arguing that<\/a> \u201csex is an expression of self-esteem\u201d and \u201cthe most profoundly selfish of all acts.\u201d A man \u201cwill always be attracted to the woman who reflects the deepest vision of himself.\u201d Man \u2014 considered as an individual, without any reference to another person \u2014 has a set of values. The woman he is attracted to is not attractive insofar as she presents something \u201cnew\u201d or \u201cother.\u201d Rather she presents something \u201cold\u201d and \u201cthe same\u201d \u2014 the embodiment of a value-set he\u00a0already has. For Rand, all sex is masturbation, sex with oneself. The other becomes a mirror for our values, and we \u2014 Narcissus, all \u2014 are aroused by the sight.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/allart.biz\/up\/photos\/album\/W-X-Y-Z\/John%20William%20Waterhouse\/john_william_waterhouse_3_echo_and_narcissus.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
I cannot reject Ayn Rand as easily as I\u2019d like, for the simple reason that our current logic\u00a0of \u201csexual orientation\u201d is Randian to the core. That I am a \u201cheterosexual\u201d means precisely this, that I have a pre-set \u201corientation\u201d towards the other sex, an already-operating valuation of \u201cwomen\u201d as such. A particular woman, far from presenting some \u201cnew\u201d value, calling forth attraction from me, is attractive insofar as she \u201cclicks\u201d with my orientation. She is a fulfillment of my<\/em> values, my<\/em> already-established desire, which is not for her \u2014\u00a0<\/em>for then it could only be called forth from a personal encounter with her \u2014 but for \u201cthe other \u00a0sex.\u201d<\/p>\nWhen a young boy finds himself attracted to another boy, we admonish him to \u201ccome out of the closet,\u201d to recognize himself as being<\/em> a homosexual \u2014 or at least bisexual. But what does this mean, except that his sexual attraction to another, particular person is nothing more than evidence of his pre-existing orientation? Our boy had, unbeknownst to himself, an identity, a set of values and desires and a mode of being in the world. His attraction was not called forth by another, it was only revealed as having always been a part \u2014 and a fixed, identity-determining part, no less \u2014 of his ego. The ego, and not the other, becomes the reference point for human sexuality.<\/p>\nA sapiosexual sees his valuation of intelligence embodied in a particular person, and desires. The particular person is a secondary object of attraction. That is, he\u00a0does not desire her and subsequently value her sapio<\/em>, no, he is<\/em> a sapiosexual, a type of being sexually orientated towards intelligence, and only subsequently does he desire her \u2014 a fulfillment of the kind of being he is. An androsexual does not desire a particular person. He is orientated towards \u201cmasculinity\u201d, and is only attracted to a particular man insofar as that man serves as an embodiment of \u201cmasculinity\u201d, that general, impersonal object that serves as the guiding principle of modern sexuality alongside homo, hetero, gyno, pan, poly, skolio \u2014 values of the ego, held as an identity long before any contact with another person, so that our attraction to an actual, living, breathing human being can only be masturbatory, a relation that affirms the values we already hold, stroking our ego, clicking with our pre-set view towards the world (which is thought to be good and meaningful and worthy of affirmation for the mere fact of being ours). Is this not how we speak? Do we not all have a right to seek \u201cself-fulfilling\u201d relations?<\/p>\nAn ontology of sexuality that roots attraction in the self and its identity\u00a0may wear the garb of lefty, millennial hipsterdom, but its equally fit with a pathological, righty, uber-capitalistic vision of the Cosmos. This seem to be\u00a0why, despite the obvious leftward shuffle, and the equally obvious and earnest attempts to eradicate it from existence, we still speak a language of rape. Rape is a reasonable conclusion of the perverse premises of a sexology of self-fulfillment. Indeed, no one is more self-fulfilled, in the most horrible sense possible, than the rapist, who takes Randian rhetoric to its logical ends, and see in the other person no\u00a0life outside of\u00a0the values and desires\u00a0which he already holds. That no one would actually advocate or desire this vision of human sexuality is obvious, but we have grown far too timid to check the growing academic behemoth that is our discourse on sexuality with what people actually want \u2014 to be loved, cherished, to give of ourselves, and to be called forth into love, rather than to eternally project our idiotic values onto the Cosmos, until every other being is made in our image and likeness.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I first\u00a0purchased\u00a0Atlas Shrugged with money I begged from a street corner, it was with no other intention than to delight in a world where\u00a0every problem is\u00a0the fault of poor people, Communists, and poor Communists. But Ayn Rand gave me so much\u00a0more than the economic ideology one expects of motorcycle-riding men in Viagra commercials, thinly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,72,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gender-theory-that-doesnt-suck","category-sex-2","category-the-erotic-phenomenon"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n