Sexual Archetypes and D/s

[A Desert Rose]

The Pythagorean
Table of Opposites
1 limited/unlimited
2 odd/even
3 one/plurality
4 right/left
5 male/female
6 resting/moving
7 straight/curved
8 light/darkness
9 good/bad
10 square/oblong

On the above table of opposites, the male is good and light. The female is bad and dark. Before anyone who reads this, jumps to the obvious (and I might add, wrong) conclusions, there is more to it than positives and negatives regarding gender.

According to Carl Jung, "the psyche actually seeks a balance between opposites. The balance is especially a matter of the unconscious compensating for the contents of consciousness. Thus, the male unconscious contains an archetypal image of the female, the anima, while the female unconscious contains an archetypal image of the male, the animus." http://www.friesian.com/gender.htm

So, in short... opposites attract, or so says Jung.

Is there anything in human nature, more opposite than a D/s relationship?

 

[aerofreak]

pretty cool... hadn't thought about it that way before. although, I don't think My G/f and I actually fit all that you said (obviously, since We are both female), but I can definately see the correlations...

 

[A Desert Rose]

pretty cool... hadn't thought about it that way before. although, I don't think My G/f and I actually fit all that you said (obviously, since We are both female), but I can definately see the correlations...

Please go read at the site. There is an interesting section on lesbian/gay relationships that I think you might find enlightening.

Thank you for reading and posting here. A pleasure to meet you, too.

 

[A Desert Rose]

Might I add...

the use of the words male and female does not neccessarily mean in the conventional sense of specific gender. I hope I am understood... sometimes I am not so sure that I am.

 

[aerofreak]

cool... I will go check it out, thanks

 

[MissTaken]

Ohhhhh

Good thread, DR.
I look forward to the responses and will have to think on this a bit before responding.



My knee jerk reaction is to say that no, there is no more "opposite" relationship than D/s. I do think that there are issues, parameters and a whole lot of gray area that will need to be tossed into the discussion.

 

[Ebonyfire]

So, in short... opposites attract, or so says Jung.

Is there anything in human nature, more opposite than a D/s relationship?

I think that the statement about opposites attracting is misleading. Opposites my attract, but for the long haul there has to be more. Of course there are exceptions to every rule.

As for D/s relationships, it is all in what you are looking for, and what you re willing to do to obtain what you want. I do not make a big distinction in my conventional (read vanilla) relationships and the ones that are D/s. There is an ebb and flow or a continuity in my life that I encourage rather tham discourage. So D/s is not an opposite state of being for me.

Eb

 

[Justine]

Symbiosis

I'd call it symbiotic, and not necessarily opposite. One completes the other, and both need different things from the same source.

More than being opposite, light and dark, for instance, could not be without the other. Same for D/s. How could one be dominant without a submissive, and vice-versa?

 

[A Desert Rose]

Re: Symbiosis

I'd call it symbiotic, and not necessarily opposite. One completes the other, and both need different things from the same source.

More than being opposite, light and dark, for instance, could not be without the other. Same for D/s. How could one be dominant without a submissive, and vice-versa?

But are they not opposites of each other and in being opposites, do they not fill the need of the other? Very much like Yin and Yang... because they are opposites, they counter balance the other to create balance.

 

[Justine]

Re: Re: Symbiosis

But are they not opposites of each other and in being opposites, do they not fill the need of the other? Very much like Yin and Yang... because they are opposites, they counter balance the other to create balance.

Yes, I think that they fill the need of the other, but maybe I am just reading "opposites" in the sense of antagonic. The yin/yang is the symbol of things that are complementary to each other. What creates the balance is how perfectly the two symbols complement one another, and create a third one, which is richer and more powerful - a dom is a dom, and a sub is a sub, but both feel much stronger when in the presence of the other. But then, again, maybe we are just saying the same thing, only using different words.

 

[A Desert Rose]

On the above table of opposites, the male is good and light. The female is bad and dark. Before anyone who reads this, jumps to the obvious (and I might add, wrong) conclusions, there is more to it than positives and negatives regarding gender.

Sorry, I had to step away without completing my thought here.

Yes, it is likely that you are saying the same thing... just different words than I have used. ~smile~

 

[A Desert Rose]

Archetype in Jungian psychology means, an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from the past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious. These archetypical symbols are not created in our psyche by culture but by anscestrol unconscious mental imprinting, for lack of a better word. In other words, the image we have of the male or the female is already in our unconscious at birth, again, according to Jung.

He believes that in order to have balance in our psyche, we unconsciously seek out the opposite of what is in our consciousness.

"Jung would say, archetypes, since they are part of the architecture of the unconscious, are going to turn up however much anyone dislikes them or tries to suppress them."

Two points here are made by Jung:
That which we seek in a partner to balance our lives is inherent in our psyche and two, therefore, uncontrolable or not suppressable.

Does any of this apply in your own life experiences? Can you apply this or not in your relationship now? I can definately find this at work in my own relationships. But this is Jung's theory and not hard and fast. As Eb said, there are exceptions to everything.

 

[JeanMarc31M]

opposites attarct

I'm a the "take charge" type in rl. I think this is why my fantasies tend to lean in the opposite direction.

Without getting to cerebral - I agree.

JM