I feel like there is a lot of bias about sx 4s and sx first in general. I've been having trouble relating to those and I used to type as so first for that reason, but when I look at the core of sx fixation it seems to be more true than the so one.
I wonder how other sexual 4s feel about the description of this type. How much do you relate? How much do you agree/disagree with it? The same question for other sx types.
I have said this elsewhere too, but I will say it again, I am this variant and I do NOT relate to the description (of sx 4). There are a few things here and there in some description, that at least try to steer a bit further than where Naranjo aimed originally, and there are some things I can connect with. I also get super irritated with "but anyone can do this and that" as at least in my case there's no effort being made to actually understand me, but instead being undermined and things being projected onto me to try to disprove me.
Anyways, for me personally, I can mention how sx+4 has manifested in my life. There is an *extreme* neurosis around attraction, and that translates into wanting to be "loved" as I have always phrased it. And not being loved by anyone, but by a romantic other. I quite literally do not care about others kinds of love, and that speaks to the neurosis of the primary instinct. I have tended to put all my energy and focus into someone I was attracted to, become obsessed relatively quickly, and it was worse in my adolescence. By obsessed I mean I would...for instance, be anxious about my texts being seen and/or responded to - all day, several days long - and I have barely started talking to this person. In my mind I was already "addicted" and it would cause painful anxious feelings of "he will realize I am actually gross/ugly/repulsive at my core" that no one could possibly be in love with me. And it's not about "love" since that sounds like a bit of a soft thing here, but being
in love, having that kind of magnetic power over someone, they meaning as much to you as you do to them.
I did not believe that was ever possible because at my core I was hideously unattractive. That is how I felt, and it causes serious psychological harm, that kind of self-belief. From feeling pain to even terror - if he didn't seem that interested in responding to me, or talking to me in general, or if I even detected (and it is very easy to detect attraction) that he was attracted to someone else. I do not use the word "terror" lightly either; yes I would become enamored with someone, idealize the hell out of them, pouring all my hope into this one person, that finally "I will be loved," and at the same time this deadly anxiety at my core, that I was well, too repulsive at my core for anyone to ever fall in love with me.
This would lead to wanting to contact this person even further, I am forgetting the details at this point to be honest, but this would cause me to be more self-revealing, making that pain of rejection even harder to bear, because here I am making myself naked and the other person is not into me. It was terrifying. I could have been drawn to situations that reinforced my self-belief though, that there's something inherently wrong with me. I would not say I was drawn to "bad people" as indeed most of them were kind and good people, but the commonality they shared was that they were not that into me. For decade on and off this would happen, and I just assumed there was something horrendously repulsive at my core for me to be so "hideously unattractive."
Suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, self-harm, including carving "UGLY" onto my thigh, addiction to smoking cigarettes, losing touch with reality via dissociation (I did not ever become psychotic though), feeling like I could be losing my mind, constant terror, pain and terror. For years and years on end - a decade now. But the very fact that I am able to talk about this means that its getting better.
I would somehow manage to so intense that it would put them off, and they became even less likely to want to be intimate with me. Not that it mattered since I was fixated several times on guys that did not see me the way I saw them. Eventually they would give up, distance themselves.
In relationships with some of these friends (as indeed that's all they were) where I had gotten very close, I could get reactive, pointedly expressing that I feel like they see me (the way I actually see myself, as gross and repulsive - I did not use those words though, but basically projected my own self-loathing onto them), they would try to reassure me that there's nothing wrong with me, but none of it stuck, because in that moment it was clear to me that if they were not attracted to my vulnerable and naked self their words were meaningless and "not authentic" or true (not that they weren't being authentic, more so I saw it as something cliché to try to make me feel better, but I "saw through the bullshit"). Hurt some of them unintentionally because I would spiral, afraid and scared. One of the absolute worst fears of <anytime sx instinct comes into play> is to make yourself naked (metaphorically) to someone who just doesn't find you attractive. Of course, I would go a little beyond that as I was "hideous" instead of the more neutral stance of "these specific people did not find me attractive." But if that gets repeated over an over again, for years and years, it can really traumatize, specially if sx is your primary instinct. Every single moment of something like that was terror-inducing for me, crying, dissociation, pain where I felt like I was pinned to my bed and kind of like my limbs were being stretched out in this awfully painful way, general fear and anxiety around this stuff, etc. And then that adds up and eventually the psyche can only take so much, you know.
EDIT: I did NOT try to harm them intentionally and I quite literally do not understand what professional competition has to do with sx 4. It sounds so...random, and I don't relate to it as I don't really care. I do not see myself as a competitive person, and though I would *lash out* (again I am forgetting the details about exactly what I would say) when I felt rejected, it was not from a place of entitlement, or feeling superior or something, I was legitimately terrified that I am sexually (both metaphorically and literally) and romantically repulsive. That I did not have any power to attract who I wanted, but instead scared them away, or worse, had an opposite effect to "magnetically luring them in." That I repelled them. I could not fully piece together these thoughts because they were seriously jarring for me, hence why in the past I resorted to suicidal ideation because they were soothing to me in those moments.
I don't think I believe this about myself anymore though.
Anyways - I am also not more 8 than 8, even at my most vulnerable, even though I "lash out" due to terror (edit: I may - untentionally - hurt someone due to my pointed and intense emotions evolving from this core fear that I was repulsive, instead of through intense anger). I am still relatively soft, probably the strong secondary E9 coming into play there. I have never tried to compete with people, and though I experience really intense jealousy wrt attractions, I do not feel that kind of jealousy outside of the realm. And even then, I may lash out about how I feel like they do not care about me, and how I am repulsive at my core, I do not even attempt to "compete," (I acquiesce to these feelings of inner ugliness instead, and indulge the Soc side of my sx/so in "lamenting" about these painful and raw experiences; also in order to gather some support) as in my mind I have already lost to begin with (nor do I care about competition). And yes, I am Se PoLR. That plays a HUGE role. Not all subtypes look the same, there can be quite a variation.