Love

The Sexual 3 is addicted to love and the idea of being loved, making it their absolute priority. They are more preoccupied with receiving love than truly experiencing it. When they talk about love, they often refer solely to the love of their partner, as if there were no other forms of it. Their fantasy is that if they find that love, they will find complete happiness. However, this is a superficial love, feeding on the intensity of infatuation and the initial stages of a relationship—very short-lived. Deep down, there is an enormous fear of authentic love, the kind that is present in everyday life, where imperfections and flaws of themselves and their partner are visible.

I used to think of myself as Sleeping Beauty. One day, I would meet a prince who would awaken me with his love, and we would live happily ever after. This already speaks to the deep disconnection and numbing of the self that I sought to find through a romantic relationship.

Claudio Naranjo proposes a concept of love in three different forms: “erotic love,” which is a child-like love of self; “compassionate love,” reflecting maternal love that is nurturing and giving; and “admiring love” or “appreciative love,” which is a paternal love, in the sense of representing reverence for something greater, like values and the divine. Mental well-being lies in the harmony of these three dimensions, whereas neurosis takes root when one of them is overly emphasized.

On the surface, the Sexual 3 gives priority to erotic love, but that is only the product they “sell,” which is far from being genuine instinctive pleasure. In fact, of the three forms of love described by Claudio, this is the one the Sexual 3 has the least developed. As they have an inhibited capacity for erotic expression and spontaneity, it’s difficult for them to connect with desire. Frequently, the Sexual 3 neglects their inner wounded child and their need to receive love. They confuse being desired with being loved. Given their significant disconnection from their deepest feelings and desires, along with their tendency to overadapt to preferences and interests that aren’t truly their own (a form of image reversal), they become objects of desire for others without seeking to satisfy their own needs.

To truly love and be loved, the first step for the E3 is to reclaim self-respect. This involves looking inside and confronting their inner emptiness, recognizing the depth of their pains and deficiencies that they’ve learned to disguise since childhood. They must set aside the need to make a good impression, instead acknowledging their own worthiness and the right to experience pleasure—both in life and in their relationships.

Seduction isn’t necessarily rooted in a deep desire for someone. Often, it serves the purpose of masking internal emptiness. For the Sexual 3, the gaze and desire of others provide external validation that they are special and valuable. In erotic love, they focus on the mystique of promising pleasure, but what they truly seek isn’t pleasure—it’s admiration:

The love I sell to women is erotic love; that is, I offer pleasure and entertainment beyond the sexual aspect. Once I promise the fun and enjoyment in sex, I try to make myself interesting, showcasing what I do, what I know, what I’ve accomplished, what I’ve learned, what I’ve read… Small hints or glimpses of all the potential I hide.

Ultimately, this staged performance aims to position them in a state of admiration for me: “Look how much he knows,” “Look at his achievements,” “He’s so well-connected,” “I’ll learn so much from him,” “He’s great in bed,” and so on.

For the Sexual 3, attracting admiration isn’t a significant challenge. The desire to be admired and loved is human; the problem is that this pursuit further disconnects them from self-love, their self-esteem, genuine needs, and their true selves.

Their quest for love becomes desperate, leading them into relationships with partners they don’t actually want to be with, enduring mistreatment for the fear of losing love and facing loneliness. They might even tolerate abusive situations, emotionally detaching to endure, because to separate from the partner would mean confronting the pain of abandonment, their most feared nightmare.

Their most developed form of love is probably maternal, as they tend to take care of those they love. They also frequently seek refuge in family or a partner, both of which enhance their sense of worth. The Sexual 3s are very passionate about family, where they don’t grapple with insecurity as much. They can be good housewives, and the family unit not only gives them the feeling of protection, but also brings meaning to their lives.

The Sexual 3 sells compassionate love to attain this same nurturing love and admiration. In their romantic relationships, they pour a great deal of energy into this form of love, often confusing it with eroticism, viewing seduction as the gateway to securing maternal love. Thus, they sell maternal love on the basis of taking care of the other. They want to be treated as royalty but act as servants. They firmly believe they are deserving of unconditional love, where they are the star. They appear extremely attentive to their partner’s needs, providing efficient care, albeit without a deep, authentic loving connection.

They struggle, deep down, to offer genuine love—one that is intimately attuned to their own and their partner’s emotional needs. It’s a monumental effort, which begins with the annulment of their own truth, particularly their need for affection, which is omitted from the equation as they “buy” the admiration of others.

The Sexual 3 strives to generate dependency by making themselves indispensable, which gives them a sense of power and shields them from appearing fragile or needy. They present themselves as experts in all matters of nutrition and care, and the phrase “I don’t know” doesn’t exist in their vocabulary. If there’s something they genuinely don’t know, they are quite capable of deceiving themselves and their partner. This behavior is driven by their deep-rooted fear of reliving childhood abandonment and losing the love of others. The dependence is generated by fostering the belief that they’re the most wonderful and perfect person on Earth, without whom the other person simply cannot live.

In return, they buy love like the one they sell: someone strong who continually looks after them, admires them, makes them feel special, showers them with gifts, and consistently tells them how amazing they are. And of course, someone who won’t criticize them—ever. On the contrary, they want someone who discovers something fascinating in them that no one else has ever found, and who appreciates it. Someone who gives a redemptive love that can erase all the pain they’ve lived through. They believe that if they find such love, happiness will follow, and all their pain and frustration will disappear.

However, disappointment sets in when this impossible love never comes. Then they fall into a new self-deception: they give so much but feel they aren’t receiving what they deserve in return, although, deep down, they don’t even trust that the other person can take care of them. Their demands for how they should be cared for become so exacting that their significant other eventually gives up.

The Sexual 3 needs to have someone hooked on their offerings every day of the year. They don’t realize that, beneath it all, they are using the other person with just as much dependency as they generate in them, until one day they end up feeling trapped. In their craving for freedom, they… blame the other party.

When the relationship eventually ends, they don’t allow themselves to mourn and immediately look for another partner to fill the void. If they’re ever single, they either have a fool in love to whom they’re promising the world, or their imagination is already occupied with fantasies of future conquests, regardless of whether they’re realistic or not.

Over the past ten months, I’ve had three different partners, moving from one to another without much pause. I didn’t take the time to be alone, grieve, or let any lessons sink in. I’ve realized that I’ve almost compulsively jumped from one relationship to the next, that it hasn’t meant much for me to start again, and that has made me aware of my emotional detachment and coldness, and my tendency to fill the glass, the void, the emptiness without allowing myself to truly feel.

At the start of each new relationship, a common pattern emerges. I indulge in the fantasy that this time, with this woman, I’ll finally have my ideal love story, complete with a happy family, children playing, and a loving father returning home from work, showering them with hugs and kisses. Automatically, as I weave this perfect narrative—my perfect love story—I start to lose myself, forget about myself, and give up my space. I become devoted, loving, caring, and tender, convinced that everything I’m providing is perfect and wonderful. I’ve already cast myself in the role of perfection, where I expect to be greatly admired and desired. Of course, I forget to feel and express my own desires, for fear of not being liked, and I stop articulating what I truly want and need.

When a crisis in the relationship leads to a break-up, the Sexual 3 can spiral into self-destructive behaviors, turning to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain, and losing all sense of dignity and self-esteem.

It’s not so difficult for a Sexual 3 to express admiration, but in reality, it’s rooted in hidden envy. They idealize someone they perceive as more valuable than themselves, and whom they want to seduce in an attempt to have their own self-worth validated—something they struggle to feel, lacking internal confidence in themselves. Hence, the admiration they are constantly seeking is superficial; it’s centered on the image they project. It only reveals their

distrust in being seen and respected for who they are. Physical seduction taints admiring love, turning it into a rigid and automatic channel for connecting with their partner, sidetracking any genuine maternal or appreciative love relationship. The blurred boundaries they’ve encountered with their parents keep them in the dark about the paths that could lead them to getting what they truly want.

If they find it difficult to trust life and feel the need to micromanage everything, it’s precisely because of their deep yearning for surrender. When the Sexual 3 realizes that they can surrender and give themselves over to God, they connect with their own divinity and find a sense of inner peace:

It’s difficult to describe what the love of God is like for a Sexual 3 in a more general way, because it is inherently a spiritual and highly subjective dimension. Speaking from my own perspective and experiences, I can express the love for God as an encounter with Love itself. A love that translates into adoration and gratitude to the One who guided me on this journey. It’s a facet of the soul, and when accessed, it becomes an experience of unity with all things, of loving without exception, bridging the differences that separate us. I can describe the love of God as a deep love for myself. When I recognized the magnificence of my true Self and the divine strength within me, I started holding myself in reverence. This experience was pivotal in establishing a connection with my own intrinsic value. Though vanity may still exist, internally it provoked a progressive and liberating transformation of my consciousness.

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