The Civilization of Illiteracy Part 21

Love and integration of s.e.xual experiences, in the manifold of acts through which hominids move from the self-perpetuation drive to new levels of expectation and new intensities of their relations, is also pragmatically conditioned.

Writing, as a practical experience of human self-const.i.tution, is conducive to relations between male and female that are different from random or selective mating. It is bound to continue along a time sequence severed from the natural cycle of mating, reshaped into the marriage contract and the family alliance. Literacy, as a particular practical experience of language, regulates the s.e.xual, as it regulates, in a variety of forms, all other aspects of human interaction. In the literate erotic experience, expectations pertinent to the pragmatics of a society in search of alternative means of survival evolve into norms. The inherited experience of female-male relations, affected through the experience of rituals, myths, and religion, is condensed in literacy. Encoding hierarchy, some languages place women in a secondary position. There is almost no language in which this does not happen. "Many men and women" is in Arabic ("rijaalan kafiiran wa-nisaa'aa") literally "men many women." In j.a.pan, women speak a j.a.panese reserved to their s.e.x alone. In the English wedding ceremony, the woman had to repeat that she would "love, honor, and obey" the husband. To this day, Orthodox Jewish men give thanks to G.o.d that He did "not make me a woman."

With the demise of literacy, the s.e.xual experience gets divorced from procreation. Statistics of survival in the past world of limited available resources, of natural catastrophes, of disease, etc., cease to play any role in the illiterate s.e.x encounters. s.e.xuality becomes a diversified human experience, subject to divisions, mediations, and definitely to the influence of the general dynamics of the world today. As markets become part of the global economy, so does s.e.xuality, in the sense that it allows for experiences which, in limited communities and within prescribed forms of ceremony (religious, especially), were simply not possible. From the earliest testimony regarding s.e.xual awareness up to the present, everything one can imagine in respect to s.e.x has been tried. So often placed under the veil of secrecy and mystery, s.e.x is no less frequently and vividly, to say the least, depicted. Yet a rhetorical question deserves to be raised: Does anyone know everything about s.e.x?

The land of s.e.xual ubiquity

Borges, in his own way, would have probably mapped the s.e.xual realm: Freud aside, to know everything about s.e.x would require that one be everyone who ever lived, lives, and eventually will live. Such a Borgesian map is indeed detailed but leads no further than ourselves. Connect all s.e.x-related matter that is on the Internet today- from on-line striptease and copulation to legitimate s.e.x education and the pa.s.sionate defense of love-and you will still not have more than a partial image of s.e.xuality.

When one considers all the books, videotapes, songs, radio and television talk-shows, private discussions and public sermons, the subject of s.e.x would still not be exhausted. If s.e.x were an individual matter-which it is, to a large extent-how could we meaningfully approach the subject without the risk of making it a personal confession, or worse, a pretentious discourse about something any author would unavoidably know only through the many and powerful filters of his or her culture? But maybe s.e.x is less private than we, based on prejudice, ignorance, or discretion, a.s.sume.

Ritualized s.e.x was a public event, sometimes culminating in orgies. It took a lot of taming, or acculturation, for s.e.x to become an intimate affair. Myths acknowledged s.e.xual habits and propagated rules coherent within the pragmatic framework of their expression. Like myths, many religions described acceptable and unacceptable behavior, inspired by the need to maintain the integrity of the community and to serve its goals of survival through lineage and proprietary rights, especially when ales began to dominate in society. Art, science, and business appropriated s.e.x as a subject of inquiry, or as a lucrative activity. s.e.x is a driving force for individuals and communities, an inescapable component of any experience, no matter how remote from s.e.x.

s.e.xual ubiquity and the parallel world of self-awareness, embodied in forms of expression, communication, and signification different from the actual s.e.xual act, are connected in very subtle ways. Once s.e.xual experiences are appropriated by culture, they become themselves a sign system, a symbolic domain, a language. Each s.e.xual encounter, or each unfulfilled intention, is but a phrase in this language written in the alphabet of gestures, odors, colors, smells, body movement, and rhythm.

We are the s.e.xual sign: first, in its indexical condition-a definite mark left, a genetic fingerprint testifying to our deepest secrets encoded in our genetic endowment; second, in iconicity, that is, in all the imitations of others as they const.i.tute their ident.i.ty in the experience of s.e.xuality. As many scholars have hastened to point out, we are also the sign in its symbolism. Indeed, phallic and v.u.l.v.ar symbols populate every sphere of human expression (and obsession). Nevertheless, our own self-const.i.tution in the s.e.xual act confirms a double ident.i.ty of the human species: nature, involved in the struggle for survival, where the sheer power of numbers and strategies for coping with everything destructive make for continuous selection (Darwin's law of natural selection); and culture, in which humans pursue a path of progressive self-definition, many times in conflict with the natural condition, or what Freud and his followers defined as the psychological dimension. The two are related, and under specific circ.u.mstances one dominates the other. In my opinion, Peirce's encompa.s.sing notion that the sign is the person who interprets it integrates the two levels.

In the pragmatic framework, experiences of self-const.i.tution result from the projection of natural characteristics in the activity performed, as well as from the awareness of the goals pursued, means incorporated, and meanings shared. Does the pragmatic perspective negate explanations originating from other, relatively limited, perspectives? Probably not. An example is furnished by the theories explaining s.e.xuality from the viewpoint of the conflict between s.e.x (libido) and self-preservation (ego) instincts, later subst.i.tuted by the conflict between life instincts (Eros) and the death instinct (Thanatos, self-destruction). Such theories introduce a language layer into a subject which, although acknowledged, was simply not discussed, except in religious terms (mainly as prohibitions), or in poetry. As with any other dualistic representation, such theories also end in speculation, opposing the experience to the scheme adopted. The scheme functions in extreme cases, which psychoa.n.a.lysis dealt with, but explains s.e.xual normalcy-if such a thing can be defined, or even exists-to a lesser extent, and inconsistently. The labels remain unchanged-Eros, Logos, Thanatos-while the world undergoes drastic alterations. Some of these alterations affect the very nature of the s.e.xual experience as human beings unfold under new pragmatic circ.u.mstances, some of extreme alienation.

The literate invention of the woman

The case I am trying to make is for the acknowledgment of the conflict between a new state of affairs in the world and our perspectives, limited or not by the literate model of s.e.xuality.

The current situation recalls the world before literacy, before the expectation of h.o.m.ogeneity, and before the attempt to derive order and complexity through linear progression. The atom of that s.e.xual world was the genderless human being, a generic existence not yet defined by s.e.xual differentiation. The male-female distinction came as a surprise-the realization of seeing the same and its negative, as in the case of a stone and the hole that remains after it is unearthed. Some read the genderless world as androcentric, because the generic human being it affirmed had a rather masculine bent. The significance of whatever such a genderless model embodied needs to be established in the pragmatic realm: how does difference result from same, if this same is an archetypal body with characteristics celebrated copiously over time? Painting, medical ill.u.s.tration, and diagrams, from the Middle Ages to the 17th century, focus on this genderless person, who seems today almost like a caricature.

The pragmatics of the time period just mentioned were conducive to a different image of genders. The sense of excitement a.s.sociated with human advances in knowing nature certainly spilled over into every other form of human experience, s.e.x included. A new scale of mankind required that the efficiency of human activity increase. This was a time of many innovations and groundbreaking scientific theories. It was also a time of diversified, though still limited, s.e.xual experiences, made possible by a framework of creativity different from the framework of the Middle Ages. Discoveries in many domains shook the framework of thinking according to Platonic archetypes, appropriated by the Catholic Church and used as explanatory models for all things living or dead. Pragmatics required that the one-s.e.x model be transcended because limits of efficiency (in thinking, medical practice, biological awareness, labor division) were reached within the model. The world of practical experiences of this time unfolded in the Industrial Revolution.

With literacy established, some s.e.xual att.i.tudes, consonant with the pragmatic circ.u.mstance, were enforced. Others were deemed unacceptable, and qualified as such in the literate language of church, state, and education. From the ubiquity of natural s.e.xuality to what would become s.e.xual self-awareness and s.e.xual culture, no matter how limited, the journey continued in leaps and bounds.

To acknowledge the woman as a biological ent.i.ty, with characteristics impossible to reduce to male characteristics, was not due to political pressure-as Thomas Lacquer, a remarkable writer on the subject, seemed to believe-but to pragmatic needs. It simply made sense to know how the body functions, to acknowledge morphology, to improve the quality of life, however vaguely acknowledged as such, by addressing the richness of the human being. Interestingly enough, the order in nature and matter found by science contradicted the new experience of variety, s.e.xuality included, made possible by the scientific revolution. A gulf opened between reality and appearance, motivating a healthy empirical program, well extended in the realm of s.e.xual encounters.

Back in the medium aevum, Maximus of Torino thought that "the source of all evil is the woman," probably embodied in the prototypical Eve. The social importance of women in the context of the empirical program, leading to the need for generalized literacy and better knowledge of the human body, discredited this prejudice of the Middle Ages, and of any age since. s.e.xuality made the transition to the two-s.e.x world with a vengeance.

Reproduction still dominated, since incipient industry needed more qualified workers in its own reproduction cycles, and productivity triggered the need to maintain consumption. But the unnatural dimension widened as well. The context was population growth, limited means of birth control, and levels of production and consumption characteristic of the pragmatics of high efficiency.

Those who think that the relation between industry, s.e.xuality, and reproduction is far-fetched should recall the birth policies of countries obsessed with industrial growth. In what was communist Romania, workers were needed to do what there were no machines to do: to produce for the benefit of the owners of the means of production. To a similar end, the Soviets handed out medals to mothers of many children. The government structure, bearing the characteristics of literacy, clashed with the harsh pragmatic framework existing in the former communist countries.

The result of the clash was that women avoided birth at all cost.

Ahead to the past

Longer life and the ability to enjoy the fruits of industry altered att.i.tudes towards s.e.x, especially reproduction.

s.e.xuality and marriage were postponed to the third decade of life as people acquired more training in their quest for a better life. Children were no longer a matter of continuity and survival. After decades of denying the strength of nature's drive towards self-perpetuation of a species, today we again recognize that s.e.xual life starts very early. But this realization should not have come as a surprise. Juliet's mother was worried that Juliet was not married at the age of 13.

Beyond the realization of early s.e.xuality, we notice that adolescents have multiple s.e.x partners, that the average American is bound to have 37 s.e.x partners in his or her lifetime, that prohibitions against sodomy are ignored, and that half the population is involved in group s.e.x. Statistics tell us that 25% of the adult population uses p.o.r.nography for arousal and another 30% uses contraptions bought in s.e.x shops; 33- 1/3% of married couples have extra-marital affairs; the average marriage lasts 5 years; the open practice of h.o.m.os.e.xuality increases 15% annually. Incest, b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, and s.e.xual practices usually defined as perverse are reaching unheard of proportions.

It's not that changes in s.e.xual experience take place, but that practices known from the earliest of times a.s.sert themselves, usually by appealing to the literate notion of freedom. As with many aspects of the change human society undergoes, we do not know what the impact of these s.e.x practices will be. Probably that is the most one can say in a context that celebrates permissiveness as one of the highest accomplishments of modern society. Such changes challenge our values and att.i.tudes, and make many wonder about the miserable state of morality. We already know about the cause and physical effects of AIDS. We do not even know how to wonder what other diseases might come upon humanity if the human relation with animals moves in the direction of b.e.s.t.i.a.lity. "Is this the price we pay for democracy?" is asked by people accused of having a conservative leaning. Enthusiasts celebrate an age of unprecedented tolerance, indulgence, and freedom from responsibility. But no matter to which end of the spectrum one leans, it should be clear that these considerations are part of the pragmatics of s.e.xuality in the civilization of illiteracy. Shorter cycles are characteristic not only of production, but also of s.e.xual encounters. Higher speed (however one wants to perceive it), non-linearity, freedom of choice from many options, and the transcendence of determinism and clear-cut dualistic distinctions apply to s.e.xuality as they apply to everything else we do.

Although it is a unique experience, impossible to transmit or compare, and very difficult to separate from the individual, s.e.x is widely discussed. Media, politicians, and social scientists have transformed it into a public issue; hypocrites turn it into an object of derision; professionals in s.e.xual disorders make a good living from them. s.e.x is the subject of economic prognosis, legal dispute, moral evaluation, astrology, art, sports, and so on. One should see what is made public on the World Wide Web. Highly successful networked pages of p.o.r.nographic magazines are visited daily by millions of people, as are pages of scientific and medical advice. Questions referring to s.e.xuality in its many forms of expression increase day by day. Questions about s.e.x have also extended to areas where the s.e.xual seems (or seemed) excluded-science, technology, politics, the military. For example, the contraceptive pill, which has changed the world more than its inventors ever dreamed of, and more than society could have predicted, has also changed part of the condition of the s.e.xual.

The abortion pill (with a name-RU486-that reminds us of computer chips) only accentuates the change, as do many scientific and technological discoveries conceived with the purpose of s.e.xually stimulating the individual or augmenting s.e.xual pleasure.

Emanc.i.p.ation-social, political, economic, as well as emanc.i.p.ation of women, children, minorities, nations-has also had an impact on s.e.xual relations. As such, emanc.i.p.ation results from different pragmatic needs and possibilities, and reflects the weaker grip of literate norms and expectations. Emanc.i.p.ation has reduced some of s.e.xuality's inherent, and necessary, tension. It freed the s.e.xual experience from most of the constraints it was subjected to in a civilization striving for order and control. Still, individual erotic experiences have often culminated not in the expected revelations, stimulated by the use of drugs or not, but in deception, even desperation. This is explained by the fact that, more than any activity that becomes a goal in itself, s.e.xuality without the background of emotional contentment const.i.tutes individuals as insular, alienated from each other, feeling used but not fulfilled. Lines of a similar sway were written by opponents of s.e.xual emanc.i.p.ation, and as a suggestion of a price humans pay for excess. These lines were articulated also by firm believers in tolerance, free spirits who hardly entertain the thought of punishment (divine or otherwise).

Concerns over human s.e.xuality result from the role of scale and the erotic dimension. Within a smaller scale, one does not feel lost or ignored. Small-scale experiences are constraining, but they also return a sense of care and belonging. The broader the scale, the less restrictive the influence of others, but also the more diminished the recognition of individuality. In the modern megalopolis, the only limits to one's s.e.xual wishes are the limits of the individual. Nonetheless, at such a scale, individuality is continuously negated, absorbed in the anonymity of mediocre encounters and commercialism. The realization that scale relates not only to how and how much we produce, and to changes in human interaction, but also to deeper levels of our existence is occasioned by the s.e.xual experience of self-const.i.tution in a framework of permissiveness that nullifies value. The human scale and the altered underlying structure of our practical experiences affect drives, in particular the s.e.xual drive, as well as reproduction, in a world subjected to a population explosion of exponential proportions.

The entire evolution under consideration, with all its positive and negative consequences, has a degree of necessity which we will not understand better by simply hiding behind moral slogans or acknowledging extreme s.e.xual patterns. No person and no government could have prevented erotic emanc.i.p.ation, which is part of a much broader change affecting the human condition in its entirety. The civilization of illiteracy is representative of this change insofar as it defines a content for human experiences of self-const.i.tution, including those related to s.e.xuality, which mark a discontinuity in s.e.xual patterns. s.e.x dreams turn into s.e.x scripts on virtual reality programs within which one can make love to a virtual animal, plant, to oneself, projected into the virtual s.p.a.ce and time of less than clear distinctions between what we were told is right and wrong.

Telephone s.e.x probably provides just as much arousal, but against fees that the majority of callers can hardly afford. Less than surprising, lesbians and gays make their presence known on the Internet more than in literate publications. Discussions evolve, uncensored, on matters that can be very intimate, described in t.i.tillating terms, sometimes disquietingly vulgar, obscene, or base, by literate standards. But there are also exchanges on health, AIDS prevention, and reciprocal support. Gay and lesbian s.e.xuality is freely expressed, liberated from the code language used in the personal columns of literary publications.

Freud, modern h.o.m.os.e.xuality, AIDS

The G.o.dfather of modern h.o.m.os.e.xuality is Freud (independent of his own s.e.xual orientation), insofar as s.e.xual expression remains a symbolic act. h.o.m.os.e.xuality, evading natural selection and eliciting acceptance as an expression of a deeply rooted human complex, is part of the ubiquitous s.e.xual experience of the species. The fact that h.o.m.os.e.xuality, doc.u.mented in some of the earliest writings as a taboo, along with incest and b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, predated Freud does not contradict this a.s.sertion. h.o.m.os.e.xual Eros has a different finality than heteros.e.xual Eros. The extent of h.o.m.os.e.xuality under the structural circ.u.mstances of the civilization of illiteracy is not only the result of increased tolerance and permissiveness. Neither is it merely the result of freedom resulting from an expanded notion of liberal democracy.

It is biologically relevant, and as a biological expression, it is projected into practical experiences const.i.tutive of individuals, men or women, acknowledged as different because their practical experience of self-const.i.tution identifies them as different. Their experience, though necessarily integrated in today's global world, has many consequences for them and for others.

While research has yet to confirm the hypothesis of structural peculiarities in the brain and genes of h.o.m.os.e.xuals, the specifics of the self-const.i.tution process through practical experiences in a world subject to natural selection cannot be overlooked. Genetics tells us that the borderline between genders is less clear-cut than we a.s.sumed. Be this as it may, h.o.m.os.e.xuality takes place under a different set of biological and social expectations than do heteros.e.xuality and other forms of s.e.xuality. It is an act in itself, with its own goal, with no implicit commitment to offspring, and thus different in its intrinsic set of responsibilities and their connection to the social contract. But for this matter, so is heteros.e.xuality under the protection of the pill, the condom, or any other birth control device or method, abortion included.

A different sense of future, moreover an expectation of instant gratification, is established in the s.e.xual experience of h.o.m.os.e.xuality. Exactly this characteristic acknowledges the underlying structure of the pragmatics of high efficiency that makes h.o.m.os.e.xual experiences possible, and even economically acceptable. Acknowledged also is the scale of humankind.

Survival is much less affected by fruitless s.e.xuality than within a limited scale of existence and activity. The freedom gained through birth control methods and the freedom to practice non-reproductive s.e.xual relations, such as h.o.m.os.e.xual love, are in some ways similar. It is impossible not to notice that the development under discussion displays a s.h.i.+ft from a domain of vulnerability in regard to the species-any imbalance in procreation, under conditions of severe selection, affects the chances of survival-to the domain of the individual.

The extreme case of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), which is transmitted s.e.xually (among other ways), reintroduced moral concerns at a time when morality was almost dropped from erotic language and expelled from the human erotic experience.

The frenzy of s.e.xual freedom and the confusion resulting from the spread of AIDS present contradictory images of a much broader development that affects human erotic behavior, and probably much more than that. n.o.body, no doomsayer on record, whether coming from a literate perspective or already integrated in the pragmatics of the civilization of illiteracy, predicted the new vulnerability which AIDS makes so painfully evident, inside and outside the h.o.m.os.e.xual segment of the population. The integrated global nature of human life brought Africa, with its large AIDS-infected population, close to countries that reached a different (not to use the word higher) level of civilization.

AIDS impacted on the sense of invulnerability, a.s.sumed by individuals in industrialized countries as almost a right. This invulnerability is now drastically tested, despite the enormous effort to address AIDS. The disease suddenly put globality in a new light. Statistics connect the sense of danger experienced in Hollywood by HIV-infected movie stars, fas.h.i.+on designers, and dancers to the desperation of the disenfranchised in the first world-drug addicts, the urban poor, and prost.i.tutes-and to the disenfranchised and working poor of the Third World.

Far from being a new phenomenon, the h.o.m.os.e.xual and lesbian preference, or lifestyle as it is euphemistically called, reaches a status of controversial acceptance in the civilization of illiteracy. The paradox is that while the choice of h.o.m.os.e.xuality over heteros.e.xuality is facilitated by the pragmatic context of the civilization of illiteracy, the activism of h.o.m.os.e.xuality solicits recognition within the structures characteristic of literacy. It is very ironic that gay activism, stimulated by the many consequences of the AIDS epidemic, attempts to reverse time, fighting for equal access to exactly those means in which the values and prejudices that condemn h.o.m.os.e.xuality are embedded. It looks like h.o.m.os.e.xuals want to rewrite the book or books in which they are d.a.m.ned, instead of freeing themselves from them. h.o.m.os.e.xuals want their voice to be heard in church and politics. They want their cause present in ethical writings, and their rights encoded in new laws and rules. They want to enlighten others by making their experience known as art, literature, and social discourse. The genetic condition of the h.o.m.os.e.xual choice needs to be considered together with the variety of contexts pertaining to the diversity of the civilization of illiteracy that make its unfolding possible.

There is a need to be aware that, between the function of procreation and divergent s.e.xual behavior, a whole gamut of human cultural experience continues to unfold and challenges settled standards. This experience goes beyond language and the literate structure of a linear, sequential, hierarchic, centralized, deterministic pragmatics of limited choice. Human language, as a projection of human beings living within a context appropriate to their self-preservation and development, partic.i.p.ated in the taming of our s.e.xual drive. Illiteracy leads to its endless diversification, affecting s.e.xuality in all its manifestations, such as patterns of mobility and settlement, family and community life, social rules, and the encoding of values in moral, economic, and educational systems.

Orality and s.e.xuality were characterized by immediateness, and a reduced sense of s.p.a.ce and time. s.e.x equaled instinct. With writing, and thus the possibility of what later would become literacy, a new set of underlying elements was acknowledged.

s.e.xuality was subjected to the experience of accepted rules-the do's and don'ts appropriate to expectations of efficiency, and their resulting values, corresponding to the scale of humankind and the natural condition. Reproduction still dominated s.e.xuality, while rules of optimal human interaction, encoded in religion or social expectations, started to permeate erotic behavior. To a great extent, language in its literate form expresses the awareness of the various erotic dimensions as they were socially acknowledged at any given time. Literacy enrolled s.e.xuality in the quest for higher productivity and sustained consumption characteristic of the pragmatics a.s.sociated with the Industrial Revolution. Once conditions making literacy necessary are overruled by new conditions, s.e.xuality undergoes corresponding changes. Basically, s.e.xuality seems to return to immediateness, as it integrates many mediating elements.

s.e.xuality unfolds in an unrestricted set of varieties, escaping some of its natural determination. In keeping with the shorter and shorter cycles of human activity, s.e.xuality turns into an experience of transitory encounters. Since it is a form of human expression, it ascertains its condition as yet another sign system, or language, among the many partic.i.p.ating in the practical experiences of our new pragmatic context. It now bridges dramatically between life and death, in a world where the currency of both life and death is, for all practical purposes, devaluated.

s.e.x and creativity

Experts from fields as different as brain research, cognitive science, and physiology agree that a distinct similarity between the practical experience of self- const.i.tution in s.e.xual acts and in creative efforts of art, scientific discovery, and political performance can be established. It seems that they all involve a progression, reach a peak, experienced as enormous pleasure and relief, and are followed by a certain feeling of emptiness. Like any creative experience, the erotic experience is one of expression. To express means to const.i.tute oneself authentically, and to project hope that the experience can impact others. From this stems the possible language, or semiotics, of the erotic: how it is expressed, what the erotic vocabulary (of sounds, words, gestures, etc.) and grammar are. The semiosis of the erotic includes the partic.i.p.ation of the language of s.e.xual relations.h.i.+ps, without being limited to it.

Having reached this understanding, we can apply it to the observation that h.o.m.o Eroticus is a subject who continuously negates naturalness (from what and how we eat to how we dress, etc.) while simultaneously regretting the loss. Not surprisingly, s.e.xuality is continued in the practice of producing, reading, viewing, and criticizing erotic literature, printed images, video, film doc.u.mentaries, CD-ROM, or virtual reality. Real- time interactive erotic multimedia captures even more attention. In parallel, humans try to be authentic, unique, and free in their intimate sphere. They scan through image- dominated books, some more than vulgar, subscribe to magazines, face their own s.e.xuality on videotapes, register for s.e.x initiation seminars, or take advantage of group s.e.x encounters. Millions land on p.o.r.nographic Websites or create their own s.e.x messages in the interconnected world. They do all this in an attempt to free themselves from natural necessity and from the conformist frame of literate Eros, including the many complexes explaining painful real or imaginary failures.

Living in an environment in which science and technology effectively support human experiences of overcoming the constraints of s.p.a.ce, time, and material existence, humans freed s.e.xuality from the influence of natural cycles. These, as we know, can even be altered as pragmatic conditions might require for sportswomen and ballerinas. New totems and taboos populate this environment in which Eros, as a reminder of distant phases of anthropological evolution, continues to be present. Like any other creative act, the s.e.xual act involves imagination, and the urge to explore the unknown. It is irrepeatable, yet another instance of discovering one's ident.i.ty in the uniqueness of the experience.

Although continuously programmed through endlessly refined means, humans maintain a nostalgia for the authentic, but accept, more often unconsciously than not, a mediocre syntax of the s.e.xual impressed upon them from the world of celebrity and success.

This syntax is a product of erotic experts, writers, and imagemakers. It is a contentless semantics-the meaning of erotic encounters fades in the meaning of the circ.u.mstance-and an absurd pragmatics-s.e.xuality as yet another form of compet.i.tion, deliriously celebrated by ma.s.s media.

While artificial insemination was a scientific breakthrough, it is also symptomatic of the process a.n.a.lyzed here, in particular of the changes in the underlying structure leading to the civilization of illiteracy. Artificial insemination is part of this background; so is the entire genetic research that resulted in our ability to design not only new plants and animals with expected characteristics, but also human beings. Specialization reached a point where the market can satisfy a new type of consumption, in this case represented by artificial insemination, under acceptable economic conditions. Whether a pill, or aesthetic insemination, will ever make those who desire to be artists become creative is still to be seen. (The same holds true for science, politics, and any other creative career.) But we have already seen the dissemination of tools (mainly computer- based) that give many the illusion of becoming abruptly talented, as some women discover that they are abruptly fecund because they found the right pill, or the right gynecologist, to make the impossible happen.

As part of contemporary society's generalized illiteracy, erotic illiteracy is eloquently ill.u.s.trated by the pervasiveness of s.e.x in art. The transition from p.o.r.nography to artistic p.o.r.nography corresponds to the search of those human obsessions that legitimize art's appropriation of territories considered taboo.

As some see it, once freed from the constraints implicit in the pragmatic framework relying on literacy, art and s.e.xuality intensified their reciprocal influence. Aesthetic concerns changed from elaboration and method to improvisation and process.

The expectation of education or therapeutics gave way to triggering excitement, more obliquely s.e.xual excitement.

Striptease has moved from the back alleys of bigoted enjoyment into movie theaters, museums, prime time television, the Internet. And so has the language of arousal, the voice of pleasure, the groan of post-coital exhaustion, or disappointment from telep.o.r.n services to the pay-per-session Websites, where credit card numbers are submitted without fear of their being used beyond payment for the service. In certain countries still under a literate regimen, the problem of p.o.r.nography has been solved by administrative prohibitions; in others, a solution arises from blind market logic.

The market acknowledges the various aspects of s.e.xuality in the civilization of illiteracy through products and services geared towards all those involved. Many market semioses work in this direction-from the p.o.r.nographic sites on the Internet to the red light districts where risk can be generously rewarded. Sometimes the market's attention leads to unexpected changes in what is marketed, and how previous acceptable codes of s.e.xual behavior are revised and new codes publicly sanctioned. The many forms of advertis.e.m.e.nt catering to h.o.m.os.e.xuals, s.e.xploitation, gendered s.e.xuality, group experiences, while never using one qualifier or another, are quite explicit in identifying their public and the patterns of behavior characteristic for this public. Means used for this purpose correspond to those of the civilization of illiteracy. There is, probably, no other medium of more precise narrow casting of s.e.xual wares, from legitimate to scandalously base, than that of the networked world.

In the framework of literacy, the erotic (as all other creative contributions) was idealized in many respects. Language projected the erotic experience as one that transcended s.e.xuality, leading to stable and selective male-female relations.h.i.+ps within the boundaries of the family characteristic of industrial society. In time, various value representations, symptomatic of a peculiar understanding of the differences between man and woman, and stored in the language of customs and rituals, took over the substance of the erotic and made form predominant. Literacy and the ceremonies celebrating the erotic-especially marriage and wedding anniversaries-are connected far beyond what most would accept on first reflection.

The fact that the civilization of illiteracy took over these ceremonies, and created a service sector able to provide a subst.i.tute for an instance that used to signify commitment only proves how ubiquitous the expectation of high efficiency is. The vows that made marriage a social event, sanctioning the implicit s.e.xual component of the contract, and sometimes celebrating more prejudice than tolerance, are expectations expressed in literate language and submitted for public validation. Whether newlyweds knew what they signed-or did not know how to sign-does not change the fact that the inst.i.tution was acknowledged in the integrating reality of language.

Equal access to erotic mediocrity

Once the h.o.m.ogeneous image of society breaks, and s.e.xuality more than previously turns into another market commodity (prost.i.tution, in its hetero- and h.o.m.os.e.xual forms), once morals and direct commitments are subst.i.tuted by rules of efficiency and population control, the language of the erotic is emptied. It is useless to accuse people of lower moral standards without understanding that, under new conditions of human experience, these standards simply embody ways of achieving the efficiency that this civilization of illiteracy strives for. To own your partner, as the marriage certificate is interpreted by some, and to buy pleasure or perversion as one buys food or clothing, are two different contexts for the self-const.i.tution of the individual. It is much cheaper-and I cringe to state this so bluntly-to buy s.e.xual pleasure, regardless how limited and vulgar it can be, than to commit oneself to a life of reciprocal responsibility, and unavoidable moments of inequity. The economic equation is so obvious that facing it, one ends up discouraged.