# Sexuality and the Cognitive Functions...



## The King Of Dreams (Aug 18, 2010)

I'm wondering how each cognitive function approaches sex. How do they view intimacy and sex? If everyone can put in their view that would be great.

Te Ti Se Si Fe Fi Ne Ni. I hope all different doms of these types respond!


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## Diphenhydramine (Apr 9, 2010)

I'm an Se dom which is just 1 letter away from SEX.


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## Ramysa (Mar 22, 2012)

I am Ni dom and I cannot sleep with someone I have no feelings for. Never had an "one-night-stand" and never will. Intimacy comes with time, for me.


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## LiquidLight (Oct 14, 2011)

This is a very tough subject to approach from a cognitive functions standpoint because the way people approach sexuality is so wrapped up in other psychological factors. Unquestionably your functions play a part (as for example Intuitives having issues around sense related issues, many related to sex) but its very hard to tie any given thing directly to a function. It is really inappropriate to try and draw a causal connection between functions and sexuality directly, but they do help you perceive and judge sexuality in given ways. Jung basically used the anima/animus complex as the guiding force for how we approach sexuality and even gender. This complex is the contrasexual compensation of your persona, what other psychologists like John Money might refer to as a 'lovemap' or a collection of ideals about how you view the opposite sex. 

This map or complex is very heavily influenced by your upbringing (naturally if it compensates your persona because your persona is almost completely the result of conditioning) and often is heavily influenced by the parent or primary caregiver of the opposite sex because that person is usually the first experience of the the opposite sex we have. In men its almost always the person's mother, and it is not uncommon for men to unconsciously seek out women who remind them of their mothers, or even as much older men become 'momma's boys'. This is the same idea that Freud's Oedipus Complex revolves around he just got to the same conclusion a different way. The same is often true for women who often idealize men like their fathers or grandfathers, it is not uncommon for them to be attracted to male authority figures for example (or be repulsed by such men). But again you cannot really universalize things. There is no 'women like x type of man' and 'men like x type of women' as people try to casually say, since these things are highly personal and any generalizations are related more toward culture than individual choice. 

I don't have time to go too deeply into it but basically there are four stages of development of the complex which for men Jung called Eve (the porn-star, playboy model, Marilyn Monroe, object of desire type), Helen (the self-reliant or insightful woman), Mary (the impossibly virtuous mother-figure) and Sophia (the acceptance that a real woman possess both positive and negative qualities and to embrace them all). Women have a similar four-fold (Jung loves things in fours) development of their animus complex. But because this complex works unconsciously it is often expressed consciously via the inferior function, since that function is the closest to your unconscious. So this is why Thinking type men may, for example, see women as whiny, over-emotional, irrational, wrapped up in their feelings, because they are projecting their anima complex through their inferior Feeling function. Intuitives may view the opposite sex on very sensual or sexual terms (Nietzsche was such a person whose later writings were deemed so vulgar that they were destroyed after his death to preserve his legacy). Occasionally someone might develop a paraphilia around an inferior function (a fetishization) for example, say an Extraverted Intuitive or Extraverted Thinking type who is into bondage or S&M (in this case eruptions of an inability to deal with their Introverted Sensation or Introverted Feeling respectively). But again such an episode might not be function related at all. They may be replaying an episode from their childhood.

There was a man that Mario Jacoby writes about who secretly dressed up as a woman, despite being married because it made him feel good. The man as a child, had been forced to wear a girl's clothing, innocently for a school play or something, and his uber-masculine father (who likely had issues of his own) made such a big deal of it, it made a lasting impact on the child's anima complex, or love-map to the point that years later as an adult the only way he felt that he could ever get power over that aspect of his life was to continue to dress as a woman. It was his secret place of revenge from the emotional toll of his upbringing. I think on a much less dramatic level all of us deal with these things (I suspect its one of the reasons so many people who have sensitivities think they are introverted feeling types, not realizing that in reality an Introverted Feeling type would have supreme command of these things because that is their dominant function - anytime you are overwhelmed by something to the point where it becomes a sensitivity, that is a tell-tale indicator that it is not your go-to functions at work, but likely something raging unconsciously). 

There's a lot of material out there on this topic ranging from Freud, to Jung, to modern psychologists like Money and Jacobi and they all basically come from the same basic idea. That the way in which we approach the opposite sex and sexuality has much more to do with how we first conceptualize and experience these things very early in life. And most people either spend the rest of their lives moving away or toward those experience. Either replaying them unconsciously in relationship after relationship (ever notice how some people seem to fall into the same relationship traps over and over again or how some men just cannot help but to be antagonistic toward women or even effeminate men) or trying very desperately to get away or command over those early experiences especially if they were traumatic as in the case of abuse.


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## Diphenhydramine (Apr 9, 2010)

LiquidLight said:


> This is a very tough subject to approach from a cognitive functions standpoint because the way people approach sexuality is so wrapped up in other psychological factors. Unquestionably your functions play a part (as for example Intuitives having issues around sense related issues, many related to sex) but its very hard to tie any given thing directly to a function. It is really inappropriate to try and draw a causal connection between functions and sexuality directly, but they do help you perceive and judge sexuality in given ways. Jung basically used the anima/animus complex as the guiding force for how we approach sexuality and even gender. This complex is the contrasexual compensation of your persona, what other psychologists like John Money might refer to as a 'lovemap' or a collection of ideals about how you view the opposite sex.


 With this in mind, it might be useful to observe people's inferior/shadow functions and how it works towards their view of sexuality and how it creates projection and stuff like that. Its certainly going to be more descriptive than the dominant function.


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## LiquidLight (Oct 14, 2011)

Ya the inferior would probably reveal the most here and even then only part of the picture. But sensitivities and perceptions most certainly would be influenced by the inferior function.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

I was going to say that enneagram probably plays a large role here. There is for example a strong correlation between those who favor the sexual instinct to a larger degree (primary or secondary) to think of sex as a way of being both emotionally and physically intimate, for example. And I think different enneagram types might experience sexuality differently as well. The 8 seems to be in a bit of a dominated-dominating thing (the virtue of 8 is lust after all), 4 and 9 want complete emotional merge with their partners, and so on. 

How this would reflect the Jungian persona I don't know, but I thought I would put it out there.


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## Pointless Activist (May 22, 2012)

-Whoopsies-


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## Boolean11 (Jun 11, 2012)

Te-mechanical 
Fe-passionate 
Se-adventurous
Ne-Hesitant maybe this or that


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## nonnaci (Sep 25, 2011)

My dom Ti stops my Fe from giving it any worth. My Ni stops Se from seeing it as reward seeking behavior. Thus, ego goes meh.


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## zynthaxx (Aug 12, 2009)

Ti-Se makes me master the here-and-now part of it and gives me a sense of "pride" from accomplishment. 
Ni complements them with a map of what's worked before and what could work, along with a general sense of anatomy and spacial awareness.


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## The King Of Dreams (Aug 18, 2010)

This is very fascinating. I wonder what Ne does....


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

The King Of Dreams said:


> This is very fascinating. I wonder what Ne does....


The possibility to try new things, obviously


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## The King Of Dreams (Aug 18, 2010)

LeaT said:


> The possibility to try new things, obviously


OH! Why couldn't I figure that out? *face palm*

So it would be the function that wants to spice things up and see the possibilities?
While Si would want to focus on what's familiar and what works?


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## niss (Apr 25, 2010)

The King Of Dreams said:


> OH! Why couldn't I figure that out? *face palm*
> 
> So it would be the function that wants to spice things up and see the possibilities?
> While Si would want to focus on what's familiar and what works?


No. Go back and read LiquidLight's post. Our sexuality is primarily influenced by experiences within our family of origin and our values. Cognitive functions play a very minor role in determining our expression of our sexuality.


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## The King Of Dreams (Aug 18, 2010)

niss said:


> No. Go back and read LiquidLight's post.


But I get tired reading all of that! I don't wanna! I don't wanna! :tongue:


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## LiquidLight (Oct 14, 2011)

niss said:


> No. Go back and read LiquidLight's post. Our sexuality is primarily influenced by experiences within our family of origin and our values. Cognitive functions play a very minor role in determining our expression of our sexuality.


Otherwise we'd be forced to conclude that all Si-doms saw sex a certain way or all Ne-doms saw sex a certain way and this would be ridiculous.


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## The King Of Dreams (Aug 18, 2010)

LiquidLight said:


> Otherwise we'd be forced to conclude that all Si-doms saw sex a certain way or all Ne-doms saw sex a certain way and this would be ridiculous.


But.... I AM ridiculous!


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## niss (Apr 25, 2010)

LiquidLight said:


> Otherwise we'd be forced to conclude that all Si-doms saw sex a certain way or all Ne-doms saw sex a certain way and this would be ridiculous.


Extrapolate this into our attempts to determine type based almost strictly on behaviors and my frustration becomes almost palpable.


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## n2freedom (Jun 2, 2011)

zynthaxx said:


> Ti-Se makes me master the here-and-now part of it and gives me a sense of "pride" from accomplishment.
> Ni complements them with a map of what's worked before and what could work, along with a general sense of anatomy and spacial awareness.


Sounds like an ad. I would be a consumer in a heartbeat. :wink: :tongue:

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@_LiquidLight_...great information...you really stimulate me mentally.

And, to whoever wrote Te - mechanical....bull hockey!!! You obviously have not been intimate with a Te dom before. LMAO! :wink: :tongue:


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