Sexual Arousal and Neurotic Scripts

[dr_mabeuse]

I found this in a review of the 1986 movie 9 and 1/2 Weeks and thought it was interesting:

Psychologist Robert Stoller's research into the dynamics of eros has led him to believe "sexual pleasure in most humans depends on neurotic mechanisms." He further contends that there is no sexual arousal without scripts — the dramas and fantasies people create in their minds to trigger libidinal excitement. Stroller's conclusion: the same psychic factors found in perversion are located in the sexual lives of most people — hostility, risk, and aggression.

Any comments?

 

[AlwaysDancing]

This plays right into my wheel house. I'm an incredibly cerebral lover. I don't mean that I'm intelligent, only that there's a tremendous amount of activity in my head. I'm cycling through thoughts of technique, fetishes, private role plays. Very seldom do I just fuck and enjoy it.

And yes, I'm quicker on the draw if there's an aggression play going on inside my mind. And its silly how long I last if I'm bored ... I mean, I'll be erect, but sincerely wish I wasn't so I'd have a reason to stop. Maybe fake an orgasm?

Anyway, there are times ... usually those sleepy moments at 3am ... when my body just does what it does void of mind games. But the rest ... ? I 100% agree!

 

[TxRad]

I found this in a review of the 1986 movie 9 and 1/2 Weeks and thought it was interesting:

Psychologist Robert Stoller's research into the dynamics of eros has led him to believe "sexual pleasure in most humans depends on neurotic mechanisms." He further contends that there is no sexual arousal without scripts — the dramas and fantasies people create in their minds to trigger libidinal excitement. Stroller's conclusion: the same psychic factors found in perversion are located in the sexual lives of most people — hostility, risk, and aggression.

Any comments?

That movie jumped a lot of fences and pushed even more boundaries.

I hope his research wasn't based on a film. Especially that film.

I also don't care for the use of the word "Neurotic" to describe anything to do with sex. He's pushing his own views on the subject me thinks.

Fantasies do play a large roll in the way people look at sex but I don't see most people as perverted. Maybe our group here a little or a lot more than normal but not in real life.

Most people are too scared of consequences to take the risks need to be perverted. Hostility and aggression are more in the fantasy section for most people, That is until they meet the right or wrong person according to which way you want to look at it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Nonsense.

No professional has used NEUROTIC since 1980, theyre now called ADJUSTMENT DISORDERS, thank you.

Your druthers certainly color your sexual appetite, but Spam is definitely OK if youre famished.

The best beer I ever drank was a can of Carling Black Label Cat Piss on a very hot day in Vietnam. It was ice cold and delicious. Never came across anuther one, ever.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

That movie jumped a lot of fences and pushed even more boundaries.

I hope his research wasn't based on a film. Especially that film.

I also don't care for the use of the word "Neurotic" to describe anything to do with sex. He's pushing his own views on the subject me thinks.

Fantasies do play a large roll in the way people look at sex but I don't see most people as perverted. Maybe our group here a little or a lot more than normal but not in real life.

Most people are too scared of consequences to take the risks need to be perverted. Hostility and aggression are more in the fantasy section for most people, That is until they meet the right or wrong person according to which way you want to look at it.

I'm not sure if "neurotic" even has any valid meaning anymore, so i agree with you there. But I don't think he's saying that sex is perverse. He's saying that sexual arousal has its roots in the same source that gives rise to 'perversion' (another unfortunate word choice). Arousal can be seen as a diluted version of perversion. They differ in degree, but not in kind.

Also notice that he's talking about arousal and not about affection or love, or anything else that might motivate sex. So what he's saying that sexual excitement always has a transgressive element, a mild bit of perversity.

I know that's true for me. I'll fall asleep if I try to read any stories in the Lit Loving Sex category, with happy vanilla people having happy vanilla sex. It's the forbidden, the extreme, and the perverse that get me aroused.

The 'scripts' he mentions don't have to be elaborate. It's enough for one lover to imagine him or herself as the Seducer, the other to imagine themselves as an innocent, or a lust object, or to imagine that others are watching, or anything else. And that's cool because that's what we do here: we provide scripts. We provide fodder for the imagination. It's something to almost be proud of.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

And no, Stoller wasn't basing his ideas on the movie. Here's an excerpt from the Wikipediaentry:

In his most notable contribution, Perversion (1975), Stoller attempts to illuminate the dynamics of sexual perversion which he fights valiantly to normalize. Stoller suggests that perversion inevitably entails an expression of unconscious aggression in the form of revenge against a person who, in early years, made some form of threat to the child's core gender identity, either in the form of overt trauma or through the frustrations of the Oedipal conflict.

In Sexual Excitement (1979), Stoller finds the same perverse dynamics at work in all sexual excitement on a continuum from overt aggression to subtle fantasy. In focusing on the unconscious fantasy, and not the behavior, Stoller provides a way of analyzing the mental dynamics of sexuality, what he terms "erotics," while simultaneously de-emphasizing the pathology of any particular form of behavior. Stoller does not consider homosexuality as a monolithic behavior but rather as a range of sexual styles as diverse as heterosexuality.

Stoller was a psychologist who got his PhD in 1948 and published in the '70's, so a lot of his ideas and terminology are out of date. His ideas that sexual arousal includes a mixture of positive and negative feelings still seem pretty right on to me.

 

[3113]

Bogus!

Psychologist Robert Stoller's research into the dynamics of eros has led him to believe "sexual pleasure in most humans depends on neurotic mechanisms." He further contends that there is no sexual arousal without scripts — the dramas and fantasies people create in their minds to trigger libidinal excitement. Stroller's conclusion: the same psychic factors found in perversion are located in the sexual lives of most people — hostility, risk, and aggression.

Well, 9&1/2 Weeks was a piece of shit movie. The book was the big shocker of its day (like "50 Shades" is now), but the movie pussy-footed around the BDSM and the actors had no chemistry. It was dull as dishwater to watch, the famous refrigerator scene not withstanding.

I always go back to Purple Rain, myself, for movies with sex scenes that really arouse.

Which, by the way, would be my response to Dr. Stroller. Fantasies and drama can trigger libidos? Gosh, who knew? I mean, tell me something new, right? So this statement is a no-brainer up till the point where he insists that: "no sexual arousal" without such. Then it's bullshit. I mean, a sexy woman appears and a man's penis goes up. No script, no drama, no fantasy, just the same sexual arousal that all animals get when the see something they want to fuck.

I really don't believe that there's any "script" to that penis going up outside of "I wanna tap that!" Now, there may follow some more complex fantasy after that initial response, but how can anyone say there is "no sexual arousal" without such if there is physical evident to the contrary? The penis going up before the man even has a chance to imagine what might happen? Similarly, I can tell you that plenty of women will see a handsome guy take his shirt off and just *SIGH!* And there's no imagination there, just *sigh!* They are aroused at that moment, no script yet written. That's hormones, pheromones, animal instincts.

And I'm not sure that those women are thinking in terms of hostility, risk or aggression. Is the good doctor saying that there's no sexual arousal in tenderness? Again, bullshit.

And--to get back to "Purple Rain"--this focus on drama and fantasy also ignores other ways human beings get aroused. A movie is all about images and pictures, creating fantasies and drama and a script. But then there's a musician like Prince who doesn't think in fantasy and drama--he thinks in beats and tunes and rhythms. And his sexual arousal probably won't be because he's imagining what will happen, fantasizing it, scripting it--his arousal comes from hearing this music, which makes him want to move and do. And it makes the woman with him want to move and do. They improvise together in time to that music. And there is that sexual arousal and pleasure, no fantasy or drama involved, no script--and quite possibly no hostility, risk or aggression.

So, I'm fine with this no-brainer statement that human libido is tied to our imagination and that we can arouse ourselves with fantasies--I wouldn't, after all, be writing erotica, nor have any readers of it if this wasn't true. And it's a double no-brainer that people get aroused by aggression and risk. But that there can be no sexual arousal without such? Sorry. No. Not everyone has an imagination, and not everyone needs one to get sexually aroused or enjoy sexual pleasure. That our brains enhance sex, can create it when it isn't there, etc., that I already know. That we can't have any arousal or pleasure without such...that's just not true.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I have two ways to tap into sexual arousal: one is most definitely the mechanisms of power play, conflict, aggression all that stuff-- in varying quantities. A scenario can be absolutely tender and still have an element of power.

The other is purely and simply the enjoyment of physical sensation. I like to get my clitoral nerves going with a vibe or tens unit. I like to feel blood rushing into my muscles after someone's hand has come down real hard on my ass.

Either way works for me.

 

[sunandshadow]

I think there's a level of brainless physical arousal, which can be triggered by the tingles and warmth resulting from drinking alcohol, or there's a drug used to get contrast in the imaging of a patient being placed in an MRI which has the same effect but stronger, or sitting in a vibrating vehicle is another common trigger of physical arousal.

But I'm familiar with script theory and I do think it's a big part of how our subconscious minds construct meaning, and one kind of meaning is attractiveness level. Also that the concept of the "forbidden" is tied to the idea of the "erotic" in a way that's either instinctive or culturally near-universal for our species.