Sex and the Enneagram: A Guide to Passionate Relationships for the 9 Personality Types

Description

Understanding your approach to dating, relationships, and sex through the lens of your Enneagram personality type * Explains the relationship and sexual differences in the 9 Enneagram personality types for both genders * Examines how we can create greater intimacy with our partners and what blocks our sexual enjoyment * Looks at each type's fantasies and investigates how our behavior in relationships alters according to how emotionally integrated or disintegrated we are * Explores the three types of love and their countertypes; each type's Enneagram Passions and Virtues in relation to intimacy; how to engage with each type; and whether some types make better lovers Sex can take us from the sacred sublime to the darkest aspects of humanity. It can carry us on the wings of pure pleasure, or crush and potentially destroy us. No act in the human experience, barring the essential survival needs of food and water, can have more of an effect on us. In Sex and the Enneagram, Ann Gadd explores relationships and sex through the lens of the Enneagram, its nine personality types, and the subtypes of the wings and Instinctual Triads. The author introduces the Enneagram system and provides a full chapter devoted to each type. She examines each type's approach to sex, their fantasies, and levels of integration in relation to love and sex, as well as each type's approach to issues such as pornography, sexual problems, and dating sites and whether some types make better lovers. The author explains the Enneagram Passions and Virtues of each type in relation to sex, divorce, wing influences, and gender and explains how the 27 Sub or Instinctual types and the Hornevian Triads of the Enneagram system affect our sexuality. Most importantly, Gadd looks at how we can heal ourselves sexually so we can create more fulfilling, transforming intimacy for ourselves and our partners. Through understanding ourselves and our partners sexually, with the help of the Enneagram, Gadd hopes to bring us to deeper levels of compassion and understanding for each other. Sex then can be an expression enhancing our love for each other, rather than simply a physical act. By understanding your own and your lover's Enneagram type, intimate giving and receiving can be an empowering process to embody our love for ourselves and others.

Ann Gadd is an accredited Enneagram practitioner (iEQ9 certified), author, holistic therapist, artist, workshop facilitator, and journalist. An avid, long-term student of the Enneagram, she offers Enneagram workshops for beginners and advanced students. The author of 21 books, including The Enneagram of Eating, The Girl Who Bites Her Nails, and Finding Your Feet, she lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

"Sex and the Enneagram is an approachable presentation of the complex ways each Enneagram type may express or repress emotional openness in intimate relationships, and how deep-rooted issues of vulnerability, fear of self disclosure or shame, and lack of trust can cloud and limit our sexual selfexpression. In a warm, instructive, yet non-judgmental style, Ann also provides suggestions and reflections on ways an individual type might become more sexually, and therefore more completely, present to another in intimate connections. However, since we hold the potentials of all nine types within us, a studied consideration of each chapter in this book can collectively lead to a more abundant understanding and acceptance of the full range of our sexual lives and, in the process, to the even greater understanding that to be authentically present with another person serves to remind us, as Don Riso wrote, that we are always in the presence of the Divine." * Brian L. Taylor, vice president of the Enneagram Institute * "Ann masterfully helps us hold the difficult aspects of this topic by gently guiding our own inquiry into what healthy sexuality really is. Sex and the Enneagram is a meaningful accompaniment to inner work. Culturally, this book makes conversations about true sexual freedom and intimacy accessible." * Monika Adelfang, certified teacher and authorized training and workshop provider at the Enneagram In * "Ann Gadd, a prolific writer, counselor, and artist, infuses her visionary brilliance into this much-needed book, Sex and the Enneagram, as she describes the sexual and erotic dynamics of relationships through the lens of the Enneagram. Witty and easy to read, Gadd's must-have book for everyone interested in love is also filled with depth and rich wisdom for people at any level of familiarity with the Enneagram." * Linda Carroll, psychotherapist and author of Love Cycles: The Five Essential Stages of Lasting Love * "Ann's courage to tackle sex and sexuality from an Enneagram perspective is courageous, and it pays off. I am personally grateful for her contribution to my understanding of myself and to the body of literature on the Enneagram." * Lucille Greeff, Enneagram teacher * "As the title suggests, this book explores each Enneagram style in its approach to sex and sexuality. Clearly a huge amount of research has gone into Ann's subject. She covers a wide range of topics from angles that illuminate sex and sexuality for each personality style. I discovered some gems about myself in this book, and I am now exploring what is and what is not working for me. This is a book I'll be gifting to friends who are open to learning more about themselves in a sometimes humorous, sometimes painful way, and I believe it will open up avenues for more meaningful and empowering conversations about sex and sexuality." * Cherise Nortje, organizational development consultant * "Using the wisdom of the Enneagram, Ann Gadd boldly and graphically takes us into the sacred spaces of our sexuality. Her book inspires me with new possibilities and brings interesting ideas, textures, and latitude to explore in my relationship with my long-term partner." * Colleen Anderson, clinical psychologist (MA) * "Ann Gadd's Sex and the Enneagram is an exciting and bold contribution to the growing body of Enneagram literature that focuses on the practical, daily application of this powerful sensemaking personality framework. Ann's insightful and challenging style encourages us to reflect deeply on our own sexuality and to notice how personality shapes our relationship with, and experience of, sex. This book will leave readers feeling delightfully laid bare and exposed by virtue of a veritable romp through the array of human fixations and behavioral patterns that lead us to engage with sex in such diverse ways. It comes at just the right time, as we continue to learn how to talk about sex and sexual identity in communities across the world. We recommend it to all readers who are ready to elevate their awareness of self, others, and society through the lens of sex and sexuality."