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2.3 Sex is Natural, Sex is Good?

Following from these homosexuality debates is post-modernism’s version of desire. Sylvère Lotringer, in his article Defunkt Sex, discusses the pitfalls of creating a new theorization of sex based on post-sex sex or anti-sexual sex in terms of the means by which culture understands the ability to divide and create discourses around sexuality. In an argument seemingly ahead of its time [37] Lotringer analyzes the new perversions of sex (specifically acts rather than subjectivities or bodies, but inclusive of bodies performing acts) and their implications in terms of boredom. The most perverse sexuality of the modern era, claims Lotringer, is our obsession with talking about sexuality, making it real without doing it, thus constructing a sexuality around which to model ourselves. This is based implicitly on the post-Victorian idea that sex is now ‘natural’ and should become tangible through linguistic expression - Lotringer briefly advocates a return to ritualistic versions of sexuality before elucidating their ‘defunkt’ qualities. His point remains however, that naturalizing sex places sexual pathology as the responsibility of the individual. Sex and sexuality, like bodies, are in the realm of a priori matter, which means that any time their limits are transgressed the subject is to blame because the body exists with a natural potential to be completely sexually functional, thus psychically beneficial. He states “We don’t belong anywhere, especially in our own body”. [38] Foucault’s Scientia Sexualis, incarnated today in the biological as well as the psychoanalytic, claims sexual sex is natural and hence potentially exists outside of cultural bodies. Lotringer argues this is ridiculous considering all culture ever does is put sex into language. Instead Lotringer posits a future-sex. Much of his argument is tongue-in-cheek; he makes post-psychoanalytic claims such as “We have become voyeurs of our own sexuality. We don’t hide anything, especially from strangers, we welcome public inspection… Our society is saturated with sex, but is our sex really sexual?” [39] Lotringer excavates the site of sexuality both perverse and normal as that which we perform in front of others, speak to others, is analyzed by others, judged, created and destroyed by others. Sex becomes real only in respect to what others say about it. All forms of perversion are only perverse and hence powerful or transgressive if someone else can see them and recognize them as such. There is no such thing as asocial sex, even masturbation occurs under a Foucauldian panopticonic eye.

From Lotringer’s article, I would argue that one way to move towards an asocial sexuality, something that falls more in line with his discussion of desire, is the becoming of watching horror. Lotringer divides desire from sexuality, but I wish to read these two terms as somewhat interchangeable, in order to introduce the asocial sexuality of being a body in horror. Why do I think this may begin to fulfil Lotringer’s criteria for a potentially asocial sex? Because there is no means yet by which to articulate the feeling of watching a thrilling film, thrilling both in terms of fright and of any other sensation that it may produce. I think the reason Lotringer claims there is no asocial sexuality is because sex is now, as he points out, all we ever talk about and something we feel we must talk about. The pre-linguistic feelings of pleasure that destroy the integrity of the truthful flesh the static subject inhabits have been over-signified linguistically with the mandate of speaking sex - as it relates to our bodies and ‘who we are’. The feeling of horror from film is linguistically poverty-stricken which is why it may suggest asocial sexuality and also why it is attractive to me. Asocial sexuality is attractive because it cannot be sufficiently spoken and therefore cannot be known or closed off. Of course, I am here attempting to theorize the affect of horror film, in essence doing to its potential the exact thing that I am arguing against. But I will attempt to never state what the viewer may feel, only that the viewer may feel. The reason I think the television is an interesting vehicle for pleasure is why Lotringer calls it the vehicle of awe. He states [original capitalization]

IF MASTERS AND JOHNSON’S BOOK HAD BEEN TRULY UNHUMAN AND NOT JUST OBJECTIVE, IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN QUITE EXCITING. UNHUMAN SEX AT LEAST WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT. EVEN HOLLYWOOD IS GETTING TIRED OF ROUTINE SEXPLOITATION: ‘MOVIEGOERS WANT TO SEE SOMETHING SPECIAL, LIKE A SPACE SHIP COMING DOWN, AND LASER BEAMS’ DECLARES AN ACTRESS FROM CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. ‘THEY WANT TO EXPERIENCE FEAR AND MYSTERY’. ONLY TECHNOLOGY CAN STILL MAKE US STAND IN AWE AND EXPERIENCE ANEW THESE PRIMITIVE EMOTIONS. ONLY WHEN IT TAKES US SOMEWHERE ELSE, IN ANOTHER SPACE, IN ANOTHER DIMENSION - ‘OUT OF THIS WORLD’ - CAN SEX MAKE US EXPERIENCE FEAR AND MYSTERY. [40]

I do not believe only technology can accord us this sexually invigorated fear and mystery (although it may have seemed this way in 1981 with the inception of home video) but I do concur that it is a great way to begin to theorize a new form of sexual pleasure, a more perverse form when taken against all other forms of genital, spoken sexuality. Technology as a new object choice makes us experience, we are compelled into our own flesh and its viscerality – the television is a vehicle which refers us back to the otherness of our own flesh, not to a substitute nor entirely extricated from it. From here I move the pervert (not very far) from its own body, away from the sexual, and juxtapose it with that of the television, the video recorder and the horror film.

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