Via AlwaysArousedGirl Greta Christna, writing at Blowfish Blog has a lovely post titled “Sex and the Off-Label Use of Our Bodies.”
Human beings took our animal need for palatable food . . . and turned it into chocolate souffles with salted caramel cream. We took our ability to co-operate as a social species . . . and turned it into craft circles and bowling leagues and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We took our capacity to make and use tools . . . and turned it into the Apollo moon landing. We took our uniquely precise ability to communicate through language . . . and turned it into King Lear.
None of these things are necessary for survival and reproduction. That is exactly what makes them so splendid. When we take our basic evolutionary wiring and transform it into something far beyond any prosaic matters of survival and reproduction . . . that’s when humanity is at its best. That’s when we show ourselves to be capable of creating meaning and joy, for ourselves and for one another. That’s when we’re most uniquely human.
And the same is true for sex. Human beings have a deep, hard-wired urge to replicate our DNA, instilled in us by millions of years of evolution. And we’ve turned it into an intense and delightful form of communication, intimacy, creativity, community, personal expression, transcendence, joy, pleasure, and love. Regardless of whether any DNA gets replicated in the process.
Why should we see this as sinful?
What makes this any different from chocolate souffles and King Lear?
That’s what I’m talking about!
Yes, technically once can say as Karl Marx did that humans create for the same reason silkworms spin silk, and technically you can say as Freud and his direct evolutionary-psychology descendants do that humans have sex only to procreate. All the more reason to call those guys REALLY BORING HUMAN BEINGS!
I loved this post by Greta
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Sun, 2010-07-18 06:19.I loved this post by Greta Christina. It’s lyrical, well-argued, and right on the money.
But I don’t think you’re being quite fair to the Dead White Guys. Freud was awfully heteronormative, but blaming him for ev psych is a little like blaming Charles Darwin. Freud would be the last guy to say that we only do it in order to procreate. He also wasn’t nearly as biologically reductive as people often think. I’m persuaded by Gayle Rubin’s reading of Freud (in her essay “The Traffic in Women”), which basically holds that Freud was describing the process by which society inculcates norms. Not that he wanted to overthrow those norms – but if “normal heterosexuality” were biologically preordained, Freud wouldn’t have seen so many ways that it could go wrong (his value judgment, not mine). I don’t see a lot of continuities between his ideas and any strain of ev psych.
As for Marx, he was hardly the epitome of bourgeois propriety. He cheated on his wife Jenny and fathered a child outside of his marriage. Not admirable, but also not boring either.
Good point about Freud,
Submitted by figleaf on Sun, 2010-07-18 10:47.Good point about Freud, Sungold. I think he got a little brittle in his old age, and in translation his ideas are often presented as a seamless web instead of as works in progress over a lifetime. But that doesn’t make him directly responsible. I should have said “Pop Freudians and their direct descendants, pop ev-psychs.”
Thanks for the nudge,
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Wow…that is beautifully said.
Submitted by Kaija (not verified) on Sun, 2010-07-18 11:39.Wow…that is beautifully said. It is true that all this hand-wringing about what is “natural” is somewhat silly in a reductive way since very little of our modern lifestyles can be called natural! This is in addition to the general ignorance of most people as to the huge range of natural behaviors exhibited by primates and other organisms that DO live in the natural world. Sex is a wonderful form of bonding, nonverbal communication, stress-soothing, and connection along with pleasure. And it IS natural. Enough with the guilt and shame.