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Article Excerpt
The most striking distinction between the erotic life of antiquity and our own ... [is] that the ancients laid the stress upon the instinct itself, whereas we emphasize its object. The ancients glorified the instinct and were prepared on its account to honour even an inferior object; while we despise the instinctual activity in itself, and find excuses for it only in the merits of the object. (Freud, 1905/1953-1974c)
In the last fourth of the 20th century, a distinct subarea of philosophy arose. Professional books and articles on the philosophy of sex were published during this period. University courses devoted to the topic proliferated. (1) Questions addressed by academic philosophers included the ontological and analytic; for example, "What is sexual activity?" or "How to define 'sex act'?" an issue that the public discussed, too, after President William Clinton denied that he had "sexual relations with that woman," Monica Lewinsky. Academic philosophers also addressed normative or evaluative questions such as, "What is natural human sexuality?" (in contrast to "perverted" sexuality), and "What is morally right or permissible sexual behavior?" This new focus of study emerged partially with second-wave feminism's criticism of the politics of heterosexuality and sex discrimination and with the slowly growing legal and social acceptance (including network television) of minority sexualities. Scholars working within the phenomenological, existentialist, evolutionary, conservative, Marxist, liberal, feminist, and diverse theological traditions have written much about the metaphysics and ethics of sexuality, although the philosophy of sex remains eclectic and interdisciplinary, not wedded to any particular ideological perspective.
In addition to studying specific ontological and moral issues, scholars can also approach the philosophy of sex historically. In this project, they explicate the writings of significant figures from the past, fashioning into a coherent whole what might resemble a loose set of scattered claims; or they investigate the thought of a philosopher to discern characteristics of the period in which he or she wrote; or they use this history as a mirror to see contemporary practices and ideas more clearly or freshly. Another task is tracing an argument, theme, or problem (e.g., the nature of sexual desire or arousal) through a series of thinkers, showing how it stays the same and how it gets modified. Philosophers of sexuality have concentrated, so far, on definitional and evaluative matters. The history of the philosophy of sex is the least developed part of the field.
Human sexuality is, of course, a topic that is endlessly discussed and over which people argue ad libitum et nauseum, not only at scholarly conferences but also in the local tavern or coffee shop. The subject is not owned by professional philosophers. Indeed, the glossy volumes on the shelves of mall bookstores are written by ordinary people, amateurs, and popularizers of evolutionary, psychological, sociological, and theological thought on sexuality. What is the difference, if one exists, between professional philosophical examination of sexuality and your mother's "philosophy" of sex or the "philosophy" of sex of the corner grocer? One view is that the spirit of Socrates (ca. 469-399 BCE) informs genuinely philosophical thought about sex: emphasizing precision, being willing to challenge received opinion, persistently searching for elusive, hidden truths. However, it must be admitted that nonphilosophers manifest this spirit and that this is not always exhibited by those traditionally called "philosophers" or by those formally trained in philosophy.
My presentation in this essay of a history of philosophizing about sexuality, by focusing on writers identified as canonical philosophers, is not meant to slight the contributions of other disciplines or to imply that what this small group of writers produced is more illuminating. The problem might be the reverse: "Ask if it's sex or power that makes the world go round, and you can keep the pub open long after licensing hours; in a philosophy seminar, the same question is likely to produce only rolled eyes" (Appiah, 1997, p. 5). Although I am exploring the history of the philosophy of sex, I attempt to show that not only philosophers but also their compatriots in other fields have said interesting things about sex. For example, in 1929/1975 James Thurber (1894-1961) and E. B. White (1899-1985) wrote a small book (Is Sex Necessary?), a parody of the new, early 20th-century psychology of sex. We can surely learn from this book, although it was designed to amuse. A man delays marriage, Thurber and White observed, because he has
the suspicion that if he waited twenty-four hours, or possibly less, he would likely find a lady even more ideally suited to his taste than his fiancee. Every man entertained such a suspicion. Entertained it royally. He was greatly strengthened in his belief by the fact that he kept catching a fleeting glimpse of this imaginary person in restaurants, in stores, in trains. To deny the possibility of her existence would be, he felt, to do a grave injustice to her, to himself, and to his fiancee. (pp. 96-99)
Thurber and White were not canonical philosophers, but Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was. In Fear and Trembling (Kierkegaard, 1843/1983), nearly 100 years before Thurber and White, he had similarly written the following:
A man is bound to one girl whom he once loved or perhaps never loved properly, for he has seen another girl who is the ideal. A man makes a mistake in life: it was the right street but the wrong house, for directly across the street on the second floor lives the ideal--this is supposed to be a subject for poetry. A lover has made a mistake, he has seen the beloved by artificial light and thought she had dark hair, but look, on close scrutiny she is a blonde--but her sister is the ideal. This is supposed to be a subject for poetry. In my opinion, any man like that is an impudent young pup who can be unbearable enough in life but ought to be hissed off stage. (p. 91)
Where is the difference in their "philosophies" or their approach? Perhaps only that Thurber and White made us laugh at ourselves, whereas Kierkegaard, the solemn Christian, scorned our wayward tendencies.
Thurber and White (1929/1975) also broached a perennial conundrum: the difference, if any, between sexually desiring someone and loving him or her:
At a certain point in every person's amours, the question arises: "Am I in love, or am I merely inflamed by passion?" It is a disturbing question. Usually it arises at some inopportune moment: at the start of a letter, in the middle of an embrace, at the end of a day in the country. If the person could supply a direct, simple, positive answer if he could say convincingly, "'I am in love," or, "This is not love, this is passion" he would spare himself many hours of mental discomfort. Almost nobody can arrive at so simple a reply. (p. 62)
Among plenty of other scholars, the contemporary philosopher J. Martin Stafford (1995, p. 58) took on this challenge (but humorlessly), contrasting passion and love with a "simple reply": Love is a special affection, involves acts of prolonged care and concern, and includes wanting to spend quality time with (and only with) the beloved, whereas sexual desire is merely an appetite that demands satisfaction, at any place and time, and implies nothing about good will toward other people (see Lesser, 1980). Perhaps this easy answer is right, although Thurber and White were concerned not with conceptual analysis or definitions, but with the phenomenal feels of love and sexual desire (which are, they suggested, often indistinguishable). Some philosophers will also wonder whether sexual desire might have the ability to generate the benevolence that is usually associated with love, and will ask whether it is really true that love by its nature is more constant and exclusive than sexual desire (Soble, 1990).
Here is one more example. Iris Murdoch was formally trained as a philosopher, wrote a little straight philosophy at the start of her career, and then turned to the novel, where she was a huge success. Should Murdoch be included among the canonical philosophers of sex? Probably, although this permits other novelists (e.g., Philip Roth and Doris Lessing) to enter that elite group, if only because her novels were especially philosophical. Look at one passage in The Black Prince (Murdoch, 1974), which contains some reflections of her protagonist, Bradley Pearson (a 60-ish intellectual, head-over-heels in love, or lust, with a girl 40 years his junior):
The foreverness of real love is one of the reasons why even unrequited love is a source of joy. The human soul craves for the eternal of which, apart from certain rare mysteries of religion, only love and art can give a glimpse .... Love brings with it also a vision of selflessness. How right Plato was to think that, embracing a lovely boy, he was on the road to the Good. I say a vision of selflessness, because our mixed nature readily degrades the purity of any aspiration. But such insight, even intermittent, even momentary, is a privilege and can be of permanent value because of the intensity with which it visits us.... Why cannot this release from self provide a foothold in a new place which we can then colonize and enlarge until at last we will all that is not ourselves'? That was Plato's dream. (pp. 216-217)
The lesson is that we would not do badly by paying some attention to literature as we explore the history of the philosophy of sex. The psychological issue raised by Murdoch--Has her protagonist fallen victim to gross rationalization in creating a high justification for his impossible attachment?--we can bequeath to his psychoanalyst.
The Ancient Greeks
Although philosophical discussion of sexuality, narrowly construed, in the West began with Plato (427-347 BCE), the poet Sappho (ca. 610-580 BCE), for reasons I have explained, should not be slighted. Her ideas reappear in later canonical philosophers:
When I behold thee Even a moment: Utterance leaves me; My tongue is useless; A subtle fire Runs through my body; My eyes are sightless, And my ears ringing; I flush with fever, And a strong trembling Lays hold upon me; Paler than grass am I, Half dead for madness. (Carman, 1904, fragment VI)
Sappho is tongued-tied, made catatonic by eros, driven crazy by a glimpse of Beauty. We come across this theme often in the history of the philosophy of sex. Eros perennially and ubiquitously causes irrational behavior. Why did a U.S. president slink around the White House in search of sexual experiences? Why did beautiful Helen take up with handsome Paris, leaving family, child, and husband? (Or was she seduced, or abducted? See Homer, ca. 800 BCE, Iliad, book 3.) Why did Murdoch's (1974) Pearson, although not tongue-tied by eros, fall to his knees, kissing the rug upon which his young angel had recently stood?
Plato's (ca. 380 BCE/1970) dialogue, Symposium, examined eros, which he defined as the passion to possess the good and beautiful. The Symposium is provocative and rich, an indispensable foundation for studying the philosophy of sex. Although in large measure a great pagan defender of eros, Plato was not always kind to the sexual impulse. His writings contain the roots of the later Christian antipathy to sexuality. For example, the distinction Plato makes in the dialogue Symposium between crude or vulgar eros and heavenly or spiritual eros, first mentioned by Pausanias (who was willing, in Freud's words [see epigraph], to "honor even an inferior object") and embellished by the priestess Diotima (who was not willing), encourages us to relinquish sexual acts in personal relationships and focus, instead, on the moral and intellectual improvement of ourselves and our partners. In contrast to vulgar eros, heavenly eros is free from lust, wantonness, or lewdness (Plato, ca. 380 BCE/1970, 11. 181c-181d, 185c, 209b-210c). In heavenly eros, "the lover and his [mentally beautiful] loved one.., make virtue their central concern." In Plato's (ca. 375-370 BCE/1992) Republic, Socrates tells Glaucon that in "the right kind of love.., sexual pleasure mustn't come into it... if they are to love and be loved in the right way" (ll. 403a-403b). The same rejection of sexual activity is expressed in Plato's (ca. 365 BCE/1995, ll. 256b-256c) complex dialogue, Phaedrus, in which Socrates insists that a pair of genuine lovers pursue virtue. Only when overcome by weakness of the will (akrasia) or disinhibited by a cup of wine do they engage in sex:
If the victory goes to the better elements in both their minds, which lead them to follow the assigned regimen of philosophy, their life here below is one of bliss.... They are modest and fully in control of themselves.... If, on the other hand, they adopt a lower way of living, with ambition in place of philosophy, then pretty soon when they are careless because they have been drinking or for some other reason, the pair's undisciplined horses will catch their souls off guard and together bring them to commit that act which ordinary people would take to be the happiest choice of all; and when they have consummated it once, they go on doing this for the rest of their lives, but sparingly, since they have not approved of what they are doing with their whole minds. (Plato, ca. 365 BCE/1995, 11. 256b-256c)
Knowledge and excellence should be the goal, not fleeting and distracting physical gratification. Plato, in both Symposium (ca. 380 BCE/1970) and Phaedrus (ca. 365 BCE/1995), praises male-male love or friendship, and his objection to male-male sexuality in Phaedrus seems not to be grounded in its unnaturalness. Instead, any sexuality is less valuable than pursuing virtue. The children of sexual intercourse do not have the substance, and the immortality, of the children of intellectual discourse. Christian clerics later scorned women and marriage for much the same reason.
Plato worried about sexuality also because he was sensitive to its links with power and autonomy. His thoughts about sex eventually became central issues in the political and medical discussion of sexuality in the 20th century (Price, 1989/1997; Santas, 1988; Soble, 1996, pp. 146-148). Plato bemoaned the powerful governing influence and even the absolute sovereignty that pursuing sexual pleasure can have on a person's actions and life. We become slaves to passion and subservient to others, a distinct threat to freedom and thus the happy life....
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