Sensual Living in Affectivated Worlds

Abstract

Sensuality emerges from the human need for the sublime. Human beings live forward—constantly anticipating the immediate future that is—and cannot be—pre-known before it happens. Hence the future always looks ahead of us—creating the necessary conditions for the sublime. As active constructors of our own lives—through signs—we create the sublime moments by attributing meanings to the full scene we are facing as the future looms over us to become the present. We dramatize our ordinary lives by creating sublime experiences. Human living entails episodic reliance on sexual eroticism—the hyper-generalized feeling that leads to physiological sexual arousal and to possible sexual activities. This kind of eroticism entails Level 4 → Level 1 → Level 0 guidance of the body by higher level psychological functions. Sexual desire generated from the domain of higher order feelings—leading to bodily readiness for asexual encounter—differs from the “pure” sexual arousal (Level 0 → Level 1 activity). The latter is of completely physiological kind (Usually characterized by the general categories of satyriasis and nymphomania—exaggerated forms of sexual desires that enter into conflict with societal moral norms) and can lead to recognition of the bodily needs at Level 2. Such purely biologically organized sexuality is similar across different species. It is sufficient for the biological reproduction of the species—and completely devoid of any higher feelings. All three forms of sexuality are in the service of our human sensual living.