Last week I was out with some friends and, as usual, the conversation turned toward sex. The topic was my recent column on redheads. One of my friends said, It doesn't have so much to do with hair color as it has to do with neuroses. The best sex I've had involved women with neuroses. I thought about this for a couple of days. My life has been pretty tame lately. No intense conflicts or wild dramas. I should be having cum loads of amazing sex, right? But, suffice it to say, I tend to have more and better sex in the throes of psychological conflict and emotional instability. That doesn't mean peace of mind makes me boring in bed. There just seems to be a strong correlation between mind-blowing sex and an imbalanced mind.

Sex is a prism reflecting the spectrum of our inner lives. When life is in chaos, carnal pleasure can be an escape, whether you are simply releasing all your stress in an orgasm or putting on a costume and becoming someone else for a while. Role-playing is replete with unconscious motivation. My one-week stint as a dominatrix was a result of a traumatizing breakup. The seemingly senseless loss of euphoric love led me down a path of promiscuity with the thought, If my body can't be sacred to him, it won't be sacred to anybody. I felt empowered seducing men while remaining emotionally inaccessible. My mantra was No man will ever reject me again. Now I can really get back at him, I thought, by making men my slaves. But while the sex was often good, my life was a mess. You see how sex can become a dysfunctional coping mechanism? I wouldn't be surprised if every dominatrix feels vulnerable without her whips and chains. And is it any wonder that the majority of clients who pay for humiliation and torture are investment bankers, CEO's, politicians and rock stars? 

But you don't have to be a nymphomaniac or a dominatrix to experience how neuroses influence sex. Here is a sampling of the ways in which psychological conflicts may translate to doing the nasty

I'm a powerful CEO, but nobody knows how weak I really am, equals, Please let me be your slave! How dare you seduce me away from my husband, equals, I'm going to fuck you till it hurts! I think I might be a lesbian, equals, A threesome? Sure, do you mind if I use my strap-on? I'll kill myself before I fall in love again, equals, Whatever you do, don't look into my eyes. Blindfold me then fuck me like an animal, doggy-style. Mom spanked me when she caught me masturbating, equals, Can I call you mommy? I've been a very bad boy!

You get the picture. On the other side of the groin, the absence of sex, or sexual repression, often causes neuroses. Freud believed that all neuroses were a result of sexual repression, and this repression was necessary for an orderly society to coexist with the destructive drive inherent in each individual. Freud's follower, William Reich disagreed on this issue; he theorized that the destructive drive is a result rather than cause of libido repression, leading to neurotic behavior and societal chaos. Reich stated, Psychic health depends on orgastic potency, that is, on the capacity for surrender in the acme of sexual excitation in the natural sexual act. Its basis is the unneurotic character attitude of capacity for love. Mental illness is a result of a disturbance in the natural capacity for love. In the case of orgastic impotence, from which a vast majority of humans are suffering, biological energy is dammed up, thus becoming the source of all kinds of irrational behavior.

Seems like a Catch 22: if you repress your sexuality, you will be neurotic, but if you express your destructive drives and irrational behaviors through sex, you'll be neurotic in bed. My friend, who has had his share of neurotic partners, says, Crazy women are a turn-on [for most guys] because it's assumed they'll do anything. A neurotic person may be a great lover, but not the ideal long-term partner in most cases. That truth alone is bound to create a complex, such as, Everybody wants to fuck me, but nobody wants to love me, so I'll just continue to do what I do best because I'm obviously not worthy enough to be in a relationship. The neurotic person becomes even more neurotic, and sex is no longer pleasureable or providing of a profound connection. It's medicine.

My medicinally promiscuous dominatrix period was ultimately un-gratifying because my intention was negative. But there are times when my inner turmoil enhanced sex. Not too long ago, I was torn between two lovers, neither of whom wanted to share me with the other. I was having a lot of passionate sex between the two of them, sometimes feeling as if I were with both at the same time. The days of this love triangle were numbered and I knew that no matter how it ended, I would lose. This awareness heightened each sensation and infused each orgasm with apocalyptic intensity. 

Must I create problems to have a spectacular sex life? No! Just because my life has been tame lately, doesn't mean I can't have profoundly explosive sex. Or does it? I don't know. Maybe I'm neurotic.