Early Deprivation: Can A Man See Some Women As Sexual Objects If He Experienced Early Deprivation?

If a man were to step back and reflect on his life, what he may see is that when he is attracted to a woman, it doesn’t occur to him that she is a human being. She is then not going to be someone who has her own needs, feelings, preferences, insecurities and fears, for instance.

Instead, he can just see her as an object who can meet his needs. However, he might not just see her as an object that can meet all of his needs, though, just his sexual needs.

The Next Stage

He can see that when things had gone further with a woman he saw in this way, he was only really interested in having sex with her. He then wouldn’t have just wanted to spend time with her and have a day out, for instance.

What he can also find is that when he was having sex with her and for a while after, he experienced a sense of wholeness. If so, it would have been as though he were receiving something that he needed.

Another Experience

He can then see that when he hasn’t had sex for a while, he starts to feel low and even depressed. The outcome of this is that he can believe that he needs to have sex to experience a sense of wholeness.

Even so, he can wonder why he is unable to see the women he is attracted to as whole human beings who not only have a sexual side but have many other sides, too. As confusing as this can be, it can be due to what happened during his early years and the impact it had on him.

Back In Time

This may have been a stage of his life when he missed out on the attunement and care that he needed to grow and develop in the right way. So, he might have had a mother who was emotionally unavailable and out of reach.

Consequently, he would have had to adapt her, which would have caused him to be greatly deprived and deeply wounded. To handle the lack of love that was on offer, his brain would have repressed how he felt and a number of his needs.

Self-Alienation

This would have involved him losing touch with his connected and embodied true self and creating a disconnected and disembodied false self. Ultimately, the connection that he had to his self had to be severed for him to survive.

Another part of this is that he would have lived in the hope, the false hope that if he became who his mother and perhaps father wanted him to be and behaved how they wanted, he would be loved. But, as futile as this hope was, it would have served as a secondary defence that made it easier for him to keep it together and function.

Its over

Now, as this stage of his life is over, it could be said that it doesn’t matter what happened. And, in a world where the past is often seen as being in the past and as something that has no impact on the present, this can sound right.

However, although what happened is in the past, thanks to the impact it had on him and how he adapted, it won’t matter. For one thing, some, if not all, of his unmet developmental needs that were not met and were repressed, will be what are causing him to see a woman as a sexual object.

A Closer Look

When he is attracted to a woman and wants to have sex with her, he will be unconsciously projecting the mother he needed during his formative years into her. At this stage of his life, he would have desired his mother and seen her as nothing more than an object that was there to meet his needs.

This was normal as he had nothing to give but needed to receive and wasn’t developed enough to see her as a separate human being who had her own needs. Now that he is an adult and is more developed, his unmet developmental needs will have become sexualised.

Far More To it

Therefore, while he will see a woman as a sexual object who will allow him to meet his sexual needs, at a deeper level, he is seeing a woman as his mother and as someone who will allow him to meet his unmet developmental needs. These needs will relate to this need to be looked at, held and touched, for instance, and will have very little to do with sex.

In this case, he won’t just feel better during and after because he is having and has had sex, it will also be because of what another part of him believes that he is and has received. The trouble is that, as it will be too late for him to receive what he missed out on, not to mention that another woman is not his mother, it won’t matter how much sex he has or what women he has sex with, as he won’t f**k these needs away.

Moving Forward

What this illustrates is that the deeper, emotional part of him is blind and has no sense of time, which is why it can believe that another woman is his mother and that it is still possible to meet these unmet developmental needs. For him to no longer look for what he missed out on, he will have beliefs to question, pain to face and process, and unmet developmental needs to experience.

This will take courage, support, patience and persistence.

Awareness

If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk