I love this conversation. Great questions and answers. I'm thinking now about how consent is an important element in other aspects of lives, such as friendship and the giving and receiving of attention, even work/jobs/service, maybe even social media. . . I suppose it is tied up with boundaries, responsibility and agency.
I watched this all the way through, and gave it a thumps-up. A lot of really interesting thoughts in it, from both speakers. I have to say though, that bit on monogamy was very disappointing. I mean, that's astonishingly short shrift for a sexual-romantic arrangement that, for so many people, is vitally important and has so many meanings. Sure, it's not for everyone - it's not for all kinds of sexual and/or romantic relationship. But speaking about it in that dismissive way - as merely a patriarchal institution and one way of trying to ensure stability (probably not the best way) - just doesn't seem right. Bring in the biologists and psychologists. Bring in a few random people - non-academics - who are in love. When Agnes suggests at the end that there might be a stigma attached to people sleeping around a lot partly because of a belief that they have less deep-and-meaningful sex (or whatever term she uses), I want to ask: isn't the very fact of sexual loyalty (and the sacrifice that entails) part of what can make sex deep-and-meaningful, part of what can make it a powerful and intricate gesture of love?
This is super ! We use talk about the notion of “the special relationship” in the early New Age circles (Late 80’s nyc) usually to frame all the pitfalls and constraints of the idea. In the 90’s I discovered (lived into) what I I would call “the love event” this is much harder explain, and eludes film despite films obsession to capture it. “The Love Event” is worth looking at, its a moment that actually changes your past, it’s the only love with an inherent “violence” to it.
I suggest a song from a friend of mines musical - “every day a little death” from A little night music- it’s an old musical but there’s a dissertation in that song!
11:20 I think many people who are not outwardly interested in sex really are, but aren't confident in their ability to perform or have barriers to intimacy, and defaulting to the label 'asexual' becomes a coping mechanism.
I did my dissertation on asexuality and interviewed almost 400 people who identified as such and only 2 people considered that their asexual orientation was a cause of repression or trauma. Almost 100% of them felt happy about their orientation and, I can't remember this particular stat, but a healthy percentage had fulfilling romantic or queer-platonic relationships. We have to be careful about claiming asexual people have something wrong with them because the same kind of rhetoric surrounded discussion about lesbians and gay men at one time, saying their same-sex orientations were due to something being wrong (as you say, lack of confidence around the opposite sex, etc.). It can be problematic when people who aren't asexual start making assumptions about people who are instead of actually doing research or talking to people who identify as such. Asexuality is a relational orientation and it shouldn't be pathologized. Let me know if you want to read my dissertation.
I wanted to hear more of Agnes's views, I felt that Rebecca's were less nuanced and just more "vanilla woke feminist", it ruined the talk for me. Especially her views on monogamy.
I don’t mean this comment to be prurient or pervy, but I find this philosophical discussion of sex to be itself sexually arousing. Can one even have a philosophical conversation about sex without it becoming sexually stimulating? I find this in and of itself to be both philosophically and sexually intriguing .
she's also weirdly traumatized. at around 49min she talks about how men don't like their wives after they've had kids. which really isn't true for many if not most men.
Please correct your use of terms. A free-market economic model (ie, one that enshrines solely voluntary relations, the respect of personal/bodily property, and in which all aggression is rejected) is not philosophically connected to rape culture (as you say at 24:30). Rape entails the violation of a person's most fundamental property, and often involves aggression. An economic model philosophically akin to rape culture is one of coerced relations, it violates personal/bodily property, and legitimises the use of force and threat as a means to get what one wants -be it sex, or tax money for roads, education, healthcare, corporate bailouts, the CIA, and never-ending war. Your analogy of a man feeling entitled to a woman's body because he thinks he has already paid for it, is not one of a free market, where it would be clear that no one has the right to seize another's property without their consent, no matter what the former feels he's paid. A more accurate, and abominable, economic paradigm would be that of a Marxist referring to property: 'From her according to to her ability, to him according to his needs'. You will not find a the fundamental philosophical connexion to rape culture in a free market, but in it antitheses: The State and collectivism.
Anges Callard, you're awesome, please upload as many 3 hour talks as possible. I'm loving these. Thanks!
I love this conversation. Great questions and answers. I'm thinking now about how consent is an important element in other aspects of lives, such as friendship and the giving and receiving of attention, even work/jobs/service, maybe even social media. . . I suppose it is tied up with boundaries, responsibility and agency.
I watched this all the way through, and gave it a thumps-up. A lot of really interesting thoughts in it, from both speakers. I have to say though, that bit on monogamy was very disappointing. I mean, that's astonishingly short shrift for a sexual-romantic arrangement that, for so many people, is vitally important and has so many meanings. Sure, it's not for everyone - it's not for all kinds of sexual and/or romantic relationship. But speaking about it in that dismissive way - as merely a patriarchal institution and one way of trying to ensure stability (probably not the best way) - just doesn't seem right. Bring in the biologists and psychologists. Bring in a few random people - non-academics - who are in love.
When Agnes suggests at the end that there might be a stigma attached to people sleeping around a lot partly because of a belief that they have less deep-and-meaningful sex (or whatever term she uses), I want to ask: isn't the very fact of sexual loyalty (and the sacrifice that entails) part of what can make sex deep-and-meaningful, part of what can make it a powerful and intricate gesture of love?
This is super ! We use talk about the notion of “the special relationship” in the early New Age circles (Late 80’s nyc) usually to frame all the pitfalls and constraints of the idea. In the 90’s I discovered (lived into) what I I would call “the love event” this is much harder explain, and eludes film despite films obsession to capture it. “The Love Event” is worth looking at, its a moment that actually changes your past, it’s the only love with an inherent “violence” to it.
thank you Andy and Agnes
this is just terrific -- really top shelf philosophy!
starts at 5:30
no, it starts at 0:00.
I suggest a song from a friend of mines musical - “every day a little death” from A little night music- it’s an old musical but there’s a dissertation in that song!
Sondheim for life
Title should be 'philosophical' instead. Great video.
consider fixing the audio in post (just re-recording the inaudible lines and dropping them onto the video)
11:20 I think many people who are not outwardly interested in sex really are, but aren't confident in their ability to perform or have barriers to intimacy, and defaulting to the label 'asexual' becomes a coping mechanism.
I did my dissertation on asexuality and interviewed almost 400 people who identified as such and only 2 people considered that their asexual orientation was a cause of repression or trauma. Almost 100% of them felt happy about their orientation and, I can't remember this particular stat, but a healthy percentage had fulfilling romantic or queer-platonic relationships. We have to be careful about claiming asexual people have something wrong with them because the same kind of rhetoric surrounded discussion about lesbians and gay men at one time, saying their same-sex orientations were due to something being wrong (as you say, lack of confidence around the opposite sex, etc.). It can be problematic when people who aren't asexual start making assumptions about people who are instead of actually doing research or talking to people who identify as such. Asexuality is a relational orientation and it shouldn't be pathologized. Let me know if you want to read my dissertation.
@@philosophy_schilling I would like to read your dissertation, if the offer still stands
I wanted to hear more of Agnes's views, I felt that Rebecca's were less nuanced and just more "vanilla woke feminist", it ruined the talk for me. Especially her views on monogamy.
It's funny how often bright/fake hair color is predictive of Wokeness.
54
I don’t mean this comment to be prurient or pervy, but I find this philosophical discussion of sex to be itself sexually arousing. Can one even have a philosophical conversation about sex without it becoming sexually stimulating? I find this in and of itself to be both philosophically and sexually intriguing .
Dr. Kukla views sex the way an angel would view it, I think, while Dr. Callard has more of a human view of it.
she's also weirdly traumatized. at around 49min she talks about how men don't like their wives after they've had kids. which really isn't true for many if not most men.
This discussion needs an evolutionary biologist present.
Indeed. An evolutionary biologist who's read Pride and Prejudice.
Please correct your use of terms. A free-market economic model (ie, one that enshrines solely voluntary relations, the respect of personal/bodily property, and in which all aggression is rejected) is not philosophically connected to rape culture (as you say at 24:30).
Rape entails the violation of a person's most fundamental property, and often involves aggression. An economic model philosophically akin to rape culture is one of coerced relations, it violates personal/bodily property, and legitimises the use of force and threat as a means to get what one wants -be it sex, or tax money for roads, education, healthcare, corporate bailouts, the CIA, and never-ending war.
Your analogy of a man feeling entitled to a woman's body because he thinks he has already paid for it, is not one of a free market, where it would be clear that no one has the right to seize another's property without their consent, no matter what the former feels he's paid. A more accurate, and abominable, economic paradigm would be that of a Marxist referring to property: 'From her according to to her ability, to him according to his needs'.
You will not find a the fundamental philosophical connexion to rape culture in a free market, but in it antitheses: The State and collectivism.
Gimme girls! 🤤