Of course, not all relationships are sexual; nor does all sexual activity occur within relationship — romantic or otherwise.21 We will find that these variations are the outcomes of different drive profiles.
But first we need to make a distinction. While the ideas of belonging and attachment overlap, they are not the same. I can belong and not be attached; and I can become attached but not belong. A child can belong to its parents and not be attached to them, while a person who has fallen in love may feel an attachment to someone that doesn’t yet belong to them. One aspect of belonging has to do with social identification with somebody. Such identification might cause me to be embarrassed by a person’s behaviour when I feel I belong to them, which I wouldn’t if they didn’t belong to me. By the same token, I would feel proud of their achievements because they are a part of me, and represent me as much as they do themselves. Ours becomes a shared experience, with shared ownership of decisions, accomplishments, failures, and so on. It is primarily a matter of social position: others also perceive and respect that the couple belong to each other. When something happens to the person that belongs to me, it also vicariously happens to me. I will argue that the need to belong is a central psychological drive, and that one function of the sexual relationship is to meet that drive.
While attachment is also about shared experience, its focus is different. It has to do with the nature of the bond that has been created — with intimacy and being close to someone. What matters is a person’s acceptance, interest, and understanding of me, regardless of how they might come across socially. I am less likely to be embarrassed by or proud of the person I am attached to: so long as they are there for me. What is important is the connection, the interpersonal need for recognition and validation, the mutual encounter. With attachment, what others think of the person is not as important as what the person thinks of me. Secure attachment is built on a person’s ongoing emotional presence and availability when I need them; it also involves my desire to be emotionally transparent with them in order that they might know me and validate me.
Belonging is a fundamental drive that associates with relatedness and attachment. Although they don’t distinguish between attachment and belonging, Baumeister and Leary (1995) conclude ‘that human beings are fundamentally and pervasively motivated by a need to belong, that is, by a strong desire to form and maintain enduring interpersonal attachments. People seek frequent, affectively positive interactions within the context of a long-term, caring relationship… The desire for interpersonal attachment may well be one of the most far-reaching and integrative constructs currently available to understand human nature’ (p. 522).22 Rokach (2014) echoes this observation: ‘There is a basic human need to belong, to be part of an intimate and caring relationship with a partner who is close, and deeply concerned about us [so that] we are driven to establish close contact with others, and participate in intimate relationships’ (p. 155). Furthermore, research has found that relatedness, or the sense of belonging, is important for our mental health. It is associated with better functioning and greater resilience to stress.23 In its absence, sadness, depression, jealousy, health problems, and loneliness may emerge.24 Belongingness helps to orient us socially, and its connections contribute to our sense of meaningfulness.25
Given the centrality of the human need to belong and establish attachment, it comes as no surprise that it might constitute a primary function of a sexual relationship.26 There is a drive to belong, and attachment reflects the quality of the associated intimacy. Ideally, significant relationships are characterised by both belonging and attachment, and this is especially true for sexual relationships. There is a sense of mutual identification, closeness, acceptance and embrace that has a different quality in such relationships than in other relationships, because of the unique physical sharing of self that does not occur in other relationships. Besides this, there is a cooperative component involving mutual consent and the fulfilling of various needs and desires not fulfilled in non-sexual relationships. In fact, for many people such relationship represents both the goal and proper integration for their sexual expression.
It is the difference between sexual expression within relationship and that occurring casually that had left Karl vaguely dissatisfied after his visit to the prostitute. Whatever Karl thought he wanted, he didn’t get. Even though he could buy sex, she was not for sale. He didn’t get her or what she might have represented to him. He glimpsed her femaleness, but didn’t encounter her as a person. He gave nothing of himself except money and his body: she gave nothing of herself except her time and her body for sexual performance. Perhaps he needed to express and explore his masculinity, and he needed the femaleness of a woman to do so. Karl was not attracted to a male prostitute; this was not the focus of his need or desire. Even though he didn’t know the woman, it was the woman he thought he wanted. But all he got was a sexual encounter: the enactment of his sexual fantasy, a reassurance of his maleness, and the temporary amelioration of his sexual tension. Oddly, although he knew from the beginning what the deal was, the experience stimulated something else: it stimulated a vague desire for more of her and of her femaleness, to have her indefinitely and exclusively, and perhaps connect with her more deeply. Multiple drives were at work.
Karl knew he would come again even though this experience had left him feeling vaguely depersonalised and disconnected. His identity as a person had been irrelevant, and she would never belong to him, or he to her. He felt ‘short-changed’. The event was not without consequence. From the prostitute Karl learned that ‘loving care’ did not mean loving care at all; and that sex had nothing to do with the ‘giving’ by the woman of herself to him. He learned about deception and pretence; he learned meanings of the sexual event that left him empty and cynical; he learned about a world of unfulfilled promises. The sexual experience came to have negative associations for him. He was disillusioned and lonely. Nevertheless, he kept her number and knew he would probably be back. Although he was conflicted, the sex he had purchased for his masculinity had been pleasurable in itself; it had given him release, and she had done nothing wrong by him. She was a good business woman and had kept to the agreement. For Karl, his confusion related to a mixed drive profile that also included unmet needs to connect and belong.
On belonging: Further considerations
What does it mean to ‘belong’ in a sexual relationship? We might think of belonging as having a shared history or shared values with someone else, things in common, promoting a sense of connection: ‘I belong to this person because we both came from the same town and we both love fishing.’ Alternatively, to belong might involve a sense of ownership: ‘She belongs to me because I have invested so much in her.’27 Then again, to ‘belong’ might mean that I have a role or place that fits a specific need or purpose: for example, ‘you belong in our organisation (that is, you have this role) because of the particular skills you have.’ In each case, we see that ‘belonging’ is a relational notion, reflecting some investment, connection, obligation, meaning or role in a relationship. Each nuance of meaning may also find its way into a sexual relationship.
To better grasp this idea, consider my relationship with my mind and body. I normally experience my mind (here I mean my perceptions, thinking and emotions) as belonging to me — that is, belonging to my subjective inner self,28 just as my body belongs to me. I normally protect myself (my mind and body) and maintain the integrity of my uniqueness and separateness from others (other minds and bodies). For example, I protect my body by clothing it, shielding it from pressure and harm, and guarding it from unwanted and invasive eyes and touch.29 I do this because my body is private territory, my ‘home’: it is not just a physical body indifferent to the effects of the physical world and the presence of others as a dead body might be. It is ‘owned’ by me; it belongs to me — that is, to my inner self. I have an intimate relationship with my body, expressing myself through it, embracing it, looking after it, protecting it, and investing in it. There is a union between me and my mind and body, but also autonomy and separateness of my mind and body from others: my mind and body belong only to me. One might argue such exclusivity (that is, that it belongs
