• James Riley
    2.9k
    The other day I read a tweet by a woman, sarcastically and rhetorically wondering aloud how the (then) “most recent mass shooting was going to be blamed on pussy.” She used a term I had never heard before: ”incel“. I looked it up and went down the rabbit hole, learning a lot. It stands for “involuntarily celibate.” You can look up how it all started if you care. But for my discussion here, I’m interested if philosophy has any insight into sex, or is sex just deemed another bodily function, an instinct, that is beneath or beyond the realm of philosophical inquiry?

    I’m working on some ideas but I’m not so sure they are not really just sociology, biology, psychology, etc. I don’t want to wax on if this is not the proper forum. But I would like to have an answer to the question just asked, above. If philosophy does address sex, how is the line drawn between that which is philosophical and that which is another discipline? My inclination is that everything is an open target. Regardless, what does philosophy have to say about sex, if anything?
  • javi2541997
    4.9k
    if philosophy has any insight into sex,James Riley

    Regardless, what does philosophy have to say about sex, if anything?James Riley

    I guess you would like read about sex inside philosophy more deeply in this site: The Erotic as an Aesthetic Category.
  • James Riley
    2.9k


    :up: Thanks, I'll check that out.
  • Manuel
    3.9k
    The other day I read a tweet by a woman, sarcastically and rhetorically wondering aloud how the (then) “most recent mass shooting was going to be blamed on pussy.”James Riley

    Yes, it's a complex topic. I hope it's not connected with extreme political correctness of the postmodern variety. If it's simply feminism, then there's a lot to discuss.

    But I would like to have an answer to the question just asked, above. If philosophy does address sex, how is the line drawn between that which is philosophical and that which is another discipline?James Riley

    Well, take this with a grain of sand as I am a Schopenhauerian, but Schopenhauer has some interesting things to say about this, I'll link an article below. As for other philosophers that speak about sex, it's not the most common topic sadly so far as I know.

    https://www.samwoolfe.com/2020/08/schopenhauer-on-sex-and-romantic-love.html
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    Freud wrote about sex, perhaps a little too much.

    Feminists have written tons of tomes about it, some of them interesting.
  • Corvus
    2.7k
    Freud was a psychologist?
  • fishfry
    2.6k
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_prostitution

    https://www.amazon.com/Prostitute-Studies-Jungian-Psychology-Analysts/dp/0919123317

    Freud wrote about sex, perhaps a little too much.Olivier5

    "Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar." -- William Jefferson Clinton
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    Here's an informative SEP article titled "Sex and Sexuality":

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sex-sexuality/

    Some philosophers who've engaged the topic (and its various modes or contexts) in ways which have affected me: Marquis de Sade, Schopenhauer, Russell, Bataille, de Beauvoir, Foucault, S. Firestone, Nussbaum ... and most recently Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy's The Ethical Slut (re: polyamoury).
  • counterpunch
    1.6k
    Sex and philosophy?

    I keep dropping my book!
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