a reason for distress, but becomes a point of pride. It can be a statement of heroic individuality which implicitly criticises or diminishes the community that the person doesn’t feel they belong to, or by which they feel rejected.
In a somewhat different context, the pain and anger emerging from sexual betrayal by a cheating partner170 may lead to the desire to punish the offender by sexual infidelity. Or more generally, by rebelling against any expectation that they should care about the person with whom sexual activity is entered into. In this respect this drive theme may overlap with the power motive: when a person feels not only angry but disempowered by their cheating partner, they may enter a sexual relationship in order to reassert their power. This may also find expression in the seduction of someone already in a relationship, because it gives the person the capacity to hurt and punish someone, just as they themselves have been hurt and feel punished.
There are other expressions of this drive theme. For example, a person may be drawn to sexually bond to someone who is not socially acceptable — one who represents the rebel, the outsider, the one who rejects social pressures. For someone who feels rejected and alienated, such a person may inspire admiration or empathy. Furthermore, the experience of joining forces with another person against a hostile world — a common enemy — also helps to forge a bond with that person.171 In a different sense again, this drive theme associates with the desire for release from the constriction of rules and authority along with the frustrations such rules and authority might induce, so that a person, relationship, or experience is intentionally sought that does not conform to prevailing social mores. Related to this is the thrill in being different, or in doing something one ought not to do: sexual arousal can be experienced in engaging in activities regarded as taboo.
Because of the elements of non-conformity and social alienation, this drive theme may be linked to any expression of sexuality that happens not to be accepted by society at the time. It resists cultural expectations of acceptable sexual behaviours, including those related to gender stereotypes. However, rebellion against broader sociocultural rules and expectations can also generalise to rebellion against a partner’s relationship expectations, including the expectation of fidelity. And so the desire to rebel may find expression in refusing to belong to anyone and may incline to relationship instability.
