Suggestibility and Sexuality: How You Learn and How You Behave
by The way you take in and process information depends a lot on the way you were taught to receive it. Likewise, your sexuality in terms of how you respond in relationships emerges from a surprising source.
There are actually two ways in which you take in and process information: direct or indirect. Another way of putting this is to say that you take in suggestions either literally or inferentially.
What does that mean? Simply put, it means that you either accept what you hear at face value or you question it and look for the inner meaning, like reading between the lines. As an example, when someone says to you that you look good today, you may accept the compliment and say thank you, or you may question the motive of the speaker and wonder what he really meant (Did I look bad yesterday? Does he want something from me? What is he thinking that he’s not telling me? Does this mean that he’s interested in me?)
How you take in information, either literally or inferentially, is called your suggestibility. Your suggestibility results from your earliest interactions with your primary caregiver, usually your mother. If your mother was direct in her communication with you and you could count on her to be true to her word, then you are most likely to be literal in the manner in which you take in information. We would call this physical suggestibility.
If your mother was evasive or not clear in her manner of communicating with you, such that you could not always trust her word, or such that you would have to guess at her meaning, then you would most likely be inferential in the manner in which you take in information. We would call this emotional suggestibility.
Since learning to communicate with others is critical to your survival, this is a skill that is learned from birth. It is learned from your primary caregiver, since this is the person with whom you have the most contact and communication. It is so important that it is fully imprinted in your mind during the first seven or eight years of life, when your subconscious mind is in the forefront absorbing everything you take in without judging or applying logic to the information.
Conversely, a person with emotional suggestibility will speak very directly or literally, having internally processed the thoughts leading to the spoken words. This person will be brief and even blunt, having already worked through any ambivalence toward what was being said. There is also a reluctance to reveal what is within – a desire to be protective of oneself. A person with physical suggestibility, more open about himself, will speak inferentially or indirectly, processing his thoughts as he speaks and revealing his thought process as though it were vital to the communication.
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