Needs
With these drive themes the overriding need is to belong to or be recognised by the wider society, rather than that the experience of belonging or validation being restricted to the sexual partner. Furthermore, there is generally a need for the social group to recognise our belonging together — we generally want to belong both to our sexual partner as well as to our society. The social recognition of such belonging becomes a basis for stronger commitment and more relationship stability.155 These drive themes have less to do with sexual desire than they do with social needs, so that the relevant drive themes reflect more indirect motives influencing sexual behaviour. It is about seeking out sexual activity that meets needs related to society: needs to be accepted, to prove something, societal position and empowerment, or needs reactive to social pressures. In this respect, a sexual relationship is viewed in terms of the social value a partner or the relationship itself might have.
In traditional society these drive themes also relate to issues of social class (traditional sociocultural sexual scripts have a strong emphasis on the social ramifications of the sexual relationship). But in contemporary society it might be understood in terms of social exchange theory. They also play an important role in adolescent sexual relationships, given the adolescent’s developmental need to establish themself socially. The drive to procreation is included here because, while the desire to have children might be a source of self-fulfilment or reflect relationship needs, it also represents a contribution to society at large, may be responsive to societal expectations, and has many implications in regard to the parents’ subsequent societal roles.
The power motive has played a central role in the politics of sexual relationships, and finds negative expression in coercion and aggression, issues of ongoing social concern. The sexual relationship can also be a statement of social position and power, and so is included here. Nevertheless, the power motive is also an intensely personal dynamic in sexual relationship, and could as easily have been listed under relationship-need themes of the SDP. Then again, for some the power motive has strong erotic elements (such as in BDSM situations), and so it could find its place among the themes of pleasure and desire. It is a theme that bridges different categories. In addition to the drive to procreation and the power motive, other SDP themes relating to broader social needs include the need to prove oneself, the need for social acceptance, the consumer drive, and the desire to rebel.
As a rite of passage and need to ‘prove’ oneself, this drive theme is largely about entering maturity. It is about expressing adulthood, self-discovery, asserting the completion of childhood and innocence, and embracing a new sense of self in a unique way with another adult through sexual experience.156 This means that it is a major drive theme in adolescence or young adulthood,157 although those afraid of leaving behind the joys and securities of childhood might suppress this drive. Its ascendance in a person’s SDP is generally short term, given the nature of its objective. It associates with the drive to find social acceptance, where acceptance in this case is found by undergoing the (sexual) rite of passage and being able to talk about sexual experience with peers as a badge of accomplishment and new-found maturity. Here sexual conquest or experience is the object: to a degree, who it involves is largely immaterial.
This need to ‘prove’ something might also find expression in various other sexual contexts. For example, it might involve a person trying to ‘prove’ his or her heterosexuality if there have been homosexual experiences or inclinations, or to ‘prove’ sexual desirability if there are self-esteem or body-image problems. For others, it might signify the need to ‘prove’ that the passion and virility of youth has not yet been lost in advancing age and may act as a drive to fend off a fear of sexual impotence or indifference, especially if this expression of masculinity or femininity is also about self-esteem and self-acceptance.
The need for social acceptance
The need for social acceptance is a drive theme that associates with the need to belong to a larger social or familial group. It associates with doing the ‘right thing’, with being seen as ‘normal’ and successful, and with being respected by others in the larger social circle.158 As such, this drive theme is strongly connected with the prevailing sociocultural sexual script. The need for social acceptance may influence the type or qualities of person someone is drawn to: a person with attributes that meet the criteria of social acceptance, whether of family (especially parents), of friends, or of society at large.159 And so the influence of the community in what is seen as morally or socially acceptable in the choice of sexual partner becomes an important factor. This drive is vulnerable to peer-pressure,160 and also operates in the context of arranged marriages where the respective parents form the social context. It sees pressure to restrict sexual relationships and marriages to certain acceptable (similar) sociocultural or religious groups.161 The drive to social acceptance may also result in entering a relationship with someone in order to not be left out: a fear of being ‘left on the shelf’, the ‘fear of missing out’. In this case, the drive is not so much about being attracted to a particular person, but to conform to the social pressure to ‘have someone’, or to be sexually successful. Poor self-esteem is also related to the need for social acceptance, so that when other drives draws a person with low self-esteem into a sexual relationship that is not socially condoned or applauded, internal conflicts can emerge that form the basis for anxiety and depression.
Not only does the need for social acceptance influence the type of person someone might be drawn to, but it also influences the nature of the sexual activity they might engage in. An inhibitive aspect relating to the need for social acceptance drive theme is social prohibition, a sociocultural overlay that motivates avoidance of some sexual relationship possibilities. This is an aspect of the moral dimension,162 and assumes the capacity not only to refrain from entering proscribed sexual relationships, but also to disallow interest in such relationship. In this case, the ‘shoulds’ of sexual behaviour are not so much about the other person, but about one’s own behaviour, potentially inhibiting various expressions of sexuality such as the visiting of prostitutes, engaging in casual sex, sex with near relatives or ‘under age’ persons, and homosexual behaviour. Not all prohibitions are universal, and some are restricted to certain sociocultural contexts: these may also change with time.
The consumer drive is the need to get the ‘best deal’ in a sexual relationship so to not ‘miss out’.163 This contrasts with being satisfied in a sexual relationship when essential sexual and relational needs are met, regardless of what else might be possible. As such, it is about marketplace possibilities and a preparedness to move on if a relationship is no longer deemed worthwhile or ‘good enough’; or something ‘better’ presents itself. The sexual partner or sexual event is treated as a commodity or product: aspects of a person or relationship are measured to determine its worth. Any personal cost in the equation should not outweigh the perceived value of the product obtained. Despite the potential exploitive and dehumanising aspects, a reasonable aspect of this drive theme is the idea that each person is expected to bring into the relationship something of benefit to the other person — a ‘fair market exchange’ — ensuring reward value for both parties. It forms the basis of social-exchange theories of interpersonal relationships.164 The consumer drive, however, is not simply about the fact of reward gained in a sexual exchange (a necessary element in the dynamic of desire and attraction), but the basis upon which it is obtained. If I receive something freely given, I have been rewarded. The consumer drive, however, demands not just a reward in the social exchange, but a good deal, or perhaps the best reward it can expect in the circumstances.
What
