AHP Perspective is a magazine published bi-monthly for members of the Association for Humanistic Psychology. It includes interviews, articles, essays, updates on member activities, conference announcements, and book reviews. Members receive the complete AHP Perspective as part of their membership.

AHP PERSPECTIVE June/July 2000 Table of Contents

SEXUAL POTENTIAL AND SELF-FULFILLMENT: A POST-MASLOVIAN PERSPECTIVE
by Diann Dee Michael

Conventional wisdom has it that people must be monogamously coupled to reach sexual potential and that life-long marriage is its best vehicle. While many may be blessed with the grace of a marriage of happiness, the central issue germane to sexual fulfillment can be found in the hierarchy of Maslow’s conception.

While self-actualization is a major motivator in Maslow’s Hierarchy, it was sometimes conceived of as coming later in development. A Post-Maslowian model revises this notion of late onset self-actualization and rather states that:

1. All of the five levels of motivational hierarchy are present as needs at each developmental level and at every age (physiological needs; safety; belongingness and love; esteem, and self-actualization);
2. Skills develop in a cyclic fashion, increasing throughout the lifespan.

This relates to sexual development and fulfillment as well. In order to develop and explore oneself sexually, certain basic levels must have been dealt with on at least a rudimentary level. Physical health is a developmental issue and sexual development takes most of the first decades of growth and learning to mature. This includes the knowledge to maintain and promote sexual health in the process of sexual experience.

A sense of physical and psychological safety requires the integration of experience and knowledge with interpersonal skills and communication skills. Fear of criticism, rejection, or coercion inhibit the development of the sense of psychological safety that allows the individual to assert oneself and develop sexual skills and confidence in an environment of emotional and physical security. Experiences of trauma, coercion, pain, or threat, delay the developmental completion of the individual and inhibit exploration and enjoyment.

Belongingness Needs, starting in infancy with secure attachment, and experienced as warm, secure, and dependable throughout early and middle childhood, bring the adolescent to exploration of belonging within the self-exploration of sexual sensations. The quality and dependability of parental, familial, peer, and social belongingness supports the joyous inclusion of feelings of caring and affection in the sexual quest. A sense of connectedness to others and a basic sense of self-worth are the ground for developing sexual awareness and sharing sexual experiences positively with, and often without, a partner.

Given the unhealthy dominant cultural climate with regard to severe body image evaluation by our culture, many women come to their sexual experiences lacking a secure sense of belonging and worthiness as a physical being.

Esteem Needs are inexorably entwined with a sense of Belonging, as many people choose partners who enhance their self-esteem. Body image issues for women and performance anxiety issues for men are often stumbling blocks to free and relaxed sexual sharing. Using the sexual experience to enhance one’s esteem places undue pressure on the experience and reduces fulfillment potential. Choosing positive partners, positive circumstances, and approaching encounters with openness to exploration allows a person’s sexuality to become a means to embrace each motivational level, a means of self-expression, and a contribution to the well-being and development of another.

The adult sexual situation, as a dyad, is the most quintessential of I-Thou experiences, and thus brings with it the enormous power of great risk-taking, fundamental vulnerability to the other, and a magnifying mirror to one’s areas of growth potential. Unfortunately, many people get stuck in "sexual materialism," which is a sexual experience as a primarily physical exchange. On this physiological level, sexuality is reflexive, consummatory, repetitive, and eventually perfunctory.

Regression to the safety level occurs when we use sexuality to feel safe in a sexual and emotionally dependent relationship, or if we never achieve a feeling of safety that allows easing of vigilance and anxiety with the other.

Is connectedness to others the highest expression of sexuality? While a very fundamental and important aspect of sexual growth, belongingness needs are only in part sexual, and some partners may find it difficult to transcend this emotional bonding feature of the sexual experience. When couples use sexuality as the emotional barometer of their relationship, this places undue expectations and restriction on the dyad’s sexual growth.

For self-esteem to be satisfied, sexual exploration and achievement together involves growth through phases of a lifespan. Periods of stress, joy, pregnancy, childrearing, require the emotive, communication, and sexual skills of the couple.

Fulfilling esteem needs within a sexual encounter involves working toward respect and admiration for oneself and the other, and, thus, involves the development and awareness of a set of sexual values.
Esteem is based on self-appraisal according to some value system, a system of interpersonal ethics, an ethos of authenticity and reciprocity. I am aware of the lack of exploration and development of this attitude within our culture, which tends to focus more on sexual antics and the materialism of sexual attractiveness. But the objectification of self and other is a blockade to sexual fulfillment. Couples who have integrated their sexuality into their value system and express their ethical and moral resolve in the intimate caring for one another sexually can enhance their mutual esteem.

The most exciting aspect of sexuality can come in the mutual self-exploration and self-actualization where a couple allows their consciousness to meld and be transformed together in their sexual encounters. This requires the openness of spirit, mind, body, and soul with which one approaches the most creative of experiences. Present, focused, undefined, exploratory, joyful, timeless, play takes us past the boundaries of self-transcending to the edge of universal consciousness and beyond.

While marriage may be the culturally ideal way to an evolved sexual union, self-actualizing sexual caring may be shared in moments of unexpected joy by those who do not choose a long-term relationship. The thread of loving, woven daily into two lives, is beautiful, yet so are the possibilities that diverse lifestyles may present. An evolving and aware individual who has worked through blockages to approach an "other" with the attitude of openness and loving curiosity can create mutual bliss. Sexual fulfillment may be found to occur (as in other peak experiences) serendipitously, unexpectedly, spontaneously, giving us a glimpse of one moment that lasts forever, and serving to release us into the future.

DIANN DEE MICHAEL, Ph.D., re-ceived her doctorate in Life Span Developmental Psychology from the University of Akron, is in private prac-tice in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, teaches at Nova University, and gives lectures and workshops on achieving potential at all ages and circumstances.

AHP PERSPECTIVE June/July 2000 Table of Contents

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