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Key problems in the history of sex, love and sexuality. Part 2: Victorian captivity and modern victories

Authors: Tagirov F.V. Published: 25.12.2019
Published in issue: #6(80)/2019  
DOI: 10.18698/2306-8477-2019-6-633  
Category: The Humanities in Technical University | Chapter: Philosophy Science  
Keywords: Victorian era, history, control, sex, sexuality, sexual revolution, hubris, emancipation, eros

The paper focuses on the pivotal points of the organization of eroticism, love and sexuality in the Victorian era, as well as in the era of individualization and emancipation, which followed the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The main problems of Victorian time are decency, status, health, and accumulation. The study shows how the values of the bourgeois class become dominant in the described society, while family relationships, manifestations of sexuality and expressions of love are under unofficial yet close control of the social environment and are required to comply with status ideas about decency and moderation. Medicine is turning into a “new religion”, and health care, as understood by that era, it takes the form of forced control in terms of sex life in general and female sexuality in particular. One of the main imperatives of the bourgeois way of thinking is the principle of utilitarianism - the exclusion of unproductive waste and the accumulation of wealth - which also directly affects both the social and intimate aspects of relations between the sexes. The key problem points of eros in modern society are analyzed: emancipation, temporality, “marketability”, risk management. It is revealed how the general tendency toward emancipation simultaneously leads the subject of sexuality to freedom and the need for an ongoing search for his or her own identity. Furthermore, the study shows that, together with the weakening of stable social structures, the goals that this subject sets, as well as his victories, tend to be more temporal, and that together with the “victory of the market over morality”, relations associated with pleasure become primarily of a marketable nature. The issue of new forms of control, established in the world of liberated sexuality, is examined as well. Summarizing conclusions are made regarding the non-linear nature of the history of eros and general philosophical foundations that predetermine erotic practices and their interpretation in different eras. The theoretical basis of this study is the research of Z. Bauman, M. Foucault, R. Muchembled, P. Bruckner, E. Giddens, J. Baudrillard, A. Toffler, B. Russell, W. Sombart, J. Le Goff and N. Truong, R. Tannahill, J.-С. Milner, and several other authors. The study is based on the principles of comparative, socio-philosophical, philosophical-historical and historical-philosophical methodology. Part I of the article was published in issue 5 of the journal, 2019


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