Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: In the experience of aphrodisia ... act, desire, and pleasure formed an ensemble whose elements were distinguishable certainly, but closely bound to one another.8 Thus in the experience of aphrodisia-that is, "the acts, gestures, and contacts that produce a certain form of pleasure" 9 there is a relationship between the act itself, the pleasure it produces, and the desire for a repeat of the act.Foucault refers to the three as an "ensemble"-it is to this ensemble that I apply the term "erotics".Foucault draws upon ancient evidence (Plato's Philebus) to trace the relationship between the act, pleasure, and desire.It is not, Foucault asserts, pleasure, desire, or the sexual act, individually, which the Ancient Greeks regulate in their ethics, but rather the "dynamic relationship" which continuously transports an individual among the three.10 The danger to ethical integrity lies not in pleasure, desire, or the act individually, but in the relationship between the three.As a result of this relationship one is compelled to repeat the cycle of act-pleasure-desire ad infinitum.Ethical philosophy seeks to control erotics by regulating this relationship.In the Christian era, Foucault observes, the erotic ensemble was dismantled by the disappearance of pleasure, and the focus on desire as an ethical evil.In the ancient world, Foucault claims, this dynamic relationship among the elements of the erotic ensemble was regulated by controlling and monitoring the sexual act, and by extension the site of the act, namely, the body.11 But this is not quite the whole of it.An examination of the ancient philosophical schools will reveal, rather, that their ethical philosophies attempt to regulate the dynamic relationship by either 8 Foucault (1985) 42. 9 Ibid.40.
Author: Yasuko Taoka
Institution: The Ohio State University
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2603223403