If an individual is in this stage of sex, especially within a relationship, they will experience a power struggle, felt not just in sex but also throughout all other aspects of life. If attempts to overcome the lack of self-control at the primal stage of sex have been unsuccessful, one or other partners will attempt to establish external control. This strategy does not work, real control is found within. For people living at this level, situations and circumstances keep repeating. Destructive relationships, financial difficulties and sexual problems won’t go away. They keep showing up irrespective of location or relationship partner.

Imagine what it must be like to live every day as though you were walking through yesterday. Every experience you have is an ‘action replay’ of past experiences, as though you’ve been there before. You might think that such a life would be dull and boring, but if only that was the case; life experienced like this is more like a nightmare. Such a person is trapped in endless rounds of repeating circumstances, never discovering the way out. They are always looking over their shoulder, haunted by the past and expecting the worst from every situation.

They create a fortress against impending disaster. Catastrophe is waiting to happen. Resources must be stored, and defences built, to ward off the advancing enemy – life itself! Defences against life must be fool proof and manifold. Denial, repression, suppression, rationalisation, activism, projection, intellectualism, becoming a victim, being a tyrant; defences such as these, and many more, are built to avoid recurring experiences and circumstances. Living behind defences is akin to being a prisoner, ruled by external demands and self imposed restrictions.

People living at this stage of sex are living behind a mask, the face of a ‘make believe’ person. It is the mask of a frightened person scared to be known. They may try to project strength, the ‘stiff upper lip’ or ‘macho’ attitude, rather than vulnerability. The mask may try to exude control, power, independence and self-sufficiency in place of longing. On the other hand, the mask may be one of respectability, decency and high-ground morality. It is difficult to build a relationship with a mask. How can a mask make love? The mask does not exist; it is a figment of imagination. Everyone can see through it, except the person wearing it.

Sometimes, a person stuck in ‘Power Sex’ will decide to make a radical and desperate attempt to break free, like a dash for the border between a repressed regime and a free one. They leave their wife or husband, job and hometown, travelling to a far-off land in search for freedom from recurring circumstances. Everything goes well until they arrive on the foreign shore, alone and faced with silence. All of a sudden, they realise the first person they meet in the new homeland is themself. This is the first of many familiar relationships they once again face, albeit in new surroundings.

During intimacy, a man or woman in ‘Power Sex’ will ‘switch off’ at a point where their mind separates from current experience. They become a spectator rather than a partner. The switch off point is habitual. They ‘go to sleep’.

Relationships conflicted at this stage of sex are restless at best and destructive at worst. Sexual encounters are devoid of intimacy, frozen and uncommunicative. Sexual dysfunctions inevitably arise; in men, erection problems or inhibited ejaculation are the most common symptoms of Power Sex. Women are trapped in their masculine energy and estranged from their feminine energy. They will feel weak, and may display victim tendencies.

Babies conceived through sexual relationships in the stage of Power Sex will often become successful in their academic and professional careers but encounter problems in maintaining intimate relationships. They will often suffer anxieties in silence and harbour fundamental fears connected with personal issues such as physical health, ageing and the prospect of death.