Sexuality

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani approaches sexuality through enjoyment and its social conditions. Against Sollers, who believes it was discovered in 1968, he argues that sexual freedom has always existed, reserved for elites. In his view, what is new is its extension to the middle strata, made possible by a level of means won through workers' struggles1. He treats eroticism as a class element: the obscenity of X-rated films lies in their glamour element, which tells immigrant workers that one needs money to enjoy2. In Rousseau he points to an enjoyment of measure, sublimated, and a diffuse, non-genital sensuality. In Mozart, Despina and Cherubino show a happy sexuality that the puritan Glenn Gould cannot bear3. With Clouscard, he distinguishes desire from the ideology of desire, which reduces the infinity of desire to commercial trinkets. He links puritanism of Protestant origin to the formula "everything is permitted, but nothing is possible"1. With Marx, he concludes that enjoyment becomes happiness when the productive forces make it possible to extend it to the people3.

1. 1Attention aux contresens !! Clouscard et l'idéologie du désir, en hommage au Précepteur14 Jan 2023
2. 2Au bistrot avec Pagani : partie 219 Jun 2016
3. 3Musicosophie 14. Mozart derechef7 Feb 2021

Introduction produced automatically from the 3 sessions on this theme, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the sessions.