Module 19 – Lesson 4: Understanding Your Sexual Personality

Module 19. Coaching Radical Relationships (2)

Video Four: Understanding Your Sexual Personality

Welcome to Video Four of Module 19 which is all about Coaching Relationships. In this video, we put forward a model that goes a long way to explain how different people behave in relationships based on whether they operate from a fear of rejection or a fear of intimacy.

The model Colin explains was created by a man called John Kappas, Ph.D. He was the founder of the Hypnosis Motivation Institute and the author of a number of books on hypnotherapy. Colin trained as a hypnotherapist under him at his school.

There are many differences between men and women regarding sexual behavior and books abound on that particular issue, such as John Gray’s, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. But the following model divides people into two not based on their gender but on one of two particular kinds of neurosis a person might have — albeit to a greater or lesser degree.

On one side of the scale is the self that he describes as Physical Sexual Personality. On the other is there is a self-described as Emotional Sexual Personality. Be careful. Those terms can be misleading.

What is being referred to here is how the person defends the part of themselves they feel to be most threatened.

The Physical Sexual is the one driven by an intense fear of rejection. So, feeling vulnerable emotionally, he or she defends his/her emotions by putting his/her physical body out front as a form of protection.

The Emotional Sexual Personality, on the other hand, is driven by a strong fear of intimacy. Feeling vulnerable physically, he or she protects his or her body by putting up a wall of emotion comprising such feelings as fear, intense shyness, and distrust.

This has all sorts of ramifications how they each show up in the world. So, let us provide a sketch profile of each extreme so you can determine where on the following scale you might be.

The ideal is to have around 60/40 bias towards one end or the other. That way you will be more able to understand those with the opposite bias. In the Resources Section, you will find that there is a pdf where you can fill in a sort of quiz that will give you an indication of where you are on the between one and the other. It is also attached a a quiz for you below.

Extreme Physical Sexual Personality

People with an Extreme Physical Sexual Personality are as follows:

– They are classic extroverts who project their sexuality outwards and in extreme cases almost to the point of flaunting it.
– They are very comfortable with their bodies and have a high sex drive. They are ready for sex at a moment’s notice, and the men can last for hours.
-They wear clothes and jewelry that emphasize and bring attention to their physical body and their sexual attractiveness. This applies to women more than men.
– Image and appearance are very important to the physical sexual personality. No matter what they buy, the main consideration is how it makes them look. They go for elegance, style, color, glitz, etc. They would never buy a car on the basis of fuel efficiency over style.
– They crave acceptance and attention because of their fear of rejection, which means everything they do is designed to get approval. They are extremely sensitive to criticism.
– When in conversation with you they will stand close, lock eyes, and scan your face for the least sign of a possible rejection.
– If rejected, rather than withdraw, they will push forward even more, trying to win you over with charm and persuasion. They become very insistent and pushy. They will not take no for an answer, especially from an emotional sexual erson of the opposite sex, to whom they are irresistibly attracted. They can be assertive
and controlling, almost to the point of being obnoxious, if they smell rejection.
– They are the life and soul of any party, very popular, and always seem comfortable in social situations.
– They are never at a loss for something to talk about, and small talk comes easy to them.
– They are natural risk takers in all aspects of their lives, so they are often entrepreneurs and/or indulge in very physical sports, especially team sports.
– They are less concerned about their bodies being hurt than they are about having their feelings crushed.
– All their emotions are experienced physically rather than mentally, and when their feelings are hurt, they feel it as intense pain in their bodies. The pain can be so bad that they can literally be incapacitated by it for long periods of time.
– When a relationship ends, they are devastated and have a very difficult time letting go of it. They take it very personally and feel utterly rejected. They also have a very hard time replacing. It may be many months before they will have another serious relationship, though they will have plenty of sex in the meanwhile. They
need it just to feel OK.
– They are hopelessly idealistic about love and relationships and very romantically inclined. Once in a relationship, they tend to be loyal and monogamous. At the same time, they are very jealous and possessive.
– They enjoy children and are very strong on family. They put family and/or relationships before career or any other aspect of life. It’s their #1 priority
– They communicate by indirect implication and inferences, relying on the listener to make the correct interpretation. On the other hand, they hear only what is said literally and don’t pick up on inferences. You have to tell them explicitly and frequently that you love them. They will not infer that you do just because you are there.

Now let us give you the opposite:

People with Emotional Sexual Personality

– They are the classic introverts, and they tend to fold down and withdraw into themselves to protect their feelings of physical vulnerability.
– They are not in the least bit comfortable in their bodies and have a closed, protective bodily stance that says, “Don’t come close, and don’t touch me.” Their arms will be in front of them as protection, and their feet tend to be turned inwards.
– They dress conservatively to divert attention away from their body and to hide their sexuality. Women will wear high neck dresses or loose clothing to hide their figure. They will wear minimal makeup, if they wear any at all, and will wear sensible shoes. Men will dress conservatively.
– They are not particularly social and have great difficulty making small talk. At parties, they are usually the wallflowers. They leave early.
– They feel their feelings inwardly and process them mentally. They seldom express feelings outwardly and do not like to show physical affection in public.
– They do not much like to be touched. Even a light touch quickly turns to irritation. The kind of touch a physical considers affectionate can seem like physical assault to an emotional.
– They are turned on sexually much more by visual and mental stimuli than by touch. They are not automatically ready for sex like the physical is and need a lot of warming up. Emotional men are not the sexual athletes that physical sexual men are. Once they have ejaculated, it is all over, whereas physicals can go on for hours.
– For them, sex is not a high priority; neither is family, children, or relationships. Their priority is work and career, followed by their hobby. Relationships come a distant third. They are not very fond of children, and they may choose never to marry.
– They often have extramarital affairs and think little of it because they do not equate love with sex as does the physical. They like the mental excitement of an affair.
– When a relationship ends they get over it in a matter of days and replace easily. They do not take it as a personal rejection of themselves.
– They don’t like team sports, but they excel at individual sports that require rigorous training and are self-challenging.
– They lead with their minds in everything, from work, games and even sex. They are analytical, careful, and methodical and therefore seldom spontaneous.
– They buy cars not on style and image but on which is the most efficient and best engineered. They will research it to death before they buy.
– If they go into business for themselves, they tend to be accountants, computer programmers, engineers, researchers, and technicians. They like precise, solitary work and are detailed oriented.
– They can be very successful in business.
– They pick up on inferences and subtle implications, but they speak very directly and precisely.
– They don’t waste words and are not physically expressive.

As a coach, not only do you want to be able identify each type and gauge how extreme the person is on the scale between 90% physical and 90% emotional, you will want to know how this might play out in relationships, especially if one or both partners are at the extreme end of the scale. As you might imagine, initially the opposites attract. A high physical will attract a high emotional and vice versa.

For example, at a party, a high physical male will make a beeline for the retiring little emotional who is in the corner clutching her drink and looking shy and embarrassed. He desperately wants to rescue her and bring her out. She is initially turned off by him because he’s so pushy, but eventually succumbs to his irresistible charm and his take charge attitude.

Communication seems to flow easily between them as well. That’s because the physical speaks inferentially to the emotional who easily picks up on the subtle implications of what is being said.
Conversely, the emotional speaks directly to the physical who likes direct communication, not inferences.

The emotional says little but is a good listener, whereas the physical loves to dominate the conversation and is more than happy to have someone who will just listen. It seems like a match made in heaven.
Not only does the communication seem great, but during the honeymoon period, which lasts about six months, the emotional tends to act like a physical in bed. So, everything seems wonderful, and the physical is convinced that he or she has found a soul mate.

However, at around six months, each one begins reverting to their natural type. As the chemistry that enabled them to let down their defenses for a while begins to fade, so their defenses re-emerge, and their primary behavior comes to the fore again.

Consequently, emotionals begin withdrawing emotionally and wanting a lot less sex. Their fear of intimacy and their tendency to want to avoid it returns. They begin focusing on things that interest them other than the relationship.

This drives the physical crazy because he or she interprets the emotional’s behavior as implicit rejection and an indication of their partner falling out of love. That makes him or her even more demanding of love, sex, and physical affection, which in turn makes the emotional withdraw even more.

Once both fear responses have kicked in, the situation goes from bad to worse, and the relationship is virtually irretrievable. If they stay together, it will be the emotional who will control the relationship. That’s because the physical will sell a large chunk of himself or herself in order to get what whatever sex or physical affection the emotional is willing to give.

That’s why a lot of strong looking physical males are controlled by weaker looking wives. A woman who knows how to manipulate that fear of rejection owns him.

You might imagine that the ideal arrangement would be two of the same together. This is not so. Two physicals together would be in competition with each other and would act like a couple of divas. They would talk at each other in inferences with neither one of them picking up on them. They would be talking over each other and always seeing rejection in every utterance.

It would be an intensely sexual liaison, but their jealousy and possessiveness would create terrible problems. And they would always be fighting. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were good examples and this, and look what happened to them.

Two emotionals together would soon get very bored with each other. Sex would be virtually nonexistent and their communications minimal. Their best chance at survival would be if they were to work together. Otherwise, they would be out looking for an affair just to relieve the boredom.

When you work with couples or even people who come to you on their own but want to talk about their relationship, you will be able to pick up on which side of the scale they tend to be most of the time, especially if they are at either extreme.

We have a quiz in the Resources section ( and for you to complete below) so you can give it to them to provide you a pretty good idea of where they are on the scale. If they score high, it will be worth going forward with it, However, if it turns out that they are not extreme and fairly balanced at around 60/40, either way, you can probably drop it.

Your goal is to get them to understand their partner’s behavior and realize it is just a natural response to their respective underlying fears. That will in itself reduce the stress and calm each of their anxieties, which in turn should have a salutary effect on their relationship.

All right, so that is the end of Module #19. We are going on to Module #20 where we look at the issue of loving oneself.