In my recent, and ongoing, series on Narcissism, I have tried to make the point that many different trends have come together, from disparate sources within our society, within families, and within individuals, which have tended to increase the "Narcissistic load" in our culture. My goal is to show, as much as possible, how these trends, if not halted and reversed, can undermine our civilization at a time when we have an implacable enemy committed to our destruction. Often, it is in the small details that the supporting evidence appears.
A reader (VK) alerted me to this article from the BBC:
'Twice as many men' pay for sex
The number of men paying women for sex has nearly doubled in a decade, UK research suggests.Surveys of 11,000 British adults in 1990 and 2000 found the rate increased from one in 20 to nearly one in 10 men.
Rising divorce rates, sex tourism and increasing availability of commercial sex are blamed by the Sexually Transmitted Infections journal.
It warns men's lifestyles put them at risk of catching sex diseases, yet few are getting checked in clinics.
Beyond the obvious, that enhanced narcissism would lead to an increased pressure for personal and immediate sexual gratification, what else does this story tell us in relation to Narcissism?
The person who has enhanced narcissism (EN) has great difficulty in relationships. Involvement in an intimate relationship requires the ability to recognize, respect and attend to the needs of another person, even when, perhaps especially when, their needs conflict with your own. A man with EN will have much more trouble doing the simple things that can gratify his significant other (including making her a "wife", an archaic term referring to a party to a legal relationship whose basic structure has been under attack for quite some time.) He may be unable to give up his nights out with the boys, or the drinking done at such times; he may have insufficient empathy to realize that picking up a toilet seat is an important way to show concern for another person you care about. A women with EN may be unable to tolerate her husband's need to work longer hours than she would wish. He may need to see himself in the traditional paternal role as "breadwinner" (another archaic-ism) while she needs more attention in order to gratify her needs. Little things which show respect for each other become obstacles. For those with EN, relationships often become zero-sum games; if I do something nice for you, I have been diminished; if you do something nice for me, I am enhanced.
When you couple the difficulty posed to such people ceding some of their own gratification in favor of another, ie compromising, with their fantasy based romantic notions of perfect relationships (the only kind they can imagine), they will always end up disappointed. Furthermore, with easy divorce, or more and more often, no-stigma cohabitation, breaking up is easier than ever. And those who stay in relationships have a terrible time negotiating the balance of needs involved in sexual relationships, which, again, become zero-sum occasions.
All of these things make frequenting a prostitute (a fantasy object rather than a real person) seem like an "easy" way to gain gratification without having to worry about the complicated interactions that would occur with a real, human adult.
Since the EN individual is responding to relatively primitive needs, their ability to delay gratification and plan for the future is also problematic. The tendency is to eschew the use of condoms (it limits his pleasure) with predictable outcomes:
In the UK there has been a resurgence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as chlamydia, gonorrhoea and HIV.
More than 58,000 are now living with HIV in the UK and 104,155 new cases of chlamydia were reported in 2004, latest figures show.
The study authors correctly point to the sexualization of the female image, which has been ongoing for years but is clearly accelerating with "porn stars" being touted in MTV music videos, as part of the problem:
Lead author Dr Helen Ward said there were many reasons why more men were paying for sex.
"There has been a more liberal attitude towards commercial sex and increasing commercialisation of sex. Lads magazines are bombarded with images.
"There are more men with money and more women looking for this type of work."
She said many men were meeting new partners abroad, on stag nights for example, and the internet and cheaper international travel meant people had more opportunities to buy and sell sex.
"It does not seem to be exceptional for groups of men to go away with each other for the weekend and have commercial sex. "
Notice the idea of "groups of men" going away for commercial sex weekends; again this illustrates the developmentally early focus of such events. As is commonly seen in latency age boys, girls are frightening "others" who need to be kept at a distance. Commercial sex trips become bonding experiences for men who need and fear closeness.
Finally, the authors propose various changes for the National Health Service in order to more effectively deal with the epidemic of STD's. While this is necessary, it is a mere band-aid on a hemorrhaging wound. Perhaps they recognize that fundamental change is required and that doing what would be necessary to change attitudes is near impossible (increasing the influence of organized religion, supporting the traditional family structure, reintroducing "shame" into public discourse, all of which have traditionally helped young men control their sexual impulses) but it is more likely they would never adopt such a "judgmental" tone. Unfortunately, reversing the damage of the last 40 years, especially with an entire generation coming of age and educated with the explicit message that nothing is taboo, no sexual arrangement is any better or worse than any other, and nothing is more important than their immediate gratification, will not be affected by an increased availability of NHS clinics. That is just "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."
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