General David Petraeus' resignation and admission of an
extramarital affair bloody the waters and the news media are in a feeding
frenzy. Another powerful man been brought down by having inappropriate sexual
behavior with a beautiful younger woman. The answers cover a broad range of
speculations from man will be men to powerful men are over sexed. The response
that caught my attention is that power is an aphrodisiac. To accept that
conclusion tends to indict all powerful men who are loyal to their marriage.
I believe there is another answer that far more powerful and
more profound than the need to satisfy an overactive sex drives. To suggest
that so many powerful men would risk everything they had achieved solely for sex
is a gross over-simplification. The political, social, family and often
financial cost at stake just do not make good sense. These powerful men did not
reach positions of importance by making senseless decisions and poor judgment.
If we examine this behavior from a wider and a more profound
position, other than the surface view of power and sex, we may reach a
different conclusion. To understand this behavior as a psycho-dynamic of two
individuals in a symbiotic attachment, each living out some unresolved
childhood psychological issue may be more productive. The literatures are full
with incidences in which sexual activity used to ease hidden and unresolved
issues, many from childhood. For instance, we can agree that rape has nothing
to do with sex, but everything to do with control and aggression.
Whenever we notice a
sexual deviation in adults--such as perversion and fetishism further examination
will reveal some experience in the area of fixation in childhood (Freud, 1924).
To make the connection I must quote from Freud's principle of psychic
determinism or causality which states "consciousness is an exceptional rather
than a regular attribute of psychic processes." In other words, we are too
often driven by unconscious desires and less by conscious understanding. We all
at, one time or another promised ourselves that we will never again do this or
that" and find that we repeat the undesirable behavior again and again. Why? It
may serve some unconscious needs. Therefore, we should, at least, entertain the
idea that the knowledge received by the consciousness of what is happening in
daily lives, including sexual behavior, liable to be incomplete, full of gaps,
or driven by unconscious (childhood) needs.
In this instance, instead of power and sex, I see it as a
symbiotic relationship, an unspoken (unconscious) agreement between two
individuals. Symbiosis understood as a disguised representation of a repressed
wish or impulse, or a close, often neurotic, attachment of one individual to
another. The position that I take on this subject based on certain facts of daily
life. For example, it is easy to show that value the mind places on erotic
needs instantly diminishes as soon as satisfaction becomes readily obtainable;
any dispute about this died long ago. Certain school of psychology accepted the
belief that a husband is never anything but a proxy. The husband is never the
right man, the first claim upon the feeling of love in a woman belongs to
someone else; her father. The husband is at best a second. Rather the husband rejected
or not depends upon the strength of this fixation (Freud, 1924). To experience
a fully and normal attitude in love two emotion have to unite; the tender,
affectionate feelings and the sensual feeling. Psychology inform us to be free and happy in love one must set
aside his deferential approach for women, and embrace the blinding light of the
incest taboo.
I believe, I have set the foundation in which to try and
answer several questions that part of
the conversation since general Petraeus' extramarital affair. (1) Why do women
prefer powerful men when it comes to relationships? Why do powerful men engage
in extramarital affairs more than powerful women?
First, we must accept the position that power indicates authority,
The President of the United States, an army general, the policeman on the
block, teacher in the classroom, or the father in the home. These are all
position of power and authority.
Power and authority play no role. The individual participates
in the relationships to live out a childhood wish, or an unresolved childhood
conflict. In adulthood, sex is, often, the vehicle used to act out the
forbidden wish.
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