Other Characteristics and Psychodynamic Considerations

Fragile Body in a Non-Conformist Spirit

With sexual children, it's common to hear stories of early childhood suffering, not only due to the emotional impact of parents but also due to physical fragility.

One person recounts that, at ten months old, they suffered from a severe allergy that nearly led to their death due to spoiled powdered milk. Breast milk had been taken away at three months, and there was little physical contact, with a life marked by illness.

These accounts of early loss of contact with the mother, associated with the experience of being very close to death, are common. Thinkers of this subtype, such as Wordsworth and Rousseau, lost their mothers while they were still children. Both the French thinker and Chopin had childhoods marked by illness and proximity to death. The Polish musician and his sister were struck by a very strong flu as children, which resulted in her death. From then on, for Chopin, it was as if death was always by his side.

In the same proportion as this physical fragility, there exists an intense desire for power: the Sexual 5 does not accept its fragile condition.

Needing Harmony, to Escape to Nature

Since contact with others destabilizes the Sexual 5, an inhospitable environment can be lethal. This person, due to their fear of being swallowed, needs contact to translate into a harmonious environment.

The aforementioned Chopin, from an early age, isolated himself to play the piano, and in the end, as there was harmony in George Sand's house, he enjoyed a happy and productive life. Sand was more of a mother to Chopin than a lover, and she barely demanded anything from him.

The Sexual 5 finds much of this harmony in contact with nature, its divine muse, with whom it maintains a one-sided relationship, favored by the silence of its inspirer. They will also seek refuge in nature to organize their inner chaos. Nature becomes the idealized "woman" or "man," where they believe they will find answers to their questions.

“That’s how I managed to forget the chaos of my family life and 'empty' part of the passion I felt for a girl.” – Alexandre V.

Arid and Yet Hypersensitive

Given its retention, when a Sexual 5 tries to express itself authentically, what it encounters is very dry. Along with the disconnection from feeling, there is the idea that to feel is to explode, to lose oneself, maybe even to die.

At the same time, it presents hypersensitivity that does not coincide with its arid and distant appearance, a byproduct of low vitality of both body and spirit.

“If I’m too open to what’s happening around me, I suffer a lot. I spare myself this sensitivity with a division in my neck that separates my emotions from my thoughts.” – Mara G.

In reality, such a low threshold for physical and emotional pain is the foundation for a posture of almost deserted feeling. Sexual 5s prefer not to enter a field that could evoke their most primitive pains. This is how dryness and hypersensitivity feed each other. It’s as if there is an extreme pain somewhere inside that, if revived, they couldn’t endure and would pay with their life.

Easily Destabilized

The feeling that their resources are so scarce leads them to succumb to others. Anyone who appears in their path tactically makes them lose themselves with their own desires. The other destabilizes the Sexual 5.

“I lose myself in front of the other. I withdraw from my inner axis; I find myself facing external demands that drain me, and I feel the need to isolate myself to recharge my batteries. It’s my need for solitude.” – Mara G.

This person’s character was so invaded in their childhood that even today they live with the feeling of that exposure—and the weakness of defending themselves—and remain in the background so that others don’t invade them too much in a phagocytic contact.

The Nostalgic Nostalgia linked the Sexual 5, stagnant due to excessive attachment to the past, which prevents them from taking responsibility for their life and moving forward. They live in nostalgia for illuminated times that no longer exist, and certainly never did, full of idealizations.

They do not find joy in life, no lightness in being sexual, no sparkle. They don’t enjoy play; they don’t play and don’t value the little things (because they don’t belong to the divine sphere).

“Nostalgia, eternal nostalgia that has always consumed me,” said Chopin, who lived in Paris from a very young age, but people from Poland were always the source of his images and pen feelings. "Twilight": that’s what they called the composer’s moods.

Helplessness

Existential impotence has been present since childhood.

“Sometimes I was playing and suddenly the world disappeared beneath my feet. I lost the ground. It was sudden and brief, but I felt extremely alone.” – Alexandre V.

“Impotence feels so common to me that I feel as if it’s what covers me. It’s like not having skin.” – Mara G.

Does Not Assert Their Place in the World

One consequence of their psychic division is neglect of the social and professional dimensions, where they are condemned to a routine and simple life. The desire for external freedom, a reflection of the lack of internal freedom, cannot be satisfied and is then transformed into opposing characteristics of systematization and rigidity, similar to those of the E1.

They succumbed to the neurosis of financial security and the comfort of an institution, while still carrying a burning heart and excessive fantasy as compensation for a routine life, as well as a desire to always go somewhere else.

Until the age of forty-six, ten years before dying, Nietzsche worked hard in solitude and anonymity. He cruelly pressured himself because he could no longer endure his lack of recognition. Just like Rousseau, at thirty-eight, he was still "no one," as he was called. Inside there was an indomitable spirit, but he hadn’t been able to assert his place in the world.

“In moments when I realize how much I’ve closed my life off from friendships and from my work, which is the reality I was fleeing from, through refuge and fantasy. In the end, I ended up doing little concretely, and when I look back, a 'sense of urgency' comes over me. It’s like looking back and seeing a gap between what I’m being now and what I was in my life, with a lack of 'continuity.' I realize that I lived in a kind of 'forgetfulness' of myself, and now that this is the case, I have to run. And once again, there is a strong appeal to enter the world of fantasy and inactivity, as if everything were already lost.” – Alexandre V.

Uselessness

A notable trait of Greed is not feeling worthy, due to a lack of vitality to face challenges. This, in the sexual instinct, coexists with excessive and grandiose fantasy. The result: unrealistic and unfinished projects. The Sexual 5 easily gives up on their life projects. "I rarely complete what I set out to do," "I’ve never fully immersed myself in anything I did."

An abyss of forgetfulness opens between planning and acting: a large gap between fantasy and action. In their thoughts, they can maintain a level of motivation, but once it shifts to action, it is lost. There is a significant distance between what they wanted and what, for

now, they are ready to accomplish. This is another result of psychic and bodily fragmentation.

Undisciplined

Here’s another characteristic contributing to this state of inactivity. From thought to action, motivation and determination disappear, making a disciplined life difficult.

An indiscipline that is also a result of forgetfulness and lack of vitality. The irrational idea of being unable to complete a phase of their life and move forward operates here, because "completing" means letting go and opening up to the new. Added to that is the internal mechanism that prevents them from recognizing any of their rights (minimizing their desires), as well as a perfectionism that makes them believe they are never ready. Deep down, the Sexual 5 feels like a child not allowed to separate from their mother, revealing their false autonomy.

Revenge; Not Doing What Is Expected

The psychodynamics of withdrawal includes a subtle but effective act of rebellion. Sometimes, it is an act of revenge against the demands of the internalized, hyper-critical, and severe mother, with her constant: "You never finish anything you start!" The result of this conflict between internal demands and the rebellion of not doing is guilt and failure.

Feeling of Guilt

Feeling guilty for a Sexual 5 is closely tied to the awareness that their isolation is a form of revenge, an aggression. Guilt leads them, therefore, to renounce themselves.

"My most frequent feeling of guilt might be about not having enough energy. I blame myself for it, and it drains my energy to act; it's a vicious cycle. I realize that guilt is a way of keeping the sense of being a victim, of keeping myself small." — Maria Luisa F.

A childhood full of demands and messages of undervaluation, and of feeling unworthy, is common:

"Everything my mother gave me came with guilt. When she gave me a toy or clothes, she’d say, 'I stopped giving to myself to give to you!' These messages corroborated the feeling of poverty, scarcity, and, above all, of not being worthy of something positive in life. I perceive

any change in my partner’s mood as if it were against me, because of me. Then, I react like a child or adolescent: I shut myself off, isolate, and feel even more guilty for that alienation." — Alexandre V.

Selfish and Self-Centered

Idealizing the partner, or someone with whom they have an emotional connection, the Sexual 5 does not see them as a person different from themselves, with their own emotions and needs. They need a partner who shows extreme loyalty to their way of life (the idealization of trust). The other must conform entirely to them so that they can feel that there is love. And, above all, they must always be available, even anticipating what they want; in the end, a mirror that reflects their image. The very organization of activities or time must be in line with their rhythm; only then will the other be a truly reliable ally.

Arrogant

They may deny the defensiveness of isolation, convincing themselves that their world is special, that they themselves are special and, therefore, cannot be in relation to "ordinary" beings. This is about their difficulty behind the image of superiority or being an inaccessible person. They shut themselves off in their world of ideas, convinced that they understand something subtle that others are unable to perceive. In confrontation with others, they tend to present their ideas as indisputable and feel entitled to correct others.

Seduction

This sexual subtype wins with erotic seduction without displaying feathers or a sexually attractive image according to this passion; on the contrary, they approach in an intimate way, sending messages of interest and with the physical proximity of contact that may even be delicate. Obviously, they may use mental adjustment or interest in the intellectual, but in any case, among the E5 subtypes, they are the most sensually daring. Their search for the ideal partner may compel them to seduce different people at the same time. They are very skilled at not taking a clear initiative; instead, they weave a web in which the other person falls. This strategy avoids direct rejection and hides their relational discomfort; above all, this way they control their fear of intimacy and instinctive impulse. Acting through compartmentalization, maintaining different relationships at the same time, finally allows them not to enter the emotional chaos or the guilt of betrayal. Many Sexual 5s admit to

being unfaithful with a certain "ease," just as they withdraw or disappear if the relationship no longer pleases them or creates problems for them.

Romantic

The Sexual 5 is the most emotional of the E5s. Romanticism is the way they let themselves be carried away by emotions. More than in the relationship, although also, romanticism arises in contact with music, art, or nature. It’s easier, when listening to music, to feel the heartbeat or the surrender to abandon, something that would be experienced as very dangerous in human relationships.