if the course of love was regulated solely by sexual factors its study would be a comparatively simple matter. sexual cravings find themselves, however, in conflict with many other manifestations of the life force. for the sexual libido is not the life force as certain psychoanalysts believe. it is only one of the manifestations of the electric stream produced in the brain and seeking an outlet.
in fact, sex is only a temporary manifestation of the life force, late to appear, early to disappear. embryonic life begins several months before sex becomes observable in the fetus. actual extrauterine life is in full swing before sex is ripe, that is, capable of fulfilling its biological destiny. life continues sometimes many years after sex has ceased to serve its reproductive purpose.
the most powerful urge to which sex has to adapt itself in the life of the human animal is the ego urge, the craving for food and power, the selfish urge par[pg 66] excellence. at times, sex and ego work in perfect accord as they should, considering the close relationship of the nervous divisions carrying power to them.
neurotic complications, however, due to the necessary repressions of modern civilisation, throw them too often into conflict.
we might say that there is a natural source of conflict between them, for the ego urge is selfish, aiming as it does at the conservation of the individual and its personal upbuilding, while the sex urge, whose aim is to assure the continuance of the species, is altruistic.
by altruistic i mean that one human being must, before finding the complete gratification of his sex urge, join his body to that of another human being of the opposite sex, whose sex urge he helps gratify, the result of that cooperation being the creation of a third human being.
from this we may see clearly how the neurotic temperament, unusually self-centered, is likely to exacerbate whatever conflicts may exist between ego and sex.
even in the so called normal human being, that is, the human being who in spite of life's repressions, manages to live at peace with his environment and[pg 67] himself, the will-to-power, the desire for possession and domination expresses itself constantly in what is generally considered as typically sexual manifestations of love.
do not lovers say that they "possess" each other. was not the biblical god power before he became creation? in the beginning there was the word, that is the expression, the utterance of the divine ego.
does not the unmated god of the western nations symbolise the absolute supremacy of power over sex? and when people pray to god, what do they ask for, in the majority of cases, if not power (help)?
self-love. yet we often consider the craving for power as a form of love, self-love. when jesus said "love thy neighbor as thyself" he testified to the fact that our self-love is the most powerful human feeling and he presented it as a goal which our love for others might reach.
he admitted that we all love ourselves first and he was too world-wise to advise men, as some of his followers have done, to repress their self-love. he only advised men to try and love others as much as they loved themselves.
all the great conflicts between nations have been precipitated by ego rather than by love. love and[pg 68] sex were responsible, we are told for the most famous war in history and legend, the trojan war. i am quite sceptical about it in spite of the "evidence" presented by a poet who probably never existed as an individual, homer.
i know, however, that the most atrocious war ever fought, the world war, was unchained, not by sexual jealousy, but by the most sordid, the grossest form of predatory ego cravings, the will-to-commercial-power.
in innumerable cases, ego overpowers sex and compels it to suit its purposes. it masquerades in the guise of sex and deceives many as to its true nature. prostitution, in its last analysis, is the enslavement of sex by ego, sex working to feed the ego and supply it with necessities or luxuries.
ego in sex guise. certain customs of ages past are sexual in appearance but the egotistical motive back of them is easily discovered. take the right of the first night, which in several parts of the world survived until modern times.
the tribal chief or the lord of the manor had the right to spend a night with every bride within his jurisdiction before the rightful husband was allowed to enjoy his marital privileges. that custom made the first born of every family the putative[pg 69] descendent of the chief and fostered a deeper loyalty to him among his followers.
even as economic exhibitionism prompts people to spend at show eating places sums in no way commensurate with their hunger, or to buy diamonds which are not in any way beautiful but only symbolical of the wearer's indifference to returns on his investments, egotism causes many men to pretend sexual cravings which they do not feel. many stage women, actresses, singers, dancers, etc., are kept by men whose sex life is at low ebb but who parade their "conquest" before their associates or perfect strangers to demonstrate their sexual and financial powers.
fatherhood. a constant craving for fatherhood is not infrequently a neurotic symptom, an egotistical desire to compensate for low sexual potency.
physicians and druggists dispensing aphrodisiacs can testify to the prevalence of large families in the homes of almost impotent men.
the man who can fulfill his sexual duties once a year for fifteen years and foils his mate's attempts at contraception, is quite able to raise a very large family and to pass among his associates for a very virile man. the sight of his numerous progeny[pg 70] silences any scepticism as to his sexual vitality.
some of the most astonishing vagaries in the choice of a mate are traceable to purely egotistical cravings. neurotic women married to a superior man may refuse to express any sexual joy in his arms. they remain frigid in his company and then give themselves to some rather inferior individual to whom they feel superior and in whose arms they show the most complete abandon. the medical and lay press very often relates cases of fine looking and apparently normal women who marry idiots or morons. their sense of inferiority and their fear of ego-defeat makes them seek inferior mates unlikely to dominate them in any respect. some young women conceal their morbid desire to mate with a degenerate under a philanthropic mask. they pretend, when marrying a drunkard or a thief, that their aim is to regenerate him.
and so do some young men with an inferiority complex explain to their family and friends that they have married a menial or a prostitute to reclaim her.
war prisoners. german newspapers mentioned several times during the war that war prisoners were treated too cordially by the women, many of whom had affairs with the defeated enemies. in several cities, it became necessary for the military[pg 71] authorities to issue proclamations on the subject, berating the offenders for their "shameless behavior." the same facts were observed in france and in italy altho they were given less prominence in the american newspapers.
why was it that those women idolised men they were supposed to hate as enemies and accorded sexual favors to them? why was it that they did not enjoy more completely the victory of the males of their race and jeer at the defeated foes? those women were neurotics who, unable to enjoy the embraces of victorious, superior males, felt themselves superior in the arms of defeated and humiliated men.
neurotic motherliness. a patient of mine who had always shown herself rebellious in her attitude to her sexually potent lover, became all tenderness and submissiveness one day when sickness almost cut off his potency.
"i never loved him as much as i did yesterday," she told me, "for i felt then that i could really mother him." which translated into honest parlance meant, to use adler's vocabulary, that on that occasion he was "below" and she was "above."
when ego and sex do not conflict, a combination of the two gives results which stamp human love as distinctly superior to animal sexuality.[pg 72] just as higher egotism has created cooperation, which eliminates individual fights and establishes in their place group fighting, healthy egotism added to sex has introduced cooperation and altruism into love. the egotistical desire to please and dominate the female thru vigorous caresses has thrown into the shade the primitive cavemanlike ways. man no longer strikes the female unconscious in order to satisfy his sex cravings on her prostrate body. his aim is rather to satisfy his mate first. this of course carries sexuality far away from its primal aims. love's byplays, in many cases, replace love's specific functions, the road from sensuality to sterility being a short one. when the goal of sterility is attained, we see sex willingly relinquishing its biological aims to egotism. in the plays of sex and ego as in the conflicts between the two urges, ego is more frequently victorious than sex.
