Have you every wondered what controls your instincts of power? Why some people can be easily overpowered while others can be never ? What makes a relationship between two partners last long? And finally, WHAT MAKES A SIGMA MALE?
The quote “Everything in life is about SEX, but sex, SEX is about POWER” always fascinated me about human sexual and overall behaviour about power. There are many interpretations & explanations about the quote.
PART 1: SOCIAL INTIMACY
ARISTOCRACY:
In aristocracy, the form of control was either you’re ignored by the aristocracts or you’re being heavily punished. The aristocrats decides that only the virginity of wealthy people’s daughters matter, because the fortune pass along bloodline. So as long as you don’t have a sexual relationship with rich people’s daughter, your sexual life is uninteresting to other people. Heart always wants what is prohibited !!! However if you did, you might face harsh punishment.
VICTORIAN :
Victorian age brings sex into public discourse. Bourgeoisies gained power, and churches decide the rules about sexuality. Religious confession is increasingly about sex, and institutional setup is also centered around sex.
Then with the decline of aristocracy and religion and the rise of modernity, each of us has our own sense of individuality. How do you prove that we, as individuals, are “good” and/or “normal?” Well, doctors, psychiatrists, etc. become the people who set the standards. We are either normal or abnormal.
So who gets to decide what kind of sex is acceptable/good (and under what condition), who are the sluts/pimps/perverts? Hence, it’s about power & sometimes in modern times, who has the MONEY.
And of course, the “everything in the world is about sex” part. I think it could be interpreted as
1) people make effort to get laid.
2) People invented many many ways to channel their sexual energies (Freud).
3) Institutional setup is centers around sex (or preventing sex).
PART 2: INDIVIDUAL PSYCH
Why do people do things to attract people? whether we’re talking about artists creating art, musicians making music, businessmen making deals, engineers building infrastructure, scientists doing innovative science, girls putting on make-up and making themselves look as physically attractive as possible, etc.,
All of it when we take away the façade, is driven by the individual’s underlying sexual drive to signal him/herself as a desirable mate to members of the opposite sex, and thus such behaviors and actions are nothing more than a means to the end that is the propagation of one’s genes via sexual reproduction.
PART 3: WOMENS POWER OVER MEN:
Sex itself is about power because due to the inherently high cost of gestation and child-rearing for the female, women are the choosers when it comes to which men they permit to have sexual relationships with them.
Thereby sex was and still is used by women (not maliciously of course, this is purely an evolved behavior that was honed throughout millennia by natural selection) as “bargaining chips” when they interact with their men.
So for most straight couples, the woman holds a special power over her mate, in the form of sexual access.
However, if her mate truly does not care about the sex she can provide him (for whatever, such as say he no longer loves her or wants to be with her), then she essentially loses all power over him, and it could be argued that in that case, he is the one with power over her.
[Exceptions to the aforementioned behaviors undoubtedly exist, humans and much less their intentions and behaviors, aren’t binary. But I was talking in terms of the generalities which describe the macro levels of human societal interactions, and towards that effect, at least to the first order approximation, I do think what I stated is quite accurate.]