Desire as Arousing and Reciprocal

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Desire involves contributing to the partner's further embodiment, enhancing the sense of self for both parties. It's crucial for the partner to be genuinely aroused rather than only by the awareness of one's desire. The arousal is partly derived from the other's arousal, leading to a realization of being subjectively arousing and being able to arouse others. This mutual understanding and reciprocal arousal awaken something related to sexual desire, emphasizing the recursive understanding of the other person's mind in human interactions.

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.