Lost in the Cosmos

the flesh. He is shorter than you thought. His raincoat is thrown over his shoulder. Hands in pockets, he stops to look in the window of Abercrombie & Fitch. His face takes on a characteristic expression, jaws clenched, eyes dark and luminous, like young Corleone in The Godfather. The sight of Pacino in the flesh acting like Pacino on the screen gives you a peculiar pleasure. Then you become aware that though Pacino is looking at the articles in the window display, he is also checking his own reflection in the glass. This, too, gives you pleasure, though of a different sort. Explain the difference. (Hint: The esthetic pleasure of seeing an instance of a symbol, Pacino in the flesh at Abercrombie’s, measure up and conform to the symbol itself, Pacino on the screen, and the different pleasure of seeing the instance, Pacino, rescued from the symbol and restored to human creatureliness, the self in all its vagary, individuality, and folly. The first case: Ah, there is Pacino acting just like Corleone! The second case: Ah, there is Pacino acting just like me!)

(8) The Promiscuous Self:
    Why is it that One’s Self often not only does not Prefer Sex with one’s Chosen Mate, Chosen for His or Her Attractiveness and Suitability, even when the Mate is a Person well known to one, knowing of one, loved by one, with a Life, Time, and Family in common, but rather prefers Sex with a New Person, even a Total Stranger, or even Vicariously through Pornography

    A RECENT SURVEY in a large city reported that 95 percent of all video tapes purchased for home consumption were Insatiable, a pornographic film starring Marilyn Chambers.
    Of all sexual encounters on soap opera, only 6 percent occur between husband and wife.
    In some cities of the United States, which now has the highest divorce rate in the world, the incidence of divorce now approaches 60 percent of married couples.
    A recent survey showed that the frequency of sexual intercourse in married couples declined 90 percent after three years of marriage.
    On a talk show a female sexologist reported that a favorite fantasy of American women, second only to oral sex, was having sex with two strange men at once.
    According to the president of the North American Swing Club Association, only 3 percent of married couples who are swingers get divorces, as compared with over 50 percent of non-swinging couples.
    In large American cities, lunch-break liaisons between business men and women have become commonplace.
    Sexual activity and pregnancy in teenagers have increased dramatically in the last twenty years, in both those who have received sex education in schools and those who have not. In some cities, more babies are born to single women than to married women.
    A radio psychotherapist reported that nowadays many young people who disdain marriage, preferring “relationships” and “commitments,” speak of entering into simultaneous relationships with a second or third person as a growth experience.
    In San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park, to the outrage of local middle-class residents, homosexuals cruise and upon encountering a sexual prospect, always a stranger, exchange a word or a sign and disappear into the bushes. In a series of interviews, Buena Vista homosexuals admitted to sexual encounters with an average of more than 500 strangers.
    A survey by a popular magazine reported that the incidence of homosexuality in the United States had surpassed that of the Weimar Republic and is approaching that of England.
    Question: Do Americans, as well as other Westerners, prefer sexual variety, both heterosexual and homosexual, because
    (a) The sexual revolution has occurred, which is nothing else but the overthrow of the unnatural repressions and taboos of 1,900 years of Christianity and the exploration of the free and healthy practices of a sexually liberated society.
    (b) Humans are biologically as promiscuous as chimpanzees. It is only the cultural constraints of society, probably imposed by the economic necessities of an agricultural society, which required a monogamous union and children as a reliable labor source.
    (c) No, man is by nature monogamous, as ethnologists have demonstrated in most cultures. It is Western society which is disintegrating, to a degree remarkably similar to the decline of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, when similar practices were reported.
    (d) No, Western man is promiscuous because promiscuous sexuality is the obverse or flip side of Christianity