I think its interesting how often death and sex are linked in (western) story telling through vampires. You get themes of rebirth and transgression in so many vampire stories. The Vampyre, Carmilla, Dracula etc. and more modern adaptations. Like even with Twilight marriage, sex, and death are (arguably) one and the same.
I was actually thinking about vampires too. When Hannah said... now what was it? Something about never feeling so alive? Anyway, it made me think of something that I think is actually quite a common thing for vampires to say - that even though they're now 'dead' they've never felt more alive. And especially Caroline from The Vampire Diaries I believe said that, ironically, she felt like it was only once she became a vampire that she truly started living. (Seriously though, I do love Caroline's story and character progression.)
I’ve always thought it was interesting the innate sexuality in depictions of vampires. As early as carmilla, sex and vampires have been linked with the idea of giving over yourself (through blood) completely to your sexual partner. There’s also this sense of control with vampires that is often shown as obsession or sexual desire
Yay, so happy to see Caitlin Doughty (Ask A Mortician) referenced :) if anyone is interested in death cultures throughout history and around the world, would highly recommend checking out her CZcams channel, and her books
One thing I've noticed is that sex is deeply meditative for me- it's the one time I can truly let go of all the stress in my life and focus on the sensations in my body. It's pretty much just mindfulness with the added bonus that the thing I'm being mindful of is pleasure. And there are certainly comparisons between meditation and death. In some cultures and religions, there are some meditative practices that are viewed as practicing awareness of death, or even practicing for death itself.
Loved the video! Actually was just reading about this before seeing this video in my feed haha Timothy Taylor argued that in many societies death is seen as male, the counterpart to the female fertility and vitality, and in the interest of balance, sex can be present in death related rituals so that vitality and fertility remains in balance with death and the masculine order of burial rituals. There are apparently lots of cultures where pregnancy becomes more common in the time after a death in the community, which there could obviously be lots of reasons for, but it’s an interesting connection. Also, some deities are linked with both death and the erotic, for example the norse god Odin. Particularily a kind of eroticism associated with warriors and battle. Idk, it kinda makes sense to me that there would be a lot of connections. For most of our history, people lived with death in a completely different way than we do now. If the dead are kinda part of life, sometimes even everyday, it makes sense that people would have ideas about the relationship between death and the erotic, especially as both have often been seen as powerful and risky.
Hi Hannah, thanks for the thought provoking video. I work as a palliative care nurse and sex for people who are dying is a really challenging part of the care and assessment we support patients with. It hardly ever gets discussed but it's known that it should be and is a key part of our patient groups potential daily life. If you come across any research or professionals you think may have some insight, would be glad to be pointed in their direction. Thanks again!
i’ve been silently watching your channel for a while but i finally have to comment! this is such an interesting and deep view on death and sex. i’d love to see more of this!
Thank you Hannah for this excursion into cultures and philosophies! As a history buff, I'm so glad you talked about the Greek notion of the 4 humours. Fun fact 04:30 some Chinese Taoist texts from around the First Millennium AD encouraged those with penises to have loads of sex but crucially to NOT CUM so that they could engage in healthy exercise but not spill a bodily fluid essential for maintaining their body's well-being. How interesting that cultures which had little contact with each other ended up developing similar ideas about the body. Hope pregnancy is treating you well Hannah!
I love the space you are creating here. It feels like a cozy university class where everyone gets to share their knowledge and opinion and discuss, but without any pressure to perform. Now I want to do a presentation next! I have already finished university, but apparently I do miss it.
As a French native speaker, I can confirm "la petite mort" is never/rarely used in French! Another way of saying having an organism would be "jouir", wish could be technically translated as "to enjoy". If you want to say "he enjoyed the benefits of..." you would use the verb "jouir" in formal speech, but if you just say "je joui" (so "I enjoy") you're definitely talking about having an orgasm.
@@katukin In this sentence "mort" means "death" as a concept, which is a feminine noun despite not having an "e" at the end, so it is the proper spelling. "La morte" would be refering to a dead woman/girl ("la petite morte" would then translate roughly to "the dead little girl")(and if you were to talk about a dead man it would be "le mort", same pronunciation, same spelling, but different gender and therefore different specifier/article)
I think czech phrase "udělat se" is quite interesting - it means literally "make yourslef" or "do yourslef" It's the most used phrase in speaking czech. Second most used phrase is "byl jsem" translated it means "to be" which is so funny to me. When you want to ask your partner whether they came you ask "Byl jsi?" which means "Were you?" very existentialist isn't it..
that's so interesting. We have a similar thing in English where we might say "did you...?" Also "doing it" (the title of Hannah's book) means "having sex". It's like people are trying to avoid saying the specific words for sex or orgasm.
Watching this as a reward for finishing my presentation which is absolutely not due tomorrow. Death is like one of my topics that I get nerdy about!! One of my favourite songs is 'Santa Muerte' by Twin Temple and it has this absolutely raw line 'In death and sex we lie down equally' which I am obsessed with, so this video is just right in my corner Edit: Oh yes!!! Funeral crowns and weddings!! This was also common in Germany in certain areas/time periods, I'd have to look up the specifics again but basically if a young unmarried man died young unmarried women dressed as brides would escort him to his grave an vice versa. It was done because dying unmarried meant you were missing one sacrament. We have multiple finds of such crowns and they are quite fascinating!! 👩🏻💻🤓
So interesting! I as a future midwife do see many similarities in birth and death. Both are very existential events that every human being experiences but we don't talk about it openly in society. You only come in touch with both of them more deeply when you or someeone close is directly concerned. And there exists a lot of fear around both of them - I think mostly because of the tabou and the malinformation. Also, sometimes birth and death happen at the same time...
LOVED this more academic style video, I usually never comment but im obsessed with the way you've put this. I couldnt help but think about a greek song called "Of Love (in the sense of eros, being in love) and of Death" "του έρωτα και του θανάτου" by Thanasis Papakonstantinou, which describes a lover fighting with a personified death who has taken his lady. She prompts him to become a worm and come kiss her rotting body, which he does by penetrating her body with thousands of kisses, helping it melt and decompose. From his kisses, a flower grows through her melting body that drinks from her juices. He talks about the odour of earth and the "playful rotting" through which Eros beats Death in this fight. This gothic narrative is so beautiful to me, despite the repulsiveness the realistic image describes, I wish you could listen to it!
I suppose there used to be more of a link between sex and death, at least for women. With such high mortality rates in childbirth, death was a very real possibility as a result of sex. Women would be gifted material for their wedding to sew and embroider the shrouds of herself and her new husband, with the expectation hers should be finished before she gave birth
I wish this video was longer omg! I feel like I’m just discovering a new subject that I’m totally fascinated by. Just watching it now and this is SUCH an interesting topic.
I'm so digging (no pun intended) the idea of "marrying the earth". And not just because the earth wouldn't leave it's dirty socks on the bedroom floor.
The part you mentioned about the Greek tradition for people who die "unmarried" is practiced with Indians too. My family is from the Punjab so I cannot speak for the rest of India but I know that the deceased is dressed as though it is their wedding day.
This was so interesting! Especially when it comes to feeling closer to freedom when we're having sex and or near death. I wanted to add that I read that before the church reform in the 12th century, there was a belief that women could only get pregnant through orgasm! I really would like to find more info about that ^^
I'm French and we indeed do not use "petite mort" as a common way to paraphrase orgasm but it is still known. One that I really hate is "juter" literally "to juice" for male ejaculation and it is so derogatory, could be used as "I juiced in her". One even worse is "cracher" = "to spit", meaning the same thing One that I like though is "monter au septième ciel" = "rise to seventh heaven"
I remember loving the movie The Little Death, very funny “The secret lives of five suburban couples living in Sydney reveal both the fetishes and the repercussions that come with sharing them.”
6:10 Makes you wonder, if sex is apparently so bad, why religions and societies always make an almost magic seeming exception for marriage. Makes me think that maybe, in the past, there _have_ been communities that banned it outright, and they just didn't last very long.
Is it ok to leave a little remark on the script? I know you clarified that this happens only "in some parts of China" at first, but if someone were to miss those few words, the rest of what you say makes it sound as if that practice (and associated values, including not being enshrined in a family tomb!) are widespread. I am sure there are places in the western world where divorce is not accepted, but you wouldn't write a script saying "In some places in Europe, divorce is not allowed, this is because European culture believes xyz, and so a European woman wouldn't be allowed to remarry, because of the seemingly sexist cultural belief that women belong to their fathers, then their husbands." I know this is super nitpicky! It's just a few words or verb tenses, and you did clarify, I just feel it may be misinterpreted by listeners. But a lot of these practices and beliefs are no longer widespread, definitly not in modern, urban areas that concentrate a huge amount of the population, and China is very big and very diverse. It's frustrating for me to keep on answering questions from aquaintances about eating dog meat, because people hear or read "they do such and such in this region in China" and gloss over the fact that it's not the whole country. This feels like it could lead to much of the same. For the other examples you use, you specify that they come from "Shakespearean " England, or "rural" Greece. And in the article you cite, it's even in the intro that these marriages have lead to sensationalised media coverage, which shows that it's not a practice that's widely accepted. I'm uncomfortable then with the use of a fairly marginal traditional practice as a sort of anthopological tidbit to make a philosophical point, without more, idk, clarification that it is a marginal, uncommon practice? Idk, I'm probably not very articulate here, but I really hope that people will read this comment and consider it! PS in France, where I'm currently living, "ghost marriages" happen too! Mainly in the case of death of one person in a couple if it happens before the official wedding. It's a thing partly to legitimize children, and mostly happens after military deaths if I remember right. It was taught in one of my ethics classes once.
Thanks for this. While I don't have as great an understanding of East Asian cultures and history as more western parts of the world, I do know that China 's population and history is long and wide. So while the talk about Ghost Marriages was particularly interesting, I did wonder how much of that was tied to specific historical periods and beliefs. A lot of changes happened between the Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty alone (I had to look up which came first which shows my limited knowledge on this topic). Also while I may be misremembering, even in Ancient societies there is a considerable difference between the Confucius and Taoist views of women's role in society. So those I just the obvious questions I had the practice and beliefs behind it. That's wouldn't even getting into how much carries over into modern society. You're quite right that there is great value in verify the specifics of time, religion, region, and other factors when talking about the practices associated with an entire nation. Much as I enjoyed this essay and which we'd find other like it online them more often, I did think we should gotten that same specification for China that we got for England and Greece. Of course, there are a lot of other ways various cultures associate death and sex that weren't even mentioned. Probably for lack of time and resources.
Thanks for the video, it's a really interesting topic. For me it's about the experience of sex and particularly orgasm. You're in an altered state of consciousness at the moment and strong orgasms can make us briefly forget who we or our regular definitions of ourselves. That connects with several of your points, but feels like a subtly different one. As well as anything around morality or being tired afterwards there's that sense of blissfully losing yourself that can be associated with death for some.
Sorry just learning this is a normal part of orgasms? I know I'm having the physical parts but I've only had those maybe 3x in my life (tbh I thought it was bc I was drunk or stoned) and it definitely wasn't what you'd describe as strong.
@@aprildawnsunshine4326 Everyone experiences things differently - I guess the consciousness shift is a big part of it for me (I don't mean forgetting who you are afterwards, I mean a differing perception in the actual moment of cumming). It gets talked about a fair bit in circles I move in, but that doesn't mean this is "right" and other experiences are "wrong" (or vice versa). I only experience it as so intense it's unmissable during very deep orgasms - otherwise I notice because I'm tuning into it but otherwise might not. Interesting for me to bear in mind that this isn't a noticeable or vital part of it for everyone - thanks for highlighting that!
@@mightymyra sorry only just saw this. And I wouldn't assume my experience fits the norm, I have a ton of health issues including a severe hormone deficiency and a nerve problem that may or may not be related. That's why I'm so curious about this, I want to know if it's a symptom I should mention or just a part of the depressing stats on women who don't have orgasms. If I'm defining orgasm incorrectly I could make changes to have more satisfying experiences.
I've been excited to watch this video since I got the notification! Love the overall question as a video concept and the many subtopics you touch on, but for me this would've worked better in far more depth, maybe as a podcast or a superlong video or a video series. Someone also mentioned vampires, which makes me think that mythology would also provide a lot of content for this!
I love using the euphemism "a little death" for its near-endless possibilities in humorous banter with my partner, like "Good luck, don't die!...well, maybe a little death is ok but save it for later :P"
Im not watching this right now but may in future. I landed here during my search for how to cope with grief. One of many questions I have is why as an innocent, virgin, law abiding, disabled, impeccably hygienic yet diseased, undeveloped, ethnic minority, 26 yr old female adult lady am I still severely suffering whilst my dirty, sexually promiscuous, careless, dishonest, bad enemies are thriving and get treated as though they are pure.
On a related topic; would you be comfortable doing some research into necrophilia and made a vid explaining what it is and why it occurs? I'm really just looking for a non-judgemental vid that can explain this phenomena
It reminds me of the overly dramatic Buffy the Vampire Slayer line where she tells her vampire boyfriend: “if I kiss you I want to die” very much referring to le petit mort.
This video was very interesting, thank you! And about expressions related to sex, I'm Brazilian and I'll try to do a free translation here, but a few of words and expressions to designate sex are: -feed the snake (alimentar a cobra), -grate and roll (rala e rola, and yeah, I know, it sounds super weird in English but in portuguese it makes a little bit more of sense), - water the plant (molhar a plantinha), -hitting skins (bater/batendo pele), - dip the biscuit (molhar o biscoito), -change the oil (trocar o óleo). Not a lot of connections to death in our idiomatic expressions, but it's fairly common to have references in classic Brazilian literature to sex and death. The book Noite na Taverna (something like Night in the Tavern) makes very explicit that the ideal woman would be a fragile, dead looking one. It's not only here, during Romanticism all over the world desirable women had a fragile, sick-looking, semi-dead appearance.
Dude those are slangs for sex, not orgasm… and quite vulgar ones actually, not idioms… and yeah noite na taverna foi bem ruinzinho buuuut the sickly and pale look was indeed popular in Victorian era, in Brasil the romantic era is almost like the goth era bc they ware kind of copying what was happening in more advanced places
this is a very sobering element to this conversation, of course. However, I think that there is a difference in the general cultural conception of death and its place in our religion/philosophy and the lack of proper health care in a system of capitalism or any economic model that commodifies the lives of everyone. And of course witnessing death can be a violent, traumatizing thing, but I think Hannah brings up some great general topics here.
This is so interesting! However the stuff about the church only developing marriage into a religious rather than civil ceremony in the middle ages is not entirely accurate. Saint Augustine writes as early as the 4th century about the sacramental quality of marriage for Christians, - though he also argues that if we have slept with someone we have essentially married them and have all the obligations of married partners. However, whilst this appears (and is) anti sexual liberation, its contained within a context in which sexual liberation was only a realistic possibility for men, and roman men (including Augustine himself before his conversion) often had concubines who they would live and sleep with and even have children with before later leaving them to marry a more prosperous economic match - and therefore its likely that Augustine in arguing for the sacramentality of marriage as begun in the sexual act is in fact trying to put in place economic protections for women so that they cannot be used as concubines as then abandoned later and left to raise these men's children alone with no economic or emotional support and no hope of a future marriage or a future sexual outlet for that matter because they, in having had a sexual partner already, would not have been seen as an eligible within Roman society.
For me, death is a moment of reverence. A person has passed his last breath, there is little I can do for him. When the doctor has given his OK, the next step is a rest period. The legal things have to be initiated. Relatives informed because they wanted to say goodbye. But maybe I'm relative myself. Then there is the question of the last dress or maybe a white shirt. The dead must be undressed and washed again. Then the last dress. The hair is washed and combed. Maybe fingernails trimmed and beard trimmed. The body is laid in the coffin. I can give this last service to my relative myself or hire an undertaker. But I'm sure I'll always be reminded to lie there myself one day. The grave must be found and the farewell party organized. Who else will I have to invite? Have I thought of everything? Was there a favorite song or poem, a motto for life? How would the dead man have wished his farewell? And then comes the last farewell, a day where tears flow even for me. But fortunately there is a reunion with the other relatives. And the next day it's not just about who pays for the whole celebration, then it's the question of can the estate be shared peacefully or will a decades-long war follow? Is the inheritance worth anything at all or am I just hanging debts around my neck like a millstone? Death is part of life, but what some people do with it just isn't.
Interesting thoughts, that maybe we would like to look and be remembered at our “best” and simple purest at both times. Both are revealing and ugly and beautiful moments at once.
One of my fave topics! Another way Sex and Death are linked is through ancestral rituals. Ancient Greeks and Romans had traditions involving beans, a representation of Death, to invoke male ancestors at weddings to help the bride and groom carry on the bloodline.
as soon as you started talking about sex and death in terms of similar rituals and associations I was like 'this is such a history student video concept' and then you said you got the idea as a history student, so validating lol
What an interesting video idea! It's funny my bf has just had the second hand listening of the latest ask a mortician vid and now this one 🤣 For me sex is much better with an upgraded partner (shocker) but like... I am deliberately chosing to ignore my inner shame monologue and demand what I want, despite being a text book people pleaser. He's into it, which is nice haha
So happy to see this video! I've wondered about this for a while since Anglo Saxon culture seems to equate the two a lot, especially in art... Love and death, sex and love, death and sex. Two great tastes I guess??
I have definitely felt like an out of body experience during orgasm! It feels like death more like how I’d expect “ego death” to feel after a psychedelic experience. It’s not scary either even though it’s complete lack of control which is hard for me in other aspects of my life!
There's an additional dimension to the sex and sin connection in Christianity - the "original sin" being linked to sex, there's this whole debate on whether the Virgin Mary was also free from the original sin (her own conception story is a bit all over the place) and therefore her body wouldn't decay (to simplify - no sex, no death), hence the "Assumption of Mary" is possible. I don't remember all the details exactly but Marina Warner explains it well in Alone of All Her Sex.
It was such a revelation to me when I got married that So much of all that stuff said by the celebrant prior to the 'I Dos' is Optional. There are very few lines actually required by law. Which is v good and obvs how it should be, but then makes it surprising that oftentimes films etc (and ppl in real life) use the same script.
Oh Hannah you've really gotten into my main niches! Very exciting. Here's a tidbit with another shared niche of ours - Judaism!! Up until the 20th century in Iraqi Kurdistan there was a custom for men to weave cloth to make a tent-like structure where their wedding would be consummated, then later at the end of their life that same cloth would be used during burial. Apparently an early version of the Chuppah or something like that? I found out about it while at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in the gallery titled "Rhythm of Life: Birth, Marriage and Death" and I'd love to send you some pictures if you're interested!
ALSO I've heard anecdotally during my work/study of death that, when you die, feel-good hormones are released similarly to orgasms? I haven't been able to find any scientific study of this, but it sounds really interesting! BUT orgasmic BIRTH is definitely a thing that some folks experience.
i am not a psychologist, but this reminds me of my yr12 psych class where we were talking about how if one couple goes on a first date to just a restaurant or something they are less likely to go on a second date than a couple who did something more fear intensive (e.g. watched a scary movie, went skydiving, rock climbing etc.). This is because our reactions to fear are very similar to an aroused state - dilated pupils, increased heart rate etc. So when we have these experiences we can become more attached to the person who brought about these experiences. Again, not a psychologist, but I think this is really interesting.
Just to clarify, you won't be excommunicated from the Catholic church for obtaining a civil divorce, but you will be excommunicated if you marry again/enter into another relationship after divorce because, in the eyes of the church and the eyes of God, you are still married
I find it a bit weird with people who have fear of death but i also have a different experience about how I see death. I love talking about death so much, I think it’s important since we all are born to die and somehow it’s become a scary thing and this is why I’m sooooo excited to find a way to be a death doula. Off topic.
Death is total disconnection, sex is the closest 2 people can get both physically and mentally. People can of course be very close mentally without sex, but there is no replacement for good sex.
I just started this video and maybe you bring it up but I recommend the book @Necrophilia Variations" by Supervert. It is fascinating and puts a lot of sex/death things in context.
There is a very interesting book by a feminist philosopher about how female corpses are often considered erotic and/or beautiful. Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me not remember the author or the title.
When I think of this topic inevitably the line from Buffy the Vampire Slayer "When you kiss me, I want to die" arrives in my head. That show (and love with vampires in general, as mentioned by other commenters) plays a lot with the taboo and the pull of sex, romance, and death.
I mean sometimes it feels like I’m going to die of old age before I have an orgasm but that’s more to do with anti-depressants, low self esteem, and trauma 😅🤷♀️
you say death isn't sexy but necrophiles exist, there is porn for it, and people have done it. i'm sure most people, including me, find the idea revolting, but i'm sure there are people out there who role play with consenting adults or watch that sort of porn. are you ok with kink shaming those people? i'm asking this in good faith, i'm not one of those people, I just watched this video thinking there was an elephant in the room. was your omission of this topic more of a constraint of TOS?
Oh interesting about the ghost deaths. I was raised Mormon and marriage by proxy for the dead is a sacred ritual performed in the temple. Also, men who have been sealed for eternity to their wife may be sealed to another woman if their first wife dies. But women can’t. If their first husband dies, they can’t be sealed for eternity to another man. They can only be civilly married again. It’s a very patriarchal religion so I was struck by the similarity to the Chinese ritual in that way too! 😂
In dutch the phrase for sexual climax is roughly "I've become complete". Don't know the history of it, but it does link up nicely with the medieval mystics we had over here back in the 12th to 14th century, who spoke of the Christian ascension to heavenly unity with God, after death, in overtly sexual terms. Your Hadewijch's, Mechtild's, or Marguerite Poirette's were very influential abroad, so maybe that's where all this "absolute consumptive love = death" business comes from?
I'm not saying that a marriage has to last until death. But I observe that people who get divorced are hurt at one point in their soul. And that children cope better with the death of a parent than when their parents break up in an argument. Anyone who can prove otherwise should do so. I'm not saying I have a solution for everything. Just what the cost will be. No, I don't mean the financial costs, I mean the emotional ones.
See from the title I was thinking this video was about Sexlessness, like in lesbian relationships, Japanese marital relationships or surely more widely in society even if unacknowledged.
There’s also the idea that, for a lot of people, the marriage bed and the death bed were the same-it’s where sex, birth, illness, death, etc happen
I think its interesting how often death and sex are linked in (western) story telling through vampires. You get themes of rebirth and transgression in so many vampire stories. The Vampyre, Carmilla, Dracula etc. and more modern adaptations. Like even with Twilight marriage, sex, and death are (arguably) one and the same.
i feel like this is what makes vampires so seductive to readers... they are otherwordly beings, immortal, have power over death and are very sensual.
I was actually thinking about vampires too. When Hannah said... now what was it? Something about never feeling so alive? Anyway, it made me think of something that I think is actually quite a common thing for vampires to say - that even though they're now 'dead' they've never felt more alive. And especially Caroline from The Vampire Diaries I believe said that, ironically, she felt like it was only once she became a vampire that she truly started living. (Seriously though, I do love Caroline's story and character progression.)
@@conlon4332so dead and being alive are now the same?
Oh, how I've missed a good ol' Hannah Witton video essay! This is SO interesting, and gave me so much to think about
I was going to comment the same thing!
I’ve always thought it was interesting the innate sexuality in depictions of vampires. As early as carmilla, sex and vampires have been linked with the idea of giving over yourself (through blood) completely to your sexual partner. There’s also this sense of control with vampires that is often shown as obsession or sexual desire
Yay, so happy to see Caitlin Doughty (Ask A Mortician) referenced :) if anyone is interested in death cultures throughout history and around the world, would highly recommend checking out her CZcams channel, and her books
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Agreed! I kept coming across her videos and once I checked one out I got hooked! Finally subscribed last week 😆
This is so interesting, learned a lot! Particularly liked the cultural aspects of marriage and funeral rites. Thank you for sharing this knowledge 😊
One thing I've noticed is that sex is deeply meditative for me- it's the one time I can truly let go of all the stress in my life and focus on the sensations in my body. It's pretty much just mindfulness with the added bonus that the thing I'm being mindful of is pleasure. And there are certainly comparisons between meditation and death. In some cultures and religions, there are some meditative practices that are viewed as practicing awareness of death, or even practicing for death itself.
Loved the video! Actually was just reading about this before seeing this video in my feed haha Timothy Taylor argued that in many societies death is seen as male, the counterpart to the female fertility and vitality, and in the interest of balance, sex can be present in death related rituals so that vitality and fertility remains in balance with death and the masculine order of burial rituals. There are apparently lots of cultures where pregnancy becomes more common in the time after a death in the community, which there could obviously be lots of reasons for, but it’s an interesting connection. Also, some deities are linked with both death and the erotic, for example the norse god Odin. Particularily a kind of eroticism associated with warriors and battle. Idk, it kinda makes sense to me that there would be a lot of connections. For most of our history, people lived with death in a completely different way than we do now. If the dead are kinda part of life, sometimes even everyday, it makes sense that people would have ideas about the relationship between death and the erotic, especially as both have often been seen as powerful and risky.
Hi Hannah, thanks for the thought provoking video.
I work as a palliative care nurse and sex for people who are dying is a really challenging part of the care and assessment we support patients with. It hardly ever gets discussed but it's known that it should be and is a key part of our patient groups potential daily life. If you come across any research or professionals you think may have some insight, would be glad to be pointed in their direction. Thanks again!
I would LOVE to learn more about this
Very interesting video, Hannah. I really enjoyed the mixing of philosophy and history when it comes to sex and death.
i’ve been silently watching your channel for a while but i finally have to comment! this is such an interesting and deep view on death and sex. i’d love to see more of this!
Thank you Hannah for this excursion into cultures and philosophies! As a history buff, I'm so glad you talked about the Greek notion of the 4 humours. Fun fact 04:30 some Chinese Taoist texts from around the First Millennium AD encouraged those with penises to have loads of sex but crucially to NOT CUM so that they could engage in healthy exercise but not spill a bodily fluid essential for maintaining their body's well-being. How interesting that cultures which had little contact with each other ended up developing similar ideas about the body. Hope pregnancy is treating you well Hannah!
I love the space you are creating here. It feels like a cozy university class where everyone gets to share their knowledge and opinion and discuss, but without any pressure to perform. Now I want to do a presentation next! I have already finished university, but apparently I do miss it.
As a French native speaker, I can confirm "la petite mort" is never/rarely used in French! Another way of saying having an organism would be "jouir", wish could be technically translated as "to enjoy". If you want to say "he enjoyed the benefits of..." you would use the verb "jouir" in formal speech, but if you just say "je joui" (so "I enjoy") you're definitely talking about having an orgasm.
Could I also ask you why this would be spelt 'la petite mort' and not 'la petite morte' or is it because it's not actually a real French phrase aha?
@@katukin In this sentence "mort" means "death" as a concept, which is a feminine noun despite not having an "e" at the end, so it is the proper spelling. "La morte" would be refering to a dead woman/girl ("la petite morte" would then translate roughly to "the dead little girl")(and if you were to talk about a dead man it would be "le mort", same pronunciation, same spelling, but different gender and therefore different specifier/article)
@@lyse8353 ah I see! Thanks so much for explaining (:
I think czech phrase "udělat se" is quite interesting - it means literally "make yourslef" or "do yourslef" It's the most used phrase in speaking czech. Second most used phrase is "byl jsem" translated it means "to be" which is so funny to me. When you want to ask your partner whether they came you ask "Byl jsi?" which means "Were you?" very existentialist isn't it..
that's so interesting. We have a similar thing in English where we might say "did you...?" Also "doing it" (the title of Hannah's book) means "having sex". It's like people are trying to avoid saying the specific words for sex or orgasm.
YEAHHH more videos like this!! i feel like my english teacher talked about sex quite a lot when we did macbeth
Watching this as a reward for finishing my presentation which is absolutely not due tomorrow.
Death is like one of my topics that I get nerdy about!! One of my favourite songs is 'Santa Muerte' by Twin Temple and it has this absolutely raw line 'In death and sex we lie down equally' which I am obsessed with, so this video is just right in my corner
Edit: Oh yes!!! Funeral crowns and weddings!! This was also common in Germany in certain areas/time periods, I'd have to look up the specifics again but basically if a young unmarried man died young unmarried women dressed as brides would escort him to his grave an vice versa. It was done because dying unmarried meant you were missing one sacrament.
We have multiple finds of such crowns and they are quite fascinating!! 👩🏻💻🤓
So interesting! I as a future midwife do see many similarities in birth and death. Both are very existential events that every human being experiences but we don't talk about it openly in society. You only come in touch with both of them more deeply when you or someeone close is directly concerned. And there exists a lot of fear around both of them - I think mostly because of the tabou and the malinformation. Also, sometimes birth and death happen at the same time...
LOVED this more academic style video, I usually never comment but im obsessed with the way you've put this. I couldnt help but think about a greek song called "Of Love (in the sense of eros, being in love) and of Death" "του έρωτα και του θανάτου" by Thanasis Papakonstantinou, which describes a lover fighting with a personified death who has taken his lady. She prompts him to become a worm and come kiss her rotting body, which he does by penetrating her body with thousands of kisses, helping it melt and decompose. From his kisses, a flower grows through her melting body that drinks from her juices. He talks about the odour of earth and the "playful rotting" through which Eros beats Death in this fight. This gothic narrative is so beautiful to me, despite the repulsiveness the realistic image describes, I wish you could listen to it!
I suppose there used to be more of a link between sex and death, at least for women. With such high mortality rates in childbirth, death was a very real possibility as a result of sex. Women would be gifted material for their wedding to sew and embroider the shrouds of herself and her new husband, with the expectation hers should be finished before she gave birth
this is so fascinating and so well explored!!
I wish this video was longer omg! I feel like I’m just discovering a new subject that I’m totally fascinated by. Just watching it now and this is SUCH an interesting topic.
This is feels like an interesting intersection between your content and askamortician who I also love
I'm so digging (no pun intended) the idea of "marrying the earth". And not just because the earth wouldn't leave it's dirty socks on the bedroom floor.
The part you mentioned about the Greek tradition for people who die "unmarried" is practiced with Indians too. My family is from the Punjab so I cannot speak for the rest of India but I know that the deceased is dressed as though it is their wedding day.
This was so interesting! Especially when it comes to feeling closer to freedom when we're having sex and or near death. I wanted to add that I read that before the church reform in the 12th century, there was a belief that women could only get pregnant through orgasm! I really would like to find more info about that ^^
In spanish we use the term "correrse" wich means running yourself? I dont know how to explain it😂
I'm French and we indeed do not use "petite mort" as a common way to paraphrase orgasm but it is still known. One that I really hate is "juter" literally "to juice" for male ejaculation and it is so derogatory, could be used as "I juiced in her". One even worse is "cracher" = "to spit", meaning the same thing
One that I like though is "monter au septième ciel" = "rise to seventh heaven"
I remember loving the movie The Little Death, very funny
“The secret lives of five suburban couples living in Sydney reveal both the fetishes and the repercussions that come with sharing them.”
Would love an IGTV reaction/discussion after watching it 💡 *content idea* 💡
I love this kind of video! So much work has gone into this, but it’s soooo interesting!
6:10 Makes you wonder, if sex is apparently so bad, why religions and societies always make an almost magic seeming exception for marriage. Makes me think that maybe, in the past, there _have_ been communities that banned it outright, and they just didn't last very long.
Is it ok to leave a little remark on the script? I know you clarified that this happens only "in some parts of China" at first, but if someone were to miss those few words, the rest of what you say makes it sound as if that practice (and associated values, including not being enshrined in a family tomb!) are widespread. I am sure there are places in the western world where divorce is not accepted, but you wouldn't write a script saying "In some places in Europe, divorce is not allowed, this is because European culture believes xyz, and so a European woman wouldn't be allowed to remarry, because of the seemingly sexist cultural belief that women belong to their fathers, then their husbands." I know this is super nitpicky! It's just a few words or verb tenses, and you did clarify, I just feel it may be misinterpreted by listeners.
But a lot of these practices and beliefs are no longer widespread, definitly not in modern, urban areas that concentrate a huge amount of the population, and China is very big and very diverse. It's frustrating for me to keep on answering questions from aquaintances about eating dog meat, because people hear or read "they do such and such in this region in China" and gloss over the fact that it's not the whole country. This feels like it could lead to much of the same. For the other examples you use, you specify that they come from "Shakespearean " England, or "rural" Greece. And in the article you cite, it's even in the intro that these marriages have lead to sensationalised media coverage, which shows that it's not a practice that's widely accepted. I'm uncomfortable then with the use of a fairly marginal traditional practice as a sort of anthopological tidbit to make a philosophical point, without more, idk, clarification that it is a marginal, uncommon practice? Idk, I'm probably not very articulate here, but I really hope that people will read this comment and consider it!
PS in France, where I'm currently living, "ghost marriages" happen too! Mainly in the case of death of one person in a couple if it happens before the official wedding. It's a thing partly to legitimize children, and mostly happens after military deaths if I remember right. It was taught in one of my ethics classes once.
Thanks for this. While I don't have as great an understanding of East Asian cultures and history as more western parts of the world, I do know that China 's population and history is long and wide. So while the talk about Ghost Marriages was particularly interesting, I did wonder how much of that was tied to specific historical periods and beliefs. A lot of changes happened between the Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty alone (I had to look up which came first which shows my limited knowledge on this topic). Also while I may be misremembering, even in Ancient societies there is a considerable difference between the Confucius and Taoist views of women's role in society. So those I just the obvious questions I had the practice and beliefs behind it. That's wouldn't even getting into how much carries over into modern society.
You're quite right that there is great value in verify the specifics of time, religion, region, and other factors when talking about the practices associated with an entire nation. Much as I enjoyed this essay and which we'd find other like it online them more often, I did think we should gotten that same specification for China that we got for England and Greece.
Of course, there are a lot of other ways various cultures associate death and sex that weren't even mentioned. Probably for lack of time and resources.
Have you watched the movie "Le Petit Mort"? It's a great movie about sex and different sexual fantasies.
I have not watched that! Sounds cool
@@hannahwitton Oops, I translated the movie name in my mind. It's actually called "The Little Death"
So interesting, I love content like this! And now I'm out of uni it's such a fun way to learn more! ☺️🥰
I’m from Salisbury in the Uk and never knew that fact about this city 👀 learn something new everyday
Thanks for the video, it's a really interesting topic. For me it's about the experience of sex and particularly orgasm. You're in an altered state of consciousness at the moment and strong orgasms can make us briefly forget who we or our regular definitions of ourselves. That connects with several of your points, but feels like a subtly different one. As well as anything around morality or being tired afterwards there's that sense of blissfully losing yourself that can be associated with death for some.
Sorry just learning this is a normal part of orgasms? I know I'm having the physical parts but I've only had those maybe 3x in my life (tbh I thought it was bc I was drunk or stoned) and it definitely wasn't what you'd describe as strong.
@@aprildawnsunshine4326 Everyone experiences things differently - I guess the consciousness shift is a big part of it for me (I don't mean forgetting who you are afterwards, I mean a differing perception in the actual moment of cumming). It gets talked about a fair bit in circles I move in, but that doesn't mean this is "right" and other experiences are "wrong" (or vice versa).
I only experience it as so intense it's unmissable during very deep orgasms - otherwise I notice because I'm tuning into it but otherwise might not. Interesting for me to bear in mind that this isn't a noticeable or vital part of it for everyone - thanks for highlighting that!
@@mightymyra sorry only just saw this. And I wouldn't assume my experience fits the norm, I have a ton of health issues including a severe hormone deficiency and a nerve problem that may or may not be related. That's why I'm so curious about this, I want to know if it's a symptom I should mention or just a part of the depressing stats on women who don't have orgasms. If I'm defining orgasm incorrectly I could make changes to have more satisfying experiences.
I've been excited to watch this video since I got the notification! Love the overall question as a video concept and the many subtopics you touch on, but for me this would've worked better in far more depth, maybe as a podcast or a superlong video or a video series. Someone also mentioned vampires, which makes me think that mythology would also provide a lot of content for this!
I love what you’ve done with your hair. The color is fantastic and the waves are wonderful!
I love using the euphemism "a little death" for its near-endless possibilities in humorous banter with my partner, like "Good luck, don't die!...well, maybe a little death is ok but save it for later :P"
Im not watching this right now but may in future. I landed here during my search for how to cope with grief. One of many questions I have is why as an innocent, virgin, law abiding, disabled, impeccably hygienic yet diseased, undeveloped, ethnic minority, 26 yr old female adult lady am I still severely suffering whilst my dirty, sexually promiscuous, careless, dishonest, bad enemies are thriving and get treated as though they are pure.
I was always intrigued by this topic. Thank you hannah!
Really great video - so interesting!
On a related topic; would you be comfortable doing some research into necrophilia and made a vid explaining what it is and why it occurs? I'm really just looking for a non-judgemental vid that can explain this phenomena
I'd be surprised if Ask A Mortician didn't already have a good video on that.
In Spanish from Spain, "correrse" means "to run oneself" 🏃♀💨
It reminds me of the overly dramatic Buffy the Vampire Slayer line where she tells her vampire boyfriend: “if I kiss you I want to die” very much referring to le petit mort.
Wow - I am from Salisbury and never knew that it is the home of the modern marriage ceremony. Learn something new every day!
Oooo I’ve been researching this (just on the side of my academic stuff) with regard to sex, death and religion - this video was sooooo interesting
This video was very interesting, thank you! And about expressions related to sex, I'm Brazilian and I'll try to do a free translation here, but a few of words and expressions to designate sex are:
-feed the snake (alimentar a cobra),
-grate and roll (rala e rola, and yeah, I know, it sounds super weird in English but in portuguese it makes a little bit more of sense),
- water the plant (molhar a plantinha),
-hitting skins (bater/batendo pele),
- dip the biscuit (molhar o biscoito),
-change the oil (trocar o óleo).
Not a lot of connections to death in our idiomatic expressions, but it's fairly common to have references in classic Brazilian literature to sex and death. The book Noite na Taverna (something like Night in the Tavern) makes very explicit that the ideal woman would be a fragile, dead looking one. It's not only here, during Romanticism all over the world desirable women had a fragile, sick-looking, semi-dead appearance.
Dude those are slangs for sex, not orgasm… and quite vulgar ones actually, not idioms… and yeah noite na taverna foi bem ruinzinho buuuut the sickly and pale look was indeed popular in Victorian era, in Brasil the romantic era is almost like the goth era bc they ware kind of copying what was happening in more advanced places
Working as a paramedic and seen many people die, i can tell you there is nothing erotic about it.
this is a very sobering element to this conversation, of course. However, I think that there is a difference in the general cultural conception of death and its place in our religion/philosophy and the lack of proper health care in a system of capitalism or any economic model that commodifies the lives of everyone. And of course witnessing death can be a violent, traumatizing thing, but I think Hannah brings up some great general topics here.
Agreed
10:51 watch the video next time
This is so interesting! However the stuff about the church only developing marriage into a religious rather than civil ceremony in the middle ages is not entirely accurate. Saint Augustine writes as early as the 4th century about the sacramental quality of marriage for Christians, - though he also argues that if we have slept with someone we have essentially married them and have all the obligations of married partners. However, whilst this appears (and is) anti sexual liberation, its contained within a context in which sexual liberation was only a realistic possibility for men, and roman men (including Augustine himself before his conversion) often had concubines who they would live and sleep with and even have children with before later leaving them to marry a more prosperous economic match - and therefore its likely that Augustine in arguing for the sacramentality of marriage as begun in the sexual act is in fact trying to put in place economic protections for women so that they cannot be used as concubines as then abandoned later and left to raise these men's children alone with no economic or emotional support and no hope of a future marriage or a future sexual outlet for that matter because they, in having had a sexual partner already, would not have been seen as an eligible within Roman society.
For me, death is a moment of reverence.
A person has passed his last breath, there is little I can do for him. When the doctor has given his OK, the next step is a rest period. The legal things have to be initiated. Relatives informed because they wanted to say goodbye. But maybe I'm relative myself. Then there is the question of the last dress or maybe a white shirt. The dead must be undressed and washed again. Then the last dress. The hair is washed and combed. Maybe fingernails trimmed and beard trimmed. The body is laid in the coffin. I can give this last service to my relative myself or hire an undertaker. But I'm sure I'll always be reminded to lie there myself one day.
The grave must be found and the farewell party organized. Who else will I have to invite?
Have I thought of everything?
Was there a favorite song or poem, a motto for life?
How would the dead man have wished his farewell?
And then comes the last farewell, a day where tears flow even for me.
But fortunately there is a reunion with the other relatives.
And the next day it's not just about who pays for the whole celebration, then it's the question of can the estate be shared peacefully or will a decades-long war follow?
Is the inheritance worth anything at all or am I just hanging debts around my neck like a millstone?
Death is part of life, but what some people do with it just isn't.
My father's first fiancée died of a cerebral hemorrhage a few weeks before the wedding. She was buried in her wedding dress with a bridal bouquet.
Interesting thoughts, that maybe we would like to look and be remembered at our “best” and simple purest at both times. Both are revealing and ugly and beautiful moments at once.
@@TristanBailey Death hurts me, but is not taboo for me.
One of my fave topics! Another way Sex and Death are linked is through ancestral rituals. Ancient Greeks and Romans had traditions involving beans, a representation of Death, to invoke male ancestors at weddings to help the bride and groom carry on the bloodline.
Are you aware of the fact that the opposite of death, BIRTH, is also seen as a semi-erotic event?! 🙃 orgasmic birth is even a thing!
This is so cool! Break out the Foucault!
In Portuguese, one would say:"Estou-me a vir!" (meaning "I'm coming", literally) :)
In latam Spanish we say venirse (to come), in Spain is correrse (to run). But there are a lot of words to say the same thing...
as soon as you started talking about sex and death in terms of similar rituals and associations I was like 'this is such a history student video concept' and then you said you got the idea as a history student, so validating lol
This video title is the most scorpio thing I’ve ever seen lmao clicked it IMMEDIATELY
What an interesting video idea! It's funny my bf has just had the second hand listening of the latest ask a mortician vid and now this one 🤣
For me sex is much better with an upgraded partner (shocker) but like... I am deliberately chosing to ignore my inner shame monologue and demand what I want, despite being a text book people pleaser. He's into it, which is nice haha
Hey Hannah what a interesting topic
So happy to see this video! I've wondered about this for a while since Anglo Saxon culture seems to equate the two a lot, especially in art... Love and death, sex and love, death and sex. Two great tastes I guess??
I just love these videos of your's so much!
I have definitely felt like an out of body experience during orgasm! It feels like death more like how I’d expect “ego death” to feel after a psychedelic experience. It’s not scary either even though it’s complete lack of control which is hard for me in other aspects of my life!
There's an additional dimension to the sex and sin connection in Christianity - the "original sin" being linked to sex, there's this whole debate on whether the Virgin Mary was also free from the original sin (her own conception story is a bit all over the place) and therefore her body wouldn't decay (to simplify - no sex, no death), hence the "Assumption of Mary" is possible. I don't remember all the details exactly but Marina Warner explains it well in Alone of All Her Sex.
It was such a revelation to me when I got married that So much of all that stuff said by the celebrant prior to the 'I Dos' is Optional. There are very few lines actually required by law. Which is v good and obvs how it should be, but then makes it surprising that oftentimes films etc (and ppl in real life) use the same script.
This was so cool!
This was so facinating.
Loved this video, such an interesting subject!
Sadly, I have died twice and lived to talk about it (I am talking about it in this week’s blog), but I don't advise it.
Oh Hannah you've really gotten into my main niches! Very exciting. Here's a tidbit with another shared niche of ours - Judaism!! Up until the 20th century in Iraqi Kurdistan there was a custom for men to weave cloth to make a tent-like structure where their wedding would be consummated, then later at the end of their life that same cloth would be used during burial. Apparently an early version of the Chuppah or something like that? I found out about it while at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in the gallery titled "Rhythm of Life: Birth, Marriage and Death" and I'd love to send you some pictures if you're interested!
ALSO I've heard anecdotally during my work/study of death that, when you die, feel-good hormones are released similarly to orgasms? I haven't been able to find any scientific study of this, but it sounds really interesting! BUT orgasmic BIRTH is definitely a thing that some folks experience.
i am not a psychologist, but this reminds me of my yr12 psych class where we were talking about how if one couple goes on a first date to just a restaurant or something they are less likely to go on a second date than a couple who did something more fear intensive (e.g. watched a scary movie, went skydiving, rock climbing etc.). This is because our reactions to fear are very similar to an aroused state - dilated pupils, increased heart rate etc. So when we have these experiences we can become more attached to the person who brought about these experiences.
Again, not a psychologist, but I think this is really interesting.
Loved the video! Just wanted to ask if you've changed something with the audio? It's a lot more quiet than normal and less clear too...
Fascinating video, thank you for sharing the information.
this was so interesting!!!!!
Really interesting! 😄
great vid
Just to clarify, you won't be excommunicated from the Catholic church for obtaining a civil divorce, but you will be excommunicated if you marry again/enter into another relationship after divorce because, in the eyes of the church and the eyes of God, you are still married
I find it a bit weird with people who have fear of death but i also have a different experience about how I see death.
I love talking about death so much, I think it’s important since we all are born to die and somehow it’s become a scary thing and this is why I’m sooooo excited to find a way to be a death doula. Off topic.
I. Love. This. So. Much!! Thanks Hannah :))
You should look into the work of George Bataille, he wrote extensively on the link between the two.
Was half expecting Caitlin Doughty (Ask A Mortician) to appear in this because of the subject matter of Death.
Bloody loved this 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Death is total disconnection, sex is the closest 2 people can get both physically and mentally. People can of course be very close mentally without sex, but there is no replacement for good sex.
solid video
I'm a mortician I wonder if this video will change my perspective on a few things I'll be back with my opinions when I watch it all the way
This was very interesting :) we need a collaboration with Caitlin Doughty!
I just started this video and maybe you bring it up but I recommend the book @Necrophilia Variations" by Supervert. It is fascinating and puts a lot of sex/death things in context.
There is a very interesting book by a feminist philosopher about how female corpses are often considered erotic and/or beautiful. Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me not remember the author or the title.
When I think of this topic inevitably the line from Buffy the Vampire Slayer "When you kiss me, I want to die" arrives in my head. That show (and love with vampires in general, as mentioned by other commenters) plays a lot with the taboo and the pull of sex, romance, and death.
I think the French calling an orgasm "La petite mort" is part of the beauty of humanity.
I mean sometimes it feels like I’m going to die of old age before I have an orgasm but that’s more to do with anti-depressants, low self esteem, and trauma 😅🤷♀️
is this a "spoiler" video for the latest James Bond film "no time to die"? 😊
you say death isn't sexy but necrophiles exist, there is porn for it, and people have done it. i'm sure most people, including me, find the idea revolting, but i'm sure there are people out there who role play with consenting adults or watch that sort of porn. are you ok with kink shaming those people? i'm asking this in good faith, i'm not one of those people, I just watched this video thinking there was an elephant in the room. was your omission of this topic more of a constraint of TOS?
Hah, yes. Shakespeare liked playing to the groundlings - the “nothing” scene in Hamlet is a particularly big example.
Oh interesting about the ghost deaths. I was raised Mormon and marriage by proxy for the dead is a sacred ritual performed in the temple.
Also, men who have been sealed for eternity to their wife may be sealed to another woman if their first wife dies. But women can’t. If their first husband dies, they can’t be sealed for eternity to another man. They can only be civilly married again. It’s a very patriarchal religion so I was struck by the similarity to the Chinese ritual in that way too! 😂
I like idea of “marry the earth” as a thought rather than pass to nothing.
In dutch the phrase for sexual climax is roughly "I've become complete". Don't know the history of it, but it does link up nicely with the medieval mystics we had over here back in the 12th to 14th century, who spoke of the Christian ascension to heavenly unity with God, after death, in overtly sexual terms. Your Hadewijch's, Mechtild's, or Marguerite Poirette's were very influential abroad, so maybe that's where all this "absolute consumptive love = death" business comes from?
I'm not saying that a marriage has to last until death.
But I observe that people who get divorced are hurt at one point in their soul.
And that children cope better with the death of a parent than when their parents break up in an argument.
Anyone who can prove otherwise should do so.
I'm not saying I have a solution for everything.
Just what the cost will be.
No, I don't mean the financial costs, I mean the emotional ones.
See from the title I was thinking this video was about Sexlessness, like in lesbian relationships, Japanese marital relationships or surely more widely in society even if unacknowledged.
Would love a video of that...
The adams family certainly thinks so