ABSTRACT
Conflicts intrinsic to sexual desire can result in fantasies of personal as well as social disorder, and both ways round become associated with the difficulty of throwing off or engaging with a disapproving parental object. Disorders of desire might be considered in relation to insecure patterns of attachment, where mentalizing, or the capacity to adopt a “third position”, is likely to be limited or absent. Sexual desire manifests itself in the form of a serpent, the uncoiling penis, and the prospect of coitus. While sexual “knowledge”, either in the form of information or experience, is less hard to come by these days than in former times, the affective component of desire can remain an enigma. Attachment theory has in common with Freudian psychoanalytic theory some acknowledgement of the place of biology in the dynamics of desire, but gives emphasis to the significance of relationships in shaping and channelling its expression.
