Questions & Quotes

2 - “Although the disturbance of sex has many histories and manifestations, here I stress affect’s role. The affects around sex make it difficult to think about. So when examining sex, it helps to weave theory and feeling together by splicing theoretical and philosophical reflections with clinical retrospection.” 4 - “My effort to limn clinicians’ sexual unease is part of a larger project, individual and collective, of reconsidering sexuality postclassically, beyond but not exclusive of the oedipal, inclusive of narcissism but registering culture too.”9  - “Since sexuality happens not only within but between psyches, its focus is not always clear. Sex may be for me, it may be for you; it may be for us, it may be for someone else.”12 - “No wonder it is embarrassing to talk of the pleasure/pain of sex. Think about the grunts, moans, and screams, the farts, the sound and feeling of sticky membrane on sticky membrane. And I haven’t even mentioned taste. Eew! “ 15 - “The Eew! Factor, and certainly clinicians’ sexual unease, may be multiply inflected by gender, sexual preference, time of life, character, cohabitational status, and certainly other features.”Questions: Again, I had trouble fully grasping what Dimen was trying to say. How does this fit into the literature on gender and sexuality? I agree, that affect is an important part of sex. I also agree that disgust and embarrassment are important aspects of sex. I guess what I’m struggling to understand was how these points fit into ongoing debates in psychoanalysis? What are the implications of this piece on scholarship on psychoanalysis, culture, and sexuliaty? Is this article considered particularly valuable because it highlighted the unpleasant affects of sex?