Beauty and sex

Guy Sircello

pp. 225-239

in: Donald Gustafson, Bangs Tapscott (eds), Body, mind, and method, Deventer, Kluwer, 1979

Abstract

The question is: Why does the beauty of beautiful things¹ arouse sexual feelings in us? Not desire - always - but at least sexual feelings? I listen to a gorgeously sensuous passage in a Vivaldi violin concerto, am caught by it, savour it; and soon the surface of my tongue is tingling, and the feeling passes down my body to my nipples and then my groin. There is no desire here — What could desire aim for? — but there is no doubt about the sexual feeling.