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Sensual enjoyment may rise into sexual excitement, which may then peak orgasmically in a state of transient structural disorganization, during which constituents of the self are loosened out of their cohesive integration.
Healthy and strong selfs emerge from the transient orgasmic regression with a newly rearranged configuration of constituents that lend the self an enhanced cohesiveness.
Vulnerable selfs may defend against feared orgasmic regression by sexual inhibitions and obsessive-compulsive configurations that control the disorganization.
Defectively structured selfs that are unable to control the orgasmic regression by inhibition fill the structural defect with sexualized replicas of the needed selfobject configuration, which results in lustful selfobject experiences in fantasy and behavior.
All of the phenomena of sexuality—whether normally orgasmic, inhibited, or lustfully acting out—are in the service of expressing or defending the structural integrity and cohesion of the self and its constituents. Thus they are protective of the individual self.
The phenomena of sexuality in their orgasmic, inhibited, or lustful forms are suggestive of a parallel to the forms of normal assertion-aggression, inhibited assertion-aggression, and narcissistic rage.