The Fuzzy Matrix of `My Type' in Intrapsychic Sexual Scripting

Abstract

More than 20 years ago, Plummer noted that: ...there are few studies that have enquired into the content of sexual meanings; and knowledge of their forms, nature and range is virtually non-existent. Similarly, little is known about the sources used for building up sexual meanings, and only fractionally more about the learning processes involved in the transmission of them. (Plummer, 1975: 30) And to a large extent this is still true. An individual's personal sexual culture can tell us at least as much about the who, what, when, how and where he or she will engage in sexual behaviour as would the results of psychological measures (like `locus of control', `self esteem', etc.) that we might have administered.¹ In this article, we describe in detail what is meant by intrapsychic scripting in sexual scripting theory and examine some of the most general aspects of the problematics of intrapsychic scripting of sexual desire, particularly as they find expression in specific interpersonal and masturbatory behaviours. That is, the exhibition of several major domains of meaning as they are contained in the subject's reports of their sexuality can illustrate this conceptualization of sexuality at the level of the intrapsychic script. The illustrations in this article are drawn from the tape-recorded interviews with four men who participated in a study of the sexual thoughts and behaviours of a larger number of gay-identified men living in the Houston area.