When engaged in the act of real time sexual activitywith a real female partner, the male human'spsyche reacts to at least three broaddimensions of stimulus: additional fantasies. fundamental significance of the act. and direct sensory input.
D. Additional fantasies
Wilhelm Reich, 'Character Analysis', p23 of thepreface to the
first edition, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1972 Additional fantasies are the conscious mental activities
of the male engaged inthe sexual act, which allow for a higher enjoyment of the act, higher
state of arousal, or indeed the 'potency' of the 'manhood'
itself.
These fantasies are used when the current sexual activityisfor some
reason or other not sufficient in itself to arouse the male, and
an additional, parallel stimulus ismaintained bya
mental effort - for example the male looking at the face of the partner, but
seeing a different face, or expression, or act concerning the face, orperhaps imagining a
whollyalternative situation altogether.
E. Fundamental significance of the act Unlike the additional fantasies, the significance
ofperformed sexual activityis the impact of that activityitself
upon the mind and emotionsof the male, the impact of the meaning
of what takes place. 'Bondage'provides manyclear examples -
for instance when the intensity of the sexual act, of the arousal, is achieved by the tying
of let'ssay the hands of the passive participant.
When the hands are tied this does not add anystimulus to the body of the active
participator, indeed it does not add any recognizable sensory pleasure to the
passive one neither - it is the significance of the fact that the
hands are tied, of the restrictions onto the capacityof movement and reaction
that influences the cognitive and emotional processes of
the participants, that inflates the arousal.
The positionof the female, the sounds, the facial
expressions, the tools used, the dialogues, all these are generators of significance
which helps maintain arousal. Below the layer of fantasies is the
layer of the significance of what is being done, and it is below this
invisible envelope, that is the naked body of the partner. A naked 'woman'
is rarely 'naked' - the nude body isclothed in layers of meanings.
F. Direct sensory input
If the symbolic structure of the act gratifies the male to a sufficient extent, additional fantasies
are maderedundant, and the experience is a mix of the perceived significance of what is being
done, and of the direct sensory input - the stimulus which the body receives while engaged in the act. In theory there
couldbe somewhere in the world a couple in which one or both of the
participants, who withoutbeingseverely mentallyimpairedordrunk into prelinguistic
modes, experience sexas direct input alone, without any weighty mental
interference. Accordingto Reich this wouldbe possible onlybetween two humans that are completely
healthy on all levels of their existence...