But if sexuality means one thing to the introvert, and another to the
extravert, if also it means one thing to man and another to woman,
there are still other sharply marked differences of meaning, which lead
one to believe that in the matter of sexuality no one has a right to
lay down a general morality, a general rule of conduct. If it is wrong
for a so-called pure person to rule that all other persons must be
pure, it is equally wrong for those to whom sexuality is necessary to
rule that everyone must have sexual expression.
Before, however, going further in these differences of meaning, let us
look more closely at the difference between introvert and extravert in
reaction to sexuality.
If the extraverted attitude springs from the sexual instinct, it
is natural that in the average extravert, who has not, due to bad
teaching, distorted his nature, the sexual development has been normal
and reached a more or less strong maturity. But with the introvert
it is different. Since the introverted attitude arises from the
ego-instinct, the development is more along the lines of thought, idea,
philosophy, art, etc., and the sexual as a rule remains undeveloped. If
it is undeveloped, it is, in fact, childish.
In other words, what Freud explains as fixations, due to attachment to
the parent, Jung explains as simply that side of the nature which is
still undeveloped. Introverts who in many ways are highly developed,
may, at the same time, remain children when it comes to sexuality.
The question then arises: Is it better to suppress the sexuality of
the introvert altogether, since the only kind he is capable of has an
air of perverseness about it, is perhaps auto-erotic, or concentrated
on the forepleasure, or wrong in some other way? Certainly you can’t
demand of a child what you demand of an adult; and neither can you
demand of an undeveloped function what you demand of one fully matured.
On the other hand the repression of the sexual instinct may be a
dangerous thing, in this connection the dream of an introvert is
illuminating. He was a man highly developed along mental lines, a man,
in fact, of some prominence; but he experienced great difficulty in
his sexuality. It was characterized as over-impulsive and more or less
passive. He wanted to play a more or less feminine part toward the
women.
Because of his high integrity he felt that this was wrong, and so
attempted to suppress his sexuality altogether. Then he developed
symptoms; strange feelings in his head, a sense of weakness in his
legs. He had the following dream:
He and his wife were at Coney Island, going about with three people
of a cruder type. Two of these were men, and one a woman. The woman
fainted on the street, and no one knew what to do for her. A man then
rushed out of the building, took hold of her, and began an infantile
stimulation. She revived at once.
The dream is easily understood. He and his wife stood for the higher
side of himself, the developed or introverted side; the three low-brows
and rough-necks were the undeveloped side. Coney Island suggests some
attempt at expressing the lower and undeveloped side. Since this
undeveloped side was the extraverted, or sexual, the two men and the
woman represented this side; and the woman suggests that part of his
sexuality which is more or less feminine and passive.
She faints. That is, he develops the symptoms. The man who rushes out
to help he connected with an uncle of his who was noted for his common
sense. In other words, his common sense tells him: Cure her by any
means possible. See, if I do this for her, she revives. Better that
than to be sick, to develop symptoms.
No code of morality could have helped this man. He had as an introvert
to realize and accept the fact that his sexuality was still childish,
and to realize also that he had to begin with it at the point where it
actually was if he ever wanted to develop it to something higher and
better.
I do not mean to imply here that all introverts are so infantile in
their sexuality. There are those introverts who began early to develop
this side also, and have reached a fair maturity. However, it is more
often the other way round.
But if there is this distinction to be made, there are yet others to
show how individual a matter sexuality may be.
For while we have the two main types of introvert and extravert based
on the two major instincts, we have also the four types based on the
functions. In other words, a man may not only be an extravert or
introvert, but also a thinking type, a feeling type, an intuitive type
or a sensational type.
According to Jung, these four functions of _thinking_, _feeling_,
_intuition_ and _sensation_ constitute the make-up of the psyche; and
each of us tends to accent one of them at the expense of the others.
The _thinking type_ is one of the most easily discernible. He takes
thought, he thinks things out; he thinks before he acts. He is apt
to be logical, deliberate, fairly sure of himself, even dogmatic. He
usually lives by a system of thought he has worked out, and which he
tries to force upon others. He has strong opinions, because he has
arrived at them by sure-footed thinking. If he is extraverted he is
the good executive, the engineer, the lawyer; if introverted, the
philosopher and certain types of scientist. The thinking type is found
mostly among men; in Jung’s opinion thinking is a masculine function.
The _feeling type_ is usually found among women; though there have
been men, and great ones, who were of this type: notably Goethe,
Wagner and Walt Whitman. The feeling type, normally, is not good at
thinking, is, in fact, opposed to thinking, since thinking a thing out
is the opposite of feeling it out. Feeling, itself, is a reaction of
_like_ and _dislike_ and is a delicate adjustment to the _fitness of
things_. The values of the extraverted feeling woman are almost purely
external. In choosing a husband she aims rather at the correct thing
than at the deeper qualities. The man who has wealth, position, and who
dresses according to the style, who has good company manners and is
worldly is apt to appeal to her. Her feelings are appeased by him; she
isn’t “jarred” or made to feel his unfitness for the world she lives
in. She “likes” him. Her opinions on things are according to the styles
of the moment. She desires everything to move along harmoniously,
without any unpleasantness. She is not deep, but she keeps society
afloat by her ease and attempt to bring everything into harmony.
The _introverted feeling woman_ is one of the silent women. Her
feelings form into long moods, which persist sometimes for days. She
suffers quietly and cannot express herself. She has no language for
these moods.
Feeling, by the way, must not be confused with _emotion_. Emotion,
as Jung points out, is a _feeling-sensation_; that is, it is at the
same time both mental and physical; something instinctive, which we
share with the animals. An emotion of joy, for instance, not only is
perceived mentally, a state of happiness, but also is felt physically:
the pulse goes faster, the cheeks become flushed, etc. But feeling is
something separated more or less from sensation and developed into an
independent function.
The developed feeling person feels her likes and dislikes, or her
moods, as something mental, which no more affect the body than
developed thinking in the thinking type. Thinking, as we know, can be
very cool and detached where it is pure and mature.
Thinking and feeling then are developed and consciously controlled
functions; where, on the other hand, _intuition_ and _sensation_ are
inborn and uncontrollable by consciousness.
The _intuitive type_, works by those instantaneous flashes of insight
which we call intuitions. These may be in the nature of hunches, or in
the nature of an ability to see the hidden character of others; or it
may have to do with far off things. Intuitives sometimes know events
happening at a distance; as the sickness of a relative, or something
even more startling. Though Goethe was a feeling type, he was also
very intuitive. One summer night he called his man-servant into his
room. The weather was sultry, brooding and ominous. Goethe said: “At
this moment there is an earthquake taking place far off.” Some weeks
later came the news of the great Lisbon earthquake. He had known it
to the minute. An intuitive I know was in Virginia when he dreamed
vividly that his brother in Texas had been killed by a Negro and that
a messenger had come with a telegram bidding his return to Texas. The
next morning the messenger came. It is by intuition that the painter
sees the soul of the sitter, and reveals the hidden nature in his
picture.
The intuitive type is the noble, or what has been called, the spiritual
type. Just as the two conscious functions of _thinking_ and _feeling_
are in opposition to each other, so the two unconscious functions of
_intuition_ and _sensation_ are in opposition; for intuition is the
least earthy function, sensation (the senses, sexuality) the most
earthy or animal.
The intuitive, because he sees into the core of things, sees better
than anyone else the possibility of things. He can see the man in the
child; the growth of a new movement in politics or science or labor or
business; the development of new ideas and their importance for the
human race. If such a man is extraverted, he hurls himself into new
tendencies, and then as soon as they are about to come to harvest, he
is no longer interested, and turns to new possibilities. He is the
pioneer who opens up the wilderness, but does not stay to enjoy the
cities that spring up. He sows, but he rarely reaps.
If he is introverted he brings forth out of himself great new ideas or
works of art. A good example is Nietzsche.
The _sensational type_ is of the earth, earthy. His main function
is sensation; the taste, the scent, the sound, the touch and the
look of things. He is highly sensuous, and is constantly seeking new
sensations. He is very realistic, and opposed to anything noble or
idealistic. He is often the actor, the acrobat, the sensualist.
If he is introverted he gets his sensations through imagining strange
pictures of an inverted world, such as the world depicted in the prose
and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe.
This is, of course, not a complete setting forth of the types; but
merely enough to come to some understanding of their differing sexual
reactions.
If a man or woman is an extraverted thinking or feeling type, the
sexuality is apt to be normal. It is apt to be governed by what the
world considers good form. That is to say, it is probably monogamous,
done at regular intervals, and often without glamor.
But when we come to the intuitives and the sensationals, everything
is quite otherwise. The intuitive is usually in strong opposition to
the sensational. To him sexuality is apt to appear as something low,
animal and disgusting. He himself is often without desire, and cannot
understand the need of it in others.
It is true that sometimes an individual by deep development transcends
the groove of his type, and in this way some intuitives are able
finally to develop their sexuality; but, on the contrary, it is
sometimes dangerous doctrine to ask an intuitive to be sexual.
Intuitives who do this often violate their natures, and so produce
symptoms or become ill. They are apt to oscillate between periods of
intuition and that of sensation, and when they are on the sensational
side they are tempted to make an orgy of it. Sensitive intuitive
artists get drunk and go on debauches: women of this type behave
somewhat like prostitutes.
The Freudians err therefore in their doctrine that sexuality is good
for everyone. It is not good for certain of the intuitives. In fact,
many men and women of this type live on in the full bloom of their
power without knowing a sexual life.
On the other hand, since sexuality permeates the life of the senses
and is all bound up with them, the sensational usually needs and has a
full sexual life. The men are apt to be Casanovas and flit from woman
to woman. Sensations, as we know, if repeated, soon tire us. We long
for new ones. So in a life that depends on sensations and sensational
happenings, soon an appetite develops for something still more strange,
more unexpected, more flavorous. Ordinary sexuality may, to the
sensational, soon lose its zest, and he hungers for things abnormal and
unheard of. In this way, he may develop from one stage to another of
the perversions, not because of a fixation on the mother, or even, in
his case, because of an undeveloped function (since sensation is his
developed function), but merely because sensation itself demands more
and different sensations, and the ordinary round is soon exhausted.
It is said of the sensational that if he can’t get a good sensation, he
will get a bad one; if he can’t get one of pleasure, he will take one
of pain. It is like the poet Keats putting pepper in his mouth so that
the wine would taste the cooler.
There is not much to say about it. In every civilized country certain
classes of people are looked upon as outside the general code, as in
a class apart. Thus we have the conceptions of Bohemia, of Red Light
districts, and we even exempt from the usual censure certain types of
actors and actresses in a recognition that what we call morality means
little to them.
What stands out clearly in noting these differences of reaction, is
that no one type should legislate the morality of the other types. If
it is perfectly clear to anyone that a code erected by the extraverted
sensational type would be ruinous to the rest of the population,
it should also be clear by inference that the thinking type can’t
legislate for the sensational, nor the extravert for the introvert.
What we come down to finally is that sexuality, like religion, is an
individual matter, and must be found by the individual according to his
needs and his nature.