Sexual Perversion

The concept of perversion has traditionally been applied particularly to the sexual sphere, in order to condemn certain desires and certain practices as wrong or inappropriate because of their unnaturalness, as they are understood as a deviation from a given function of sexuality. In this article, I explore the question whether and how such a concept could be applied to another central dimension of our existence, namely our death and, in particular, whether it makes sense to talk of perverted attitudes (...) towards (our own) death. In the first section I present a fairly common account of what is a perverted attitude towards sex and explain how that account can be used to define a perverted attitude towards death. I come up with four suggestions (one based on belief in the afterlife and three secular ones, based respectively on the notion of death as meaningless, on Heidegger’s concept of authenticity and on the evolutionary function of death). In the second section, I explore potential connections between perversion in sex and perversion in death. I conclude that, outside the Catholic worldview, perverted attitudes to sex do not bring along perverted attitudes towards death, nor is there a connection the other way around. In fact, certain kinds of perverted attitudes towards death are even inimical to sexual perversion. In the third section, I present a metaphysical and an ethical reason to doubt that we can and should talk of a function of death or sex. (shrink)

This is a detailed encyclopedia entry on sex and sexuality, explaining the main issues and debates in philosophy about them.

Erotic Nights of the Living Dead (1980) may have featured both animated corpses and hardcore sex scenes, but only recently have Re-Penetrator (2004) and Porn of the Dead (2006) managed to fully eroticise the living dead, allowing these creatures to engage in intercourse. In doing so, the usually a-subjective zombie is allotted a key facet of identity - sexuality. This development within the sub-genre needs accounting for outside of the contexts of porn studies, where it has only been briefly touched (...) upon in relation to its "extremity". -/- Moreover, the gendering of the undead opens a discussion which expand the horizons of zombie studies away from the overt critiques of capitalism, race and psychoanalysis that have pervaded analyses of these narratives. The dichotomy of binary oppositions so often associated with psychoanalytic approaches dictates that "passive (non-phallic) = female", and "active (phallic) = male". In these terms, the zombies are feminine - soft-bodied and passive, despite their murderous intent (which has been accounted for, by Barabara Creed (1993) amongst others, by invoking the vagina-dentata motif). Humans (active) are deemed masculine, not least since they tend to dispatch zombies with "phallic guns". Taking this logic to an extreme, the zombie may be read as allegorising feminism: the "feminised" figures (zombies) become fearsome in their will to exert themselves despite their seeming disempowerment in the face of "masculine" hegemony. Ultimately, by grouping together as a force, they overthrow or at least significantly damage that "normality" (an ideological paradigm usually read in terms of race, class and economics). (shrink)

Why has little progress been made in resolving the debate about the concept of sexual perversion? I suggest that the stalemate is due to misunderstandings and poor methodology. I develop a new methodology for resolving disputes about the correct analysis of the contents of concepts where the disputes have social and political ramifications. When deciding between competing analyses of a concept, we should not just consider facts about our inferential and judgemental dispositions with respect to that concept; we should also (...) incorporate facts about its desired social function. This provides additional resources for making decisions about which analysis to choose, when information about our dispositions alone cannot determine an answer. (shrink)

The sublime and the abject -- Sade pro and contra Sade -- Dark enlightenment or barbaric science -- The Auschwitz confessions -- The perverse society.

The sexual domain is unified only by the phenomenal quality of the occurrence of the desires, activities, and pleasures it includes. There is no conceptual restriction on the range of intentional objects those desires, activities, and pleasures can take. Neither is there good conceptual reason to privilege any class of them as paradigmatic. Since the quality unifying the sexual is not morally significant, the morality of sexuality is no different from morality in general. The view that participant consent is morally (...) sufficient in the sexual domain therefore requires the more controversial view that it is morally sufficient in general. (shrink)

Abstract This paper aims to describe an objective account of sexual perversion. That is, it seeks to characterize sexual perversion as something which is not simply a deviation from a statistical norm but rather as something which violates an objective naturalistic norm. The central point is that perversion consists in the introduction of a strange and extraneous loop in the aetiology of sexual sensations, and this extraneous loop makes it possible to characterize sexual perversion as an objective disorder which is (...) in need of therapy. (shrink)

This article discusses the views of Immanuel Kant on sexual perversion (what he calls "carnal crimes against nature"), as found in his Vorlesung (Lectures on Ethics) and the Metaphysics of Morals (both the Rechtslehre and Tugendlehre). Kant criticizes sexual perversion by appealing to Natural Law and to his Formula of Humanity. Neither argument for the immorality of sexual perversion succeeds.

Sexual perversity has traditionally been defined in terms of violating externally imposed criteria for natural or normal sex. The theory proposed here views sexual desires in terms of their own internal structure, such that perverse desires are those which are self-defeating because they are contradictory. Sadism, masochism, and certain private acts between consenting heterosexual and homosexual adults are shown to be perverse in illustrating the use of this hopefully nonideological method.

In this essay I examine seven of the best-known attempts to define ‘sexual perversion’. I argue that if these definitions are meant to prescribe our use of ‘sexual perversion’, the definitions are really theoretical definitions, and none can be accepted because the arguments offered in support of the definitions are either incomplete or misdirected. Next, I argue that it is not possible to formulate a definition of ‘sexual perversion’ which captures our ordinary use of the term because common usage indicates (...) that ‘sexual perversion’ is a cluster term. Finally, I consider whether it is possible to develop and defend a theoretical definition of ‘sexual perversion’. I argue that to succeed in this task one must first demonstrate that a particular theory of human nature is true, and that this cannot be done because human nature is an essentially contested concept. (shrink)

Sexuality, understood as a Foucauldian discourse that expresses itself through our passions and pursuits and contributes massively to our socially- constructed identity formation, has from the outset been a major factor in the growth of the internet. As the ultimate look-but-don‘t-touch medium, the computer screen has offered us a pornographic emporium in the privacy of our homes, fed first by the producers of material in the standard broadcast mode, then more and more by ourselves, to each other, in the social (...) media context of online sexual social networking. The recent shift of sexual video material from broadcast to social media mode highlights the fundamental exhibitionism/voyeurism dyad at the core of all this activity, and finds its most impersonal, anonymous apotheosis in the phenomenon that is ChatRoulette, where visual discourse-objects are deployed in a nexus of online sexual power relations. (shrink)