Os significados de Eros e Afrodite

Abstract

This paper discusses the different meanings of sexuality and love: biological, emotional and corporal. The main biological influence shaping sexual life seems to be Sexual Selection as described by Darwin. Darwin viewed secondary sexual characters, aswell as the taste each sex showed for the other, as a result of Selection in relation to sex. In a great measure the intelligence and mental powers shown by man seem also to be due to Sexual Selection, as man is a social animal who finds his greatest life challenge in the struggle with other individuals of the same sex (this being especially true for the males of the human species). The Selection in relation to Sex is rendered manifest in man by the Oedipus complex, as Freud attempted to show in his book Totem and Taboo. The Oedipus complex has both to be experienced (as a form of Sexual Selection) and gone beyond (getting man away from Sexual Selection) if man is to attain his complete development. Sexuality derives a great part of its strength from the emotions. They help to motivate man in relation to sex, because instincts. Various oppositions can be described in what concerns the sexual-toned emotions. The opposition between narcissism and dependency, between fore-pleasure and end-pleasure. All these emotional components are worked through and find a synthesis through their psychic representation. Finally there is a group of bodily sensations that are causes of variability in human sexual feeling. These bodily sensations are issued, according to our hypothesis, from primitive stages of development (Mahler’s autistic phase). External influences increase fixation at this phase of primitive feeling. The end-result may be a disconnected sensuousness, where the sexual partner plays only a small part. Thus auto-erotism, perverse trends, pornography, attention to isolated parts of the body, become prominent.