Bioenergetics and a Paradoxical View of Sexuality: how characterological development is related to current erotic life! (original) (raw)
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Psychological Bulletin, 2000
being too biological. Both critiques were based on drawing a polarized caricature of R. F. Baumeister's actual view, although the two caricatures are opposites. Actually, neither commentary questioned the gender difference R. F. Baumeister documented; rather, the dispute is about how to explain it, which is indeed a challenge remaining for further work. Although both commentaries provided valuable suggestions about how to approach an explanation, neither approach can provide a coherent account until various theoretical problems are resolved and seemingly contrary empirical findings are addressed.
SEXUALITY BETWEEN THE NATURAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE HUMAN BEING_AND ITS_FUNDAMENTAL LACK OF NATURE
It seems to me that Philippe and his colleagues tend to establish too quickly a connection between the presence of an external object with reproductive or other normative parameters. However, one can invert this argument: if lips do not kiss themselves but the rim, the border between them where the extimic parasite dwells, then oral pleasure is not the effect of pure physiological processes but what opens biology to new unforeseeable horizons. The otherness that haunts autoerotism is not what constrains it to external normative parameters but, on the contrary, is what opens human disposition to the possibility of producing new norms. Human sexuality is the possibility of betraying human nature. Thus, rather than normalizing the pathological, I think we should pathologize normality. It is not perversion normal but heterosexuality that is perverse by pretending that there is something normal. Sexuality is more like a contagious disease (a parasite) than the expression of normal human dispositions. In this sense, Joyce McDougall created the ultimate diagnostic category: normopathy. It is normality (heterosexuality) that distorts and exaggerates the relationship of sexuality with reproductive norms and human dispositions. Rather than studying perversions to understand human normal features, I think we should explore heterosexuality to understand, by contrast, human sexuality. That is, instead of pathoanalysis I would claim for a normoanalytical project.
This two-day conference proposes to examine the history of conceptions of sexuality and of gender relations that have, explicitly or implicitly, been used in sexological “constructions” since the mid-19th century. The knowledge, theories and practices to which “sexology” refers imply specific conceptions of sexuality. Sexology is a social (and, above all, medical, psychological, psychiatric or even legal) response to the questions people ask about “their sexuality”. Its history has shifted from a “proto-sexology”, centered around perversions and deviancies, to a second phase with a focus on the “function of orgasm” and on sexual behaviors (Béjin 1982). Sexology is evolving with the emergence of “sexual medicine”, “sexual health” and “sexual rights”, trends that weigh on the reformulation of theories of sexuality. Papers will present material from medical, scientific or educational sources or from institutions involved in the medicalization of sexuality. The accepted papers will be grouped by subject, geographical area, historical period or historiographical approach as a function of the two-day program, and each group will be assigned a discussant who will Chair the session and open discussion of the papers presented. Abstracts and papers can be submitted and presented in English or French. There will not be official simultaneous translation during the conference. Participants are expected to understand both languages. Plans are in the works for editing the papers presented at the conference for a book to be published by a French publishing house specialized in multidisciplinary books.
2018
The article explores the perception of erotic dreams in the works of 15-17th-century humanists. Erotic dreams were certainly a delicate theme, which humanists attempted to treat scientifically, in order to naturalise them, chiefly in medical works. The appearance of erotic dreams (most often dreams about sexual acts) was supposed to indicate the imbalance of humours in the human body. In other words, humanists argued that they were not signs of the devil’s work, tempting people to sin, but a symptom of a diagnosable and curable physiological process. Moreover, erotic dreams did not simply help in diagnosing the imbalance of humours but could also have healing power because they could restore the appropriate proportion of the bodily fluids. Through antique, medieval and fifteenth- to seventeenth-century medical treatises, the article outlines how erotic dreams were interpreted in history, connected as much to spirituality, as well as bodily and mental diseases - especially to melancholy - and to love frenzy. (Zdravilna moč erotičnih sanj v dobi humanizma. Erotične sanje so bile nedvomno občutljiva tema, ki so jo humanisti skušali obravnavati znanstveno, posebno v medicinskih delih. Pojav erotičnih sanj je najpogosteje zajemal sanje o spolnem občevanju. Veljalo je, da se erotične sanje pojavljajo zaradi neravnotežja tekočin v človeškem telesu. Z drugimi besedami, humanisti so trdili, da tovrstne sanje niso hudičevo delo, s katerim hudi duh zapeljuje ljudi v greh, temveč simptom ugotovljivega in ozdravljivega fiziološkega procesa. Še več, erotične sanje po njihovi razlagi niso samo pomagale pri odkrivanju neravnotežja telesnih tekočin, temveč so imele tudi zdravilno moč, ker so lahko pomagale obnoviti primerno razmerje med njimi.Na podlagi analize medicinskih razprav iz antike, srednjega veka in obdobja med 15. in 17. stoletjem članek orisuje zgodovinsko interpretacijo erotičnih sanj in povezovanje teh sanj z duhovnostjo, pa tudi s telesnimi in duševnimi boleznimi – zlasti z melanholijo in z ljubezensko pobesnelostjo.)
The mind body problem, part three: ascension of sexual function to cerebral level
Journal of Mind and Medical Sciences, 2016
Physiologically, the somatic nervous system intervenes in external interaction between the body and environment, while autonomic nervous system ensures the functioning of internal organs. We present in this paper a psycho-physiological perspective suggesting that mental function (somatic in nature, because coordinates environmental interaction) is closer to and more aligned with the physiologic functioning of autonomic nervous system (due to autonomy, duality, etc.). At opposite end, sexual function (autonomic in nature, erection for example being a parasympathetic vasodilatory reflex) seems to be compatible and even dependent by a somatic participation (erectile response is rather induced by environmental stimuli than internal visceral stimuli). The perspective presented here is that the mind and sexuality are two distinct relational processes which, being related to the same environmental stimuli/ peripheral afferents, should be supported by a common (somatic-autonomic) neurobiolo...
The Psychic Function of Erotic Arousal.pdf
This thesis is to propose a meta-theory of human sexuality that postulates a psychic procreative function for erotic behavior. Erotic behavior is seen as aimed at the visceral integration of opposite attitudes, or opposing stances, to yield insight and a transcendent perspectives, at a deep, somatic nervous system level. This view is distinct from--but not contradictory to--a strict biologically procreative function of sexuality. The framework on which this theory hangs is that symbolic re-enactments of Eriksonian Developmental stages (as a central thesis but not an exhaustive explanation) help the nervous system release, through the convulsions of coitus, repressed awareness and the release of limiting beliefs that block Hope, Will, Purpose, Competence, Fidelity, Intimacy, Love, Empathy, and Wisdom. The developmental 'bids' for--Trust, Autonomy, Initiative, Industry, Fidelity, Intimacy, Empathy, and wisdom which enter into erotic struggles against Collapse, Shame, Guilt, (the sense of) Inferiority, Identity confusion, Isolation, Stagnation, and Despair, respectively-- are the main drive and aims of human erotic behaviors, fantasies, perversions, and account for the main causes of repression, both emotional and sexual. Keywords: somatic psychology, psychic organization, erotic arousal, self-transformation,