In my last article on INFJ Woman in Love, I alluded to a solution to her Fi id as following the Fe path of her implied Venus in Cancer. This implies polyamory among other things. In this article I will talk a bit about the dilemma of this path for INFJ women in a culture that largely frowns upon woman following any path but the Fi exclusivity path of love.
For women it is less culturally acceptable for them to be polyamorous. With men, more acceptable.
The dilemma is that of Fe vs. Fi. Fe is spreading the love widely. Fe is the very perfect thing that will make INFJs come alive and happy.
So, there will be cultural barriers in the form of what the book Sex at Dawn
Also, INFJs are in a pickle because they need Fi depth in relationship to be interested at all, but, perhaps they can have many soulmate type relationships. Why can’t you care about more than one person deeply, sexually, and romantically?
No, the primary problem is rather in the way culture is setup to penalize polyamory. Like if a woman gets pregnant. Because in the agricultural shift that Sex at Dawn talks about, woman belongs to a man. She is property in agricultural society.
Many women are unhappy because of this dynamic of being so owned. At the end of the day, they essentially do what men want.
There is all this programmed guilt about a woman sharing herself with more than one man. It goes very deep.
So, women would essentially have to get liberated. They would have to stop having this unconscious expectation that some man can save them. I think this is where society is going anyway.
Men are less chivalrous and tough then they used to be. INFJ women have to take the reins of their destiny and create what they want. Enough of this woman bullshit of submission to men. I know a lot of women will want this still. But, INFJ woman seem to be in some critical boat between these two worlds. They are smart, thinkers, seekers, introspective and got all this good stuff going on but, then, they ruin it all by waiting for the man. Now, this is compounded because most men cannot satisfy her deeply anyway. This is just an INFJ temperament thing. But, also, in today’s society the age old rhetoric is falling away about man-woman relationships. Men are not up to snuff and women of all types are finding that they can’t find a man. So, it’s partly the times too. We live in a time when women are becoming stronger and more independent and men are becoming more feminine – meterosexuals.
An INFJ woman really wants a man that is going to dive into her rich depths and take a great interest in her inner life. And she the same in him (if he is rich enough). The problem is that more men are becoming more interested in themselves while at the same time becoming less interesting. Men are simultaneously becoming more shallow and self-interested.
I don’t know what this is going to lead to but that is part of the problem – cultural and the times we live in.
And so because of this deep and ingrained Fi in INFJ woman’s id, she is on automatic pilot looking for that deep soulmate connection. If she could loosen up a little bit and drop this heavy and hard-to-drop dynamic a little bit she might see that there are other options that she probably hasn’t given serious consideration to.
What if there isn’t one soulmate that you will spend the rest of your life with in perfect communion? Just, what if? For argument’s sake.
I know that it kind of hurts to give up this dream that many of these women have. Even for a second. It’s so sacred and unquestionable. They were counting on it.
Well, one thing that it would do is force them in upon themselves and force them to consider their options in the lack of such a prospect.
And so what would they have to do? They would have to create anew.
Of what use is it to be a muse if no guy is going to pay attention to you? Or if they do, it is likely to be less than satisfying.
I mean, if they’re were great artists walking the earth and we lived in that kind of time, then, yes, I could see INFJ woman employed profitably in that sort of role. But, that ain’t the case. Most men are far from being great musers in this day and age, if any.
What if she became an artist herself? This is less likely than for a male INFJ because women are fucking waiting around for Mr. Perfect to inscribe himself on her.
Why? Because of the biological mandates to bear offspring and the current cultural-societal setup of doing it with one man and settling down with him and him being the provider and she being the caretaker of the children.
Read Sex at Dawn
If women didn’t give birth to children, of course, none of this would be an issue. Women would just have fun fucking whoever they want and men would too and we would live in a Fucktopia.
But, then again, sex probably wouldn’t feel so good if it weren’t used as an enticement to recreate the species.
So, this brings up larger issues then just INFJ women. But, it is an important underpinning of the whole process of understanding why things are the way they came to be in sexual/romantic relationships.
I mean, yeah, there is this whole soulmate thing, but you have to understand that is a relatively late development in human culture. A very Christian thing if you ask me. And Christianity is a rather late development in human culture. Only two thousand years old or thereabouts.
The troubadour and his untouchable lady. Courtly love. Late European development derived from Christian division of body and spirit.
Anyway, so there is the cultural thing, which has been on course now for many, many years.
But, there is also the INFJ woman’s predisposition to this swing from Fe to Fi in human culture. The agricultural shift and Christianity both brought Fi into ascendancy over Fe. And Fi is a doozy in the psyche of the INFJ as I said in my earlier article. It is regressive, atavistic, undermining etc. It serves a purpose to be sure, but, it is not the path to higher happiness for INFJ.
And it is exactly this Fi Pisces 12th house type id that I was alluding to in my earlier article that has everything to do with sacrifice of oneself in romantic/sexual type relationships. It’s the whole Christian thing of being chaste, true, and pure. Of honoring the beloved. Of soulmatedom. To love and to cherish. In sickness and health. Forever. To sacrifice for the good of all. It looks good on paper perhaps. And women are expected to be good little girls and to please shut the fuck up about your unsatisfied needs.
Women are not supposed to dream. They are supposed to stay locked up in box and tend to the house and the children. To honor the man. To raise his children. To make it all about him.
But, women grow awfully resentful of this.
Anyway, what I’m saying is that this is all fading to a large extent. So, it is rather in the nature of hangover from a long cultural paradigm that is changing.
To talk about INFJ women brings up the role of women in culture in general. What is their new role going to be? What will it lead to? How will it change man-women relationships? Are women going to become more like men and men become more like women? What does that look like?
One thing that I think all this means is that women are going to be more sexually free. There is going to be less of this waiting around for men to come and impregnate them and more of women taking the active role in society. Women can work in today’s world because many jobs in a developed economy do not rely on sheer physical strength that men possess. Society is changing as we speak.
So, what implications does this have for INFJ women with her strong and automatic Fi id coupled with her Fe solar path to liberation. Well, like I said, I think INFJ woman is in a critical boat. She sort of straddles the gap between Fi and Fe paths. Fi is the path of the Moon for her. And Fe is the path of the Sun. It is common that women follow the path of the Moon from a biological and cultural viewpoint.
The Moon is innately feminine and negative in relation to the Sun. It represents needs vs. the wants of the Sun. INFJ women need to satisfy that deep itch they have, that deep need for emotional connection and having her depths plumbed.
But, who is the man who will plumb her depths?
Well, she is.
Ain’t that a bitch.
See you next time lovers and leavers.
Also, I accept donations for the denotation of her desires. The donation button is to the top-right of this article or below it if you are on a smart phone. If on the latter, scroll down a bit and you will hit it. Thanks.
Further, I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
🙂
So many things came to mind.
I haven’t read Sex at Dawn, but why would ensuring paternity be more important in an agricultural society than in a nomadic one? Passing on the genes is the top priority no matter what. Even if it seems like survival should take precedence over reproduction, the gene set which gives priority to reproduction will necessarily crowd out the one that doesn’t.
Aside from that, I find this article disheartening (of course). It seems like you are advocating giving up on the higher purpose of the male/female dynamic, which I believe to be spiritually important. It’s possible I am wrong about that, I guess, but it is hard to believe, and I really hope not.
“I haven’t read Sex at Dawn, but why would ensuring paternity be more important in an agricultural society than in a nomadic one?”
Because in a nomadic tribe there isn’t the concept of individual ownership. Everyone takes care of all the babies in the tribe. Plus, 10,000 years ago and beyond (before humans made agricultural shift), humans did not know that babies were made from one man’s sperm penetrating a women’s egg. For all they knew, all of the men that had sex with any given women in one of these wandering tribes all contributed to the developing fetus in some way. Once we made the shift to agriculture came the concept of ownership of a particular part of land that was to be cultivated and made fruitful in some way. With this came the idea of exclusivity. What the authors are saying in Sex at Dawn is this exclusivity is a relatively late idea in human development and before that all the resources of the tribe were shared equally with every other member. Sex is one those resources.
Anyway, ensuring paternity is important in an agricultural culture because now there is the concept of ownership and things belonging to one person. In a nomadic tribe all the members depend on each other for survival and so there is no concept of individual ownership or hoarding resources. Babies included. At least according to the authors of this book, who are challenging the “standard narrative” of evolutionary psychology, which says that humans have always been innately warlike, competitive, and that pair-bonding (monogamy) is the natural state of human affairs. The authors have found evidence which indicates that early humans were much more cooperative and given to sharing with each other than this “standard narrative” suggests. So from this basis, they are basically making the thesis that humans are not naturally monogamous creatures and that is why there is so much dissatisfaction with both sexes in the modern institution of marriage and monogamous relationships in general. Humans used to share sex, food, and the raising of children among all members of the tribe, hence, the concept of paternity rights or who is the father of this baby didn’t exist at all.
Read the book. It is very interesting.
I will read it, but so far I’m not buying it. Even animals and bugs know they want to get their sperm to be the ones reproducing. It is the most basic life dynamic. We don’t have to understand biology to have biological urges. I am not saying prehistoric men understood genealogy, and I’m not saying they didn’t, but regardless their genes understood it and would express it. Males who don’t care would die out and aggressive types would procreate (sorry). This is biology not choice. I think the authors want to justify their own aversion to monogamy and child rearing with over active Ti. Maybe they are INFJs 😉
All of what you are saying is pretty much the “standard narrative” of evolutionary psychologists and it is not really contradicting anything I am saying here. I’m not arguing that humans don’t have a biological drive to reproduce. What I’m arguing (and the authors of Sex at Dawn) is that this drive is not inherently exclusive to one other human being in nature, ie, the supposed natural pair-bonding instinct of humans, to mate for life with one partner.
And as far as the paternal male instinct especially, it is widely accepted that it is not exclusive in nature. Males of many species want to spread their seed far and wide. Neither I nor the authors are arguing anything different. The biological drive for a male is to have as much sex as possible in order to have the opportunity to have the most surviving offspring into the next generation. But, when it comes to his actual paternity of any given child, that is less important to him. It is in modern society because it has to be because of the extension of the concept of individual ownership. That’s the case the authors are making and it is a highly plausible thesis.
It more has to do with the raising and the long-term responsibility of a human male towards any one child that is more anti-natural in the scope of human history. At least according to the what the authors of this book suggest. Men care most about the quantity of mating opportunities and not the offspring of any given one of them.
And you should buy the book because you are making assumptions about it that aren’t necessarily true. All the stuff I’m saying is based on reading the book. Yes, perhaps one or both of the authors are an INFJ, but, the assumption that they are using Ti to rationalize a personal desire isn’t necessarily true, and even it were, it would indicate something about the natural desires of INFJs that should be paid attention to.
Blake, I’m curious. Do you ever see yourself venturing out of the world of heteronormativity / man-woman relationships in your writings?
I could see it as a natural extension of my venturing into romantic/sexual relationships as related to type. Of course, I am starting more from a perspective that I innately have more understanding of (heterosexual relationships). I don’t pretend to understand homosexual relationships as much. Nor are they the norm, but, rather a deviation from normal sexual behavior. So, I think in order to understand homosexual relating, one has to have a basis in in normative sexual/romantic behavior, which is man-woman in nature.
This is not to place any judgment on homosexual relationships and sexuality. I simply do not know as much about it, which is not to say I know nothing about it, because I have had some personal experience with them, as well as being somewhat involved in the gay community at some portion of my life. I try to speak as much from personal experience as I can. Also, I seek to cast the widest net and that of course means talking about male-female dynamics, which are much more in the majority as a personal, and by extension, sociocultural dynamic.
This is really interesting, and some of it resonates with me. The parts I don’t relate to are:
POLYAMORY
Polyamory is literally my nightmare. Zero judgment from me, have at it poly people! But… Holy shit. All I can imagine is a plethora of weak men with easily-hurt feels who need babysitting and ego-coddling but are not worth my time. Night.Mare.
I don’t really feel like I would be happier if I had multiple sexual partners. I feel like I would be happier if I got to live in a remote temple and play art oracle, and occasionally a powerful warrior-king would come visit me and we would be very intensely together for three or four days and then he would go back down the mountain, armed with my insights and poetry, and then I wouldn’t see him again for a while. Possibly HE would be polyamorous while not on the mountain – I don’t think I would find that very threatening.
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
I have a hard time taking evolutionary psychology seriously. This may be because of how many weak modern men use their surface understanding of a dubious faux-science to justify why it is “natural” that they want to fuck 16-year-olds or whatever. (Never do you hear a fedora-wearing man talk about how, in the ancestral environment, he probably would not have been allowed access to women by the alpha males, which seems at least as likely.)
I haven’t read Sex At Dawn – I read some reviews when it came out, and it hit all my eyerolling points at once – do you recommend in spite of my grumbling? I’m intellectually open to whatever, but I easily and frequently think that people are full of shit and attempting to justify what they want with “science”.
Some of what you talk about here reminds me of some things Daniel Bergner talks about in What Do Women Want: http://www.amazon.com/What-Do-Women-Want-Adventures/dp/0061906093
(Please feel free to edit this comment to make that an affiliate link.)
It basically posits that women are sexually voracious creatures whose sexuality is so terrifying to patriarchal cultures that we have collectively, very effectively, “conspired” to create these sexual teachings that tell women “You don’t really feel lust that much”. I found it very thought-provoking.
I wonder if our culture is evolving toward a sort of Icelandic model, where many women are serial monogamists, like maybe you have a partner you have a couple of kids with, then you split up, then you have a mid-life partner, and so on, and that isn’t thought of as a failure, but the default mode. It’s hard for me to imagine a majority of women living and parenting within polyamorous models, but that could just be because I don’t like anyone and am not willing to sit around and process anyone’s feelings but my own.
Anyway, even when I don’t totally relate for myself to what you’re saying, this is interesting! Just today I was feeling very weirded out by some dudes on the internet performing that thing men sometimes do where they bitch about how they are/feel sexually neutered and oppressed within their marriage, which increasingly makes me want to yell things like “THE REASON YOUR WIFE ISN’T HAVING SEX WITH YOU IS THAT SHE IS FULL OF RAGE AND HER SEXUAL SELF HAS BEEN DESTROYED BY YOUR MARRIAGE”… I would say (I think you are kind of touching on this here) that long-term relationships tends to kill female sexuality much more than it does male sexuality (see research on how gay male couples have the most sex, then straight couples, then gay female couples) – Bergner talks about it in terms of female sexuality hinging on “being desired”, which I’m not sure I think is 100% accurate. I do think there is something specific to the dynamics that happen in long relationships that pushes women away from the sexual mindset to one of metaphorical or literal mothering mindsets, and for whatever reason, “mothering” tends to be very desexualizing. I don’t want to have sex with a man I take care of. Those things seem to me to operate on separate circuits: the feeling of “caring” is the anti-matter to the feeling of “lusting”.
Thanks for this, I think cultural marxism plays a huge role in the upset of values as a means of separating people; strong nuclear families being kryptonite to a supreme socialist state.
“Polyamory is literally my nightmare. Zero judgment from me, have at it poly people! But… Holy shit. All I can imagine is a plethora of weak men with easily-hurt feels who need babysitting and ego-coddling but are not worth my time. Night.Mare.”
Yes, that may be true in the vast and current practice of polyamory, but I am not necessarily referring to the current culture and practice of polyamory and maybe I should not even use the term “polyamory” because it seems to have taken on specific connotations that I am not alluding to. As the authors of Sex at Dawn suggest, humans have for the greater and earliest parts of human history been naturally polyamorous. In today’s world, polyamory is naturally looked at as a deviation from normal male-female sexual relating behavior. As such, it may attract the “weakest” men towards its practice because all the “stronger” men may be hacking it out in their pair-bonded and exclusive relationships. That does show a certain commitment, integrity, and resolve. But, that doesn’t negate the fundamental urges of men and women towards wanting to experience multiple sexual partners, especially men of course. If polyamory were more widely acceptable, I doubt there would just be “weak” men that were participants in the community. Many men “cheat” on their wives in a relatively discreet and secret manner such that no one finds out about it, or least that is the intention. I suspect in many cases the reason for this is because it is not respectable to do this openly. Any involvement of these men in the polyamory community could damage their reputations and standing in the community at large.
“I don’t really feel like I would be happier if I had multiple sexual partners. I feel like I would be happier if I got to live in a remote temple and play art oracle, and occasionally a powerful warrior-king would come visit me and we would be very intensely together for three or four days and then he would go back down the mountain, armed with my insights and poetry, and then I wouldn’t see him again for a while. Possibly HE would be polyamorous while not on the mountain – I don’t think I would find that very threatening.”
Yeah, that sounds very INFJ to me. The art oracle to the warrior-king. Yep. Ask yourself this question. Why shouldn’t he be polyamorous while you are up on your mountain? Isn’t he a warrior-king? Isn’t he going to be fucking and conquesting? Or did you expect your powerful insights and poetry to induce him to change his less-than-high nature (at least not as high as your super high nature)? Do you savor the thought of being above everyone else in your high-spiritual remove from the sordid nature of what goes on down there? Well, it does sound a bit condescending to me. Holier-than-thou. I am untouchable, unimpeachable INFJ woman. I am higher than you.
“I have a hard time taking evolutionary psychology seriously. This may be because of how many weak modern men use their surface understanding of a dubious faux-science to justify why it is “natural” that they want to fuck 16-year-olds or whatever.”
Well, the authors of Sex at Dawn are actually challenging the “standard narrative” of evolutionary psychology.
“I haven’t read Sex At Dawn – I read some reviews when it came out, and it hit all my eyerolling points at once – do you recommend in spite of my grumbling? I’m intellectually open to whatever, but I easily and frequently think that people are full of shit and attempting to justify what they want with “science”. ”
Yes, I do recommend Sex at Dawn. I don’t know what you are referring to when you say the reviews hit all your eyerolling points at once, so I can’t really respond to that. It sounds in the nature of something personal and subjective that you haven’t explicated. The book has extremely good reviews from many people.
Yes, I agree that many people attempt to justify their innate desires with science. They rationalize what they are doing. But, what I say is more important is not that people rationalize their desires, but, just that the desires do exist in the first place. What are we going to do about that, forgetting how they are typically justified.
From my point-of-view, it is pretty obvious that the relatively modern institution of marriage is a disaster. Many people, both men and women, are not happy in them. Statistically, this is obvious. The authors of Sex at Dawn are proposing a reason why this may be so. The basic premise they arrived at is that based on looking at how human society was structured pre-agricultural shift, humans were innately polyamorous in practice. There was no concept of paternity, of land belonging to anyone, or of resources of any sort belonging to any one individual. All the members of the tribe shared, and it was not even encouraged, but, necessary to cooperate with each other. This is a pretty radical challenge to the current paradigm of evolutionary psychology, which maintains that humans have always been naturally warlike, competitive, and given to exclusive pair-bonding man-woman relationships. What the authors suggest is that for the vast part of human history humans have been innately peaceful, affiliative, and cooperative with each other. It is only with the agricultural concept of individual ownership of a particular parcel of land that much of the “standard narrative” of the evolutionary psychologists comes into play. But, in terms of human history, this is a rather later development and evolution. The shift to agricultural society was made only ten thousand years ago. That is a short time in human evolution. So, the authors are using this context to explain why many modern marriages are failing and why humans are basically unhappy in pair-bonded and exclusive relationships. The reason for this is because we have had many more years, and the formative ones at that, freely sharing sexual resources and child-rearing duties among other things like the more commonly accepted food resources. There was no father of any child. All the men in the tribe were fathers to all the children. Of course, because society is not set up like that anymore, it becomes highly problematic to condone polyamorous behavior. It leads to men fucking as many women as they like and the women getting stuck with the baby. But, in preagricultural tribal society such that the authors suggest, this wouldn’t have occurred. All the members of the tribe shared the food from the hunt, no matter who made the kill. They shared child-rearing duties. There was no hoarding of resources such that we are so used to in a very advanced agricultural society such as America, for example. It was in humans best interests to cooperate with each other. And if they didn’t, they were heavily penalized. It injured the tribe, the society. Sex was one of these resources that was not hoarded or made exclusive to any one member of the tribe. No man owned any woman.
Of course, this brings up the problem that we do now live in this agricultural society, so what is the answer to these fundamental urges of man and woman. Certainly repressing them and pretending they don’t exist hasn’t worked very well.
I am also alluding to the INFJ woman as a type that kind of straddles the gap between the exclusive pair-bonded relationship (her Fi id) and the more polyamorous, cooperative, sharing and affiliative mode of her Fe auxiliary, that latter of which I am positing will make her happier and more on her rightful path.
However, the challenge is the current societal paradigm that we live in that tends to penalize polyamorous behavior because the possible repercussions of it (a child out of wedlock) are damaging to the agricultural model of society.
The other challenge comes strictly from her own temperament, ie, the Fi pull into the past of her type. Fi tends to be in the nature of an atavism for the INFJ type. It pulls them back into a lesser state of integration. Yet, it is strong, automatic, and at times overpowering. It is hard to challenge the automatic and somewhat involuntary nature of id functions. They are so deeply ingrained that to challenge them is like challenging the automatic and involuntary function of your heart beating and your lungs breathing. It strongly threatens one’s survival, in this case, psychologically, rather than physically. But, of course, the psychological and the physical cannot be sharply separated.
“Ask yourself this question. Why shouldn’t he be polyamorous while you are up on your mountain? Isn’t he a warrior-king? Isn’t he going to be fucking and conquesting? Or did you expect your powerful insights and poetry to induce him to change his less-than-high nature (at least not as high as your super high nature)? Do you savor the thought of being above everyone else in your high-spiritual remove from the sordid nature of what goes on down there? Well, it does sound a bit condescending to me. Holier-than-thou. I am untouchable, unimpeachable INFJ woman. I am higher than you. ”
I actually meant that I don’t think the unilateral non-monogamy would bother me. But (if this is what you’re saying) I do think that it would only not bother me so long as it was clear to everyone that the oracle took a unique place in the warrior-king’s life- if that is condescending, then I am absolutely condescending! I have thought that in real life it would not really bother me if my male partner started to have sexual relationships with other people (as long as we had agreed on it, secrecy would not be okay), but it would definitely bother me if he had sexual relationships with other people AND found them insightful and intellectually and spiritually complex and interesting. So I suppose in that sense I am not wired to be non-monogamous, because I do think I would feel threatened by my partner feeling that everyone else he was involved with was just as great as I was on a non-sexual level. The sex by itself would be less likely to trouble me.
I read a pretty bad book about the swinger subculture recently (I love books about interesting subcultures, but it had that kind of defensive tone where the author spends 70% of the book arguing that people who are swingers are not the worst) – I wonder if that is sort of… I don’t know how to put it. Like if you had a separate realm where adult humans could interact sexually with people who were not their partners, but it was clear that this was solely about the flirtation and sex parts of the equation, and not about people falling in love? That seemed like an idea that could eventually expand and become more mainstream, because it would both allow for the maintaining of married households as these blocks of social organization, and for extra-marital spaces where people have a specific type of sexual freedom, and not be such a full life commitment as contemporary polyamory, which seems to be hard unless you’re willing to spend all your spare time talking about peoples’ emotions.
I was very struck by someone in the book saying that they felt that that mainstream Western culture would rather that people cheat in secret than openly be non-monogamous. I had never thought of it in those terms, but found that very true and insightful – just look at all of our crazy American political sex scandals (I am assuming here that you are not secretly Canadian, but if you are, surely you guys have your own dreary political sex scandals? They are the human constant.) we’re infinitely more likely to forgive a man for cheating on his wife in a really gross, underhanded way than we would be if he said “My wife and I are swingers, as in to swing.”
I don’t really understand that, myself – I go through phases of really wanting to understand deeply why people cheat on their partners, and sometimes it seems to me that people actually enjoy the cheating part, not just the sex-with-another-person part. Do you have Jungian thoughts on this? I would be very interested in an article about that sort of thing, in case you are (hah) dying for ideas to write about. I have sometimes wondered if with husbands specifically, they feel somehow so emasculated by something in the marriage dynamic I can’t quite identify that the cheating part is actually crucial to their enjoyment, a condoned sexual relationship would not be as satisfying – the secrecy and behind-your-back is itself what restores the power balance by harming the bitchy mom-figure, or something.
I hear what you’re saying about Sex at Dawn and non-monogamy in pre-agricultural cultures, I will check the book out. It would fit with what I think Daniel Bergner is heading toward, the idea that perhaps women are actually less-monogamous than men, and it’s just in our current paradigm that we no longer understand this to be true, which is why (he thinks) many women in monogamous relationships sort of shut down sexually. I suppose that would certainly go along with the idea of an ancestral environment as a more free sexual time. However, being honest, what I find confusing about this stuff in practice is that it seems to me that you then ultimately end up leaving women holding all of the family and domesticity bags. If sexual connections are brief and/or fluid, and men don’t feel a paternity/ownership connection to their children, it seems that you’d wind up with a variant of what you see in low-income communities in the US presently, where a woman might have multiple children by multiple fathers, none of whom remain particularly involved in the child’s life, so that the woman becomes the solo engine driving the economic survival and rearing of the next generation, and also the engine holding community systems together.
As a person who feels at best ambivalent about motherhood, domesticity, community-building, etc, this all sounds pretty terrible to me. One thing I can unequivocally say in favor of monogamous marriage is that it’s good for someone like me to have a very firm commitment from my partner that I don’t have to do the grunt work alone. (I can imagine that for people who don’t mind the grunt work so much, maybe this is different.) But it is hard for me to imagine a sexually-fluid culture where paternity is not an issue but men and women still share equally in the work of housekeeping and parenting. Perhaps if you go full matriarchy like the Mosuo people or something, and cultures are both sexually non-monogamous and matrilinear, holding property and children exclusively within the woman’s family? And men are more like bees who flit in and out to pollinate, but their personal power is based on and within their own mother’s house/extended family? ie, a man’s interest in children is through his sisters, not through his sexual partners? And maybe women rely more on their sisters and female cousins and aunts to work, manage a household, and raise children?
Which is an interesting vision to contemplate, but also, among other things, makes me feel a pang for men. It just seems so different from our current patriarchy that I can’t even imagine how men particularly would adjust and where they would find places for themselves as powerful adults. I think it might be less hard for women, actually, since many women already live variants of this as single mothers.
I also – but I think this makes me stand almost alone- don’t really believe that there are “natural” ways for humans to behave, sexually or otherwise -I also don’t think we’re evolving toward or away from some point of cultural and sexual perfection. I am not saying that you’re wrong or that Sex at Dawn is wrong, but I don’t, for myself, really adhere to the idea that there is a fixed inner state we are aligned with or not depending on the culture. So that is where I’m coming from, that humans are just expressing humanbeingness in fractal patterns, exploring all the nooks and crannies over time.
Do you like reading fiction? You might enjoy the Ursula LeGuin collection The Birthday of the World, much of which is concerned with imagining cultures with radically different gender roles and systems of organization. Your comment here particularly made me think of the story “Solitude”, which takes place in a culture that has survived a cataclysm, and where the men and the women are entirely segregated, and women live alone with their children and occasionally go out into the wilderness and meet a man for sex and that’s basically the whole enchilada. Ooh, and “The Matter of Seggri”, which takes place in a world where a 12:1 female/male gender imbalance has led to a culture where men are trophy gladiators and sex objects and women do all the work and have all the power. It’s (I found) very sad.
WOW!! Well said. I don’t want to get any farther out of the city than the burbs, but your idea of a 4 day meeting is right on. My girlfriends and I always “joke” about this very scenario. We all agreed we could be fairly happily married forever if we had this every once in a while. I agree 100% about the mothering thing, killing, as in deader than dead, sexual desire.
Hi Blake, I really enjoyed reading both this article and “INFJ Woman In Love”. A question and I would love to hear your view on this. If an INFJ woman were to turn up her Fe, she could turn her love to all humanity instead of focusing too much on man and woman relationship? The definition of love itself is quite broad. It could be love between man and woman, love between family, love between friends and etc.
I really appreciate your advice for INFJ to turn up their Fe, I find them liberating. Before that, I used to focus all my attention onto one person whom I have my affection to and I noticed how twisted I have become when I become so obssesed with the idea of wanting to be close to that person. I have become so possessive, jealous, angry and wanting to devour everything in the way. I find that by not focusing so much attention to one person, instead focus my love to people, to humanity, I feel much lighter and happier and it doesn’t have to be all about being in a man-woman relationship.
Are you going to do one for INFJ male also? 🙂
Of course. All this is just foreplay.
Fuck Fuck!!! Was it too much to ask that we start climbing INFJ-Love mountain from the bottom like normal people would instead of from the top, where the conclusion lies?
I am pissed off for having the nerve/audacity/whatever to think this issue is of the cut and dried variety. It’s so simple everyone gets to do it, it’s a freaking developmental stage in psychology. Go find you a nice guy and settle down. It’s simple so freaking simple even my grandmother could do this sh*t right now. But it turns out it’s not…
I don’t live in the here and now. I live in a make-believe-inside-world, where I make up stories and superimpose them onto reality, to make my new reality a tolerable world I can live in. Like the sign Pisces, I love everyone just the same. One person is the same as the next and I don’t just love them as parts of the whole, but as a whole. I freaking fall in love a little bit with everyone I meet. I don’t understand this need to grab one part of the whole, isolate it and then make it compliant. So I get it, this poly love thing.
But aren’t there other options? Like maybe my ex husband, the inferior sensor I can’t stomach? Shit maybe I can aspire to be a better nun than Saint/Mother Teresa. Or I could work on disabusing myself of the notion called Ideal-love, and just get on with the business of making home. Anything please just not the above stated solution. Am not ready to put it out in the open for the whole world to know I couldn’t do the one thing an old grandmother could.
It’s so austere/plain, unattractive, distasteful, shameful. To be publicly known as the lady of the night…only she does it in broad daylight? That would be a bit too much. How will I face my mum or my sisters, my respectable soccer-mum friends, and explain am still a woman of their kind after openly flaunting this way of living? What will happen to my make-believe stories? You know the ones where in the eyes of society I am seen as a hardworking/ambitious young lady? I can be a ninja lady of the night/Venus #12, but not during the day I have an image to uphold. So this won’t work…let’s brainstorm, generate a few more options then!
– Written by a deep part of my subconscious unconscious, clearly without my conscious approval.
I fucking concur, albeit, for different reasons. I am not feeling this “way” and nothing about it appeals to me….
I’m so glad you wrote this article, Blake! I could dive deeper into your insights (I belong to a matriarchal spiritual heritage, which is Tantra, and I’ve read a lot of books about the subject of matriarchal and patriarchal society and how does it relates to spirituality), but I think you are going pretty much in the right road, so I’ll just point out a few things.
First is that the women I’m connected with are so emotionally, sexually and spiritually healthy that I really wanted more women to get to know matriarchal philosophies. It’s definetely life-changing. Obviously I’ve come to realize that many women are frightened about the social consequences of embracing an antinomic lifestyle (with multiple lovers, rituals and sharing the same metaphysical worldview), and I really think I can’t say much about this: I’m a man, and therefore, being tantric isn’t much of a deal for me. And it’s not like people really cared about my private life: whenever I’m asked if I have a girlfriend/wife, I just say no. Period. I don’t have to explain the whole tantric metaphysics and shock people by saying I’m not monogamous.
And the people who are closer to me needs to understand and accept my philosophy, so I’ll take time to explain to them, in a very delicate and soft way (most people think polyamorous people are libertines, promiscuous, jerks who cannot be loyal or whores who have no self respect), that my philosophy is a spiritual heritage guiding me towards ultimate freedom.
Marriage is power. In a social level, it gives birth to the contemporary notion of family: man, women, children and, the most important, property rights. In matriarchal primitive societies, as Blake has stated, everything belongs to everybody, and anyone belongs to everyone. People used to live as communities, not families: the children were everyone’s children, the food were shared, love and sex were shared as well. And women were seen as Goddesses. In tribal societies, the deities were primarily feminine, because the women were capable of the most sacred act in this world: giving birth to a child. Men did not know their role in the reproduction scheme and, therefore, women were the sacred source of all life.
In an interpersonal level, marriage is power because it arises from the fundamental notion that people can be treated as objects: the body, heart and spirit of my partner belongs to me, and no one elses. Otherwise, I’m not special. I need the love and loyalty of my partner because I myself do not love me, so I set up boundaries and limits to him/her in order to keep him within my expectations and power-based feelings.
Of course, monogamy is a deeply-held conditioning (we born with the ego structure setup, so I’d say it’s innate), and it’s not easy to accept that it’s not healthy, nor that everyone can change it. Since we’ve grown up in this power culture (even sex is primarily based on a power factor, which is attraction), to accept that another worldview is possible (by understanding sex as a spiritual exercise that can guide one to self-realization through otherness, with no ego bondages) is very difficult, and unfortunately it depends on too many factors: cognitive preferences, personal history, cultural influences, age, etc. Most people will never get it, but in an INFJ article’s comments session, I believe there are more chances of acceptance (or at least consideration).
Thanks for sharing your personal experience and perspective on the polyamorous form of sexual expression as a person that identifies as an INFJ.
I’m assuming that you identify as an INFJ, correct?
Dude, you’re so post-Freudian I can’t even look at you right now. Why does the expression of Fe need to have everything to do with sex? There is more to identity and social interaction than sexual preference and appetite. Yes, INFJs are fickle and are poly amorous in a non-sexual sense. That doesn’t mean they’re incapable of satisfaction without multiple sexual partners. Honestly, if someone has that much of a problem with commitment, they are free to stay single and flirt with every man, woman, child, and dog that crosses their path without remorse. You’ll be amazed by the sense of liberation inherent in not being sexually attached to one or many partners. It’s interesting that instead of condemning immoral behavior on the part of the immoral, you instead say that it’s not fair that some get caught and others don’t. Here’s a novel thought: if no one is naughty, no one gets penalized.
Yes. This is what YS also commented on.
Fe doesn’t have to be about romantic love, it can be about feeling love for all of humanity and all there is.
Astrologically speaking it doesn’t have to limit itself to the moon kind of love which is rather selfish and based on unfullfilled wants and needs and transcend it to a Neptunian kind of love which will lead to spiritual evolution. 🙂
“Why does the expression of Fe need to have everything to do with sex?”
Where the fuck did I say that?
It doesn’t have everything to do with sex, but, in the case of this article, it has SOMETHING to do with it. I have primarily written about Fe usage in the INFJ context (auxiliary function) as a way to create flow and to EXPRESS themselves. One of these forms of expression is sexual/romantic/social in nature.
Also, when compared to Fi’s relational expression (id function of INFJ), Fe could be termed “polyamorous” in nature while Fi is inherently “monogamous” in nature. The feeling function has a lot to do with “relating”, so it is only natural that this would have implications for sexuality and the expression of such in relationships, whether those relationships are exclusive, romantic, friendship, sexualized, familial, tribal, cultural etc.
Of course, Fe has other implications besides the strictly sexual. But, as far as Fe is related to sexual behavior (or social behavior in general), it is not exclusive in expression, which means that it is anti-natural to Fe as a function of nature to fasten its affects to one person over a long duration of time. Fi, on the other hand, is the function par excellence of just this very thing.
Because INFJs have an id function of Fi and an auxiliary function of Fe, there is a deep conflict in them between these two forms of expression. Actually, I should say that the conflict almost exclusively comes from their Fi id, which can be viewed as holding them back from self-actualization because of deep sense (almost an ancient sense) of being beholden to the one exclusive other.
While this seems right both culturally and in the archaic sense of INFJ’s temperament (the id is deep and through and through), it is a dynamic that can easily go way out of balance in exclusive romantic/sexual relationships. For INFJs in particular.
“It’s interesting that instead of condemning immoral behavior on the part of the immoral, you instead say that it’s not fair that some get caught and others don’t.”
First of all, I am not a moralist. I do not place an ultimate moral judgment on “polyamorous” behavior. Why? Because I don’t feel that it is wrong to engage in this sort of behavior. Nor do I feel it is wrong to engage in “monogamy” either.
Secondly, I never said ANYTHING about “it not being fair that some get caught while other don’t.”
So, before you comment please try to be informed about what I’m actually saying. I never said Fe has everything to do with sex and I never said it is not fair that some people get caught having sex outside of their monogamous relationship, while other people don’t get caught.
“Here’s a novel thought: if no one is naughty, no one gets penalized.”
That is not a novel thought. It is a very common thought. I know you were being somewhat facetious, but, really, who is the sole arbiter of what is “naughty” behavior? The Church? The State? Santa Claus?
If you want to get closer to the heart of human nature, you will have to set aside your own personal morality to prevent overlaying it on to the subjects of your study. It is basically a form of judgment that preempts and closes off true perception.
I don’t know if you are female, but I offer the thought that IME this tension about how people are expressing sexuality is very common in women, because women are socialized so aggressively to believe that female sexuality is dubious at best and only acceptable within certain very narrow parameters. And if you’ve been indoctrinated to believe “Your sexual feeling is only permissible if X/Y/Z” and to believe that the stakes are very high – you can be ejected from the tribe if you do it wrong and are labeled a slut or not sexy in the right ways, and ejection from the tribe, in our ancestral brain, means death! – you naturally also feel strongly that it’s very important that other people also keep their sexuality inside the box, or it’s very unfair.
I used to feel quite tense about people who were non-monogamous, and eventually my thinking shifted and now I realize that there are many different ways of expressing sexual selfhood, from people who are entirely asexual to people whose sexuality isn’t specific to any one other individual. Our culture has sort of drawn a box around part of this spectrum and said “The behavior inside this box is normal” and declared that everything outside that box is abnormal and probably also wrong, but… I don’t think that’s true. People have lots of different ways of being, and as long as those ways are consensual and don’t hurt people, who am I to judge or label something someone is doing that works for them?
I personally do think it’s undesirable when people make firm agreements about how they’re going to express sexuality within a relationship (ie only with each other) and then secretly break those agreements, but that’s more a general thing where I think it’s better if people either keep to their agreements or re-negotiate. (I get very impatient when people are like “Well, I want this thing I have agreed not to do, and it would be a hassle to tell my partner that I want it, so I’m just going to do what I want anyway” – I find that really childish and unethical… I feel like it’s sort of a mark of someone who is developmentally stagnated. It’s literally the behavior of a child, wanting something you know you’re “not allowed” to have, and rather than advocating for change, sneaking and doing it anyway.) Buuuuut I don’t think there’s something wrong with being non-monogamous – I also don’t think there’s something inherently better (or “natural” – I don’t believe that there are natural ways of being human, really) about being non-monogamous. It’s just a spectrum.
I don’t know if the spectrum idea soothes you, but I find it helpful in understanding the many ways humans are individuals and super weird.
Sooo, what do you think would happen with an INFJ in a woman-woman relationship? Any significant changes (apart from the obvious lack of a dude)?
I will comment further later, but seem to be lacking the energy at the moment. Or I fear it will come out like hurled alphabet soup.
In any case, I love the last two articles and there is much to chew on. This topic is intriguing, and anthropology is one of my very favorite subjects. So I have to just step in and say there is NO WAY that in the space of mankind, which if you count Lucy is like two million years or actually more, I think, that men and women did not get that sperm/cum makes babies. COME THE FUCK ON. And that virgins don’t have children. This is not an insurmountable leap of logic by a long shot.
They may not have known exactly how, but they sure as hell knew what. Kids look like their parents.
Not all the time, but enough of the time. And if it happens that you got knocked up without the opportunity to sleep around…
We are very intelligent. We would not have made it this far otherwise. We knew. We have known for years.
That is not to say that we chose to share, and then in the last ten thousand years, succumbed to ownership, for different reasons, but it was only very very very briefly because we didn’t know. Cooperation indeed is what kept us alive. Sharing.
I will even say couples have been around for time immemorial, but I do believe open polyamory was far more common before agriculture.
That came out a bit intense. I do that and don’t realize till after…
I wasn’t saying that ancestral humans didn’t know that male-female sexual relations made babies, but, more, that the idea of paternity (who the father is) may not have been a concept that these peoples were at all alive to. If it is true that woman in nomadic tribes were having sex with all the male members of the tribe, I think it is highly likely that she would not know who the particular father of her offspring was, and even more to the point, it wasn’t as important to know, because everyone was sharing in the parenting duties and all the members of the tribe were seen as a tight-knit family in which there is a great amount of interdependence. I think it is scarcely possible to imagine this sort of bond in today’s post-agricultural Western world of the individual and the idea that an individual can own property or anything.
I’m not placing any judgment on either setup. I’m simply trying to understand the ramifications this could have had for sexual/romantic behavior. If a woman is seen as property, it definitely could lead to demanding exclusivity in her sexual behavior.
The whole idea of property and something belonging to someone, in general, is a very fascinating concept to me.
I think that conflicts over property have caused many wars, both at the state level, down to the interpersonal level.
The concept of “this is mine and it isn’t yours” is very profound to me.
“INFJ women need to satisfy that deep itch they have, that deep need for emotional connection and having her depths plumbed.
But, who is the man who will plumb her depths?
Well, she is.”
Excellent! Whatever sexual/romantic configurations we choose, looking within and utilizing multiple resources for self discovery and self actualization is far more satisfying and empowering than seeking a partner to be our all or everything and/or expecting that we be everything for them. Idolization/devaluing power struggles will result and it will lead to mutual dissatisfaction if we go down that path. Someone is going to suck the marrow and lifeblood out of us or we out of them. The relationship will suffocate and die in that scenario. If we plumb the depths of ourselves through multiple means, our lovers/partners/spouses will thank us, we will be generally more satisfied, and neither we nor they will be victims.
A mentor of mine used to say “a self is always more attractive than a non-self.” The INFJ love tendency that Blake wrote of in the previous article sounds like a person who has no sense of self but is all need and devour or all desire to be needed and devoured. Love for an INFJ if I am following is almost a narcissistic search for one’s self in another. The lover becomes an idealized tool in this drive, until they or we are completely devalued or debased. All of this begins for the INFJ in the guise of “selflessness.” It is true, but not in the common and positive meaning attached to the word.
There are multiple roads to Rome. It may take some journeys into hell and obsession before we find something that works for us. Maybe what works is there will be serial lovers, polyamorous situations, or a long term monogamous situation that we decide is good enough (loving and connected without total enmeshment/engulfment) and we find lots of other outlets for depth, connection, and meaning in our lives.
Thanks for these two articles, as well as all the others. These two articles really were provocative and encouraged a lot of introspection and plumbing of my individual and our collective depths.
I agree with this, INFJs struggle with the idea of self at times and especially when they are young. Different personas to fit the situation, taking on other people’s interests, I even come to speak using the same expressions and intimations as my interests over time. As H says we craft a little version of ourselves for each person, while really yearning for the person who is not fooled and finds us in spite of our attempts to stay hidden and in control by showing them a subset – which never happens. Then when no-one knows us we feel lost and transparent underneath where the perpetual wind is blowing, the lack of connected self can bring a feeling of excruciating nothingness that will drive us mad if it persists. In these states, sex is one of the only things that forces us to reconnect, well me anyway – the more visceral and impossible to ignore the better. Fitting the rough, solar style who doesn’t seek to connect with your drifting core but forces it to coalesce somewhat. But even that doesn’t last so you need to rinse and repeat. But being seen is what really makes us feel whole, like Schrödinger’s cat we need to be observed to really live or otherwise. The state of perpetual indeterminism is actually hell.
Finding yourself … now there’s a trick. Working out what you really want (and worrying that will change five minutes after you decide) even tricker. I’m still not sure I’ve worked it out, but I can only do my best to validate and authenticate my feelings before flinging caution to the wind and jumping.. Satisfying subsistence fears long term helped immensely. We’re a special brand of crazy when we don’t have security, I assume other INFJs suffer the same.
Rita, I really like and appreciate the eloquence of your comment. I found out about Myer-Briggs after I’d already figured much of this out for myself through other means (and continue to work on some more of it now via MB). I spent a good chunk of time purposely single, building self and self-friendship. When I was ready, I found my life partner and everything with him is so different and so yummy while still giving me space to continue developing me. It’s perfect when this happens 🙂
Jesus…this sounds like hope.
I love the sound of hope!
Thank you for posting this!
Dear Blake,
This is a load of crap. Your Freudianisms are suffocating in their leaps of anti-intuition and blatant assumption. May I further posit that it is not only a mark of your depraved mental state, but a sign of affirmation to creepers to use your platform to tell the online world at large that some women really want to be dominated like some kind of sex slave?
Furthermore, it is categorically false that all INFJs feel worthless “deep down”. Even at my lowest, I have never experienced such a sensation. The majority opinion amongst INFJs is actually that we are the awesomeness, even though the world doesn’t get it. That is not a façade, we really think we’re that cool.
Next, please allow me to address the evolution of your shock-value rhetoric. In the first few articles of yours that I perused, I found your method of address amusing, simply because of the stark contrast to most writings presenting INFJs as some sort of personality theory unicorn. Now I see that you will stoop to the lowest, lewdest imagery your diseased mind can produce, heaping the foulest images and the coarsest language atop one another, and expecting your audience to lap up your invective.
In true dominatrix form, you think you’re feeding on what you suppose is an inherent INFJ weakness for sado-masochism, but you are quite mistaken. We are not sadists, and we are not masochists, except in seasons of mental illness (which I am inclined to believe the majority of us suffer from, at one point or another). In true form, we are curious humorists.
You think, in the fashion of a deranged person, that you are “giving us what we want” when you verbally abuse and demean and degrade, but what we really want is to be shown that someone understands us, and to be given something to laugh at. You’ve made it clear that you lack understanding, and you’ve furthermore deprived us of laughter by your graphically lewd and distressing speech. Job failed, spectacularly.
You are stale to death, and to quote Bob Dylan, “I see through your brain, like I see through the water that runs down my drain.” Have fun with your groupies who think that everything you do is awesome.
Sincerely,
H.
Wow! When an INFJ wants to dress someone down, they sure know how to do it. I actually feel shamed!
But, hey listen now, my intent is not to harm anyone. I am simply trying to explore an issue that I am genuinely fascinated in without having to cow-tow to predominant American moral imperatives. I know that this is going to make some people uncomfortable and I accept that.
And yes, I suppose what I’m saying could be a load of crap. However, here is where it is up to the discriminating and critically astute reader to determine that for themselves. I am not here to “help.” Bottom-line.
I don’t really have an agenda in writing any of this stuff. I’m not trying to get anyone to side with me. I am merely sharing what I have to offer in a manner that I can personally live with. At the end of the day, I have to be able to feel comfortable in my own skin, same as anybody else.
Yes, I am a bit shocking, invectivizing, egotistical, lurid, provocative and so on in that continuum. I mean, I could be some neutered eunuch who comes forth apologetically in advance for what I have to offer. But, I am not saying anything strictly to be shocking. This shit that I have found (over many years) is genuinely shocking, lurid, floor-flushing, dismal, beautiful, ugly, terrible, wonderful etc.
In short, it is just what I honestly have found in my discovery of my investigations into human nature, and in this case, into what I call the id of INFJ. I really feel I have little choice to talk about in the tone and sexually suggestive way that I have.
I know sex is a very loaded issue. Sexual expression. What is and isn’t acceptable. Moral. It is a hot issue. And it isn’t some incidental and separate thing from the rest of our drives. So, the Freudian thing is inevitable to me. Libido does lie at the heart of much of life. Whole societies and cultures can be organized around their predominant sexual impulses.
“Dominance” and “submission” are two basic expressions of this power drive. Sex and power. They are bound up together inextricably.
Identity. Temperament. I’m sorry but they are hard-wired into those as well. All these things are not mutually exclusive. Sex is not sex and nothing else. Sex is life. Sex is identity. Sex underlies so much of the basic will to life. And as such, it is extremely charged and at times a “life or death” thing.
Anyway, I am sorry if I have upset you (sort of) and I am genuinely glad that you have made this comment. I cannot please everyone and despite what you insist, I am not trying to please anyone. I please myself. I feel that if I please myself first, then, I would be in the best possible position to please any other given person. If I write something that doesn’t excite me in some way, then, I have failed from the very outset. But, these are simply my tastes. And they are varied. But, I realize that not everyone will be going on board this ship and even more may not want to continue on that ship at certain passes.
But, to me, that is the beauty of freedom. No one is being forced onto the ship. And as Bob Dylan said, “you can leave anytime you want to”.
That is, if you don’t mind drowning in a sea of hungry sharks 🙂
OK, the ship analogy is a bad one. But, maybe not. Shit, maybe it is my responsibility now that I have taken you on board this ship to ferry you safely to the farther shore. I should be a good pastor. I should tend my flock. Etc.
But, no, here is where I depart from all those well-meaning gurus of old. It is not me, but you, that must ultimately decide where you will go and what you will do. I insist that you take responsibility for your own life, INFJ or no INFJ, whatever. I do not want to be in the position of guru or helper of humanity. That is incidental to what I do. If what I do helps you, fine. If it harms you, fine. I refuse to take responsibility for anyone. It is not my place and that general attitude encourages a dependency which I don’t seek to encourage.
Think for yourself. If what I am saying here doesn’t make sense for you, then question it. Refute it. Throw it in the garbage and move back to unicorn land. Whatever.
Everyone is going to do different things. I can’t account for it, nor do I want to. If I had to take every possible person’s taste into consideration when I write, I would never write anything. Some people like to explore sexuality, some don’t. I do, so, I write about it.
And I have the freedom to do so. One nice thing about living in good old America is that I have a right to freedom of speech and expression. This right was created for the express purpose of protecting people like me who have things to say that ain’t in line with politically correct opinion.
I love how you used the Masters of War quote against me. Too funny. And speaking of Bob Dylan, he said a similar thing when pressed by the press about his supposed responsibility to the people of the 60’s for the things that he wrote. He flat out said, “It isn’t my responsibility.” I agree. Why should it be?
Anyway, I understand if you hate me right now. That’s cool. I think you’ll see in time that you may have been overreacting to this article and the previous one and there is more to it than you think. I mean, this isn’t the final word on INFJs and it doesn’t negate any of the more positive potentials that I have written about them before. Or the lighter and more funnier side of INFJs. It’s all there in some improbable melting pot of the marriage of heaven and hell.
Hey, you want another stupid cliche? “The road to heaven is paved through hell.”
I mean, what else is an INFJ but the potentials of the lowest depths of hell combined with the highest heights of heaven? Is it any wonder that INFJs think they are so awesome and beyond while also feeling like the lowest thing that has ever lived?
I seek to flesh out their less heavenly side not to denigrate them, but, to reveal them in all their rich oppositions and contradictions. To my taste, this makes them much more interesting as a type than the rather bland (and stale) prevailing descriptions of them as an “angelic” or “heavenly” type. O, so boring. I’d even be more willing to concede that INFJ is an “angelic” type if I felt that the definition of what an “angel” is wasn’t itself so superficial and misleading. Do we really understand the psychology and metaphysical reality of angels?
For starters, the poet Maria Rainer Rilke says, “that every angel is terrible.” Hmm, that’s interesting. Makes you kinda stop and wonder why. Maybe there is more to angels than the new-age community and Hallmark cards is letting on. Maybe they aren’t some cardboard cutout pastiche perfection. No, I think in order for an angel to be “wonderful”, it has to be “terrible” too.
The Greeks understood this. If you want something wonderful and rational and sunny (Apollo), then, you have to account for the terrible, the irrational, and the dark in nature too (Dionysus). And the sexual. And the cruel. They all exist in human nature, and I daresay, that INFJ is the type that best illustrates these drives in their fullest compass. INFJ has the widest potential to embody the highest and lowest depths of human potential.
So, rejoice! And despair. It’s all there.
«Have fun with your groupies who think that everything you do is awesome »
Hahaha ! I’ll have to agree with you on this H.
Blake, since your last two posts, I have this weird feeling. It’s not about the content, it’s something else. I read between the lines and as I do, I smell bullshit.
You claim to know what women want. WTF ? I never heard a bigger bullshit than this one. How can you ? Women themselves do not know what they want. Women are mysterious creatures. The best thing you can do about it is to be left wondering.
So yeah Blake, I didn’t like the « know-it-all » aspect of your last two articles.
Don’t say it’s because you’re talking about sex okay ? I’m living in Europe and we don’t deny our sexual nature here.
And here’s another crappy thing you said : if we don’t agree with what you say we have to move back to unicorn land ? What a pile of crap. Does it really have to be like this ? Either or ? If so, what you are building on your blog is just another dogma. Opposed to the standard MBTI community dogma, but still a dogma. This is why I’m calling bullshit on you Blake.
That being said, I really loved all of your previous articles. And right now this is me giving you tough love. Don’t take this too personnally ok ?
Love you Blake !
p.s. : read Sexual personae from Camille Paglia if you haven’t.
Thank you, Blake.
This is how I have a felt for a long time.
Letting go of the notion of soulmate is the best.
💕💕💕💕
I am beginning to get this feeling/understanding
That I have been searching for what societal-cultural programming /my upbringing wants for me…a soul-mate.
But I forgot to ask what do I want?
Emotional connections, based on rules defined by what i want and you want, is good for us, and not rules defined for us by the church, religion, society, or familial expectations.
Where we are free to choose, what set up we want based on what serves our needs…and if we can’t have all our needs met exclusively in this relationship…the freedom to get up and have them met elsewhere without cultural dictates commanding how all this goes down.
It’s my own fault my emotional needs are not been met because I have been passively letting society/cultural-upbringing/religion tell me what’s what…while all along I should have been the one dictating and defining what exactly is it I want…something is changing in me and it smells like freedom. It’s like the whisper before a revolution…the calm before the storm. The quiet before the shot goes off and the race is officially off to a start.
I love you, Blake. Seriously. I want you to fuck me until I die.
I second this sentiment. The lady boner is strong within me for Blake haha.
Jumped, the shark has been.
Fuck yeah, I love sharks.
I’m gonna have to go with the dissenting opinion on this one, Blake. Whilst I agree with the premise that you have been developing about the Fi id of INFJs, I disagree strongly how best to sublimate or exorcise our demons. What you’re proposing amounts to a rebranded version of 60s flower power free love. And I smell an agenda.
What I’m hearing is ‘Hey, loosen up. Lighten up and go with the flow! It’s all good–just find yourself by sharing yourself with others!’ But the meaning of the message that I’m receiving is a penis pressing its unspoken agenda of getting some sweet INFJ love with no strings attached.
So I’m not buying. Your theory has a certain internal logical coherence, i.e. externalize instead of internalise our feelings and let the expression of our feelings be extensive rather than intensive. So I get where you’re coming from on this. Nevertheless, back here in Unicorn Land, we INFJs don’t share ourselves with just anyone. We test, often silently and without sharing the selective criteria, those who try at approach us and get to know us. Potential romantic partners are even more rigorously screened and scrutinised. So you’re absolutely correct that we INFJs have insanely high standards for our partners and ourselves–standards that are ultimately impossible to achieve. This is the source of our unhappiness and sorrow–we can never be satisfied.
But sharing the love ain’t gonna make us satisfied. It’s only going to make us feel cheapened and used, and thus ultimately misunderstood.
And given the choice between being alone and being misunderstood, I’m gonna have to go with being alone.
It is and is not.
But – I have been keeping a keen eye on the Fe versus Fi, and Jesus H Christ you are right.
There’s this shit that I call the aesthetic tier, and then there’s the ethic tier. There is a dynamic membrane between the two, and quite a bit of osmosis going on. But hey.
So the aesthetic tier of perception corresponds to Fe. And when I am in it I’m capable of and can be satisfied through engaging in romantic friendships with several people simultaneously. And appreciating their unique flavors while keeping it strictly aesthetic. A consciously selected superficiality. I mean, I see them, and they let me. But they don’t see me. I design their perception of me for them. I add layers when needed. I disclose a little more. There is a myriad of ways people are enticed. I love to see them in their newly found ardor. Even more when they’re choking on the sharp air of our dreams, woven specially for the occasion. They like it. Many do. Many indeed.
It wears me out, but I’ve been at it for so long I get used to the fatigue that comes with that tinge of incomplete authenticity. The puzzle piece that I keep in my pocket wants to be put in its place. To whatever repercussions.
And so on to the ethic tier which corresponds to Fi. There is always someone that thinks they want the entire picture. And it’s not like I resist at this point. They wanna see what’s behind the door – so I thrust it open for them. Nothing sacred or profane there. Something else. Well, Fi. Murk, murk, murk. Staircase descending to the ocean floors. Except there are none. Fi is floorless. Rotting vessels. Benthic fish. Reek of guilt and machinery for punishment. Kafka’s ‘In the Penal Colony’.
I often talk to random people like supermarket cashiers about their issues for hours. And joke a lot. I like to give them something good and disappear. Almost feeling human, almost a part of whatever this planet is. Short-lived sensation but it’s the best I got.
And I remember you wrote that INFJs make worthwhile lovers for several months. With me it’s like one month. That’s the longest I can pull off the sleek detachment. What follows depends on the person’s degree of deprivation. And in my humble opinion you are right about this entire thing. But there’s light at the end of the torture sessions. And often in the midst too. I do wonder – is this increased volatility due to having an actual Scorpio moon on top of an implied one?
Fe is our rightful ride, and Fi our Lucifer in the basement. Not mutually extinguishing. I think there’s a place for Lucifer at my dinner table. I don’t want to be keeping him in the basement. He is after all the bringer of light. The son of the morning. But Fe comes with the surfing season when the waves are right, and Fi is an ultra hell that always feels new in its kaleidoscope of sick.
And there is one more thing – you have helped me so much. To know that there is a discourse of which I can be part of.
At least I can fit in your mind. It is so very sweet.
Please do not tire yourself out too much with this. Mozart laughs.
Hi Blake- how come you didn’t use a picture of a pretty lady laying on her side for this article? I love the Modigliani painting from an earlier post. Do you think he (Modigliani) was infj?
“Furthermore, it is categorically false that all INFJs feel worthless “deep down”. Even at my lowest, I have never experienced such a sensation. The majority opinion amongst INFJs is actually that we are the awesomeness, even though the world doesn’t get it. That is not a façade, we really think we’re that cool.”
Fuck yeah, we actually do. That’s why we get so sick of lesser mortals that can’t keep us satisfied, amirite? 🙂
Forgive me, it’s Beltane and I’ve been getting my inner pagan on. And if there’s any group of women more likely to have thrown off the shackles of the patriarchal has society, it’s us. But evolutionary biology does still apply, it fucking has to because remember were still animals.
I chased the father of my children down with a dedicated purpose. He is tall, crushingly intelligent, an INTJ, muscular, healthy, and from a family who have double PHDs and are so horribly emotionally stable they may as well be dead (in direct contrast to me and my family who are buckets full of crazy). I knew what I needed, and I made it happen – this was not for a patriarchal paradigm, it was ME demanding my children.
Women buy into the nuclear family because it benefits them. I have a large number of polyamourous friends, a few who repeatedly hope I will join them, but it was never attractive. You know why? It’s all fun and games when you’re young, but as soon as the woman start talking babies and longer term support the weak and selfish poly men run for the hills. You’ve never seen a lost soul until you’ve seen a poly girl with a young child cast adrift by all her aforementioned adoring partners because babies are noisy and women post partum are no party.
We want to reproduce, well those of us not totally fucked up by life do anyway. We want to and we will, and we want awesomeness to blend with our own when we do. Even the Bible says “Wives have a right to expect, what they have a right to expect”. Sex. Babies. God said it, so it must be true.
Anyway I forgot where I was going with this except polyamory sucks for having a family and that’s what healthy humans are all about. So until we reform society in such a way that women with babies can have their existence guaranteed by the state (or the village, or what fucking ever) it’s never going to happen. Great for guys, sucks arse for women. That is all.
Yeah, you’re right. The ideal setup for a polyamory relationship would be a community where babies were supported by the whole group. I’d go farther and say that there would be no such thing as mother or father, since all adults would feel responsible for all children.
But, you see, this argument (monogamy is the only way to have a family in a patriarchal society), although very accurate, does not deal with the interpersonal aspect of monogamy, which is body property. That’s the reason I personally do not like the term “polyamory”, because it implies multiple partnership, and I see why this is a problem for everyone who wants to uphold a socially acceptable model of relationship. However, I don’t see any contradiction in having a lifelong partner and still be set free from the monogamic demands, like exclusivity.
Let’s suppose I’m in a relationship with a woman, and she says she wants to have children, move together, etc. I’d say “let’s do it, I’m here for you”. But this decision have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I’m not the owner of her body, and neither she owns mine.
Polyamory as a social structure, yes, that would rather be impossible and painful, specially for women, in our contemporary model of existence (unless a group of individuals decide to build a matriarchal community/village/ashram). But freedom from demands has nothing to do with society; it’s all about our personal conception of love. For instance, I cannot imagine myself raising a family with a woman that does not accept the ideia that free love is pleonasm. This does not mean I necessarily should have multiple partners: it only means that this should not concern my wife, likewise I’m not concerned with her having sex with other men. My only concern is if she’s having healthy, spiritual, affectionate sex; if she is, I don’t really care if it’s a different man every week or if I’m the only man in her life. It doesn’t change anything.
I have nothing to do with anyone’s decision of being monogamous, it’s fine. But monogamy, although close-linked with having a lifelong partner, children and financial responsability, is something more than that: it’s condemning every conduct that implies sexual partner diversity. Me and my partner may only have sex with each other and still be not monogamous, because monogamy is not the opposite of polyamory: it’s the opposite of free love.
Lucas, to be sure, I don’t object to your stance, but I do have questions.
Firstly, you sound as though you’d like to be a father, be trustworthy and present for a woman that will be very vulnerable and needy while pregnant and giving birth and raising the very young. Would this extend to a child she made with another? Is any child of hers, yours? Would you then be happy to let this other father into your life regardless of whether he wanted to take any responsibility for said child off your shoulders? If none of the children were technically yours but you are shouldering the responsibility for them all because you wanted to be with their mother? Are you comfortable with the fact that it is her body, and she may want every child she conceives, even if this bites into your personal time? And if you impregnate one or more of the women you see outside your committed relationship? Who will be fathering them? Are you making time for those children and sending her money because that is your child? Or is that her child? What if she won’t share her child? If she changes her mind and marries and leaves her ‘past’ behind. Do you argue to maintain a relationship with this little being you made? How many families could you support? How many kids? Not saying you’ll just be spreading your seed randomly, but sex makes babies, even when birth control is used. Unplanned pregnancies are common. And lastly, if she is seeing other men, there is a chance she may choose another, separating your kiddos from you, at least part of the time. I realize anyone can choose another, but becoming sexually and emotionally involved ups the chances considerably.
And you said:
”But freedom from demands has nothing to do with society; it’s all about our personal conception of love. For instance, I cannot imagine myself raising a family with a woman that does not accept the ideia that free love is pleonasm. This does not mean I necessarily should have multiple partners: it only means that this should not concern my wife, likewise I’m not concerned with her having sex with other men. My only concern is if she’s having healthy, spiritual, affectionate sex; if she is, I don’t really care if it’s a different man every week or if I’m the only man in her life. It doesn’t change anything.”
I could be misinterpreting this, but freedom of demands has nothing to do with society? From my point of view, demands have everything to do with living in a society and getting along. It goes back to cooperating and surviving. To be honest, I am not much of a cooperator, but never mind that. I am however very aware that you don’t put yourself between a married man and woman in this culture, especially if they have kids. Unless you want to be a slut pariah. And this is not my opinion, rather an obvious social stamp you are gonna get, especially if you are a woman. So to be polyamorous, you’d need to pick likeminded people. And should you already be married, and decide to partake, you’d better not be married to someone with Fi as dominant. And if not married, you must still consider everything else I’ve written.
What I want to say is, societies demands for monogamy and individual responsibility to a family are incredibly present in peoples lives and upbringings and to do as you do is considerably rarer. My [unfortunate at times] adherence to societal rules is more or less a when in Rome situation. Here we are in this day and age in a patriarchal setup where our only help if he is not interested in being a family or helping, when we are knocked up, is the state or family, should we be so lucky. And they expect autonomy as well, like get your shit together and support yourself, and the stigma and poor outcome on that is well known in these situations and very real. We have to consider VD’s, AIDS, and parental rights and trusting the people you have sex with to be grounded and mature enough to co-parent should a child enter the picture. We have to consider how the children we make are going to cope with our decisions, when we veer from societal norms. Because societal pressure is huge. Religious dogma is huge. And I am not saying we will not move in a more polyamorous direction. Not even objecting to this at all. Just saying those partaking now are going to have obvious issues and social consequences because as a society we just aren’t there yet.
It would indeed take people feeling responsible for children as if each were their own, and having a system of supporting a mother both financially and emotionally and with help raising children. It cannot all be on her for that to work. I’ve read in books about family situations where a group is supporting children and polyamorous, and taking turns with child raising. Could be an option. Has merits. Requires emotional intelligence, cooperation, etc.
For myself, I am here now in 2015, and have chosen a nuclear family with an INFP, Scorpio, no less and generous and responsible and devoted, loving and emotionally intelligent. There is internal conflict for me between Fe and Fi, yes. I love people. I love men. I can live with being friends without benefits. But even this, even without any intent to stray or take another away, people fret and become concerned when you talk to a man that is not your husband with any enthusiasm for the people they are. Even human connection with the opposite sex is frowned upon when we are married. It kind of sucks, because people interest me and if they are female and I like talking to them it is fine, but if they are male, there is always this social tension.
In another scenario, I could see polyamory. I’d have to start differently, so maybe for those not married, they could consider beginning a different way. But as I’ve said before, children were a must have and that is where I am today. For now I content myself that I have many lives, and I’ll learn that later, and it is obvious to me that I’ve learned some of it before as well. For now it is not worth what I would lose. In this time, in this culture I see far more pain from such allowance of my self than I see happiness. Not that joy in polyamory isn’t very possible, but the pain would dampen it terribly, too much. Blake is right. The moon rules as much as I am also kin to the sun. And the sun will again have it’s day. I’m timeless. I can wait. And more, I have so much to learn right here where I am. There is so much to one man. I sleep so soundly in trust that he has my back. And I’m going to have to get a better handle on responsibility if either I am part of a bigger family or on my own and it would help here and now, too.
Honestly, I think it would greatly benefit people to share more in the raising of our future and share ourselves as well. Nuclear families can get very stressed and children suffer silently as much as others seem to prosper. Depends on a lot. And it’s funny I should say this, selfish as I am, and because I don’t want to deal with people much of the time and prefer to read and play in the internet in my own quiet home…. as a hermit. *Sigh*
I’ll try to clarify my personal philosophy through my answers, but I do understand that it’s only my personal account on the matter, and that I’d only consider a relationship (be it lifelong or casual) with someone who shares my metaphysical worldview. Since we’re dealing with people’s emotions, conceptions about life and love and sex and householding, I do consider the possibility of absolute failure and pain from the circumstances, but I can’t help it. I just live by my philosophy.
“Would this extend to a child she made with another?” If she was already a mother/pregnant when I got to know her, yes, I’d support her and her children. If she became pregnant from other man while in a relationship with me, I’d assume he shares our philosophy, and therefore we three would share the responsabilities and joys together.
“Is any child of hers, yours?” Yes, if they let me in. Not mine in a sense of property, I’m just a vehicle for their growth, let’s say. When they grow their wings, I wish they can fly wherever they want to.
“Would you then be happy to let this other father into your life regardless of whether he wanted to take any responsibility for said child off your shoulders? If none of the children were technically yours but you are shouldering the responsibility for them all because you wanted to be with their mother?” There are lots of reason men do not want to take responsabilities, and I would acess that on a case-by-case basis.
“Are you comfortable with the fact that it is her body, and she may want every child she conceives, even if this bites into your personal time?” I would say “hey, let’s talk, girl”. Children pretty much devour two finite resources: time and money. If there’s another man at play who’s willing to do it, well, let’s talk and figure if it’s possible or not.
“And if you impregnate one or more of the women you see outside your committed relationship? Who will be fathering them? Are you making time for those children and sending her money because that is your child? Or is that her child? What if she won’t share her child? If she changes her mind and marries and leaves her ‘past’ behind. Do you argue to maintain a relationship with this little being you made? ” I suppose we’re on birth control’s era, so I hope I only make babies by choice. But I would talk to her. If she wants my money and presence and love, I’ll be there. If she’s already married with a man that shares my worldview (at least some core values) and has the means and desire to raise the child in a traditional setup, it’s fine, I can be the fun occasional uncle. If she doesn’t want me around, I’ve made the mistake of developing a relationship with her in first place. I can’t answer if I’d fight or not, it really depends on the situation.
“How many families could you support? How many kids?” Good question actually. I suppose a maximum of 2-3 families, 4-5 children, I guess. But this is the accounting for what I could deal by myself; if there’re another men sharing everything with me, than it could be more.
“And lastly, if she is seeing other men, there is a chance she may choose another, separating your kiddos from you, at least part of the time. I realize anyone can choose another, but becoming sexually and emotionally involved ups the chances considerably.” Tantric relationships, in principle, are not based upon power dynamics (like attraction, desire, ego matching, etc.), and therefore the only deep struggle that could shake the relationship would be if she came to discover that she doesn’t support tantric worldview. In this case, it would be painful for both of us, and I can’t answer without experiencing it. Even if she chose to live with another man, that wouldn’t upset me at all. All I’m looking in a relationship is spiritual growth: if she thinks that is helping her to grow spiritually, I’m the first to support her no matter what.
I do understand your (and almost every woman’s) choice, I really do. Society, religion, family. Yes, they’re very demanding, specially for women, and the whole patriarchal society (based on labour division) is founded upon desires and demands. But when I said freedom from demands, I was making a reference to the demands on a personal level. Maybe a private-almost-secret level. I mean, even if my wife couldn’t admit in public that we’re not monogamous, I would be more than satisfied if we could live a secret, separate, tantric life. A chapter of our book that no one knows.
I see where you are at your life, and I’m so glad that you’re not in a hurry. You’re absolutely right, sun’s path will come, and you can wait. It’s just that I can’t. I’ve been living conditioned existences for too many times, smiling out of fear, hiding away from the sun. I hope I’m getting closer to an end. Wouldn’t it be nice if this was the last life? Yes, it would, for me.
Can’t stand this combination of love and power that is inherent to every monogamic relationship. Does it mean that I’ll never have a wife and kids? Maybe it does, but I’m yet not married with a woman and tied to kids. I’m hopelessly in love with the idea of love, and since I’m so young, I’m not yet ready to give up and grow my balls and accept all these people saying that sex is dirty and sinful. It’s not, I’ve seen it, really seen it, and it’s beautiful. It’s poetic, sacred, dettached, meditative, loving. It’s the cosmic Creation ritual reenacted by a God and a Goddess. Therefore, why can’t my wife have a sacred intercourse with another man? And why shouldn’t I do the same with a Goddess?
Good morning Lucas, thank you for replying. I need to address something I missed.
“I’d go farther and say that there would be no such thing as mother or father, since all adults would feel responsible for all children.”
As a mother, I can tell you I don’t easily relinquish my babies. Nobody babysat them but family and even that was only when truly needed. So while a baby can have as many mothers as want to participate, they don’t have no mother. While a mother wants help, and some are more motherly than others, they will most likely be nursing and prioritizing their own. While I could have nursed and easily and happily cared for the other children if I’d been in that kind of environment, I’d still have trusted myself more than anyone else. These mother’s would have to be like sisters and even then, take into consideration typology and mothers can be very different regardless of a similar mindset and not agree. And if a mother is forced through ‘philosophies and practices’ to abandon or curtail her nature for the whole, the outcome could be sad. And yet for many, nature does provide a deep desire to mother any child that needs tending, so that I don’t see as a problem.
I grew up on a commune till 8.5. We all had separate houses, mothers, fathers, but shared work and care. We were all different and it broke up eventually. None of the other mothers was mine, but they and the fathers were safe and trustworthy when you needed them. To this day they are sacred to me, them and their children, though we live very separate lives for years now.
Sex was not shared in this instance, even though for many in those times, it was.
I read a bit about Tantra. I don’t pretend to know anything about it, but you are young and know what you want before you’ve begun, and so can move in that direction with confidence and courage. That seems an interesting path.
I’m not religious and so sin is not a word that I use or believe in. And sex is only dirty when you don’t bathe or have at it while mud wrestling, etc.
No, as you grow, it will be your own human nature that tries you most. Not society. And I think neither of us will be done after this one. There are just too many good books out there for this lifetime alone, but too many beautiful people too, and I mean the on the inside kind. Oh, and pastries and wildflowers and blueberries and snow covered mountains…
My god INFJs are judgmental. I think I’d rather be locked in a room full of poisonous snakes than with INFJs.
Muahaha…We’d rather you’d do that too.
Snakes can be “venomous” but not “poisonous.”
Hi Blake.
Im an infj identifying as enneagram type 6w5. I see that alot of infjs identify with type 4. I’ve been through the prosess of being open to being another mb-type and coming to the conclusion i must be infj, again and again. And after reading alot about how just eating frosting/glaze (jumping right to Ti) and realizing that being in Ti’s grip for many years is what made me so unhappy, i cannot see that im not infj. (Thank you for that article.)
I guess my question goes something like: What do you have to say about that? An infj type 6.
I feel i got the fucked up personality type x2.
Im also curious about my boyfriend who identifies himself as an infp enneagram type 4. I see him as a 9.
I read you believe all infps are 9’s.
But what mb-type could he be if he’s not infp (but something similar) and enneagram type 4? Isfp?
I do really believe hes an infp type 9 though…
I know you think we’re screwed before even starting being an infj-infp couple.
If he really is a 9 and im a 6, what would that do to us being together? His unhealthy way being towards my type 6 and my unhealthy way towards his growth state at 3?
Could we ever get that balance right?
We both feel that we get set out of balance when the other is in a bad place. But i do believe we can make us work if we both get the freedom to work towards our own goals in life. Not depending on each other too much, being an individual first of all, being partners, not siamese twins (as it feels like sometimes when one/both of us is dependent on the other).
Are we in for at struggle?
Have never felt more accepted and happier then with him, and am really on my way out of Ti’s claws, wich feels amazing!
(If my english is bad its because its not my native language.)
Thanks.
– Oda.
I don’t recognize an INFJ occurring at any enneapoint except that of 4. Also, enneatype 6 is kind of a grab bag of traits to me, such that I don’t really recognize that enneapoint as having a primary traits except uncertainty, doubt, ambivalence and the like. In other words, no overriding trait in the positive sense. It seems that type 6 symbolizes the lack of any strong trait, and as such isn’t really helpful as a designation. I think if you test at type 6 it probaly indicates you are anxious, passive, passive-aggressive, phobic, counterphobic. Umm, it seems to be a fearful type. That seems to be its overriding trait – fear and the reaction to being afraid. Type 6 also strikes me as completely reactive. So, the reactive type. I don’t know. I don’t get much from it except a mishmash of oppositions. So, maybe a fearful and anxious INFJ type. But, again, I don’t think INFJs fall anywhere except enneapoint 4. If you think there is a famous person that falls at enneapoint 6, let me know who that would be. It certainly would be a watered-down version of INFJ. I just don’t think type 6 is a type really. It seems more like a collection of neuroses, phobias, anxieties. The anxious type. That’s what I get from it. It actually strikes me as Virgoan in the negative. Mental too, the type 6.
Anyway, I wouldn’t recognize an INFJ as an INFJ if they fell at this enneapoint. If an INFJ is showing traits of the type 6 (anxiety, phobias, overly mental, reactive, passive etc.) I would just say that they are an INFJ that is overly introverted via Ti overusage. An INFJ’s main thing is always the enneapoint 4 search for identity (“who am I?”). That is the overriding trait of a type 4 on the enneagram. The concept of “origin” and also “the defect” that prevents one from being in touch with the sensed original self, the authentic self. And of course all the implications for the expression of this true self via creations or art expression and so on. No other type seems to fall at this point besides INFJ. The next closest type to this point would be INTJ, but, more as a wing, than a primary emphasis and concern. There is also something of all the NF temperaments implied here as well, so INFP, ENFP, and ENFJ. But, truly I don’t think any of those types fall here exclusively, or as a primary orientation.
INFPs, as I said before, all fall at point 9 on enneagram to me. ISFJs and ESFJs fall here as well. ENFJs have a wing here from type 8. That’s the only types I see at type 9.
So, if you are an INFJ and he is an INFP, yes, I have talked about some of the dynamic of that relationship before in comments. It ain’t the easiest because this relationship is what I would call a “12th house” relationship. The astrological 12th house. You would have to know something about the nature of the 12th house in astrology to know what this means. Google “12th house astrology” and that will give you some flavor for the nature of the 12th house.
However, any relationship between any two types could work in theory. Some of much more unlikelier to occur than others. And those will tend to be harder of course because there is a very good reason why they aren’t naturally occurring relationships such as the relationship between an INFJ and an ISTJ to give one of the most glaring examples of a relationship that would be close to impossible to work, and moreover, would be unlikely to occur in the first place voluntarily.
Now, the INFJ-INFP relationship is probaly pretty common because NF types tend to be attracted to other NF types more than any other class of types (NT types are the second most attractive type to NFs), but, I don’t think INFJ and INFP are particularly compatible over long periods of time. As I’ve said before, at the outset it will seem like they are kindred spirits and they are likely to see each other as some sort of refuge from the harshness of the world, but, it is mostly a negative dynamic that ensues between them as they deepen their bonds to each other. Neither type helps the other with their weak points and can’t. Not even if they wanted to (and deep down they really don’t want to). Things will be left untended in a 1,001 different ways. And it will all be in the nature of smallnesses that add up over time to become unbearable. You won’t be able to put your finger on it, yet, it is there.
So, have fun!
Thank you for your answer!
From I was little I recognize myself as type 4. But I’ve struggled with anxiety for the last ten years after a really tough time in my life when I was at a really vulnerable place. Parents divorcing, rejection from one parent and a really unsafe environment to grow up in, taking care of other than myself. Having to push my needs aside. Also socially and issues with connection. Not daring to show who I am in fear of rejection.
This is not me wining, it’s just the way it was. And the cause for me breaking through that slowly over the five past years, still struggling with some anxiety. I don’t really identify with type 6. I feel I have this real calm inside me, but negative thoughts pushing me out of balance again and again, thoughts of that I am not good enough and not worthy.
I’m constantly dealing with these thoughts and slowly pushing trough. Maybe I’m not a 6 after all… I don’t know. I know I’m an infj though. I know my contribution in the world is to express myself. I love singing, playing instruments, painting, drawing, crafts, dancing etc. I also love making plans and systems, and that’s so much more comfortable then actually getting into the physical world and doing it.
Not wanting to be a type 6 or really thought I was one, but I wanted to find the truth, not which type I wanted to be.
I’ve definitely been living in my head, not showing myself for many years. Ti has got me digging and digging, not bringing me to any good place at all. “There must be something wrong with me, or else all these rejections would not have happened.” was my thought these years. So I got into “survival mode” and just kept going, not having any hope of that things would work out at all. Being miserable and, I’ve realized of late, terrible devastated and rejected the world as I felt like it rejected me.
Working on developing my Fe, trying to not search for what others want so I can avoid doing something that makes them dislike me, but to remember that what I want is also important. I’m just terrible afraid of not being a good person. Apparently I can’t match the behavior of Jesus or Buddah, and have to accept being human and making mistakes. (I also see the humor in this, but I actually want to be this good.) How can I accept making so many mistakes when I know SO WELL what’s the right thing to do?
I’m learing how to let things go.
I LOVE it as of late when I’m “selfish”/getting my needs met.
I’m constantly getting better at just looking at my crazy hurricane of thoughts and feelings of uncertainty, not going with them and giving them power.
I want my vision of the world out of my head and start getting involved, showing my power and who I am. I’m a dreamer, a visionary, I’ve got ALOT of willpower and strength. I just thought that these were sides in me I had to control and not let out, because then I would be a bad person. That’s what growing up in a small, judgmental town gives you. “Stay inside the box”! And I’ve desperately wanted to fit in. And I’m realizing that I will never do.
Sorry for my ramblings. Its hard to stop when I first start.
Looking at my ramblings I think they are pathetic. But that’s how I’ve been thinking for the last years.
Does it sound going crazy inside Ti-loop to you? Or just mentally unstable? (Okay, I know the answer to the last question.)
As for an infj in a romantic relationship. It a constant search for intimacy, but getting mad for not getting my freedom, feeling like my partners “capturing me”. At the same time wanting this. I feel like the way I can get a relationship to work is by “breaking loose”, totally doing my own thing, and then getting back to the closeness and intimacy. This going back and forth, if I’m ever to get it to work in the long haul.
My infp boyfriend is not all unicorns and butterflies, though he’s got this side too. He’s actually got both of the sides you write about in the “infj woman in love”. Which makes me think he might not be a standard infp type.
I’ll just cross my fingers and hope he can manage me going all roman(iac)tic on him and then turning, sort of running away, hopefully always coming back.
We’ve had this crazy connection, chemistry and love for each other (first as friends) since we met over ten years ago, so I really hope it does last.
So what you mean is that in the infj-infp relationship they will both neglect things in the physical world, or in which other ways as well? I’m apparently not seeing this yet.
Though I know I can get a bit sick of myself and my problems, always having someone so «in my head» or at least having so many good intentions for helping me. Not getting me out of my head. Though that’s my job, not his.
– Oda.
An array of small things that just add up and you cannot put your finger on it… The growing dissatisfaction despite all the awesomeness and care and devotion. Yes. Makes you feel terrible but needs to be acknowledged in order to move forward. In any direction at all.
So close and so eternally far at the same time. Not the tempting, dark “far-awayness”, but rather a mundane “you cannot reach me no matter how hard you try” kind of realization. Sigh.
I must firstly write that Ilovve to read your articles.
Second, now I think I understand better what is going on with my Fe&Fi. I have constant battles and periods of where I do a lot of things for others – Fe charged, and then comes a period when I demand others do things from me in a quite selfish way – Fi charger. I have trouble fighting the two and I constantly bargain within me what is appropriate and what is not, what is better, good and what is selfish, bad.
I worry I will never mature and my Fi shadow will be quite strong, not only within me, but also outside of me when I can hurt others. I need to learn how to ballance both, how to keep Fi in check or else my life will be constant struggle.
Do you say, that a job when you work and help other people can help puel Fe or on the other hand, can make Fi stronger too?
First off, it is useful to see Fe and Fi as a sort of interconnected system in the INFJ type. One of the primary uses of Fe for an INFJ is to bleed off the buildup of charge that is occurring via their Fi id. Picture Fi as a container that can fill up, but, has no spout. Fe is the spout, so to speak. Or the leaky boat analogy. Maybe that is better. Again, picture Fi as a leaky boat. Water is coming in (from beneath), but, the only way to get it out of the boat is to to get a bucket or a cup, and start baling the water out. That “baling out” of the water would be Fe. If you don’t bale the water out, guess what happens eventually?
Pressurized water is another way to look at Fi id. Water is basically synonymous with feeling or emotion. Symbolically. When water is flowing it is a great feeling. When it builds up to fill a container that has no outlet (you are that container), it hurts like a motherfucker.
Which brings me to the concept of stilled waters. But, not stilled waters in the sense of peace. Stilled waters in the sense of a swamp. Stilled waters that grow corrupted and stagnant – a bog – that sort of thing. Putrefaction, decay, zombification, you name it, that is the sort of dynamic I am alluding to in the case of Fi for INFJs. It’s a Scorpio Moon dynamic. And the Moon and Scorpio don’t get along. The Moon needs to express and flow. Scorpio is a fixed sign of feeling. This combination basically leads to stagnation and stillness that can easily grow poisonous and corrupt. The fermentation of feeling.
Anyway, the INFJ Fe auxiliary is all about expression and flow. Of what? Of the contents that have built up in the Fi id, which usually has occurred over long periods of time (since an INFJs infancy). INFJs that are not in the HABIT of expressing those feelings, which are lovely, dark, and deep, will feel bad. They may feel any number of negative emotions, but they usually range around guilt, resentment, shame, rage, sadness, grief and those sort of lovely things. There is also indescribable beauty and tenderness in there as well. There is unspeakable passion and longing. In short, INFJs are deeply feeling people that feel STRONGLY and react STRONGLY to all manner of phenomena.
Fe will allow them to express all of these things that have built up inside and taken on unseemly and unwieldy colorations, tones, and proportions. Once they start to express them in some way on a habitual basis, they will see the gift of being a deeply feeling individual, rather than the curse of it.
Fe expression can occur in working and helping other people. Absolutely. INFJs are not called The Counselor for nothing. Much of the reason they have the natural ability to counsel others is because they have experienced much of the range of human nature on a very personal and intimate basis, within themselves. Especially, INFJs that are older and more experienced; have been in a number of interpersonal relationships and felt and suffered and joyed their way through.
Another way is artistic expression. That can include anything that is an art or can be approached artistically. So, of course, anything in the fine arts category: music, singing, dancing, painting, creative writing etc. However, there is an art to many professions. As long as it allows a lot of leeway to the INFJ to express something personal in their work. Counseling and psychology are great. INFJs are particularly great at listening to others and being able to identify and resonate with them on some level. The ability to listen is perhaps the most important skill in counseling.
There is nothing wrong with with making Fi stronger as long as you have an outlet for it. As a matter of fact, the stronger an INFJ’s Fe, the stronger tends to grow their Fi. But, in a positive sense.
In any event, there is little you could do to make you Fi strong or weak. It is both strong and weak in an INFJ by temperament. The question is can they express their Fi.
Now, you talked about about pisces, cancer and Scorpio, but what about lion?
I’m a (male) infj born on the 1th of August. It always puzzled me because lions are described as highly extroverted and self confident, what I don’t really identify with. Excuse me if I said something dumb because I know almost nothing about astrology. But if so, please let me know.
What a strange place. So much text and theorizing. The INFJ I know is a complete fool but then he had a lot of unlearning to do.
I like a good woman. Difficult to find one because the cities are so ugly, and the people there are children of the city.
Savor the pickles on your path, and enjoy life. Sweet coquettes. Well that is just my opinion. Life is almost dead opposite, to theory.
Is INFJ the same thing as an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person)? I get into codependent relationships a lot and found that I as an HSP am attracted to Narcissists. Is this an INFJ thing too? How do we break the cycle?
No, INFJ is not the same thing as HSP because other types can fall into that category. I think it would be fair to say INFJs are highly sensitive by definition.
Yes, INFJ is more than likely to get into codependent relationships and be attracted to narcissists as well as be somewhat prone to narcissism themselves.
You break the cycle by taking actions to prevent any of those things from happening once you are satisfied that this is your dynamic. That is, assuming you are dissatisfied by the dynamic, which, I’m assuming you are.
Sorry to be vague, but, these are very general and broad questions that can’t be answered very simply.
I do consult as you know 🙂
HSP largely refers to overstimulation of the senses.
“We live in a time when women are becoming stronger and more independent and men are becoming more feminine …”
True. But…Are women becoming stronger? What does stronger even mean?
As a women (INFJ with a natal Scorpio Moon even) I’m not sure this is the case. It also depends greatly if you are from the US or not but for the sake of argument lets say that you are.
This is all Feminist rhetoric with a very blurry definition of what power even is.
Do you have any examples of this amazing new power women suddenly have in our time?
(the power of not being allowed to be feminine and ask for protection from man? the power to be made a victim only for your gender or for someone’s political agenda? the power to not be allowed to take pride in being a woman? the power to be “independent=alone? )
I guess you are talking about the power man had- as you refer to a reversal of gender roles.
The power to have a job, a career, make money, be assertive and act like a dude. The way I see it both genders are having a messy hard time in the 21ts century. The only good side for guys is the feminism tells women that having sex is “empowering” so they get more out of that.
Guys are more feminine- why? starting in kindergarten they are taught that girls and boys are the same and that boyish behavior should be controlled (shouting, running around, having some desire) it doesn’t look great to me.
“One thing that I think all this means is that women are going to be more sexually free. There is going to be less of this waiting around for men to come and impregnate them and more of women taking the active role in society. ”
Yes I agree this is happening. The problem is no one is getting what they want and need to be happy out of it. We don’t just have sex to get pregnant right and even if you take a completely evolutionary point of view- women always had this freedom but they also got a lot in return (some form of responsibility the guy had to take for the child or the women) – today they don’t get anything out of it other than being called “liberated and strong” .
I raise the question- what is this liberation? from what are we being liberated? What for?
It’s all just nice positive words that have nothing behind them.
* something to think about.
Will you marry me? Seriously, though, I’m loving these questions you’ve raised. How, exactly, is women acting like men “liberating”? Instead of teaching women to abandon their femininity, why haven’t we taught men to love and be loyal to their wives? Men and women are not designed to compete with one another, and it’s this competition over the masculine role that has ruined families and social health along with it. Is the freedom to do whatever the hell you want really worth the price of loving, committed families that strengthen society’s foundation?
Wait, whoa!
The desire a woman has for liberation is not to act like a man, or necessarily to compete with a man. It is to have the freedom to self express, to pursue her own human interests and happiness, as men are allowed and expected and encouraged, to do. She will have interest in competition only if she is by nature competitive and would be competing with females for jobs, accolades, etc., as well.
I have no desire to be manlike. None. Except that when I was fourteen, I dressed as a prince for halloween because princes could have adventures and princesses, well, they were all tied up in impossibly limiting dresses. It was not that I wanted to be a man, not at all. I just wanted what humans want. Freedom.
I want to travel, to make art, to learn and explore and spend hours floating about in my head or researching . To be fully human and not have to curtail and hide and suppress my own desires, be they sexual, intellectual, or physical, whatever.
I love my babies, and my husband and his warm shoulder, but I fecking hate dishes and matching socks and mopping and picking up constantly. I like folding laundry, lace things and beautiful clothes and submitting to a man’s desire. I like being female, I liked nursing babies and staying home with them, and at the same time, it can drive a person half mad, going day after day without stimulating conversation or the time to delve into ideas.
I would encourage anyone to pursue a way to make a living doing what interested them. Two incomes encourages independence, and dependance is not what love is made of. Wanting to come back together after a days work is where it is at. And having the choice. And I don’t mean both have to go out and work, special when babies are small, but both need time to be themselves and not just a caretaker or provider.
Being in a place where you will be broke and have hungry babies if you want or have to leave, that is not love. Living with a woman only because you feel responsible is hardly love either. Love is seeing a full person and wanting to mingle with them in one way or another.
This is where we are headed, if we allow it of ourselves. It is not about promiscuity and control, or it is now, sadly. It is about vital expression, desire and tenderness and allowing others to be. And they will be within their form, man or woman, but it needn’t be a tight little miserable box.
Man and woman are both strong and needful. But I think they’d be less needful and more wantful if given equal opportunities to thrive as people.
Okay then, stepping off my soap box…
Oh, and definitely some hungry pursuit, possession and submission. Damn, I love being contrary.
I think what fi vs fe comes down to is integration. We have to learn to accept that darkness exist in fi. Then we have to balance it with the same amount of light. I know that fe is the way to do this and when that happens you become integrated. But integration is not the stopping point. It’s a new beginning. Or as scorpio moon would say, a rebirth. What i have discovered through this journey is that freedom is a state of mind. I don’t have to have sex with many to be free. I can have a plutonic relationship, or many plutonic relationships and get what I need. I happen to feel the ideal situation is to be in love with someone and not have a physical relationship with them. Sounds like torture, or does it. All the longing and the wanting but never giving in….perpetuates the relationship forever. It never gets boring. It’s never brought to climax. I have always experienced a sense of loss after a relationship gets physical. I think for me, sex is the beginning of the end of a relationship. The truth is, for me, my fantasy and imagination are sooooo much better than the real deal could ever be. I could compromise and have mediocre sex….but why. No one alive can give me all the physical and emotional things that I crave. When they can’t it kills the relationship. When I decided to allow myself the freedom to feel all of my feelings and for whoever I had them for I became free. I am married and I am in love with someone other than my husband. I stay married for the kids. Its not as dreadful as it may sound. And I have bad days where I physically want to run away and start a new life. But don’t we all whether married or single. My point is, freedom comes from accepting ALL of your emotions and thoughts without preconceived notions that this is wrong and that is right. When I gave that gift to myself, I became a very happy person. As an infj we need to love as many people as we can because that’s the gift of fe. We don’t actually have to have sex with all of them. Just imagine living in a world where people are free, without judgement from themselves or others, without preconceived or taught socially acceptable thoughts and feelings. We all could just emotionally feel everything. Feelings are not bad or good… the action we attach to those feelings are what can be defined as bad or good. Just my take on polyamory and also how I feel we can incorporate the pre-agricultural society into todays world.
Oh one more thing, for those of you who have responded to Blake’s articles as these things being true of younger infj’s, I hear what you are saying. But, a lot of them still ring true for me. I can’t and don’t want to break up my family. I would never be that selfish. Plus, me finally accepting that the one soul mate person is not the best road for me in this lifetime was a big part of what I had to integrate. I started this journey 10 years ago. I met someone at a party that I was so sexually attracted to I could hardly breathe. I felt incredibly guilty. But, I could not make the feelings go away. And when I let myself experience them, I felt happier and more alive than I had since I was much younger. I allowed my mind the freedom to explore and think and feel everything with out guilt or judgement. When that happened, I never really considered actually having an affair. I didn’t need to and eventually the attraction faded. Which is exactly what happens in a physical relationship that is based solely on sexual attraction.
@michelle
If your mind can think it, could it not happen? So you’re in love with someone else? I know everyone’s definition of love is just a little bit different, but can we all agree it takes time? Or do you mean your in lust with someone else, and you’re finding your husband a little more boring than usual? Can I just make a bold statement from someone who understands your situation? I think you’re telling yourself you don’t need the sexual relationship with someone to be in love with them because it justifies you staying with your husband for the kids. You’re having irrational feelings and making them rational with this “belief”.
I don’t want this message to sound too brash, but coming from someone whose mother stayed with her father for 20 years “for the kids” knows a couple things. Your kids won’t say thank you. And you will regret it when they’re grown up and out of the house. Because it’s always you at the end of the day. And at the end of 20 years, well, you’ll be 20 years older. Now how you gonna make that fantasy come true when the arthritis starts to take it’s toll?
“Or do you mean your in lust with someone else…”
“Now how you gonna make that fantasy come true when the arthritis starts to take it’s toll?”
Hey e, I take issue with the above statements. I feel they are a personal attack at someone who had the guts to bare their soul, by revealing intimate details about their life. She does not deserve a ‘public shaming’ with the above insults. If it were me, I would stick to the points in Michelle’s story that bother me, and why. Why attack someone who is just sharing their life experience just as is? And then…”I don’t want this message to sound too brash…”????? Come on now, really?
How do you think being an infj might mitigate certain Scorpio Sun Sign personality traits? I am always extremely interested to know how these two interact . I would imagine the INFJ traits will neutralize or soften some of the more destructive or malevolent aspects of Scorpio.
Would so love to hear your opinion on this! Love your blog and really dig into it in earnest once time allows.
I would imagine the INFJ traits will neutralize or soften some of the more destructive or malevolent aspects of Scorpio.
Quite the opposite. Read some of what I say on the INFJ id position and the implied Scorpio Moon of all INFJs. If an INFJ was born with a Scorpio Sun it would tend to highlight the INFJ id position of Scorpio. And the id position of any type tends to bring out the more negative qualities of a sign.
Also, when you say that you imagine that the INFJ traits would soften some of the traits of Scorpio, it tends to work the other around – the astrology one is born with would either amplify or tone down the traits of the inborn temperament type. I see astrology as a emender of temperament type rather than the temperament being an emender of one’s astrology. Temperament is the more general factor and the astrological birth chart is more particular, and thus, qualifying of the temperament.
So, being born with Scorpio prominent in the birth chart in some way would tone up or tone down certain aspects of the INFJ temperament. In this case, the sign of Scorpio, on the whole, will emphasize what I consider to be some of the most fundamental traits of the INFJ temperament. If one were born a Libra sun, for example, then I would say that would tone down some of the INFJ traits, such as the classic INFJ trait of depth of feeling and penetration beneath appearances (which is actually a Scorpio trait). Libra is a sign of surfaces and thus would tone down the INFJ propensity to dive deep. However, it would not eradicate the propensity to do so. An INFJ is always an INFJ no matter what their astrology is.
But a Libran INFJ would be a “lighter” INFJ. However, one also must remember that the Sun sign is just one placement in an astrological chart, so let us say this Libra Sun INFJ was born with Scorpio rising. Well, in that case, your gonna have a “heavier” INFJ, even though the Sun is in the lighter sign of Libra. It would put the sun in the 12th house of the astrological chart, which is also the weakest house. This would cause other problems.
But, in general, you would look at all the positions in the astrological chart on the whole and balance it against the temperament type to arrive at a particularization of the temperament type.
As I said, Scorpio placements, as a general rule, would amplify the INFJ id position and bring it more into activity in the psyche of the INFJ person. Thus, INFJ with these Scorpio placements would be particularly deep and intense INFJs. It would emphasize their INFJness.
I am an ENTP female but i see so much of myself in your descriptions of the INFJ female way of thinking of things. Or maybe rather i understand it so well, i can see so clearly where they are coming from. I almost like they are the “inside out me”. Like a jumper taken out of the laundry but put on the wrong way.
I must admit I find it a bit exhaustive(?) Cos INFJS are bloody complicated creatures, high maintenance but very interesting and alluring the same time. You never get bored of INFJs, their minds are so fascinating.
The best way to describe it is being a big ball of hot, molten rock just plunging into a deep, cool, still forest pond. And then you get to lay there, at the bottom and glow and pulse while the lake just quietly closes inn all around you. And you give out radiations of excitement and energy to the water while it soots and calms your hot headed brain. But we never burn out, and we always shift and change. Like a rainbow on a fresh spring day. And the Pond gladly receives and reciprocate the ideas and the thoughts. refines and bounces back.
Im not sure how the analogy would work the opposite way.
Perhaps a frozen, dry misunderstood pice of spicy bread that suddenly get dipped in a pot of tasty, thick gravy? and it just soaks it all up and gets soft and mellow and damn tasty?
And now i totally lost my plot…like totally…Its also usually what happens when one plunge inside the INFJ brain, its soo much to see and explore, so much to discover, if they let you that is.. and they always rise so beautifully to the occasion. I know they can tear down my wildest thoughts with one word if they really want to , but they never do. They just play with. And I think they secretly like it.
The combination feels like a proper “mindfuck” regardless of gender…(I’ve only met three INFJs in my life so the sample size is a bit small i have to admit)
uhm i guess this had nothing to do with sex or women at all… the initial point was that , i can really relate to the INFJ female look on sex, relationships and well, everything really… But I am an ENTP, and I always thought we were…well the molten rock to their deep, cool forest pond?
Im not particularly keen on this tbh,.. thinking like an INFJ. they are far far far to complicated personalities. I really never thought of myself as complicated in any way..
So basically this is a moan post about understanding where INFJs are coming from. But then I like them at the same time. So I guess I shall take it all back and conclude that, INFJs aint that bad after all..
@e. You’re having irrational feelings and making them rational with this “belief”.
Feelings are irrational. But I totally get what you’re saying. there are lots of days I don’t want to be married but everyone’s life is different. The point I’m really trying to make is that freedom can mean more than just being able to do whatever we feel like when we feel like doing it. I know myself well enough, and I’m honest with myself enough to know that if I broke up my family and jumped into a new relationship, in 5 years would I be happy? Probably not. Am I finding my husband more boring than usual? Huuummmm. Honestly, I find him very boring all the time. Not because he’s a bore but because I already know all there is to know about him. In order for me to stay satisfied in a relationship the other person would have to be, I don’t even know how to express it…….constantly changing or learning new ways of being??? I have an insatiable appetite for learning about people. I want to know everything about everyone especially if they are educated in things I find interesting. Most people I can devour in a very short amount of time. The engagement that it would take to keep me interested in someone, especially if I spent a lot of time with them, would be exhausting to that person. Don’t get me wrong, if someone could stimulate my mind like that in a long term relationship he would be very rewarded physically. But when would he sleep, eat and work? Ok, I’m joking, a little bit. I’m not trying to sound bratty or spoiled, I’m just being honest. It’s not fair to place those kinds of expectations on anyone. I would like to say I’ve grown up and evolved into someone who doesn’t need so much but I CAN’T change my temperament. I do lots of reading and exploring my interest but my mind constantly craves expansion. The point I was trying to make was that the freedom to think and feel whatever we want, can be a very liberating experience. I’ve read comments on here (maybe in reference to a different article) that was questioning what liberation and new found power that women are supposed to now have, means. I was trying to give one perspective on what that could mean…..that freedom or liberation or power doesn’t always have to be an action. Hey, I could just as easily and honestly write an article on why I should not stay in a loveless marriage. Does that make me sound like I’m reversing my beliefs. I’m not. I have a lot of polarity in my birth chart, so if I’m one way it’s a safe bet I can make a case for the opposition. It’s all about perspective.
@michelle
I thank you for your response. I agree that freedom doesn’t have to present itself in the form of an action. I will not begin to announce that I know your life – cause I don’t. But it would be a darn shame if you stare at the ceiling in the dark every night wishing to see some sort of color or shape, while your husband sleeps next to you like a baby.
“Many women are unhappy because of this dynamic of being so owned. At the end of the day, they essentially do what men want.”
i admit i just skimmed this, but Fe is more representative of “typical” females (xSFJ) i know it exhibits differently in the xNFJs but it’ s still what constitutes the “norm” for feminine types. and how they are “supposed” to act (caretaking, concern with other’s feelings first, etc.) maybe i misunderstand what you mean but Fi females are generally not as acceptable by society at large, at all. nor do i think the idea of soulmates is Fi either, really.
In my opinion, Fi is the feminine function par excellence, whereas, Te is the masculine function epitomized. I could hardly think of a more receptive and yin function than Fi as it manifests in the INFP type. In my nomenclature this would be Fi Pisces. INFPs are primarily oriented by this form of Fi (there is also Scorpio Fi in my system). ENFPs project this form of Fi but are not nearly as susceptible to the deep implications of it because it is more solarized in them, which means they embody it as a leading actor would embody their most lauded performances. At the end of the day, the ENFP can take off their Fi Pisces mask.
INFJs have this form of Pisces Fi as the deepest thing in them. Contrary to the ENFP, they are extremely susceptible to this form of Fi. It moves them from the utter depths.
INFP falls more in the middle of these two extremes in terms of their susceptibility/immunity to the utter yin-ness of Fi Pisces.
Also, this Fi Pisces is absolutely the function par excellence of the idea of soulmates. In my opinion.
Hi,
I’m an Aquarius sun and moon. What does this to my infj temperament. in guessing it reduced the intensity and passion. What I find is that I’m pretty calm and stable by myself but I get emotional around others.
I’m guessing it reduces the intensity and passion.
Bingo.
Me too, JaneBee. I’m Aquarius sun, moon, ascendant, mars, and mercury. Heavy on the Aquarius and the air planets in general!
I’m calm by myself (with occasional bouts of melancholy) but I feel “riled up” after connecting with others and like I have to “smooth the waters” by being with myself and processing that outside input.
I am so similar too! I’m calm by myseld and around other people I get so riled up that I have to spen a LOT of time by myself to be myself again. In fact I experience so many emotions around others, that its only by getting away that I think “oh my goodness what was that” because i’ll have no control over the anger or crying or whatever around anyone else.
I need so much rest as well to just deal with everything.
But everyone’s always like you have to work really hard and do heaps to get anywhere in life and i’m just like oh no what am I going to do. At the moment im in uni but i often wonder what im gonna do upon graduating. At the moment im trying to find ways to get as much energy as possible without using caffeine and sugar but I still need to spend so much time by myself. I hope I can find that sort of job, otherwise its just too much.
Hey,
Don’t worry it will work out somehow. Always, I wish someone had told me this about ‘being empathetic’, always pick you first. If you can’t take anymore emotional overload you owe yourself the time off. You are just as important as the next person, and you deserve that brk before moving on. And that’s okay.
Thank you 🙂 I do always take heaps of time off but then I worry I’m going to be considered lazy. But honestly I rather be healthy.
These posts are always very enlightening to read! Though, could you elaborate on what a Capricorn Sun, Sagittarius Moon, Sagittarius Rising INFJ looks like? I don’t relate to all of the INFJ posts you’ve written, and I was wondering if it was because Scorpio is not very prominent in my natal chart.
I cannot elaborate at length on what any particular variety of INFJ looks like in a comment, though, you may be right that having a lack of emphasis on Pluto/Scorpio in the astrological birth chart may temper some of the extremes of the INFJ temperament in love.
However, the dynamic would still be there qualitatively, even if diminished in strength.
Oh, I am curious now, too…I have a Sagittarius moon in my chart, too, and I identify as an INFJ. How would my moon sign impact my INFJness?
Have you seen those craters on the Moon?
It would impact it like that.
Also, I think the problem for us is much less about the social construct of polyamory than it is the straight up rarity of people that interest us to begin with – I’d be down with it as an idea but it just doesn’t actually manifest bc it’s hard enough for me to find one person let alone 2-3!
Thank you for bringing this up, Marisa – it’s been on my mind too. 😉
I’m new to astrology, so I’m curious what impact my chart has on my INFJness if you have a free moment –
Scoprio Sun
Capricorn Moon
Sagittarius Mercury
Sagittarius Venus
Gemini Mars
Leo Jupiter
Capricorn Saturn
Capricorn Uranus
Capricorn Neptune
Scoprio Pluto
Capricorn North Node
Leo Ascendant
Taurus Midheaven
For what it’s worth, I’ve been with my virgo INTJ for a decade – but he endured hell waiting around for me to realize it. Haha. We make a lovely damaged, hard-edged romantic couple I think. Wouldn’t say we make much sense to others, though 🙂
Him upon first meeting: Ok, you don’t get it, but I have feels and later you’re going to get it, you love me too.
Me: Fuck off, what the fuck do you even know about me?
-years later-
Me: God dammit.
Otherwise I am more of a content loner/solo person.
Personally I’m jealous of your Venus/mars combo…I think it makes “extentivizing” your love easier and more fun and not so serious and intense about one person!
I think anything that split people and the family model will be promoted for the sake of divide & conquer.
This site basically concretes the demons I’ve been battling all of my life- I get bored easily and need change/diversity, I chase perfection and have too high of standards, I take injustices way to seriously/am very vocal & not everyone can tolerate an outspoken person, I cut people off for being inauthentic/toxic/users/liars …. But then it adds a few more super charming attributes into my exhausting bag of tricks that I hate.
Between THIS article, “INFJ Woman In Love”, and “Zodiac Sign of Cancer-Fluck You”, I feel even more hopeless than I already did about finding a partner (because I’m so complex), and even less of a decent human being (because I’m already hyper aware of my flaws).
The sentiment is akin to the trolls in INFJ groups that post shit like “YoU kNoW HitLeR wAs aN iNfj, RigHt?!”
Thanks. Thanks for reminding me that I somehow share something in common with that evil murderer…
I don’t wanna suck the life force out of anybody. I want a healthy partnership- with (YES!) a deep minded man who is also able to satisfy me with his level of passion.
I was married to toxic for 10 years, and then in a LTR for 6 years where he had outbursts of severe rage. I don’t do toxic anymore. I’ve been alone for 4 years, trying to date on/off….and if I didn’t feel hopeless enough about dating already (because I’m juggling work and 4 kids)… I feel like my complexity makes it futile to look for a man who is the perfect balance of warm/patient/passionate and assertive/has a backbone/is his own man. Just want to say thanks for the boost in confidence that I could use at the ripe age of 41, single and sexless, and full of enough doubts.
Sincerely,
A person who is SICK of being an INFJ/HSP/Cancer and having all the feels, all the fucking time.