The speakers delve into Thomas Nagel's essay on sexual perversion, examining his attempt to provide a psychological account of the concept. They discuss the arguments against the notion of perversion and explore the criteria that determine whether a practice is considered perverse. The chapter also explores the metaphysical philosophy behind the concept of sexual perversion.
David and Tamler play the old hits – Thomas Nagel and sex robots. In the main segment we talk about Nagel’s essay “Sexual Perversion”, a surprising essay on many fronts (Sartre, erotic fiction, conceptual analysis, much more). What’s the nature of sexual desires? Can we say that some sexual interactions are perversions? Which ones? Can we have a perverse form of a hunger? Plus, a new study examines attitudes about sexual assault by probing for intuitions on assaulting sex robots. It gets more confusing from there.
Links:
Grigoreva, A. D., Rottman, J., & Tasimi, A. (2024). When does “no” mean no? Insights from sex robots. Cognition, 244, 105687.
Nagel, T. (1969). Sexual perversion. The Journal of Philosophy, 5-17.
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