Psychology of Compartmentalizing Sex

President Clinton wags his finger, looks America in the eye, and announces, 

"I did not have sex with that woman." George Michael wags another part of his 
anatomy and discovers just how public a park restroom can be. 
These men and others like them lead tightly controlled, highly disciplined lives. 
At the same time, they act out sexually in career-threatening, dangerous ways. 
What's going on here?


Compartmentalization, for one thing. That's the psychological term for 
placing several different aspects of one's life in separate baskets 
and believing they can remain apart forever. However, when it comes 
to sex, some experts believe the issue goes beyond compartments to walls: 
Some men erect high barriers in a subconscious attempt to isolate parts 
of their lives. There are three ways to act on sexual feelings: expression, s
uppression, or repression. 


The first method is straightforward; the second may cause a person to think, 
I'll have that sex or make those films when it's less dangerous; 
the third--repression--is the reason televangelists sermonize against 
sin moments before hiring prostitutes. The more driven a man is in his 
professional life the more likely he is to repress sexual feelings.


American men, are often afraid of passion and losing control. Although the 
president has proved that compartmentalization, building walls, and risky 
behavior are not necessarily gay issues, they do affect many gay men, s
ays New York City psychotherapist Douglas Nissing. "It's the way many 
gay men survive," he explains. "As we grow up in unsafe spaces, we learn 
to cut ourselves off from our personalities. We put certain feelings in one box, 
others in another. This disintegration leads to sexual behavior that is so 
cut off from the rest of our lives that the consequences are not a cause 
for concern or even pause."


The tendency to wall off parts of one's life appears to be more common 
among men than women. Also, gay men who are open about their 
sexuality are less apt to compartmentalize their lives than those who are closeted.
The closet takes many forms, points out Michael Cohen, a psychotherapist in Hartford, Conn. "If you hide your sexual orientation or your fantasies or emotional needs, then that repression will leak out in other parts of your life," he says. "For some people, it's expressed as anonymous sex in a rest stop or video store; for others, it's unsafe sex when you know better or even depression."
If the problem is "disintegration," then the solution is "integration." Berzon says, "It's important to be integrated in all parts of your life. I see patients who say that being gay isn't a problem, but then I find out they aren't out to their families, so it's clear they still are not fully integrated."


Therapists say men who are driven professionally--like President Clinton, entertainer George Michael, and retired Marine captain Rich Merritt--are more likely to compartmentalize their sexual feelings.