narcissists and women
Question: Do Narcissists Hate Women?
Answer: Narcissists hate and fear being emotionally intimate and view sex as a maintenance chore, something they have to do to maintain their secondary supply source.
Also, many narcissists tend to engage in FRUSTRATIVE behavior towards women. They will refrain from having sex with them, tease them then dump them, resist flirtatious and seductive behaviors, etc. Often, they will invoke the existence of a girlfriend/fiancée/spouse (or boyfriend/etc. – male and female are interchangeable in my texts) as the “reason” they can’t have sex/develop a relationship. But this is not out of loyalty and fidelity in the empathetic and loving sense. This is because they want to (and often succeed in) sadistically frustrating the interested party.
AIM
This belongs ONLY to cerebral narcissists. NO to somatic narcissists and HPD (histrionic personality disorder) who use their BODY, sex, and seduction/flirting to draw their narcissistic supply from others.
Narcissists are misogynists. They join women as maternal sources of SNS (secondary narcissistic supply). The woman’s tasks are to accumulate past NS and release it in an orderly manner, to regulate the fluctuating flow of primary supply. Otherwise, cerebral narcissists are not interested in women. Most of them (myself included) are asexual (they engage in sexual acts very rarely, if ever). They despise women and abhor the idea of being truly intimate with them. They usually choose submissive women, well below their level, to perform these functions. This leads to a vicious cycle of neediness, self-hatred (why do I need this inferior woman?), and woman-directed contempt. Hence the abuse. When the primary NS is available, the woman is hardly tolerated, as one would grudgingly pay the premium for an insurance policy in good times.
The narcissist views the “subjugation” of an attractive woman as a source of narcissistic supply.
It is a status symbol, proof of virility and masculinity and allows you to engage in “vicarious” narcissistic behaviors (= being narcissistic through others, transforming others into tools at the service of your narcissism, in its extensions). This is done by employing defense mechanisms such as projective identification. Many of my FAQs and essay are devoted to these topics (see: “Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited”).
To reiterate, the primary narcissistic supply (NS) is ANY type of NS provided by others who are not “significant” or “significant” others. Flattery, attention, affirmation, fame, notoriety, sexual conquests are all forms of NS.
Secondary NS is provided by people who are in CONSTANT, repetitive, or continuous contact with the narcissist. It includes the important roles of narcissistic hoarding and narcissistic regulation, among others. (See the essay in “Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited” for more information.)
The narcissist believes that being in love IS going through the motions and faking it to some degree. For him, emotions are mimicry and simulation.
He says, “I’m a conscious misogynist. I fear and loathe women and tend to ignore them as best I can. To me, they’re a mix of hunter and parasite.”
Most male narcissists are misogynists. After all, they are the warped creation of a woman. A woman gave birth to them and molded them into what they are: dysfunctional, maladjusted, emotionally dead. They are angry at this woman and, by implication, angry at all women.
The narcissist’s attitude towards women is naturally complex and multi-layered, but it can be summed up quite broadly using four axes:
1. The Holy Harlot
2. The hunting parasite
3. The frustrating object of desire
4. Singularity roles
The narcissist divides all women into saints on the one hand and prostitutes on the other. It is difficult for him to have sexual relations (“dirty”, “forbidden”, “punishable”, “degrading”) with other significant female persons (spouse, intimate girlfriend). For him, sex and intimacy are opposing propositions rather than mutually expressive. Sex is reserved for “whores” (every other woman in the world). This split provides a resolution to her constant cognitive dissonance (“I want her but…”, “I don’t need anyone but…”). He also legitimizes his sadistic impulses (abstaining from sex is a major and recurring narcissistic “penalty” inflicted on female “offenders”). He also fits well with the frequent idealization-devaluation cycles the narcissist goes through. Idealized females are sexless, devalued ones – “worthy” of their degradation (sex) and the scorn that inevitably follows.
The narcissist strongly believes that women seek to “hunt” men and that this is almost a genetic predisposition embedded in their chromosomes. As a result, he feels threatened (as any prey would). This, of course, is an intellectualization of the actual, quite opposite state of affairs: the narcissist feels threatened by women and tries to justify this irrational fear by imbuing women with “objective” qualities that make them, in fact, sinister. This is one small detail on a larger canvas of “pathologizing” others as a means of controlling them. Once the prey is secured, the woman assumes the role of “body snatcher”. She absconds with the narcissist’s sperm, spawns an endless stream of demanding and dripping children, financially bleeds the men in her life to meet her needs and those of her dependents. In other words, she is a parasite, a leech, whose only function is to suck up all the men she meets and decapitate them like a tarantula once they are no longer useful. This, of course, is exactly what the narcissist does to people. Thus, his vision of the woman is a projection.
Heterosexual narcissists desire women just like any other red-blooded man (even more so because of the special symbolic nature of women in the narcissist’s life: humiliating a woman in mildly sadomasochistic sexual acts is a form of revenge on the mother). But he is frustrated by his inability to meaningfully interact with them, by his apparent emotional depth and penetrating psychological powers (real or imputed), and by his sexuality. His incessant demands for privacy are perceived by him as a threat. He backs away instead of coming closer. The narcissist also despises and ridicules sex, as we said before. Thus, trapped in a seemingly intractable repetition complex, approach-avoidance cycle, the narcissist rages at the source of his frustration. Some of them set out to do something frustrating on their own. They joke (passively or actively), or pretend to be asexual and, in any case, they reject, with a certain cruelty, any attempt to court and approach by a woman.
Sadistically, they take tremendous pleasure in their ability to thwart women’s sexual desires, passions, and longings. It endows them with a feeling of omnipotence and the pleasant realization of malevolence. Narcissists regularly engage in sexually thwarting all women, and thwarting significant women in their lives, both sexually and emotionally. Somatic narcissists simply use women as objects: use and discard. The emotional background is identical. While the cerebral narcissist punishes by abstention, the somatic narcissist punishes by excess.
The narcissist’s mother continued to behave as if the narcissist was and was not special (to her). The narcissist’s entire life is a pathetic, pitiful effort to prove her wrong. The narcissist constantly seeks confirmation from others in his life that he IS special, in other words, that he IS. Women threaten this. Sex is “bestial” and “common.” There is nothing “special or unique” about sex. The narcissist perceives that women drag him down to his level, the lowest common denominator level of intimacy, sex, and human emotions. Everyone and anyone can feel, fuck and reproduce. There is nothing that distinguishes the narcissist above others in these activities. And yet, women seem to be interested ONLY in these activities. Thus, the narcissist emotionally believes that women are the continuation of his mother by other means and in different forms.
The narcissist hates women with virulence, passion and intransigence. His hatred is primitive, irrational, the progeny of deadly fear and sustained abuse. Of course, most narcissists learn to suppress, disguise, and even repress these unpleasant feelings. But his hatred gets out of control and breaks out from time to time. It is a terrifying and paralyzing sight. He is the real narcissist.