Davidson in the article named «Sex and the Emergence of sexuality» investigated the
difference between sex and sexuality. He is convinced that these two phenomena cannot be treated
the same way as it leads to an epistemological mistake [Davidson 1987: 18]. Referring to
Foucault’s way of distinguishing types of knowledge, he asserts that sexuality is a social, namely,
psychiatric conception. Sexuality is not possible outside of psychiatric paradigm so sexuality itself
emerged only in the middle of the 19th century as the psychiatry developed [Ibid: 17].
The author is quite concerned with applying such a modern concept to previous times. He
finds disturbing that people use the term «sexuality» in context of antiquity, early Christianity, and
Middle times [Ibid: 18]. It is an anachronism [Ibid] as people living in those epochs could not even
know that such thing existed, so the phenomenon could not have any impact on them. To prove it,
the philosopher used the Wittgensteinian criteria [Ibid: 24]. The author anticipated that people
would attack him with an argument that he pays too much attention to words per se, not things.
But Wittgenstein stated that «the world is the totality of facts, not of things» [Wittgenstein 2010:
25]. It means that only those appearances that get names are realized by people and, consequently,
affect their lives. Recalling Wittgenstein point of view, Davidson, apparently, wanted to specify
that sexuality did not objectively exist as evidently there was no word to point it.
Adequately, if the contemporary term «sexuality» cannot be used in relation to the majority
of last centuries, it is necessary to find another one. So, in Foucault’s tradition, it can be an
experience of flesh [Davidson 1987: 18], concretely, body, genitalia. In opposite, sexuality deals
with something more complex, like «impulses, feelings, urges, desires, fantasies, tendencies, and
so on» [Ibid: 47]. As sexuality is a product of psychiatry, expressing «inner essence of personality»
[Ibid], it is not surprising that it represents not just the presence of physical, but emotions above,
an interaction with flesh and interiorization of it.
Moving further on Foucault’s theory, he analyzed the example of Herculine Barbin, the
hermaphrodite. The sex of such people was defined by a doctor who examined the dominance of
one’s sex traits over the others. It is an illustration of the fact that «anatomical sex exhausted one’s
sexual identity» [Ibid: 22]. The free choice of sex, based on an individual psychology, was not
possible both technologically and conceptually [Ibid]. The approach was exclusively anatomical.
Hermaphrodites were not the only case studied in terms of sexuality by the author – he also
scrutinized Jesus Christ in the way. He started it by criticizing the book name «The sexuality of
Christ Renaissance art and in Modern Oblivion» [Ibid: 25] which, in the Davidson opinion, did
not make much sense as Christ, as any coeval, could not own sexuality. What Steinberg saw in
Christ rendering was symbol of mortality, vulnerability. It showed that Christ was made as any
person; he really came to our world and became a part of humanity [Ibid: 26]. In addition, his penis
image had nothing in common with sexuality but with sex [Ibid], and it is the aspect where
Davidson disagreed with Steinberg. The difference is that rendering of sex refers to portrayal of
body, specifically genitalia [Ibid: 27], whereas sexuality representation means «depiction of the
face and its expressions» [Ibid]. The philosopher draws a parallel between dispassionate face of
Christ in the Renaissance art [Ibid: 30] and meaningfulness of latter faces expressions’ portrayal.
Even chastity and virginity, prescribed to Christ [Ibid: 37], are not sexual categories. As
pointed phenomena show the power of will of a person who can transcend inner sexual desires,
these two are moral categories. In contrast to it, if a person is an asexual, not feeling a sexual
desire, so nothing can induce him, he is considered as having a psychopathology, namely, disorder
of sexuality [Ibid: 38]. Now I would like to connect it with another part of the article to substantiate
this thesis. As sexuality is seen as «externalization of the hidden», as visible expression of the
inner world of personality [Ibid: 47], it is reasonable why people would think that such person is
a pervert. Does asexuality mean that a person has nothing inside of him as nothing wants to come
out? Certainly, perverts are the kind of people that emerged in parallel to sexuality appearance
[Ibid] as the deviance and norm would, respectively. To add, the term «pervert» is different from
«perverse choice» [Ibid: 46] as the former reduces all the personality of the person to the one trait
– underlining the importance and pervasive character of sexuality – as the latter means that the
choice is just one of the set of choices that are made by a person throughout the life.
As far as the main points of the author’s theory are highlighted, I would like to move on
criticism. To start with, I think it is still disputable if the Wittgensteinian criteria are a working
concept. On the one side, I realize that the things cannot get their shapes and exist objectively to
people unless they are verbalized. On the other side, I can see that such distinction can be too strict,
so it makes us miss something considerable. The term sexuality was introduced by psychiatry,
however, psychiatry is a science, and we, probably, should pay more attention to the natural
language of simple people. Suggesting that there was no such a term, we should recognize that
people could have a synonym to it like erotica, sensuality. Even not having a close word, they still
could have felt their inner sexual energy, just not recognizing it, and expressing it unknowingly,
coping on intuitively. Analogy here can be that psyche was discovered during the development of
psychiatry too, but it would not be reasonable to say that people did not have psyche before it.
Also, it can be worthy to recall the Freud’s conception, which is based on an assumption that
people are driven by sexual energy, and it is culture that always restrained and suppressed people’s
desires and instincts [Freud 1927: 2]. It makes me think that we should not reject the possibility
that sexuality was with people all the time in the unconscious, what happened in the second half
of 19th century was just getting awareness of it.
I suggest that the author could bring a counter argumentation that as far as a thing does not
get an according word to denote it, we cannot be sure that a phenomenon really exists and is not
just a speculation. The Freud’s theory is not possible to empirically prove it as it contains a dogma,
and people’s submissions can have nothing in common with the sexuality that emerged in the
pointed century.
In addition, Davidson claimed that there were no perverts until the 19th century. A
counterexample that came to my mind was dereliction of conjugal duty. Considering the
importance of giving a birth, it should not have been accepted by the society well. Or, in contrast
to said above, (over)use of conjugal duty to get sexual pleasure not to conceive a child could have
been perversion. Supposedly, the author would say that the examples refer to the moral category,
not sexual. Moreover, there is another statement that can receive the same counterargument from
the author’s side. It is the distinction between sex and sexuality as sexuality can be found,
particularly, in art, on faces and mimical expressions. One could affirm that the criterium is too
visual. A person can have a sexual experience but not show it visibly by the power of will. Again,
Davidson can say that as the will is used to overcome one’s desire, it should be estimated in terms
of morality, not sexuality.
Also, Davidson asserts more than once that «sexuality itself is a product of the psychiatric
style of reasoning» [Davidson 1987: 23]. Reflection on the origin of sexuality as a norm led me to
the dawn of humanity where mononorms – combination of moral, religious, and legal regulations
– prevailed. If we suggest that humanity develops from the simplicity to complexity and so norms
do, we can assume that norms become complicated until they are divided into smaller norms. So,
my point is that sexuality could have been included in the normal social order implicitly until it
was distinguished by psychiatrists. This thought was also inspired by the citation of I. Primoratz
from the first lecture: «What applies to choices, acts and practices in the field of sex are the same
moral rules and principles that apply in non-sexual matters». Sexuality may have been a part of
«big» social norm. Conspicuously, Davidson would response that until the sexuality was not
revealed in the social space, it was not possible to find relevant rules.
Clearly, I would like to point out that the theory seems outdated regarding modern times. I
cannot help but mention that Davidson’s conception does not take women into account very well.
From the feminist point of view, it is obvious that women have been treated like sexual objects for
a very long time. Their position is contradictory. On the one hand, women are considered as not
having sexual desired beings as opposed to men who have a right to sex. On the other hand, women
are sexual objects, so they own their sexuality which they spread for survival in patriarchal society
[J. Grant 2006: 971]. Undoubtedly, the attitude to women has been expressed in art for centuries.
For my point of view, one of the best evidences of it can be found in the rococo era. There was a
common plot: a girl is swinging, and a guy is peeping. Flirting, playfulness. Davidson could say
that a guy is interested in genitalia per se, so, it is flesh again. However, I am persuaded women
were made to exploit their sexuality for thousands of years just to adapt to social order, so, maybe
there was no space for sincere expression of sexuality. Another aspect where women were
blatantly ignored is the part dedicated to masochism. It was pointed twice that a masochist is one
who wants a woman’s domination over himself. The issue is if all the women are masochists or
neither of them are? If we take an assumption that it is a norm in heteronormative society to have
submissive women, then they all are by default. But with the fact that women were not even
conceptualized in terms of masochism, it can be a continuation of rhetoric that women are not fullfledged people to make choices and have preferences.
Returning to masochist men, I would draw attention to another reason why whipping as a
mean to reach sexual arousal was not seen as perversion. The author would refer to the period
saying that it was because of absence of norm of sexuality, so perversion as deviation from the
norm could not have existed. As for me, we should take into consideration the different body
attitude in those times. As Foucault was extremely interested in body topic, we can gain
information that there was massive physical punishment from a state until the beginning of 19th
century [Foucault 1999: 22]. To add, domestic violence, violence in the context of education were
normally accepted. Positions of religion were strong (submission of body as the source of sins).
All in all, these facts point that body was not treated well and with respect, basically. Instead,
punishment of the flesh was perceived as something useful, beneficial for the soul of a person, for
his education and moral development. For this reason, it is unsurprising for me that such sexual
desire was not seen as abnormal.
In conclusion, I can claim that Davidson built his theory up on the conceptions of such
bright minds as Foucault, Wittgenstein and elaborated own convincing theory. Nevertheless, there
are several points that are not covered by his theory. I tried to set out the most exciting ones above,
also remembering the class discussion where we thought about people who felt like trapped in a
wrong body, or perception of art depicting naked body as erotic, sensual, sinful – these are quite
how sexuality feels. Perhaps, the most disappointing side for me is impossibility to apply Carl
Popper’s criterium of falsification to this theory. Hypothetically, we can investigate all the texts
that are available for us until the psychiatric shift, so, potentially, finding understanding of
sexuality, the word itself would be refutation. But we, apparently, would never be able to talk to
real people living then and ask how they felt. And it is the aspect that makes me deeply upset as
the person who studies sociology.
Bibliography:
1. А. I. Davidson Sex and the Emergence of Sexuality // The University of Chicago Press
// 1987, No. 1
2. L. Wittgenstein Tractatus Logicus Philosophicus // London // 1922
3. Z. Freud The Future of an Illusion // 1927
4. Judith Grant Andrea Dworkin and the Social Construction of Gender // The Chicago
Press // 2006
5. M. Foucault Discipline and Punish // 1999, 480