The Sexual Modalities or Gender Spectrum encapsulates two additional coins in the Objective Personality System. The Sensory Modality and the Extroverted Decider (De) Modality. These coins indicate which types of information a person tends to see as immovable (masculine) and how they choose to navigate around it (feminine). These coins influence how we interact with others as well as the way we receive and conceptualize our known information. There are additional things they are tracking with this that tend to be more surface level, like the way in which people present themselves and who you are attracted to (often opposite modalities).
Masculine vs Feminine Functions
Masculine
Certain, confident, non-moveable,
shovey, direct, solid
Push against obstacles
Feminine
Uncertain, unsure, moveable,
pushover, indirect, flowy
Move around obstacles
Another way to think of this masculine vs feminine concept is as earth and water. Water bends to flow around the earth. It might chip away at the earth to make slow changes, but for the most part, the earth remains planted in place. In this same way, the masculine functions are firm while the feminine functions tend to bend as needed to make things work. Feminine functions are thus more adaptable, while masculine functions take longer to get on board.
You can also think of masculine and feminine in terms of sculpting. The feminine modality is like molding clay. Making soft and subtle adjustments, working with the material to bend and form something new. The masculine modality is like chipping away at marble, only small adjustments can be made and even those adjustments require a good deal of force and precision.
Sensory
Masculine Sensory
Enables the ability to recall details on a timeline. If you are able to remember that one event occurred in January and something else happened after that event, then you are likely using a timeline memory.
Shove on the physical environment. Actually pushing on the physical environment. Getting rough in the physical environment. Attempting to bend the environment as needed.
Feminine Sensory
Enables the ability to recall using visual images and snapshots. If you remember a picture of a past event and are able to recall details related to that snapshot, then you likely are using a visual memory.
Move with the physical environment. Navigating around physical obstacles and working with the environment and adapting to it. Dodging rather than punching.
The way in which sensory modalities are theorized to be linked to memory are quite interesting. The theory is essentially that memory is linked to the masculine observer. So if you have masculine sensory you tend to remember the concrete facts, but more easily forget the pattern. Those with masculine intuition instead remember the pattern, but tend to forget the exact details. For more on this, see our article on the theory of memory in OPS.
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Extroverted Decider
Masculine Extroverted Deciders
Push outwardly and are direct with the tribe. They have a punchy feel in their external assertions.
Feminine inner world (Di) and are thus more willing to bend to external pressure. Outer barrier serves as a means to protect the soft squishy center.
Feminine Extroverted Deciders
Flow with the tribe and are thus more willing to go along with the general tribe consensus.
Masculine inner world (Di) and are thus more stable and constant in their self assertions. Willing to move with the tribe as long as no one tries to move their sense of self.
Natural Leanings of the Letters
The letters (F, T, N, S) themselves have a tendency to lean toward one modality over the other. For instance, Feeling is the most feminine of the letters and Thinking is the most masculine of the letters. Sensory tends to be more naturally masculine where Intuition tends to be more naturally feminine.
These natural tendencies lead to associations (bias) where those with more masculine Feeling may instead be seen as Thinking types and those with more feminine Thinking may instead be seen as Feeling types. This is particularly true for those of us coming from previous areas of Jungian research where these types of tendencies covered by the modalities may simply be grouped into one function or another rather than split into its own coin as it is within Objective Personality. Learn more about other common mistyping patterns here.
Learning Styles
OPS has correlated the Sexual Modalities of Sensing and Extroverted Deciders with learning styles such as Audio, Visual, Kinesthetic, and Tester (Tactile) in their research. They have recommended learning more about these learning styles from the NLP Center, but hey Wikipedia ain’t bad either? There is also an article on blog.edmentum.com that provides some information as well as this handy image.
To determine a type’s learning style we combine the modalities of their functions together. The order is always Sensory Modality followed by Extroverted Decider Modality, regardless of whether sensory or De is savior. For instance, someone with Feminine Si and Masculine Fe would be considered an FM or Visual learning style. If they have Masculine Se and Feminine Te it would be MF or Audio. See the OPS Type Code for more on how to interpret an OPS Type.
MM – Kinesthetic/Audio
MF – Audio/Kinesthetic
FF – Tester/Visual
FM – Visual/Tester
These learning styles are both correlations as well as nicknames for each pair of modalities, so you might hear someone say “I was typed as Audio” meaning they were typed as having Masculine Sensory and Feminine De. There is plenty more to be explored in terms of learning styles. OP focuses mainly on the learning style from the sensory and extroverted deciders, but there are also things to consider about the learning styles in combination with animals that aren’t your savior and how that might play out within your type. For instance, your animal with double masculine functions will tend to be more intense than an animal with double feminine functions which will be more gentle. Someone with MM sleep has a solid and intense inner world, yet their outer world will be FF so the way they interface with the external world will be passive and gentle.
Sexual Modalities Videos
Below is a playlist of videos related to the OPS sexual modalities from the Objective Personality channel and other channels which discuss the system.
Its worth mentioning that the Learning Styles theory in education has been largely debunked in favor of mixed media learning, or a multitude of approaches. The real best way to get you learning is to get you engaged and interested and actively thinking about the material. Check out this video from Veritasium for more.
Letters
Thinking vs Feeling
Intuition vs Sensing
NF vs ST & SF vs NT
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Subjective Personality 