THE DAILY TRAVESTY | Desire for Desire's Sake

Copyright © 2000 David Steinberg

Desire for Desire's Sake

Sexual arousal, whether we like it or not -- whether we admit it or not -- is one of the fundamental facts of life, something that inevitably makes its presence felt early and often -- frequently at socially inconvenient times, and more than occasionally involving objects of desire that are both inconvenient and discomfiting (some would even say inappropriate). Being horrified by this is something akin to being horrified every time we drop our shoe and it falls on our toe. Gravity is a fact of nature. Get used to it. The freewheeling nature of sexual desire is also a fact of nature. Get used to that, too. The only way to keep sexual arousal confined to home and marriage is to prevent people from encountering the world. Indeed, this is one of the prime reasons that men for so long insisted on isolating women from the world at large. Looking back to a hundred years ago, we can perhaps think of this condescending antisexualism as a quaint, if entirely debilitating, form of sexual censorship, but it is certainly not a very practical path to social order as we enter the 21st century.

Whenever and wherever people interact with each other, sexual desire and arousal are part of the picture. Contrary to popular belief, acknowledging this fact does not necessarily mean the end of a world that is ordered and ethical. Being sexually aroused -- by friends, acquaintances, and strangers -- can be quite a rich and pleasurable aspect of being alive, if we just stop treating this simple fact of sociosexual existence as if it were a problem, a form of relational betrayal, or something implicitly immoral. Once we adopt those kinds of attitudes about desire and arousal, as we have all been culturally programmed to do, we do indeed have problems, and very serious problems indeed. But the problems are the consequences of the antisexual twist we give personal and social reality, not a result of the nature of sexual desire itself. As the early psychotherapist Wilhelm Reich might have sloganeered, if he had ever been so foolish as to run for some political office, "It's the repression, stupid!"

Moralists and erotophobes notwithstanding, there is nothing wrong with feeling aroused by an acquaintance at work, an aunt at Thanksgiving dinner, or an exotic stranger at a strip club. There is nothing wrong with specifically seeking out certain kinds of interaction -- whether it's cocktail party conversation or taking in a strip show -- because you like the feeling of being sexually aroused. It does not mean you don't love, or are insufficiently attracted to, your wife, husband, sweetheart, girlfriend, or boyfriend. It does not mean you are pathologically obsessed with sex. It just means you enjoy being sexually turned on, not as a step toward the completion of some sexual act, but for its own sake, for the way it makes you feel, for the pleasure of the moment. The desire to be sexually aroused -- like the desire to be sexually arousing -- needs no more justification than any other form of sensory, emotional, or interpersonal experience. Being fully alive is both its own explanation and its own reward.

Insisting on seeing the unbounded nature of sexual arousal, and those who maintain public venues for the unbounded enjoyment of sexual arousal, as enemies of social order and decency is perhaps the ultimate exercise in futility. Any dispassionate look at the history of sexual entertainment makes this abundantly clear. Bawdy public entertainment was not invented by Hugh Hefner when he opened the first Playboy Club in 1960. Public sexual enjoyment has a long and illustrious history, tracing back not only to the popularity, exuberance, and undeniable creativity of vaudeville and burlesque, but before that to more ancient traditions that include everything from raunchy traveling minstrel shows to the theater of the common masses -- institutions that have provided outlets for great artists like Shakespeare and Mozart, as well as for untold numbers of far less ambitious, less complicated, and certainly less talented celebrators of carnal joy.

The long tradition of sexual arousal, publicly offered and publicly received, testifies to the simple fact that Eros is simply not a monotheistic sort of guy. Various levels of sexual stimulation go on between people all the time. Sexual arousal is an ongoing aspect of relating to the world at large, one that is perfectly compatible with a meaningful life well lived, including the profound states of interpersonal connection and intimacy that only long-term, committed relationships can sustain. It is a friend, not a threat -- an expression of life, not of death -- an exaltation, not a debasement -- a sacrament, not a sin -- even if the powers-that-be in towns like Erie, Pennsylvania, and perhaps the Supreme Court as well, rule otherwise.