Just to follow up on SDV's comment:
"sex is actually a lot more trivial than that, at least when power,
hierarchy and degradation are not engaged in the act"
I'd suggest that people interested in this aspect of sexual relations
should search out works by Sheila Jeffreys, an English/Australian
academic who is an anti-pornography campaigner and admirably tireless
radical feminist. I don't always agree with her analysis, but I'm much
more convinced by her arguments than any of the arguments I've ever
heard from third-wave, postmodern and liberal feminists.
The most relevant book of Sheila's might be "Anticlimax: a feminist
perspective on the sexual revolution," published in 1990 by Women's
Press in London.
I have my own views about the false "casualness" of "casual sex" but I
think someone like Jeffreys has more to recommend her than my own
second-rate philosophising...
Ben
On 11/18/05, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Carlo/all
>
> This reminds me that 'Sex' has rarely been casual in human history, i
> feel the need to quote Foucault or Jeffrey Weeks at you but am
> restraining myself, instead let me point out that we may be at a point
> where the notion of what constitutes 'sex' , that is to say that the
> concepts which actually define what type of sex you are describing,
> proliferate to the point where the original term 'sex' becomes meaningless.
>
> Rather than give you an easy list - i can if you like - take a look at
> the text Abstract Sex by Luciano Parisi, a text that goes so far beyond
> the prejudicial misrepresentations of heterosexuality and homosexuality
> that actual human and non-human desires begin to become understandable....
>
> So 'she' is wrong, sex is actually a lot more trivial than that, at
> least when power, heirachy and degradation are not engaged in the act,
> or if you are fortunate the truth-event. What she states is only the
> norm if power is engaged in the act....
>
> no cinema unfortunately - after all such concepts 'break' the narrative
> structures that we live with in cinema completely...
>
> s
>
>
> Carlo C. Adorno wrote:
>
> >people.
> >I argued: Sex can be a meaningless act, being just another function or input the body needs to
> >have, like food or sleep (this is seem particularly in gay culture which, in part, views sex as
> >weightless), but also, it can be a loving, careful way of communication.
> >She argued: No, sex will always change someone, perhaps not in a dramatic way, but it will. Just as
> >we have an emotional connection with food, sleep (i.e. we link certain foods to memory, and being
> >confronted with that same taste, smell, again will always affect you), we also create bonds between
> >sexual encounters. In gay culture, she thought a lot of it way about performance, which actually
> >exposed a certain vulnerability in people.
> >
> >I was wondering if anyone had any comments on this, in and outside of the cinema. Does anyone
> >know any films that directly address this debate? Or if you just have comments on the argument,
> >please feel free...
> >
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