http://www.oldandsold.com/articles19/psychoanalysis-14.shtml
and this excerpt:
Almost any craving can be easily gratified in our modern world so long as it remains dissociated from other cravings. The sexual craving being frowned upon by our hypocritical civilization, is constantly associated with many other cravings which the normal man, as well as the neurotic, imagine to be inseparable components of "love."
The love of an individual for an individual of the opposite sex may, according to temperaments, include one or all of the following cravings: domination, companionship, protection, pride, boastfulness, submission, praise, possession of beauty, active or passive tenderness, wealth, romance, excitement.
While every one of these non-sexual cravings may be invoked by men and women to justify sexual indiscretions to which their gratification has led, it may be also stated that in thousands of cases, the sexual gratification was an incident of the gratification of one or several of these cravings.
Flaubert's silly and touching heroine, Madame Bovary, was anything but an oversexed woman carried away by her sensuality. Love, to her, meant romance, sentimental companionship, the translation-into real life of the fiction and poetry she had read or memorized, mysterious trysts, perilous situations, obstacles successfully surmounted, the breaking away from conventionality and monotony, an opportunity to give vent to the trashy lyricism which filled her day dreams, etc. Those were really the things she craved but her lack of intelligence, of ability in any direction, of psychological insight, of altruistic guidance, conspired to convince her that in love only could she attain the gratification of all her desires.
When reality proved cruelly deceptive and she saw all her dreams shattered, she fled from reality by the path of suicide.
Others adopt the path of the neurosis, seeking an abnormal gratification of a sometimes very painful type or imagining that all their wishes have been fulfilled and living the unreal life of the insane.
It goes without saying that even a moderate sexuality reinforced and complicated by so many sentimental associations becomes a tyrant against whose domination the subject's will can hardly prevail.
The task of the analyst in such cases is easily defined, although difficult of execution, for the truth in such matters is not always readily ascertained.
While a subject may deny vehemently to his associates that he is obsessed by sexual thoughts, he may in the seclusion of a physician's or an analyst's office, greatly exaggerate those cravings which he aims to make responsible for his condition.
The analyst must then determine all the parasitic elements which have attached themselves to the sexual cravings as barnacles attach themselves to a ship and endeavour to make the subject see them, not as essential details of his obsession, but as separate entities.
Every one of Emma Bovary's cravings could have been satisfied separately in non-sexual ways if she had not relied upon an idéal lover to bring to her all the elements of happiness, if she had entered the road of positive personal achievement.
Likewise many a woman suffering from sick headaches because her husband or lover neglects her and fails to help her carry out her dreams of domination, could be relieved of her symptoms if she could be made to see in how many other directions her will-to-power could exert itself.
After positive means have' been agreed upon between the subject and the analyst for the gratification of the various parasitic cravings which have been separated from his sexual craving, there will be a residuum of pure sexuality for which no sublimation can be suggested.
If that craving does not receive satisfaction of a normal nature it will proceed to satisfy itself in more or less abnormal ways, the least abnormal of which will be, according to the subject's repressions, gross sexual dreams or symbolical anxiety dreams. Further analysis should endeavour to transform such anxiety dreams into obvious dreams so as to avoid the organic waste corresponding to anxiety.
No "ethical" solution, however, can be offered by any honest analyst for the subject who, owing to certain complications of modern life, cannot secure normal sexual gratification.
Religious meditation may satisfy the mystical cravings which are often associated with sexual desire, but it does not satisfy that desire except in abnormal ways, ,as in the case of Zinzendorf, who imagined himself a woman in the arms of the Heavenly Bridegroom.
Charitable or social work of the philanthropic type will use up the masochistic love components which cause the subject to expend care or tenderness upon others.
Artistic endeavour would gratify egotistical cravings, and so would public speaking, acting, and other activities more or less exhibitionistic in their character.
Joining clubs, societies, etc. is the best way to satisfy the desire for companionship; organizing new groups and assuming their leadership would relieve the feeling of inferiority which drives one to secure some form of domination.
A thousand other suggestions for craving-gratification of a positive, socially useful and beneficial type can be suggested by the analyst to his subject and should be suggested, but I repeat, none of them will reduce the power of the sexual craving itself.
The sexual craving, however, after being freed of all parasitical cravings, will appear infinitely less insistent.
specifically...
"Every one of Emma Bovary's cravings could have been satisfied separately in non-sexual ways if she had not relied upon an idéal lover to bring to her all the elements of happiness, if she had entered the road of positive personal achievement."
What are my elements of happiness?
resourceful ways of creating new things
learn about electricity, electronics, building, gardening, health, food, fitness
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