Who Am I? And What Makes Me Hot and Bothered? Notes on Identity, Sexuality, Enigma, and Desire

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article explores the links among identity, sexuality, enigma, and desire in my work with 22-year-old Andrew as he explores his homosexuality. Sexuality is discussed as a developmental and relational construction simultaneously biological and social, inventive and defensive. Elaborating these vertices of sexuality in the treatment opened space to discuss Andrew’s sexual experience and fantasy. In this vein, the article questions the tendency to put aside frank discussion of sex in analytic practice and proposes case vignettes useful for clinically elaborating intimate fantasies rooted in the shared narration of patient and analyst as between psychoanalyst/writer and reader. In doing so, we turn from concrete definitions and explanations of sexuality that risk getting bogged down in details and use narrative to facilitate the uncanny experience of “finding” sexuality in clinical work.