статья
PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM OF SEX
V.Lahetko (Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine)
Sexological literature and wider, psychiatric one has a tradition
which even considering the problem of sex as a problem believes
it to be a mere medical one in particular a sexological one. And
even those scholar who consider themselves natural scientists
used to keep to and still keep to this viewpoint. To my mind this
viewpoint was largely determined by the fact of people having
their consciousness as a means to control their actions. In those
instances where, in particular, behaviour is sexual, is out of
control (Shakespeare saying, when blood speaks brain is dumb.)
this fact is accounted for by an evil or even criminal nature
of particular people.
Evidently such a state of things can be considered as the first
factor effecting the research of the problem. The second factor
is the fact that the intimate sphere of people's relations was
always hushed up in Europe and therefore never advertised for
a broad public. It is because it is more ''comfortable'' for people
to perceive the world not as it is but the one they would like
to see it, that is the one it ought to be (idealisation is a feature
of consciousness, it's an "expensive" pay for its availability
as a means of people's survival).
The nature following the sex reproduction programmed the division
of individuals into two sexes, each of them having got its specific
function in this process. Males-impregnation, therefore the male
organism is formed to be namely such as it is and females giving
birth to and the female organism is formed to realise this function.
In this sense this time a French surgeon and scholar Ambroiss
Pare (XVI century) wrote that ''the sex is nothing else but a
difference between a male and female''. Nature thought of an incentive
to reproduction too. Sexual needs meeting which turned out to
be the strongest natural psychophysical enjoyment became this
incentive. So far as it was so, sexual enjoyment became value
in itself (therefore) people have sexual intercourse not to continue
the human race but to enjoy it, more than that, already with monkeys,
not speaking about people, the reproduction process is not limited
by certain time (seasons of the year ) frames. But it is later.
And at first it was necessary to make representatives of different
sexes attractive to each other and for this aim to make representatives
of the same sex repulsive to each other. To do this, nature programs
homophobia continuation of which or the reverse side of which
is heterophilia. There wouldn't exist heterophilia without homophobia
and on the contrary, heterophilia envisages homophobia .
Similar considerations conclude that the sex manifesting itself
through sexual behaviour of individuals (animals and humans )
is quite natural, therefore it cannot be determined by the society
as some literature sources read. The sexual behaviour is predetermined
by the sexual instinct which is a two-element creation, i.e. it
envisages sexual appetite and sexual organ, the latter's role
being functional - to satisfy the sexual appetite and not the
contrary - to satisfy the organ.
The family as a social inheritance has passed a long and complicated
way of its development from polygamy being the most widespread
form of sexual behaviour with the ancient people (matriarchy)
to monogamy of patriarchy epoch and up till nowadays. It is a
function of the family to continue the human race, the idea of
surface - thinking culturologists (moralists) being aware that
the illegitimate children are proclaimed socially inadequate.
Can we agree with this?
If we look at the world with sober and not ideologically befogged
eyes and perceive it as it is we must conclude that the sex difference
is the greatest natural difference among people. So it is in this
aspect (in the aspect of sex) that the greatest problems should
exist and they do exist, it is spontaneous (unconscious) development
of nature that determined them. Hehel mentioned that if the man
in the process of his creativity not always achieves his desirable
objective then how can you demand from nature one hundred per
cent success in each concrete case. But we are not interested
in Hehel in our routine consciousness.
Albert Moll who in 1897 suggested "sex appetite" to
be used as a scientific term in psychiatry understood it as the
wish to touch and relax emphasised the psychical side of the matter.
In 1919 in his diary Ukrainian writer V.Vynnychenco already interpreted
the social-psychological aspect of the phenomenon, not guessing
about the presence of the notion ''sex appetite'' as a scientific
term and therefore used the notion ''love'' including the meaning
of ''sex appetite'' into the notion ''love''. I'll make a somewhat
broader extract from this definition: love (passion) is a cry
of blood, it is an unthinking, invincible, hunger of body, it's
an order of eternity which doesn't allow any resistance. Passion
devours itself like a fire and after it has been satisfied it
leaves tedious, grey ashes after itself. Love is growing in, it
is percolation to the most intimate corner by each other . Love
comes late after passion , after its orgies, after thirstry cries
and savage wild whisper of thirst it walks softly, noiselessly,
with a careful look, mysterious smile. Passion is blind, wild
with dilated nostrils, twisted fingers it rushes at everything
that can satisfy it. One can feel passion simultaneously to two,
three, five, so many it has enough body and fire strength for
.
One can love simultaneously only one. One can grow only in one
soul and only one soul can receive the whole being , to the very
end. Passion comes at once in one moment and may leave you so
suddenly and unexpectedly. Love comes slowly, with suffering ,
routine trou-bles, in the dust of everyday adventures, it comes
unnoticed, becomes the host and leaves you with difficulties in
pain, with death. Passion loves only itself and for itself when
the sufferings of the beloved give enjoyment, the love will seek
for only sufferings of the beloved. Love gives itself for the
beloved. Sufferings of the beloved excludes any joy for the loving.
Love is blossom producing a rare fruit - love. Without blossom
there is no fruit, but blossom is not fruit, and not every blossom
turns, into fruit. Thousands of loves are shedding off, wither,
having not managed to get into blossom to the grains of love (magazine
"Kyiv". No. 10.1990. pp. 108-109).
The extract is rather long, but this phenomenon, this ''sex appe-tite"
is worth of thinking of it once again, what is it ?
One can conclude that nature exercises its trouble of continuing
the human race through changeability and polygamy of sex appetite.
The more changeable the appetite, the more contacts , the more
impregnations, the more births. Sometimes one can hear the idea
of wastefulness of nature: in spring for example, cherries are
covered with blossoms, as spilled with milk and not every blossom
gives a berry. It is not wastefulness but foresight because there
exists infertility too. It's about cherries, and people have many
other acting factors. The changeability of "sex appetite"
and its polygamy designates particular people with the moral brand
of human nature detriment. It's because of non-understanding the
sense of the problem. It's of long standing that somebody speaks
the most convincingly about that of which, he (or she) has the
least idea.
The problem of changeability and polygamy of "sex appetite"
is the first thing that determines the sex problem as philosophical.
Masturbation is the second as to its incidence. According to
the Polish sexologist K. Imelinsky 95% males and 75% 'females
have their own experience what concerns masturbation. While at
the beginning of our century psychiatry treated this phenomenon
as an anomaly in the human psychic development, nowadays psychiatry
treats it as a means to relax a sexual stimulation, an elementary
form of sexual satisfaction. We'd only like to add that monkeys
masturb too (it's interesting what "social requirement"
makes them to do so?). So, this is also a natural phe-nomenon,
You only marvel at some researchers who discard the animal world
as a criterion to understand the human physiology, lulling our
consciousness with the influence of social-psychological factors
(of the type "I came, you weren't there, you deceived me,
you let me down"), that undoubtedly influence the human form
of sex relations called passion by us but which don't determine
it in any case. Both animal physiology and human, physiology remain
the same, natural. When a person is hungry and there is no knife
and fork nearby, but only a piece of boi-led meat he (or she)
will eat it not taking care of the human etique-tte. When a person
gets sexually excited in an overcrowded public transport vehicle
they will discharge there not waiting for a suitable place and
time.
The third item determining the sex problem as philosophical is
the presence of the so-called deviations from norm in the sexual
be-haviour of people, as well as animals, we'll add, which again
determines the sex problem as merely natural. The modern sexopathology
is based on these "deviations". The most widespread
deviation is homosexualism, which conventionally exists in "male"
(pederasty) and "female" (lesbianism) forms.. According
to German investigators, every 100 humans inc-lude 4-6 homosexuals,
one lesbian per four pederasts. So, what is it? K. Imelinsky answers
the question straight forward, that he doesn't know, believing
it to belong to "nontraditional" deviations (1986).
Sincerity in sexology is the most important research method. We
are reli-eved by the fact that it concerns not only some patients
but investigators as well, though not all of them.
In order to explain this phenomenon one must pay attention to
the philosophic principle of the unity of matter which is a unity
of oppositions having obligatory an intermediate link between
them (Aristotle wrote about this as early as the fourth century
B.C.) which ensures the continuity of development process and
the role of which may be played by the thing combining the features
(properties) of both oppositions. And it is not incidental and
not a deviation in the development process but its (of matter)
law, what was overlooked by Hehel in his time and what he called
"feebleness" of nature. For example, macro-and-micro-world
are united by electron due to the fact that it has properties
of both substance and field (contrary types of matter). Females
and males are united by homosexual, because due to the attraction
he (she) is a female or male, and due to the or-gan- male or female.
To my mind, people-are quite right speaking abo-ut pederast as
females in male packing and lesbians as males in fe-male packing.
Sometimes homosexuals are called a third sex but it is an evident
delusion. There is not any third sex attraction but fema-le and
male one, nor any third, sex organ, but male and female one. Freud's
desert before science is that, that he was bold enough to call
a spade a spade. That is the sexual behaviour of people is determined
in the first line, by the sexual appetite, and not the sexual
organ. Therefore idea of the 20-th century American philosopher
E. Fromm, who calling himself neofreudist claims that so far as
the male and female sex organs correspond to each other then sharing
a bed may occur with anyone sound as a nonsense. It would be true
in the case if the sexual behaviour were determined by the sexual
appetite then in the principle "the principle" spoken
of by E.Fromm can't occur.
So the reason of homosexualism lies in the necessity of an intermediate
link in the sex sphere (as decisive for nature) the role of which
these people are doomed to perform. That is homosexualism exits
only because of the fact that there is heterosexualism which envisages
homosexualism as an intermediate link between sexes .
The dramatic character of the situation consists in the fact
that this phenomenon concerns everybody because homosexuals don't
give birth to the like (as it was believed by Voltaire in the
18-th century), they don't give birth to anybody at all! Homosexuals
are born by ordinary females who are impregnated by ordinary males.
Sometimes a tragedy in this or that particular family occurs due
to incomprehension of the nature (in this case we can call it
fatality) of this phenomenon and, its incomprehension due to homophobia,
when either parents suddenly! get to know that their son (daughter)
is homosexual or father - parent turns out to be homosexual what
would evidently be an astonishment for children. It occurs because
some homosexuals try to "run away" from themselves not
to be a "white crow" for the surrounding people (homophobes).
They get married, have even children but cannot get rid of that
that is not allowed to them by nature. Besides this "deviation"
there exists still pedophilia (sexual intercouse with young children,
herontophilia (sexual, affair with senile people), zoophilia (with
animals), necrophilia (with corpses) and so on. Pedophilia and
herontophilia can be explained by continuity in age separation.
Zoophilia by the principle of unity of everything alive, necrophilia
by the principle of organic and nonorganic nature. All these deviations
in strict comprehension are not deviations in the sexual behaviour
of people, because a heterosexual will never according to their
own will try homosexualism, pedophilia, herontophilia, necrophilia,
zoophilia etc.
Therefore we can conclude that there is no one norm in sexual
behaviour: each sexual group has their own norm of sexual behaviour
and this norm is programmed by nature, all this ensuring its (of
nature) unity and continuity of development and rejuvenation in
generations.
The fourth may be mentioned hermaphroiditism as a blind alley
link in the sexual development of a person. If in the vegetative
world existence of bisexual plants is justified by their corresponding
functions realisation the human turned out a too complicated system
to remain at the level of vegetative development. The material
the nature gives to form the sex organ in hermaphrodites is distributed
between two organs (male and female)therefore both of them are
simply underformed, and are not able to perform the sexual function,
and so far as sexual appetites (male and female ) are mutually
destroyed, that is these people are indifferent in sexual aspect,
there is no need for it. The "experiment" of nature
utterly failed.
All the above things suggest that the evident thing is not always
a known thing, therefore one oughtn't to hurry with evaluations
but first of all it is necessary to determine the necessity (the
reason) of existence of this or that phenomenon (incredible).
To do this on the basis of the accumulated knowledge of sexology
is not possible, therefore a "break - through'' is necessary.
Unbiased viewpoints are of great importance to do this.
It goes without saying we have touched only some aspects (manifestation
forms) of the sexual behaviour of humans but the problem is delineated
and proclaimed and it provokes a cardinal overview of the previous
(existing) viewpoints of the sexual behaviour, of humans and in
a broader aspect , at the sphere of sex in general.
Thus, a comprehension of sexual relations requires determining
such notions as value of sexual pleasure in itself, homophobia,
heterophilia, changeability and poligamy of sexual appetite, its
decisive role in sexual behaviour, masturbation as an elementary
form of sexual satisfaction, a means of relaxation from sexual
excitement, different varieties of the norm in sexual behaviour
of people, hermaphroditism as a blind - alley branch in the sex
sphere. Without modern understanding of these notions the sex
education of people will continue to remain rather a good wish
but not a chance not speaking of reality and with-out a purposeful
sex education (spontaneity people pay their hopes up-on causes
more harm than solves the problem) of the young people det-rimental
is the very educational process and not human nature because it
is a nature and not well thought - out engineering system.
