in Bem’s141 formulation). The search for difference may result in the pursuit of new situations and experiences and/or with people quite different from oneself. However, while difference can excite interest and enrich a relationship, it can also create suspicion and separateness. The inhibitory aspect of difference may arise from an inability to connect or relate to someone because of their different values, culture, language, race, religion, and so on. There is a common tendency to dislike those that disagree with us,142 and to be afraid of or distrust those we don’t understand, preventing closeness and empathy. In this regard, the drive to curiosity and discovery plays an important role in the initiation of sexual activity, but potentially interferes with the long-term maintenance of a sexual relationship. This drive theme may be a factor in the SDP of people involved in affairs, promiscuity, visiting prostitutes, accessing pornography, and in some homosexual or bisexual experiences, although it is a drive that seeks variety in sexual experiences in the context of conventional long-term heterosexual relationships as well.
The attraction to beauty or physical attractiveness plays an important role in sexual attraction.143 But this raises several conundrums: the definition of beauty; the nature of the drive towards beauty; and the role of beauty in sexual desire. Philosophers and social researchers have long sought to define beauty. Physical attractiveness may relate to body shape, facial features,144 skin texture, clothing, posture, fragrance and other characteristics. Yet there are other qualities in a person that may influence the perception of sexual attractiveness beyond the physical, such as a sense of ‘presence’ or strength of character, a positive outlook, depth and humour, and a capacity to embrace life. Both physical and personality characteristics may in turn reflect a person’s social status, their social awareness, and their general care and sensitivity. Beauty is furthermore influenced by cultural mores, by socialisation and media images which create meanings and associations around the idea of sexual attractiveness,145 and is to some extent context-dependent so that a person’s attractiveness is relative to others with whom comparison is made.146 Another element to the judgement of beauty relates to the observer’s past history. For example, certain features may associate with desirable qualities or with familiar people who have been loved and cherished in the past.
Why should beauty relate to sexual desire? It could be argued that physical attractiveness draws initial attention and interest, and so creates the motivation for a relationship to begin.147 Further, to have an attractive partner may be seen as a sign of social success, and enhances one’s social status (and so associates with both the consumer drive and the drive for social acceptance). And then, as with all desire, it may have to do with wanting to ‘own’ the beauty in the other person, to the extent that the enjoyment of their beauty gives pleasure in its own right. Yet the equation is not a simple one. While a person’s beauty might be recognised, it might also trigger a negative response in a sexual relationship sense, should a person feel inadequate by comparison — this will affect those with a poor self-image. When someone perceives themselves to be physically flawed or unattractive, they are less likely to be attracted to someone else, especially a physically attractive person, partly for fear of rejection, but partly because of self-rejection. Indeed, we often find a matching between partners in relation to perceived physical attractiveness, along the lines predicted by exchange theory.148
Conversely, unattractive personal features, whether perceived within oneself or perceived within another person, is an inhibitory aspect of this drive theme. As such, it may prevent initial interest in establishing a relationship with a person. This is a drive to reject the other person on the basis they have undesirable physical characteristics that may affect their social desirability, and by extension, the social status that comes from being in relationship with someone attractive. Alternatively, certain manners, habits, or personality characteristics may be deemed intrinsically unattractive, as might disfigurement from disease or injury, and so reduce sexual attraction.
The attraction to gender traits
The attraction to gender traits (the ‘X-factor’) — the inherent maleness and femaleness, and the meanings and ideas associated with gender — plays a critical role in sexual interest and attraction.149 The gender exclusivity commonly found in both heterosexual and same-sex romantic attraction (that is, in romantic partnering, heterosexuals are generally exclusively heterosexual while homosexuals are generally exclusively homosexual) indicates that there is a quality inherent in the gender responsible for the sexual attraction. Implied in this is also the inverse: that gender traits act as much to activate as to inhibit sexual desire. That is, same-sex gender traits generally inhibit sexual desire in heterosexuals, while the reverse is true for homosexuals.
While this drive theme might be linked to the drive to procreation (at least, for a heterosexual person), the drive to procreation has as focus the desire for children so that fertility becomes important; while attraction to gender traits relates directly to desiring and enjoying features of gender-associated traits regardless of whether children are desired. There is overlap with the drive to curiosity and discovery, where difference is a key component;150 but here the difference is specifically about gender. There is also overlap with the compulsion to eroticism, but again, here sexual desire is about attraction to gender traits rather than sexual arousal for its own sake.
As we have seen, defining ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’, like defining beauty, is an elusive task. Generally it reflects the attraction of a male to traits associated with ‘femaleness’ and the attraction of a female to traits associated with ‘maleness’, and is the basis for heterosexual attraction. While gender is biologically influenced, cultural norms and expectations shape the expression of gender, especially in the social roles (as distinct to traits) ascribed to gender. Nevertheless, distinction is commonly made across cultures between male and female gender traits. Maleness relates variously to robustness, strength (generally physical, but also endurance or powerfulness in a psychological sense),151 dominance (or competitiveness), forcefulness, confidence in risky situations,152 courage, independence (or self-reliance), assertiveness, restricted emotional expression,153 and capacity for procreation (virility) — that is, to be able to produce the sperm that fertilises the female. Femaleness in turn, relates variously to gentleness, protectiveness, ‘prettiness’, nurturance, compassion, empathy, sensitivity, tolerance, caring, deference, and the capacity to generate and nurture new life from within.
It could be argued that the basis of attraction is that a man wants to have aspects of the feminine he doesn’t have within himself, while the woman wants to have aspects of the masculine she doesn’t have within herself. Each desires what they see in the other sex and don’t have within themselves (or only to a limited degree; but also without rejecting what they have in their own sex) — it is, in a sense, a drive for completeness, an embrace of both. In many respects each gender complements the other. The presence of her femininity serves to accentuate his masculinity, and vice versa. If he is comfortable with his masculinity and it is well integrated with his sense of self, he is likely to be drawn to a woman simply because the inherent difference reflected in her femininity — the ‘exotic’ element — enhances his masculinity.154 If, however, his sense of self does not have a strong alignment with masculinity, then her femininity does not serve to enhance his sense of masculinity. Instead, dissonance results, and her presence can add to confusion rather than clarification of his sense of self. In the heterosexual context, the sexual relationship could be seen as a celebration and embrace of both sexes and genders: the embrace of one’s own gender, and that of one’s opposite-sex partner.
