Student Number: 1006726713
Name: Si Yuan Zhao
Raja Halwani’s “Sexual Perversion and Sexual Fantasy” explores and discusses several
philosophical accounts of sexual perversion. In this essay, I will focus on Halwani’s explication
of and objections to Thomas Nagel’s psychological account of sexual perversion in his 2013
essay “Sexual Perversion.”
Nagel’s account of sexual perversion attempts to locate sexual perversion and
normativity in the structure of the individual’s sexual desire. For Nagel, sexual desire between
two people involves real arousal for each other and an awareness of each other’s arousal, which
develops into a perception of their mutual awareness, and then into an awareness of that
perception, and so on and so forth. For Nagel, this “multi-levelled mutual awareness” is the basis
of sexual desire. Then, sexual perversion would result from a lack of this multi-levelled
awareness through, for example, a lack of arousal at all or an only surface level arousal without a
perception of each other.
As Halwani notes, an account of sexual perversion can be descriptive or proscriptive. A
descriptive account attempts to faithfully reflect how sexual perversion is used in reality. As
such, a valid descriptive account of sexual perversion must align with what most people would
consider perverse. A proscriptive account attempts to show how sexual perversion should be
used, with strong reasoning to back up its claims. Halwani objects to Nagel’s account in both
respects.
Halwani attacks the descriptive value of Nagel’s account by noting several examples of
commonly considered non-perverse acts that, under Nagel’s framework, would be considered
perverse. He brings up examples such as “sex between a prostitute and her client, solitary
masturbation, routine, unexciting sexual intercourse or oral sex.” (Halwani 284)In each example,
there is not a multi-leveled awareness. For sex with prostitution, there is no real arousal as the
prostitute is putting on an act to serve a customer. While solitary masturbation may involve
arousal in terms of sexual fantasy, there is no other person. Unexciting sex lacks the required
excitement and arousal to elicit multi-levelled awareness. Nevertheless, these acts are not
perverse, though they may be considered immoral or unsatisfying. Halwani also uses coprophilia
as an example of a perverse act that, under Nagel’s interpretation of sexual perversion, could be
categorized as natural. Halwani points out that while coprophils derive arousal mainly from an
object, namely feces, the object is often seen as an extension or part of the intimacy and
excitement of sexual acts with another person. Rarely is feces the sole focus of arousal. Then,
feces are used as an instrument to raise excitement and is not necessarily opposed to multi-level
awareness developing between two individuals.
Halwani challenges the proscriptive value of Nagel’s account by noting its lack of proper
explanation beyond an unsuccessful appeal to intuition. Halwani explains that Nagel’s account is
apparently based on the intuition that another’s sexual desire for us often leads to an increase in
our own arousal. However, that sexual desire is based only a multi-layered, recursive sensing of
each other’s arousal, which at every level heightens mutual desire, is not an intuitive idea nor one
that is commonly held. It requires an explanation that Nagel fails to provide. Further, Nagel fails
to provide reasoning as to why a lack of “multi-layered mutual desire” necessarily implies sexual
perversion, as opposed to sexual inexperience, immorality, etc. Without these key pieces of
reasoning, Nagel’s account fails to show us how sexual perversion should be used. Without
either descriptive or proscriptive power, Nagel’s account fails to properly explain sexual
perversion
While I agree with many of Halwani’s point, I take issue with some of the examples that
he uses to rebut Nagel. Often, Halwani will make up examples of imaginary people with certain
fetishes and use the structure of these often-specific fetishes to oppose Nagel’s descriptions of
perversion. Halwani explains in detail the sexual desires of Kim and Mary and Gary but who are
these people? Are their fetishes realistic or reasonable? It is true that sexuality and sexual
preference falls on an extremely broad spectrum, perhaps broad enough that even the most
extreme or unique fetishes may be held by a real person. However, it is unsatisfying, to say the
least, to simply conjure up imaginary people to use against Nagel’s reasoning.
A particularly egregious example of this is Halwani’s fictional character Newt, who
Halwani explicitly describes as someone who can only enjoy sex if it does not entail Nagel’s
multi-level awareness. He abandons the question of whether such a person could reasonably
exist. Further, Halwani describes Newt as someone who “prefers to be turned on by a goodlooking woman, for her to be turned on by him, and to then have quick, rapid sex with her,
without the higher levels of arousal.” (Halwani 286) The closest analogue of such a person
would be people in a friends-with-benefits relationship. But even in such a situation, is there no
“higher levels of arousal” present during sex?
Finally, Halwani’s rebuttal of Nagel’s account’s descriptive power hinges on what is
“commonly considered perverse.” What is considered perverse differs drastically between people
and communities. While we may believe our own ideas are the dominant ideas in society, we
often find ourselves to be in a niche with our opinions. How can Halwani simply pass evaluation
of perversion or non-perversion on his examples without proper evidence or reasoning to back up
his claim? As such, while I agree with Halwani general attacks against Nagel, I believe his
examples need more explanation and must be based in some sort of evidence or reasoning.
References
Halwani, Raja. 2018. “Sexual Perversion and Sexual Fantasy.” In Philosophy of Love, Sex,
and Marriage: An Introduction. New York: Routledge.