lead to such behaviour, including relationship factors. We have further observed that the associative nature of neural functioning contributes to this complexity. This associative process connects ideas and overlaps meanings, so that, through these associations, diverse behavioural events can attract the label ‘sexual’. For this reason, the idea of a single ‘sex drive’ is manifestly inadequate. We find a variety of drives can find expression in what we call ‘sexual behaviour’ — drives for pleasure, social acceptance, power, love, belonging, and so on; because these drives have become associated with sexual expression, most frequently in the context of relationship. Yet many of these drives can also find expression in non-sexual behaviour. Furthermore, the wide range of drives results in a diversity of sexual behaviour, both heterosexual and homosexual. And so sexual expression might be associated with romantic relationships and mate selection where drives relating to love and intimacy are ascendant; it might be associated with pursuance of prostitution and pornography where drives relating to curiosity and adventure are ascendant; or it might be associated with other psychological and social events, each with their respective relevant drives.
Where do these drives come from, and what shapes a person’s drive profile? How do some drives become more important than others? And what sexual behaviour will different drive profiles prompt? The sources of the various drive themes vary. They find a basis in a person’s sexual and relationship history as well as in their social context: dysfunctional and normal emotional needs, adaptive and maladaptive schemas, sociocultural scripts, conditioning history, attachment and relational history, relational skills, hormonal history, and mental and physical health all contribute to shaping of a person’s unique drive profile. Some of these factors we will explore in more detail later. For now, we observe that a person’s unique history contributes to how he or she interprets things: that is, it is from their past experiences and beliefs that particular meanings are attributed to people and events. For each person, different meanings might associate with the activation of sexual interest — for example, what another person represents to them affects whether or not they might be sexually attracted to them.
How does this work? A person is not only a physical and sexual being; he or she can represent other things — power, status, energy, nurturance, safety, and so on. The meanings I associate with a person may be idiosyncratic to me, and may not be an accurate representation of that person; but it is these perceived attributions which interact with my SDP. And just as a person represents various meanings to me, so does sexual behaviour. Behaviour, like words, carries meanings interpreted by the perceiver. Behaviour driven by neurochemical forces is still imbued with meaning: it is interpreted. Sexual behaviour has meanings both parties need to interpret. The perceived drives that inform sexual behaviour contribute to its meaning and accepted function — whether such behaviour means ownership, recreation, acceptance, escape from responsibility, and so on.
How I choose to interpret behaviour (both my own and that of others) may be different from the way others, or society in general, interprets that behaviour. My frame of reference may not coincide with that of the society in which I live, and this can lead to confusion and frustration. The attribution of meaning is also affected by prevailing physiological events and sexual interest and desire. For example, if you happen to feel good when you meet someone, you are more likely to like them: the prevailing mood state colours how you see the other person and may be attributed to good qualities in that person.63 Similarly, physiological arousal makes easy association with ‘being in love’,64 which of course may be the case; but might also be a misattribution.
It is one thing to argue that the drives that inform sexual behaviour contribute to the meaning and accepted function of that behaviour. But given their invisible nature, how can I identify what such drives might be, both in myself, or in someone else? Besides drawing inferences from a person’s patterns of sexual behaviour, or asking them about their beliefs and perceptions, a clue to the drives comprising a person’s drive profile is the emotions that might result from frustrated drives.65 For example, I might have a sexual relationship with someone who decides to have sex with someone else. If my preeminent drive is to promote my partner’s wellbeing, I might be support her in her adventures and want the best for her. If my preeminent drive is to enjoy the pleasure of sex, I might thank her for giving me a good time, and perhaps find someone else with whom to enjoy the pleasure of sex. If my preeminent drive is to prove that I am acceptable as a person, I might feel a failure, that I am somehow not good enough as a person, and get depressed. If my preeminent drive is to belong to my partner in the sense of shared experience, I might feel sadness or disorientation because I have lost someone who has become part of my shared identity. If my preeminent drive is to ensure my partner belongs to me in the sense of ownership, I might become jealous or angry because someone else has taken what I believe is mine. These different emotions reflect the various meanings and drives involved: of course, my emotional response would probably be varied, belying the multiple drives involved.66
These dynamics and associated conflicts may find expression in different ways. Our friend Karl, for example, may have visited the prostitute while he was lonely and while drives of adventure and pleasure-seeking were ascendant, eclipsing other inhibitive drives such as social prohibition, and eclipsing the drive to emotional intimacy and belonging that associated with his loneliness. In fact, he may have associated sexual intimacy with emotional intimacy, assuming that the pleasure of sex, even with a prostitute, might address his loneliness. However, after his pleasure drives were temporarily sated, his drive profile might change so that the latter drives become ascendant, shifting the emphasis in his SDP, so that he now feels cheated, and a measure of regret and self-hatred for the sexual liaison emerges. He might project this hatred onto the prostitute, so that another drive is activated: disgust for what the prostitute represents. At that point, he might resolve never to visit a prostitute again. Nevertheless, conditioning has taken place, so that sexual pleasure remains associated with her. When next Karl is feeling lonely and his drive profile again resembles what it was before, the conditioned sexual behaviour that promises to bring pleasure will no doubt draw him back to her, and the cycle recurs.
We are left with a final question: could Karl have done otherwise? Did he have the capacity to choose not to visit the prostitute, and to find other expression for his poorly understood drives? Despite his disappointment, he knew he would return to her. Could he not control his actions? Was he a helpless victim of his fluctuating drives? Was there no place to make choices according to personal values or prevailing sociocultural mores? If we were to argue that only natural cause-and-effect laws apply, we would conclude Karl had no choice: he was pulled by drives in some deterministic way. But accepting the idea that laws of reasoning can be superimposed upon natural laws allows us to argue that Karl did have the capacity to manage and regulate his drives, whatever their origin, and so determine his sexual behaviour.
Drives are not the same as their expression, and while biological and subjective drives energise and direct behaviour, a person has the capacity to embrace or inhibit their expression, making a decision which is sensitive both to sociocultural mores and personal values. This is the basis upon which adults are held legally responsible, and it is also the basis for their dignity.67 There is a complex and unseen dynamic of drives and memories, of biology and the subjective self, which underlie the drive profiles. A person needs to manage this confluence of underlying motivational forces, each interacting with the other. These forces are invisible, like the wind above the ocean or the currents below that push a sailing vessel in one or other direction: yet a sailor is able to understand these forces and to keep the vessel on track. The mere existence of the prevailing drives cannot be used to justify the manner of its expression: such expression is always subject to the choices made.
Biological Drive Profile (BDP) Factors
Many biochemical processes are involved in human sexual behaviour: some activating
