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Sensuality reminds us of our animal nature, and therefore we despise it or even fear it. Forgetting that we evolve thanks to the ability to know the world with the help of the senses.
There are days when you want to become a cat, jump on someone’s knees and curl up there, purr and squint with pleasure while you are being stroked or scratched behind the ear … But how long will small joys last for us? Most likely, such a life will quickly get bored. We are not cats, we need more!
Until the sexual revolution of the 1960s, sensuality in Western culture was banned as something unworthy of a person. After all, civilization takes us further and further from primitive instincts, and “sensuality remains animal in nature,” recalls neuroscientist Jean-Didier Vincent. But we cannot simply abandon it, because sensibility – that is, the ability to know reality with the help of our senses – remains the main driving force of human development. And this is true both for the biological species Homo sapiens and for each of us. “Our thinking, all our actions are based on our feelings,” explains the neuroscientist. “And their source is sensory impressions processed in the pleasure center of the brain, which vertebrates acquired 500 million years ago.”
Pleasure or pain? For the animal, it is a matter of survival. So our entire highly developed nervous system is essentially occupied with solving a single question: what is good for us and what is bad. Does this mean that we have no freedom as far as our feelings are concerned?
Read more:
- Sources of our sensibility
Bring back freshness
“We are trained to attach the name ‘I’ or ‘mine’ to the stream of experiences that validate our personal sense of self,” writes Buddhist teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche in his book.1. But if we consider the vast variety of factors that combine to give rise to our particular sense of self, then our attachment to this “I” that we think we are begins to weaken. And then it is easier for us to give up the desire to control or restrain our thoughts, emotions and sensations, and we begin to experience them without pain or guilt. In doing so, we gradually regain that innocent worldview that most of us had in childhood. We hear other people better, are more fully aware of everything that is happening around us, and are able to respond more spontaneously and adequately to difficult situations. So gradually we come to a level that is so subtle that we may not notice it happening when we find ourselves waking up in a free, clear, loving state of mind that surpasses anything we have ever dreamed of.”
Two ways to enjoy
“Of course, we are born with ideas that allow us to distinguish between pleasure and displeasure,” continues Jean-Didier Vincent. “We are powerless to influence how our genes work, but our personal experience can give these ideas a shade that is meaningful only to us.” The structures of the brain that make up the pleasure center form an extremely sensitive system, on which the amount of dopamine, the hormone of pleasure, depends.
There are two ways to have fun: bottom-up and top-down. You can experience the pleasure that comes from bodily sensations: taste, caress, smell, and so on – this is the path from the bottom up. But the brain itself can also cause pleasure, since it is able to associate pleasant memories with external stimuli (landscape, word). Thus, a feeling of pleasure is born from just one thought. Accordingly, our pleasure is born both on the basis of perception and on the basis of imagination, and the same connections in the brain are used. “Sensual pleasures continue to accompany the satisfaction of vital needs (food, procreation…) and thus play the role of the driving force of evolution,” notes Jean-Didier Vincent. “But each of us has our own personal taste; our appetite for pleasure and our natural ability to enjoy are not the same, they differ depending on our culture, upbringing and genetics.” Therefore, sensuality becomes a personal matter for everyone, we consciously choose whether to be more or less sensual.
“Philosophy of the body. Body of Freedom” Mikhail Epstein, Grigory Tulchinsky
Two modern philosophers trace the changes in the natural properties of a person – his tactility, sensuality, sexuality – in the era of virtual and genetic technologies (Aletheia, 2006).
sensual sexuality
The word “sensuality” has a second meaning: “the presence of sensual drives”2, and here we are talking not so much about our ability to perceive the world with our senses, but about the transformation of these signals into erotic impulses. Sexual attraction is one of the brightest manifestations of sensuality. It sharpens our perception and feeds on it at the same time. “When we experience sexual attraction, taste, smell, touch, sight, all our senses seem to rise on tiptoe,” says sexologist Irina Panyukova. – Everything in another person is infinitely dear to us: the color of the eyes, the smell and moisture of his skin, the timbre of the voice, the duration of the touch. And when we turn our perception thus attuned to the world around us or to ourselves, we see and feel everything with clarity that astonishes us.” This explains the feeling noted by different people that during the period of passionate love they lived especially brightly and felt more alive than in other periods. The connection between sensuality, sexuality and vitality was also expressed in the concept of “libido”, which was introduced into scientific use by Sigmund Freud: in his early works, he denoted the energy of sexual desire with this word, and later – the energy of the drive to life, contrasting it with the destructive drive to death ” mortido”3.
human property
Sensuality is important not only for the individual, but also for society as a whole, says anthropologist David Le Breton: “This is one of the important characteristics of every person. Something like a personal signature, that charm that distinguishes a person from the general series. Sensuality gives a taste to life, enhances the joy of being yourself. But since it is related to the senses and the body, does it not return us to the animal nature? “No,” the anthropologist replies. – After all, sensuality is framed in social rituals and manifests itself in sign systems, for example, in the clothes we wear, in our behavior, ways of communication. Moreover, it depends on how charming we are, what our personal style is, how open we are to the world and others.
So, sensuality is an important addition to our style and charm. This would be enough to convince us that sensuality is our great virtue. However, Irina Panyukova goes even further: sensuality is not just a confirmation of our presence in the world, but the most important property of a person. “We are the only beings who are able to purposefully cultivate our sensuality in order to enjoy it, on our own or with the help of others,” the sexologist emphasizes. “Only we can find what we like, create pleasures, imagine them, remember them and share them with others. This is the difference between the instinctive pursuit of pleasure and art – painting, cooking, erotica or the art of living. It is also a way to exercise your freedom: “To find your source of pleasure, you need to listen to yourself and free yourself from prescriptions.”
So, sensuality is no longer a way of survival, written in our genes, but rather the art of living the present in its entirety, finding oneness with the world and building relationships with other people.
“Love and sex. How we do them.” Judy Dutton
A science journalist talks about the results of 300 studies of the biological mechanisms of sexuality: “Sexologists have seen a lot. And strange. And beautiful. And now is your chance to benefit from their hard work” (Kind Book, 2011).
1 “Buddha, the Brain and the Neurophysiology of Happiness” (Open World, 2012).
2 T. Efremova “New explanatory and derivational dictionary of the Russian language” (Russian language, 2000).
3 Z. Freud “Psychology of the Unconscious” (AST, 2007).