Sexual Five — “Confidence” (Countertype)

In the Sexual Five, avarice is expressed through an ongoing search for a connection that will satisfy their need for an experience of the most perfect, safest, and most satisfying (idealized) union. This Five may look like the other two five subtypes on the outside, having all the regular five inhibitions and introversion in the area of relationship, but the sexual five places a special value on one-to-one or intimate connections.

This Five has a passion for finding a special person they can connect with deeply, sometimes a person they cannot find or have yet to find. Like the social five, this five also searches for a high ideal, but this five looks for the ideal in the realm of love. This Five feels a need to find a high exemplar of absolute love. Like the search for the extraordinary of the social five, the ideal kind of connection this five searches for represents a very high standard. Sexual fives seek something like the ultimate mystical union- an experience of the divine in human relationships. And this can also happen with the search for good friends or a spiritual teacher.

While social and self-preservation fives are more removed from their emotions, the sexual five is intense, romantic, and more emotionally sensitive. This Five suffers more, resembles the four more, and has more overt desires. This is the countertype among the fives. It may not be completely obvious from the outside, however- they may seem very much like other fives until you touch their romantic spot and inspire their romantic feelings. While they can appear reserved or laconic on the outside, sexual fives have a vibrant internal life that is highly romantic. There are examples of sexual five artists- like Chopin, who Naranjo notes is the most romantic of the classical composers- who display extreme emotional expressiveness through their artistic creations but are cut off in many ways from others in the everyday world.

Sexual fives live in an inner world filled with ideation, theories, and utopian fantasies about finding unconditional love. They live for a couple's love as a kind of ultimate or ideal experience of connection. However, what they search for represents an idealized form of relationship that may not exist in the human world.

Trust is the basic issue with the sexual five. The name Naranjo ascribes to this subtype is “confidence,” which has a special meaning related to an ability to trust the other, and suggests a search for the person who will be with you no matter what, the partner (or friend) that you can trust with all your secrets. Confidence is the kind of ideal that makes sexual fives very romantic deep inside. They search for an idealized version of love and relationship as a source of meaning in life.

The sexual five's search for a high exemplar of connection is so exacting that it's very hard to pass their test with consistency if you are the person in relationship with them. It's very easy for the sexual five to be disappointed. This subtype has such a great need to trust in the other that the need is not easily satisfied, and so there can be a lot of testing in their relationships.

Fives tend to be a private people, but this five has a great need for intimacy under the right circumstances- if they can find a person they can really trust to love them despite their flaws. This subtype expresses a need to be completely transparent with their partner, and they need their partner to be very open as well- and this ideal of trust and intimacy is not easy to find. Because of this, sexual fives can get very picky about the people they have relationships with, and they can become frustrated when they discover that the other is human. If a partner does not live up to their expectations of transparency and openness, they tend to feel disappointed and- because they have a fear of being hurt by others- to isolate themselves.

Some sexual fives say that their search for an ultimate kind of connection does not only center on relationship with a lover or life partner. One five said he related to the idea of “emotional promiscuity,” saying, “I want ultimate contact with a lot of people,” one at a time. And some fives with this subtype report that although they feel guarded in the face of too much emotional intensity, they have a deep desire for intimacy with a trusted few. One five with this subtype described especially appreciating the experience of “clicking” with someone- the feeling of having chemistry with another person- saying that when he felt this he could become infatuated very quickly.

Although the sexual five may look like a type four, this five is still quit five-ish, so is not likely to be mistaken for a four. And while this subtype is the five countertype and seeks to manifest an ideal of intimacy, it may be hard to discern the difference between this five and the other two fives, as all of the five subtypes experience a need to withdraw. However, this five has a need to find a special relationship that will provide both safety and an ultimate kind of love.

Stephen, a sexual five, talks about his subtype:

“Full access to my feelings came after I started doing body work in my early 30s, and they were, and sometimes still are, very confusing and overwhelming- especially “softer” emotions like compassion. I'll find myself with tears welling up at times and need to look inside for the trigger, which can be as simple as the sight of a homeless person on the side of the road. My adult life has been a constant tension between my point's need to pull in a husband and my (emotional, physical, intellectual, financial) resources, and a mostly stronger drive to reach out and connect, not merely with my intimate partner, but nearly everywhere.

The reaching out is an attempt to fill an existential-psychic hole that seems to have existed from a prenatal stage. I seek connection with others to avoid feeling that emptiness. The name of the subtype, Confidence, is about building a bond with another (or many others on a one-to-one basis). For instance, when I have to give talks to a group, I find a single person to be my focus, while appearing to address the group. Relationships are the most fearful of objects, yet the most needed.

I have been called out on enneagram panels as not looking like other fives- too flamboyant, too out, too willing to talk about the inner landscape and the demons that inhabit it. This is true, and in my youth it was (physical) camouflage. Now it is merely a way of being. I have learned that the desire to disappear into the background of my youth was a false hope, and since I cannot disappear, I might just as well be who I really am.

The most important thing that needs to be understood about the sexual five is that we are in a constant struggle between the withdrawing and withholding (stinginess) of the basic point, and the need to reach out and connect driven by the instinctual energy of the subtype. Behind this tension is an emotional sensitivity that is hidden to the outside world and also to the five until they [we] allow awareness of emotions into their daily life.”

Specific Work For The Sexual Fives on the Path from Vice to Virtue

Sexual Fives can travel the path from avarice to nonattachment by noticing and working against the tendency to hold others to high standards as a way of avoiding intimacy. Recognize when you are testing others or adhering to impossible standards of connection as a way to avoid your fear and defend against your own fear of exposure. Notice the ways in which you might close yourself off to contact even as you long for it. Work toward achieving the intimate connection you desire- not through an attachment to an idea of what love can be, but through taking the risk to express your real feelings to the people in your life. Allow yourself to feel into and work with the fear that arises as you open yourself up to deeper relationships and authentic expressions of your emotions. Release your preconceived ideas about what connecting with others is supposed to be about, and challenge yourself to just allow contact to happen. Let yourself be surprised by life, and communicate the beauty of your deeply romantic feelings and desires more frequently and in more ways.

Sourced with permission from The Complete Enneagram by Beatrice Chestnut.

Type 1 Type 2 Type 3 Type 4 Type 5 Type 6 Type 7 Type 8 Type 9