Expressions of sexuality: A jungian view

Abstract

Until the beginning of the 20th century there was a rigid definition of what it was to be a man and what it was to be a woman, of masculinity and femininity. Currently issues of gender identity and sexual orientation go beyond binarism and configure a more fluid sexuality that challenges the collective consciousness. Our Christian Jewish culture led to an overvaluation of the masculine to the detriment of the feminine and to the repressions that derive in the history of our sexuality. Some aspects of this history, in Brazil, are revised in order to situate ourselves in the current panorama. By undoing the concepts of anima and animus from their cultural bias and rigid patterns, we can understand that the archetypal is expressed in the most different polarities, in the feminine and masculine, in the soul and in the body, inside and outside of us and that the individual psyche as well as the collective one is transformed and develops its creative potential, starting from the differentiation and integration of the different polarities.