One person wanted to know that, if my theory were true, and we become sexually attracted to those people/objects which satisfy our psychological needs, then we don't we become sexually attracted to other animals? I would suggest that animals can't really satisfy our needs as much as other humans can. While they can certainly provide companionship and other such benefits, they can't talk back to us, therefore, relate to us in a way that humans can. For instance, a pet might not be able to fulfill the role of "brother figure" because a pet couldn't necessarily act like a brother (e.g., it couldn't take you out to the ball game!).
Another person asked what role emotions, romance, and love play in this theory. While I don't at all want to be reductionistic or mechanistic in my views, I do want to suggest that—at least in some cases—emotions, romance, and love follow sexual attraction. They develop in order to ensure that two people who were initially drawn together by sexual attraction (i.e., people who were drawn together in order to get their individual psychological or biological needs met) stay together. Certainly, it becomes much harder to stray from a partner for whom we feel strong, affectionate feelings.
Someone also asked why I focussed so much on gay men when constructing my ideas. The reason for this was coincidental. It just so happened that it was several gay men who initially provided me with the details that got me to thinking about sexual attraction in general. Nonetheless, my ideas apply just as equally to heterosexuals as to homosexuals. If, however, you would like more information about homosexuality from a psychodynamic perspective, I would highly recommend Sexual Orientation and Psychoanalysis: Sexual Science and Clinical Practice, by Richard C. Friedman and Jennifer I. Downey (Columbia University Press, 2002).
Finally, I should mention that my "theory" doesn't preclude other other mechanisms from determining sexual attraction. The notion of sexual attraction as driving us towards those people who can meet our psychological needs doesn't exclude the fact that people also become sexually attracted to one another for other reasons. I should also stress that even though I have been spending quite some time talking about the dynamic mechanisms behind sexual attraction, this does not mean that I am moving away from my humanistic, non-directive perspective on psychology and therapy. I do not at all want to reduce complex, individual human experience into a few lawlike statements. Instead, I want to point out the myriad ways in which sexual attraction can work in any given person. Rather than being reductionistic, I think this is a celebration of human experience and richness.
Furthermore, I firmly maintain that none of these dynamics need to be brought to consciousness by the direct intervention of a therapist. If these dynamics in some way trouble an individual, she already knows it. Rather than attempting to dig into her past and badger her to "come to terms" with her "hidden" unconscious motivations, what would be better is providing the conditions which make for a relationship in which that person feels free and not guilty for actually expressing these feelings at her own will and at her own chosen pace.
Please see my 31 October 2003
entry for a broader discussion on physical attractiveness, what it
means, what is attractive, etc.