 |
| All around the world people make love while having sex. The two are not diametrically opposed. |
(So Valentines Day, and a lot of the people who
claim to be soo-oo in love with “romantic” love make sphincter mouths if you
bring up the topic of sex. Bizarre. Perhaps, by the end of this piece – first published
Monday, September 29, 2003, under Jhaye-Q’s
Brew – you may feel that the two can belong together.)
THOSE WHO ARGUE that sex and desire are physical
fodder, with the aim of explosive, transient gratification via orgasm, are sad,
sad people.
Consider cricket. What’s the aim
of that game? Runs, you say. Ah, then you, too, are dismally deluded.
The
immediate aim of a sport may well be points. However, it’s towards the long-term
aim of winning. Then there is the issue of motive; with enjoyment as its aim.
Added to this is the bewildering, inexplicable fulfillment one derives, win,
lose or draw, from simply doing the thing.
Sex has the same
multi-intentionality, which does not begin to boil down to the minute “aim” of orgasming. A man could take a moment
with his hand and achieve that end.
Sex needs another
 |
| Duo Koffee Brown sings songs that "...will help people improve their relationships ... You've got to make sure your partner always has what they need." |
The aim of human activity is
never simply about physical ends. Nothing we do in life is detached from
personality and psyche.
This sense (senseless?) of
seeing sex as simply flesh-related stems from our lack of understanding of the
intentionality of sensuality.
Sexual desire may come as
unbidden and naturally as hunger, thirst or call to sleep; yet there is
something that sets it remarkably apart from those others: it necessitates
another human being. That’s where intentionality breaks into the thing, like
surf on sand.
We are our bodies.
But we are not only our bodies.
There’s also mind behind our
actions. When it comes to “fulfilling” sexual desire, it is imperative that
there be mind on the other side, in somebody else.
Sexual desire finds expression
and being in the mutuality and union of two people’s intentions toward each
other. That, my friends, is as it was
meant to be, and the reason why we cannot diminish the sexual act that comes
from true desire into a deemed amoral act “committed by the animal” in our
human nature.
All knowledge, it’s been said,
depends on faith or revelation. The above fideism found me while I myself was
grappling with the philosophical theory of the intentionality of sexual desire.
I realised, while having an
existential argument with two younger women, that I wasn’t getting wet. (I’m
not being crude, just listen) I also do not get cosy in the crotch when I have
such debates with my learned landlord or other erudite men towards whom I feel
no attraction.
I am only sensually stimulated
by heated discussion with specific
men – because then there is the intentionality of sexual desire. I mean I get
turned on by those men, debating or not.
Intentionality spurs sexual designs
Oh, we have been taught ardour
is involuntary. True ... to a degree.
People who are utterly opposed
to pornography may very well get excited by watching a blue movie. This is
different from arousal, however, precisely because intention is not behind it.
You cannot have
sexual designs towards a film (especially if such a film disturbs your sense of
morality), and it cannot have designs upon you.
So while you may be moved to
feel lust, sexual desire never comes into play; not without the fundamental
functioning of intentionality, which gives rise to mutuality of feeling, which
gives rise to the only right sex.
Something may look like desire
without being it. The same expression in two individuals is partly what renders
it a look of sexual desire.
For example, consider the poster
for the film Seabiscuit: close-up of
Tobey Maguire’s forehead pressed to the horse. If the horse is removed from the
picture, then the actor’s visage has ecstasy clear writ upon it – a passion
explosive, and there is love most sensually insinuated.
The look is almost all sexual
desire … but it isn’t really; because that was not Maguire’s intention toward
the horse, nor the horse’s toward him.
Here some among you will make
mention of bestiality. Please. Bestiality, necrophilia, pedophilia
and such are not motivated by sexual desire. They do not involve an interest in
nor require interest from the other
party.
It takes two to make sexual
desire (which is not to say you can’t feel it for more than one person; but it is to say that when the desire is aimed
at one it is not transferable to another; it has to become a different desire
for a different person.)
Desire is driven by short-term
aim, long-term aim, motive, gratification, realisation and the basic, holy need
to face the same feeling in another embodied being.
God! I can’t repeat this enough:
Desire is attentive. Desire aims to also please.
Come Good
0 Comments