Sexuality and war: the fear of death

The issue of sexuality is always provocative. It may not be helpful to some people, but I am deeply convinced that it is worth talking about. It is our part that will suffer the most in the war.

We will talk about what was destroyed, what is subjected to genocide and, at the same time, what is the most terrible weapon – the desire for life or sexuality in all its manifestations. Because, as the theory and practice of psychotherapy show, it is sexuality that is the basis for the transformation of human biological existence into unconscious judgements and aspirations. We encounter it in romantic love, altruistic sacrificial dependence on a lover or beloved in sexual relations and sexual intercourse. Unfortunately, these vulnerable aspects of human nature are perhaps the cruellest targets of war.

So let’s start with the war.

We are all at war. And for the umpteenth time, I will repeat that war is total dependence on the madness of someone. It is an all–encompassing uncertainty, unpredictability and inability to control either your life or the lives of your loved ones. But now, my task is to describe the war through the perception of this phenomenon by the psyche.

War brings only one thing – death, activating the part of us that has our dying in it. War is a factor in the constant activity of irritation and excitement processes, the purpose of which is to tense the body to create an act of action and discontent in the psyche, which requires discharge through this very action. Thus, by forcing the body to be constantly in tension, war causes stress, and its excessiveness is reinforced as a standard way of responding to all external life.

Thus, the longer a person stays in war conditions, the more he gets used to living in excessive tension. And in this part of the life of his body and psyche, the irreparable happens – the emergence of unconscious pleasure from war.

At this point, human sexuality is included in the perception of war.

As a psychotherapist, I work with the concept of sexuality in three dimensions:

• sexuality is a basic human need, which consists of the human desire for life, enjoyment of life and orientation towards procreation;
• Sexuality is a strategy for establishing relationships with others for physical and psychological pleasure. It is always the antithesis of narcissism because a person is always open to contact with other people in sexuality;
• sexuality is a prerequisite for seduction and sexual intercourse, for getting relief for the body and pleasure for the mind.

But in all of these statements, one thing is the same: a person strives to receive pleasure and satisfaction, and it is in this desire that his sexuality appears. Each time we like something, want something badly, fantasize about something and get excited by fantasies – it’s all about sexuality. It seems that in the war, the complete destruction of pleasure and satisfaction, that is, sexuality, is taking place, but?

The most exciting thing happens when we consider sexuality as a discharge strategy. War stimulates sexual acts, which allow for the release of tension. Moreover, we are talking about the death tension. And this tension is not related to the pleasure of sexual intercourse. It is an attempt to avoid, to overcome death. At this moment, death appears between sexuality and sexual intercourse.

So, the worst thing about war is using your desire to live only to overcome the fear of death. It is when you rejoice, wish, and dream not because of actual changes but because you want to escape the fear of death, in which you lose only your pathogenic imagination.

And in conclusion. In that dimension of the human psyche where the most active need is located – sexuality – there is no fear of death. There is only the experience of experiencing one’s own loneliness and the loss of pathogenic fantasies. Sexuality never disappears, even in the most dangerous situations. It is what gives a person a chance to survive.

In the place where sexuality appears, there is no fear of death.…

…to be continued