The second primitive object relation in the animal soul is the libidinal or desire soul. It involves the same soul structure as in the rejecting object relation, which it manifests as a shapeless animal entity with tremendous aliveness and vigor. In this object relation, however, the soul is hungry and voracious, and lustily desires the objects of her satisfaction. This is the soul in the mode of going after the object, where the desire for the object and for the gratification of her desires are the same thing. She wants, and she wants fully, lustily, and passionately, with no holding back or sense of propriety. This primitive creature is bent on satisfying its instinctual desires for food, sex, territory, pleasure, and so on. It is single-minded in this desire, and all its power and passion are channeled powerfully to satisfy it. The libidinal soul is not only completely driven by powerful desires, but also indiscriminate in satisfying them. Any object will do, will copulate with whatever creature that comes its way. It will eat whatever seems full and meaty, with no considerations of manner or taste. This is the desire side of the animal soul, fully embodying and expressing her instinctual nature. 

The libidinal object relation is the structure of this desire soul wanting a wonderful, yummy, and completely desirable object. The object appears here as beautiful and desirable in an animal instinctual way, full and luscious. Its prototype is the engorged, youthful, and turned-on breast, full of milk, thick juicy nectars, robust energy, and aliveness. It is a full and gleaming breast, desirable and inviting. It promises to give the soul the object she needs, the object that will satisfy her hunger and bring her erotic pleasure. The libidinal soul loves this object passionately and wants to gobble it up with gusto and total satisfaction. It is clear that the dominant genetic stage for this structure is the early oral stage, the characteristics of which pattern this early structure. What makes this structure become split off is not only its unabashedly animal and instinctual nature, but the frustration that results when the soul is unable to get the desired object. The affect coloring the libidinal object relation is the combination of total libidinal desire combined with the intolerable frustration of unrequited love and desire. The soul wants, but for various reasons cannot have, the object of her desire. It might be that the unconstrained animal nature of the desire makes the original object, the mother, unable or unwilling to receive such passionate desire; or that the good and desirable breast is not available when wanted; or that a sibling or husband has it, or whatever. The frustration in turn increases the desire, as happens with animal desires in general. The environment’s disapproval of the animal nature of the wanting combined with the intolerable frustration lead to the soul splitting off this part of herself and the corresponding object relation.

In other words, the animal soul does not reflect only the fact that we are partly animal because of our physical organism and its evolutionary history. The animal soul constitutes the potential of our soul that is the prototype of animality, in all of its primitiveness and irrationality. Because of this our appetites and desires can easily transform into greed and craving, and our aggression and power can instantly turn into rage, hatred, vengeance, and heartless destructiveness. Because of this it might be better to refer to this potential of our soul as the desire soul, rather than the animal soul, but most traditions have referred to it as the animal soul. Recognizing the nature of our animal potential seems to point to an interesting insight: our animality is not exclusively due to our physical organism. The extremity to which the human soul can descend in its animal nature, an extremity unknown in the animal kingdom, points to the insight that animality, with all that goes with it, is an inherent potential in our soul, independent from our physical embodiment. The presence of the soul in the body, and more generally in the physical universe, simply evokes this potential forcefully and fully. The body on its own is a shell; without the soul it has no life and no desires. Just as the soul imbues it with life it also provides it with desires. More specifically, physical embodiment activates in the soul the parts of her potential necessary for her to live in the physical world. These are the instinctual drives for survival, security, sex, and company. These are necessary for the soul to live in the world, for she needs her body to survive and flourish. However, things develop in such a way that these drives become greed, selfishness, and destructiveness. This development happens because these qualities are part of the potential of the soul. It is also partly due to other potentials of the soul, of which the most important is the essential. We will discuss this shortly, but here we want to emphasize that the desire nature is inherent to the soul herself, and not just due to the body. The source of desires is the soul, and the body is the stimulus that activates them.