Ok, so 22 years ago, while cruising an unfamiliar row of books at the campus library for a paper on social theory this one title caught me out of the corner of my eye and I said “woah.” I picked it up and it changed my life.
Ok, not exactly, but it certainly changed the way I’ve thought about sex ever since.
The book’s called Smut: Everyday Reality – Obscene Ideology by Murray S. Davis, University of Chicago Press, 1983.
Here’s how he begins the introduction:
For many years I have been puzzled by two questions: Why does a person want to have sex with others? And why do other people attempt to stop him or her from doing it?
Sound familiar? I’d already started asking those questions when I read the book and I’ve been asking them ever since. Funny thing, though, is I’m only just now reading it again.
The great thing about Davis is he sidesteps the macro-level behavioralism of Kinsey and the micro-level instinctualism of Freud and, perhaps not surprisingly for a sociologist, examines sex at the scale of individual mature human beings in their social environments.
His biggest eye-openers for me were/are 1) the way he uses phenomenology instead of, say, poetry, sermons, or sociobiology to distinguish horniness from everyday reality and 2) the way he splits social attitudes about sex into three groups: those who think sex is transcendental and think that’s bad; those fear sex will disrupt society, those who hope sex will disrupt society, and those who think sex, while temporarily altering our perceptions, is still just something we do like eating, talking, thinking, or sleeping.
I also really appreciate when he says
Where the Freudians see sex as basically biological (with some experiential consequences), I will conceive of it as essentially experiential (with some biological consequences.)
That’s always made a bit more sense to me. It’s not that biology doesn’t have a role in human sexuality, it’s that it’s so small and/or elemental compared to the vastly more complex things we make of it that it’s almost irrelevant. Yeah, we get horny and if our horniness is frustrated then we get cranky too. But… We also get frustrated and cranky when we’re stuck in traffic, when we’re late cooking supper, when we’re tired, when… But you don’t see a lot of people writing books or giving sermons or passing laws about our sleep habits or our dining preferences or (the legitimate problem of “road rage” not withstanding) our commuting proclivities, but even less you see people defending our other antics in terms of biological imperitives, instincts, or disorders. So why pretend sex is just about hormone secretions and/or sin?
Fair warning: Over time it’s possible you’re going to get so sick of me posting riffs off of this book. (I’ve circled maybe 30 suitable items in his endnotes alone!) On the other hand… I realize I’ve been posting riffs off it since pretty much day one. So you might not mind a bit. (Especially if I’ll keep the citations down to a dull roar.)
Submitted by 691 (not verified) on Fri, 2006-03-31 20:41.
I'm sorry...were you saying something?
I'm a bit distracted.
[Dang it, I really oughta stop posting those photos then. :-) --fl]
Submitted by 691 (not verified) on Fri, 2006-03-31 21:52.
I do believe I'm going to pick up a copy of that book, Fig. Thank you :)
[I'm pretty sure it's out of print now (though of course I'd love to see it reissued) but you can find used copies on Amazon, HalfPrice.com, and other used book vendors. As I'm actually reading it his examples are often quaintly dated (there still wasn't much to draw on in the early 1980s) but as an analysis of the preceeding 4,000 years of IndoEuropean culture he's pretty insightful. Go for it, Darkneuro. --fl]
Submitted by 691 (not verified) on Sat, 2006-04-01 01:06.
the book sounds fascinating.
why do we see sex in those ways? Well, I guess it depends on who you ask actually because you would find so many different answers, but if you're asking society as a whole I suppose you have to go back to how that big elephant in the room: religion is tied in not only with our "morals" but also with our laws.
[He spends a third of the book explaining why different people feel that way. And you're right, Western/Middle-eastern religion plays a large role in what he calls Jehovanists or moralists (originating mainly in Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions) who worry that sex is transgressive and so distructive, the group he calls Gnostics or immoralists who also believe sex is transgressive but transcendental, and (I think) Naturalists or amoralists who consider it a pleasant but nontranscendent bodily function. More than that I can't say since I haven't gotten there yet. :-) But yeah, it's all *intimately* tied into our laws, customs, language, and attitudes. Thanks, M. --fl]
Submitted by 691 (not verified) on Sat, 2006-04-01 01:07.
ps: that picture is sublime :)
[For once even I get that it's a nice one. Thank you so much, M. --fl]
Submitted by 691 (not verified) on Sat, 2006-04-01 06:55.
I read a book that asked similar questions when I was taking a human sexuality course in college. At least one of the questions was why people want to have sex with other people.
That's the only thing I remember about that book. Well, that and wondering why people *wouldn't* want to have sex with other people =D
Great blog you've got here. I really enjoy reading it.
[Both questions are valid. I think the complications are: you can give yourself very, very nice orgasms; almost everyone is telling us, all the time, that it's a bad idea; our motivations to have it are only loosely or occasionally associated with a direct urge to reproduce. His point is that neither simple biology, simple behaviorism, or simple original sin are sufficient answers even though people, even kinksters, usually try to say they are. Thanks RS. (By the way, it's wonderful to meet someone who includes food-related sites along with the usual everyday and sex sites in her blogroll. Definitely cool.) --fl]
Submitted by 691 (not verified) on Sat, 2006-04-01 06:58.
I read the post, I swear I did, but I can't for the life of me remember a word since seeing this pic. *blush*
[Thanks, Boo. --fl]
Submitted by 691 (not verified) on Sat, 2006-04-01 07:41.
Why do we want to have sex with other people?
'Cause it feels damn good and gives us a connection outside of our own lonely little lives.
Someday, I'd like to explore the physics of why, precisely, water runs off a penis that way in the shower.
I think I could get a grant, don't you?
[I don't know about the grant but I'm sure you'd find willing volunteers to be in the study. :-) Thanks, AAG. --fl]
Submitted by 691 (not verified) on Sat, 2006-04-01 14:46.
Ahhhh my alma mater... it brings a tear to my eye...
Shocking that a slutty girl like me could have come out of that environment, eh?
[Hey, sex and brains go together, LushlyMe. Not even a teeny bit shocking. Not a squinch. --fl]
Submitted by 691 (not verified) on Tue, 2006-04-04 00:16.
You're welcome. Thanks for bringing so many different sexual perspectives to your blog. It gives the rest of us something to think about later =)
Anyway, it always seemed to me that masturbation was more discouraged than sex, so maybe that's why I never looked at that question and was able to understand why a person wouldn't want to have sex with someone else.
Thank you for the compliment on my blogroll =) Obviously, it's a new blog so the whole thing (blogroll included) is still in progress, but I was hoping to incorporate a couple of my favorite things. We'll see how it goes, huh?
[Good point, RS. I'm pretty sure Davis's quick answer would have been that he meant masturbation too. (It's hard to believe but even as recently as the early 80's people in general and women in particular were very leery of discussing masturbation or portraying it even in pornography. Anyway, the subject doesn't come up much in his book, at least so far.) Thanks. --fl]