Attachment and Sexuality

Diana Diamond, Sidney J. Blatt, Joseph D. Lichtenberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781136871436
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Sexualidad humana en psicología

The papers featured in Attachment and Sexuality create a dense tapestry, each forming a separate narrative strand that elucidates different configurations of the relationship between attachment and sexuality. As a whole, the volume explores the areas of convergence and divergence, opposition, and integration between these two systems. It suggests that there is a bi-directional web of influences that weaves the attachment and sexual systems together in increasingly complex ways from infancy to adulthood.

The volume's unifying thread is the idea that the attachment system, and particularly the degree of felt security, or lack thereof in relation to early attachment figures, provides a paradigm of relatedness that forms a scaffold for the developmental unfolding of sexuality in all its manifestations. Such manifestations include infantile and adult, masturbatory and mutual, and normative and perverse.

Also central to the papers is the idea that the development of secure attachment is predicated, in part, on the development of the capacity for mentalization, or the ability to envision and interpret the behavior of oneself and others in terms of intentional mental states, including desires, feelings, beliefs, and motivations. Topics discussed in the book will help to shape the direction and tenor of further dialogues in the arena of attachment and sexuality.

chapter 1

Attachment and Sexuality

Morris Eagle

The purpose of this paper is to discuss certain aspects of the relation between attachment and sexuality, two central motivational– instinctual systems that play a central role in human behavior and human relationships. In particular, I will address a number of issues dealing with the integration of the attachment and sexual systems in long-term intimate relationships. As Bowlby (1969) noted, attachment and sexuality “impinge on each other … and influence each other. This occurs in other species as well as man” (p. 233). Despite the obviously strong links between attachment and sexuality, until recently there has been a paucity of literature on their relationship.

From the psychoanalytic side, neglect of the relation between attachment and sexuality was largely based on the assumption made by Freudian theory that the infant’s attachment to mother is secondary to the role she plays in drive reduction (primarily of the hunger drive) and to her role in providing the pleasures associated with stimulation of the infant’s erogenous (early on, oral) zones. According to this view, the infant’s attachment to mother is based largely on infantile sexuality, that is, on the drives she reduces and the erogenous pleasures she provides. Hence, there is no separate attachment system to relate to sexuality insofar as attachment was thought to be based on sexuality, that is, infantile sexuality. In short, there are no separable systems to be related to each other.¹

From the side of attachment theory, Bowlby’s focus (and that of his early coworkers and followers) was on presenting a systematic and compelling case for the existence of an autonomous instinctual attachment system selected in the course of evolution that is not secondary to or derived from hunger reduction and pleasure from erogenous zones, and in elaborating his attachment theory. The explosion of research and theory that followed Bowlby’s work focused on the complexities and details of the attachment system and had virtually nothing to say about sexuality or the relation between attachment and sexuality. With the autonomy of the attachment system established, one could then begin to explore the relation between that system and sexuality. Such an exploration is also facilitated by the additional factor of the extension of attachment research to adult attachment in which it is one’s romantic or sexual partner who is most frequently defined as one’s attachment figure.

A central thesis of this paper is that attachment and sexuality are functionally separable systems and, in certain respects, operate in mutually antagonistic ways. I further propose that the integration of attachment and sexuality is a developmental challenge that is met by different people with varying degrees of success depending, in part, upon their individual attachment pattern. I propose an alternative to Freud’s (1912) oedipally based account of the unsuccessful integration of attachment and sexuality, what he refers to as the split between love and desire, as well as Mitchell’s (2002) recent views on the same issue. With regard to the former, I argue that whereas an incest taboo is relevant to understanding the split between love and desire, there is little evidence that universal incestuous wishes play a central role in accounting for that phenomenon. And finally, I consider the relationship between attachment and sexuality from the perspective of findings on mate selection.

Before I continue, let me make some disclaimers and qualifying remarks. My formulations in this paper are more applicable to males than to females. A separate paper would be required to address female sexuality and the relationship between attachment and sexuality in females. I am aware that I am omitting mention or discussion of a wide range of factors—aggression, fantasy, narcissism, for example—that we know play an important role in human sexuality. My intention in this paper, however, is a limited one, namely, to describe the, so to speak, “default” general relationship that obtains between attachment and sexuality. In individual cases, this relationship will undoubtedly be complicated by the other factors I have mentioned.

I do not discuss the often murky topic of infantile sexuality in this paper; that material will be presented in a separate paper in progress. Finally, this paper does not deal specifically with the phenomenon of romantic love, including the role of idealization in romantic love. It should be noted here that when Freud uses the term love in his 1912 paper, it is clear from the context that he is not referring to romantic love, but something closer to long-term attachment or what he describes as the “affectionate current”; and when he uses the term desire, he is referring to sexual desire or what he refers to as the “sensual current.”

Let me begin my detailed discussion of attachment and sexuality by briefly describing Freud’s (1912) and Mitchell’s (2002) views regarding the split between love and desire. I will then contrast their views with my formulation of the relationship between attachment and sexuality and will try to show that the split between love and desire is best understood in terms of the vicissitudes of that general relationship.

Not surprisingly, given his theory of infantile sexuality and of the oedipus complex, Freud (1912) attributed the split between love and desire in men—an extreme expression of which he referred to as “psychical impotence”—to “an incestuous fixation on mother or sister which has never been surmounted” (p. 180). As Freud (1912) also stated, men suffering from “psychical impotence … seek objects which do not lead to love in order to keep their sensuality away from objects they love” (p. 183). The result is that “where they love they do not desire and where they desire they cannot love” (p. 183). Freud also noted that even if the result is not actual impotence, the split between love and desire was far more widespread than may be commonly believed. In short, for Freud the split between love and desire, between the “affectionate and sensual currents,” so characteristic of unresolved oedipal conflicts, is mainly due to the persistence of incestuous wishes and to the need to keep such wishes diverted from objects that one loves.

In 2002, in Mitchell’s book titled Can Love Last?, he observed that the split between love and desire is as prevalent today as it was in Freud’s day, and he presented an account of that phenomenon that rests on the central idea that people are motivated to “degrade romance” because of their need to render it secure, predictable, and safe—characteristics that he maintains are inimical to the experience of desire. Anyone doing clinical work would, I think, agree with Mitchell that the split between love and desire is quite common, certainly common among people who come for treatment. That it is not, however, limited to patients in treatment, but is more widespread, is suggested, for example, by observations in popular magazines that many long-term marriages are characterized by infrequent sex and, sometimes, no sex at all.

I want to demonstrate in this paper that the split between love and desire is best understood not in terms of universal incestuous wishes or in terms of a motivation to degrade desire, but in terms of certain aspects of the inherent relation between the attachment and sexual systems. Indeed, I think the split between love and desire can be restated as a split between attachment and sexuality.

Although there is much evidence for a universal or near universal incest taboo, there is little good direct evidence for the existence of universal incestuous wishes. The usual reasoning has been that, to quote Lindzey (1967), the

mere universal existence of the incest taboo … constitutes convincing evidence for the existence of a set of general tendencies that are being denied. It seems unlikely that there would have been universal selection in favor of such a taboo if there were not widespread impulses toward expression of the prohibition. (p. 1055)

Essentially the same argument was made earlier by Freud (1917/1915–1916): “if living together dampens sexual desire toward those with whom one grows up, “an avoidance of incest would be secured automatically, and it would not be clear why such severe prohibitions were called for, which would point rather to the presence of a strong desire for it” (p. 210). He also writes:

It has been said that sexual inclination is diverted from members of the same family who are of the opposite sex by the fact of having been together from childhood. … In all of this the fact is entirely overlooked that such an inexorable, prohibition of it in law and custom would not be needed if there were any reliable natural barriers against the temptation to incest. The truth is just the opposite. A human being’s first choice of an object is regularly an incestuous one, aimed in the case of the male, at his mother and sister. (1917/1916–1917, pp. 334–335)

But this is like arguing that the universal or near universal taboo against suicide constitutes adequate evidence for universal suicidal wishes and urges. Also, as Fox (1980) states, “we need not assume that we have laws against murder because we all have murderous natures, but only because some murder occurs and we don’t like that” (p. 8).

My main claims are: (a) attachment and sexuality are functionally separable systems, and (b) not only are they functionally separable, but in certain respects, they operate in antagonistic ways. I argue further that it is this mutual partial antagonism between the attachment and sexual systems, rather than forbidden incestuous wishes, that constitutes the foundation for the commonly observed split between love and desire. I will also show that over and above this general state of affairs, individual attachment patterns contribute to either minimizing or amplifying the split between love and desire. More specifically, compared to secure attachment, insecure attachment will be associated with a reduced likelihood of integrating attachment and sexuality.

Functional Separability Between Attachment and Sexual Systems

Consider first the functional separability of the attachment and sexual systems. There is both psychological and physiological evidence supporting this idea. On the psychological side, as Holmes (2001) noted, it is not uncommon to observe that partners can be intensely attached to each other with a relative absence of sexual interest and conversely, that people can be intensely sexually involved without either serving as an attachment figure for the other. These kinds of observations have led Fonagy (2001) to remark that “the facts that sex can undoubtedly occur without attachment and that marriages without sex perhaps represent the majority of such partnerships, prove beyond doubt that these systems are separate and at most loosely coupled” (p. 10). There is a good deal of evidence supporting this conclusion. For example, in a recent study (Farrugia & Hogans, 1998) on factors that contribute to the experience of intimacy in romantic relationships, attachment to a partner made the greatest contribution, followed by sensitivity of care giving. The authors note that “a surprising finding was that measures of sexual behavior … did not make a unique contribution to intimacy in romantic relationships” (p. 11). This finding is especially noteworthy given the young age of the sample. It should be noted, however, that the sample was preponderantly female and that the authors did not report results for males and females separately. Nevertheless, the results tend to support the conclusion of Waring et al. (1980) “that sexuality is considered part of intimacy by most people, although it is not considered to be the primary component” (p. 4).

A reasonable hypothesis is, as Diamond (2003) stated, that “desire is governed by the sexual mating system” (p. 174), the goal of which is reproduction, whereas love—and it is clear that what Diamond means by love here is enduring attachment—“is governed by the attachment or pair-bonding system … the goal of which is the maintenance of an enduring association” (p. 174) for the purpose of survival of dependent offspring. Diamond presents the intriguing and, I believe, likely to be correct, idea that adult pair-bonding or attachment originally evolved, not in the context of sexual mating but instead “exploited” the already existing infant–caregiver attachment system “for the purpose of maintaining enduring associations between adult reproductive partners” (p. 174). In other words, it is primarily attachment, not sex, that keeps adult partners together for a long period of time.

A number of other commentators have made a similar point. For example, in a book titled The Chemistry of Love, Liebowitz (1983) observes:

Biologically, it appears that we have evolved two distinct chemical systems for romance; one basically serves to bring people together and the other to keep them together. The first is [sexual] attraction. … The second, which helps keep people together, is attachment. Attachment has more to do with feelings of security than of excitement. (p. 90)

There is intriguing evidence suggesting that the attachment and sexual systems are mediated by different biological processes. For example, the sexual attraction phase of a relationship is accompanied by a higher level of amphetamine-like substances, especially phenylethylanine, which is associated with heightened arousal and activity, whereas the attachment phase is accompanied by endorphin release, which is also associated with the formation of infant–mother affectional bonds.

There is much evidence that oxytocin and vasopressin play an important role in both maternal behavior and mother–infant bonding. Oxytocin facilitates the onset of maternal behavior in rats and facilitates the acceptance of an alien lamb in a non-pregnant ewe. With regard to the latter, prairie voles, who are monogamous, have different distributions of oxytocin receptors in the brain from montane voles, who are nonmonogamous. As Insel and Young (2001) note, “vasopressin receptors in the ventral pallidum are present not only in prairie voles but also in monogamous mice and primates, whereas they are absent in this region in related rodent and primate species that do not form pair bonds” (p. 133). They also note, “all the major aspects of monogamy can be facilitated in the prairie vole by central injections of either oxytocin or vasopressin, even in voles that do not have the opportunity to mate” (pp. 132–133). Furthermore, when an oxytocin receptor antagonist is injected into the female prairie vole, the usual monogamous preference for a partner is blocked. All this and other evidence tend to support Diamond’s (2003) reasoning that “If the biobehavioral process underlying romantic love [Diamond is clearly referring to an attachment bond here] originally evolved in the context of infant-caregiver attachment … then the oxytocinergic mechanisms reviewed above should also underlie adult pair-bonding” (p. 181). To sum up, the above evidence suggests not only the functional independence of the attachment and sexual systems, but also specifically suggests basic links between adult pair-bonding or attachment and the infant–mother attachment system.

Partial Antagonism Between Attachment and Sexual Systems: Psychological Evidence

The discussion above deals with the functional separability between attachment and sexuality. But what about claims regarding the partial mutual antagonism between the two systems? What is the nature of the antagonism and what is the evidence for it? Again, there is both psychological and physiological evidence. On the psychological side, in order for someone to serve as an attachment figure, he or she must be familiar and predictable. Characteristics such as novelty, unfamiliarity, and unpredictability are incompatible with the development of attachment to a figure with these characteristics. It is virtually an oxymoron to say that one’s attachment figure is novel or unfamiliar. On the other hand, the intensity of sexual excitement seems to be reduced by familiarity and predictability and increased by novelty, unfamiliarity, and diversity—in the poet Byron’s words, by “fresh features”—and even by forbiddenness and illicitness (Kernberg, 1995). Yet, despite this seemingly inherent antagonism between attachment and sexuality, one’s adult attachment figure is most frequently also one’s sexual partner. Thus, the individual in a long-term monogamous relationship is challenged with the need to integrate the contradictory “pulls” of the attachment and sexual motivational systems.

One needs one’s spouse or romantic partner, as one’s attachment figure, to be familiar...