This is a helpful reference to get some idea of what Dr. Klein had in mind in referring to the dark side of sex. I agree basically with Dr. Klein's idea that sex has no meaning (if I make exception for its one meaning when serving the generative function). My concern was to explore how Dr. Klein conceived of the intrinsic meaningless of sex to be compatible, or if he believed it is compatible, with the assertion that sex has a supposed dark side, for it seemed to me at least that if sex does HAVE a dark side then this is a part of sex that makes sex mean at least this much. The quote you cite from: http://www.sexed.org/arch/arch08.htm offers some guidance on this subject of the dark side of sex. From that quote we learn that "aggression, lust for power, and greedy demands to be pleasured are all part of normal sexuality..." And a little later: "By denying the dark side of normal, healthy sexuality that most people know they have, the concept of sexual addiction increases guilt." One can thus surmise that aggression, power lust and greedy pleasure demaningness are the likely dark side of sex. The richly heuristic value of Dr. Klein's original notion that sex itself has no intrinsic meaning, however, suggests to me a possible alternative interpretation of his dark-side proposition. Thus, since I regard inclinations toward aggression, power lust, and greedy pleasure demaningness as attributes of SOME human personalities (or probably of ALL personalities some of the time), but not as intrinsic attributes of sex, I would prefer to say that insofar as these inclinations may occur often in the private sex behaviors of many persons, they are attributes reflecting not the dark side of sex but effects from the darkness of shame under which the subject of sex is so often kept hidden. Thus I appreciate Dr. Klein's notion of a dark side, but I would prefer to attribute it not to sex per se but to the effects of the ways in which the SUBJECT of sexuality is addressed--or more accurately stated, not addressed because of shame--in the lives of very many persons. Thus even persons who are not in other (non-shamed) areas of their lives aggressive, lustful of power, or greedily demanding pleasure may nonetheless show these tendencies when behaving sexually insofar as their sexuality occurs under cover of shame. In short, because sex is so much a subject darkly hidden by shame, there are insufficiently complete or frequent conversations about sexual etiquette and ethics in the lives of many persons. As a result, many persons do not have sufficient opportunity to think about (in order to manage) our common HUMAN (not our sexual) inclinations to be aggressive, power grabbing, and greedily demanding of pleasure when being sexual. Perhaps this is also what Dr. Klein means. If so, I wonder if he would then agree that the dark side attributes he refers to are attributes of human behavior when occurring under the influence of shame rather than attributes intrinsic to sex itself. If converstions about any other social function, such as grocery shopping, say, were also kept in hiding under the dark mantle of shame, many otherwise nonaggresive, non-power-grabbing, non-greedily-pleasure-seeking persons could be expected to show all the dark-side versions of these attributes when shopping. Well, come to think of it, there are some gorcery stores I've visited where... But that's another subject; so I shall not digress further. What I hope I am saying is that as I think about Dr. Klein's notion of "the dark side of sex" I would prefer to more fully endorse his proposition that sex itself has no intrinsic meaning (apart from serving the generative function) such that the allegedly dark side OF sex is really the dark side OF shame. The dark-side attributes are features of persons experiencing shame rather than attributes of sex, for in fact sex (apart from generative functions) really has NO meaning. I would be most grateful to learn what Dr. Klein himself thinks of any of this. (BTW: If it matters to Dr. Klein, I am a licensed psychologist and educator who sometimes lectures on specific topics in human sexuality.)
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