Today it is customary to engage not in love, but in sex, states the philosopher Dominik Folscheid. Perhaps that is why, instead of satisfaction, we experience more and more frustration …
Psychologies : What is happening today with our sexual desire?
Dominic Volscheid : Before, we had a parallel language of love confessions and a vulgar language that we used to talk about sex roughly, without embellishment. Now this division is disappearing. We live in a world ruled by sex, which has become an empire with its own rules, logic, vocabulary. He took the place of the collective unconscious, which imposes its laws on us against our will. Sexuality is increasingly reduced to the activity that is called «fucking», to pornography that excludes love and leaves only bodies — no names, no faces. The very word «sex» has become magical and omnipotent, it contains a whole system in which everything is prescribed in advance and ready for use. This is a view of the world in which a girl is either «suitable» to sleep with her, or not. She is judged only by whether she is of value as an object for sex. Now, when there is a lot of talk about the promotion of women’s values, in fact, we see a new radical machismo, brutal phallocentrism combined with the devaluation of women. Don Juan counted his victories, calling the conquered women by their first names. He took pains to seduce them and be seduced by them. The current «fucker» does not burden himself with this: he deals only with bodies — indefinite, innumerable, devoid of individuality. He performs «acts» in which there is neither personal relationship nor love.
Do we want sex too much or, conversely, do we lack desire?
D. F. : I would say that we live in an era of desire taken to the extreme — we have it shining with all the lights. And, paradoxically, at the same time — in a situation of sexual poverty, due to the fact that sexual desire is considered today a natural need that must be satisfied at any cost — otherwise a state of unbearable lack will follow. But attraction, unlike the need to eat and drink, is infinite. It is a psychic energy that has no natural limit. To declare it a legitimate need is to create a situation of constant frustration. And most importantly, such a point of view inevitably leads to the devaluation of the other. To reduce it to the level of a sexual object, the function of which is to satisfy us, to give us pleasure. It is impossible to imagine that the «subject» could suddenly not want sex — hence the widespread bewilderment of rapists who are rebuffed. Hence the use of chemical drugs among young people, which deprive the “prey” of the will to resist.
How to change the situation?
D. F. : We urgently need to return the love language to the sexual sphere. And here part of the responsibility lies with the media — after all, they broadcast crude sexual discourse to the masses. This is not about a return to the romantic ideal or to platonic pure love. But we have to reinvent the sexuality of loving people, start thinking about it again in terms of a meeting, a date, a relationship between two persons, each with a face and a name.