Borges, in his own way, would have probably mapped the sexual
realm: Freud aside, to know everything about sex would require
that one be everyone who ever lived, lives, and eventually will
live. Such a Borgesian map is indeed detailed but leads no
further than ourselves. Connect all sex-related matter that is on
the Internet today- from on-line striptease and copulation to
legitimate sex education and the passionate defense of love-and
you will still not have more than a partial image of sexuality.
When one considers all the books, videotapes, songs, radio and
television talk-shows, private discussions and public sermons,
the subject of sex would still not be exhausted. If sex were an
individual matter-which it is, to a large extent-how could we
meaningfully approach the subject without the risk of making it a
personal confession, or worse, a pretentious discourse about
something any author would unavoidably know only through the
many and powerful filters of his or her culture? But maybe sex is
less private than we, based on prejudice, ignorance, or
discretion, assume.
Ritualized sex was a public event, sometimes culminating in
orgies. It took a lot of taming, or acculturation, for sex to
become an intimate affair. Myths acknowledged sexual habits and
propagated rules coherent within the pragmatic framework of their
expression. Like myths, many religions described acceptable and
unacceptable behavior, inspired by the need to maintain the
integrity of the community and to serve its goals of survival
through lineage and proprietary rights, especially when ales
began to dominate in society. Art, science, and business
appropriated sex as a subject of inquiry, or as a lucrative
activity. Sex is a driving force for individuals and communities,
an inescapable component of any experience, no matter how remote
from sex.
Sexual ubiquity and the parallel world of self-awareness,
embodied in forms of expression, communication, and
signification different from the actual sexual act, are
connected in very subtle ways. Once sexual experiences are
appropriated by culture, they become themselves a sign system, a
symbolic domain, a language. Each sexual encounter, or each
unfulfilled intention, is but a phrase in this language written
in the alphabet of gestures, odors, colors, smells, body
movement, and rhythm.
We are the sexual sign: first, in its indexical condition-a
definite mark left, a genetic fingerprint testifying to our
deepest secrets encoded in our genetic endowment; second, in
iconicity, that is, in all the imitations of others as they
constitute their identity in the experience of sexuality. As
many scholars have hastened to point out, we are also the sign
in its symbolism. Indeed, phallic and vulvar symbols populate
every sphere of human expression (and obsession). Nevertheless,
our own self-constitution in the sexual act confirms a double
identity of the human species: nature, involved in the struggle
for survival, where the sheer power of numbers and strategies for
coping with everything destructive make for continuous selection
(Darwin's law of natural selection); and culture, in which
humans pursue a path of progressive self-definition, many times
in conflict with the natural condition, or what Freud and his
followers defined as the psychological dimension. The two are
related, and under specific circumstances one dominates the
other. In my opinion, Peirce's encompassing notion that the sign
is the person who interprets it integrates the two levels.
In the pragmatic framework, experiences of self-constitution
result from the projection of natural characteristics in the
activity performed, as well as from the awareness of the goals
pursued, means incorporated, and meanings shared. Does the
pragmatic perspective negate explanations originating from other,
relatively limited, perspectives? Probably not. An example is
furnished by the theories explaining sexuality from the
viewpoint of the conflict between sex (libido) and
self-preservation (ego) instincts, later substituted by the
conflict between life instincts (Eros) and the death instinct
(Thanatos, self-destruction). Such theories introduce a language
layer into a subject which, although acknowledged, was simply
not discussed, except in religious terms (mainly as
prohibitions), or in poetry. As with any other dualistic
representation, such theories also end in speculation, opposing
the experience to the scheme adopted. The scheme functions in
extreme cases, which psychoanalysis dealt with, but explains
sexual normalcy-if such a thing can be defined, or even exists-to
a lesser extent, and inconsistently. The labels remain
unchanged-Eros, Logos, Thanatos-while the world undergoes
drastic alterations. Some of these alterations affect the very
nature of the sexual experience as human beings unfold under new
pragmatic circumstances, some of extreme alienation.