I am Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited.
The psychosexuality of all types of narcissists, cerebral and somatic alike, involves the objectification and interchangeability of intimate partners.
Narcissists are polyamorous, they are autoerotic, quite a few of them have comorbid sexual paraphilias, in other words, they are sexually deviant.
This rebel narcissist aims to stabilize the flow of narcissistic supply by suppressing his sexual predilections and orientation, and thus by rendering himself asexual.
The somatic narcissist, on the other hand, aims to secure an uninterrupted flow of narcissistic supply by indulging his sexual preferences with multiple partners.
The cerebral narcissist relies on his source of secondary narcissistic supply, in other words, normally on his spouse, to regulate his supply and to compensate for the inevitable fluctuations in both quantity and quality of primary supply.
But few spouses would willingly participate in threesomes, swinging ogis and bruxex, towards which the cerebral narcissist and somatic narcissist naturally gravitate.
So the cerebral narcissist is forced to sacrifice his sexuality to ensure the longevity of his gratifying and exclusive relationship with his source of secondary supply with his spouse.
If he discloses his sexuality, if he acts on it, he is likely to lose his spouse, his marriage gradually becomes sexless, without sex, devoid of any sexual overtones, undertones, let alone activities.
To compensate for this glaring lack, this rebel narcissist turns unto himself, he becomes auto-erotic, he fantasizes as he masturbates with varying frequency. His sex life is reduced to the consumption of pornography and role-playing in online forums dedicated to such things.
But this, of course, is a dreary substitute for a full-fledged sex life. And it's not as satisfying.
So as frustration mounts in both members of the couple, so do aggression and hostility. There is a sense of waste and dysphoria, depression.
But the cerebral narcissist would rather hurt his mate by withholding sex from her than lose her altogether, which would be the ineluctable consequence of him being true to his sexual self.
The question arises, why doesn't the cerebral narcissist team up with an intimate partner who does share his inclinations and who would be happy to act on his fantasies?
The answer is because such a partner cannot be relied on to be faithful, constant and consistent. And this is the cerebral narcissist predicament.
Intimate partners who are compatible with his sexual urges and fantasies are useless as stable, long-term sources of secondary supply. They are bound to be unfaithful. They are bound to disappear on him.
Intimate partners who can be realized to provide secondary narcissistic supply on a regular basis are likely to be sexually incompatible with the cerebral narcissist's desires, urges, sexual wishes and fantasies.
This stratagem of course is self-defeating. The cerebral narcissist partner ultimately does abandon him, starved as she is for sex and intimacy and resentful of being the target of his repeated pent-up aggression.
As far as the cerebral narcissist is concerned, being abandoned also serves as a kind of masochistic self-punishment.
So narcissistic supply and sexuality are inversely related in the cerebral narcissist's mind. He can have either or, but not both.
When narcissistic supply, primary or secondary, is low, he resorts to rampant sex as he hunts for his next stable source of narcissistic supply and as he seeks to make up for lost time. When the flow of supply has been reconstituted, the cerebral narcissist reverts almost immediately and automatically to his sexual hibernation.
To the cerebral narcissist, the sex act constitutes low-grade narcissistic supply, a mere stopgap measure and a necessary evil in the capture and captivation of his future intimate partner.
The somatic narcissist is simply the mirror image of his cerebral brother. To the somatic narcissist, sex, sexual prowess, carnal exploits and a string of conquests. Sex is narcissistic supply.
The somatic narcissist sexuality however non-conformist or even deviant is the only stable found of the narcissistic supply that he needs to regulate his sense of self-worth.
The somatic narcissist actually seeks out and selects partners who are labile, volatile, erratic, fleeting, adventurous and unstable as he switches between multiple sexual objects of infatuation.
The somatic flaunts his sexuality and thus knowingly gives up on a stable, long-lasting, long-term relationship.