Page 82 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 82
from walter benjamin to the end of cinema
into debate. Examples that directly or indirectly refer to sexual pleasure
are above all perceived by the adversaries of free choice.5 Advocates of free
choice confront the adversaries with the sociological, legal, and political ar-
gumentation, which points out that a direct link between free choice and
phantasmatical unrestrained sexual life is practically non-existent. In any
seriously prepared data on abortion, “ordinary” family women represent
the largest proportion among all women who make use of the procedure
of abortion. Those women, who may be marked as “promiscuous”, appear
only in a marginal – almost insignificant – ratio. Finally, all data clearly in-
dicate that abortion is one of the instruments of a control of reproduction,
which makes sense considering the changing role of women in the society
and in the economic and political systems. Considering these facts, it seems
odd that adversaries of free choice, almost without any exception, insist on
their phantasm of abortion as the cause of supposed widespread over-indul-
gence in sexual activities. Why is it so? The answer is not easy to be found,
but it should be sought in the origins of the phantasm of sexual pleasure.
As we know, and especially taking into account catholic and some oth-
er religious terminology, sexual pleasure is to the extent, in which it does
not serve procreative purpose, marked as the most sinful among all possi-
ble pleasures. However, this fact alone cannot explain fully why abortion
is solely such an important point in the constitution of the right wing and
conservative ideologies. It is known that abortion, as almost the only meth-
od of controlling the birth rate (along with big health risks for women),
existed already in previous centuries but it did not cause any significant
political response (Petchesky, 1986). The reason is not so hard to see. Con-
sidering the organisation of the family, especially in the 19th century, from
which at least some raw data on abortion are accessible, it is obvious that
what had been going on has been happening in the framework of the bour-
geois patriarchal family.
Sexual Pleasure is Male
“Non-functional” sexual pleasure was in such a patriarchal society clearly
regulated by a number of moral, ideological, religious and even quite decid-
edly legal mechanisms, and accordingly, forbidden to women. A woman,
as a wedded person and mother, simply was not a subject of sexual pleas-
5 The declaration of the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995),
which includes a clause on the right of women to have a satisfying sexual life, should
have brought about a turn in the stalemate discussions concerning abortion. Of
course, it did not.
80
into debate. Examples that directly or indirectly refer to sexual pleasure
are above all perceived by the adversaries of free choice.5 Advocates of free
choice confront the adversaries with the sociological, legal, and political ar-
gumentation, which points out that a direct link between free choice and
phantasmatical unrestrained sexual life is practically non-existent. In any
seriously prepared data on abortion, “ordinary” family women represent
the largest proportion among all women who make use of the procedure
of abortion. Those women, who may be marked as “promiscuous”, appear
only in a marginal – almost insignificant – ratio. Finally, all data clearly in-
dicate that abortion is one of the instruments of a control of reproduction,
which makes sense considering the changing role of women in the society
and in the economic and political systems. Considering these facts, it seems
odd that adversaries of free choice, almost without any exception, insist on
their phantasm of abortion as the cause of supposed widespread over-indul-
gence in sexual activities. Why is it so? The answer is not easy to be found,
but it should be sought in the origins of the phantasm of sexual pleasure.
As we know, and especially taking into account catholic and some oth-
er religious terminology, sexual pleasure is to the extent, in which it does
not serve procreative purpose, marked as the most sinful among all possi-
ble pleasures. However, this fact alone cannot explain fully why abortion
is solely such an important point in the constitution of the right wing and
conservative ideologies. It is known that abortion, as almost the only meth-
od of controlling the birth rate (along with big health risks for women),
existed already in previous centuries but it did not cause any significant
political response (Petchesky, 1986). The reason is not so hard to see. Con-
sidering the organisation of the family, especially in the 19th century, from
which at least some raw data on abortion are accessible, it is obvious that
what had been going on has been happening in the framework of the bour-
geois patriarchal family.
Sexual Pleasure is Male
“Non-functional” sexual pleasure was in such a patriarchal society clearly
regulated by a number of moral, ideological, religious and even quite decid-
edly legal mechanisms, and accordingly, forbidden to women. A woman,
as a wedded person and mother, simply was not a subject of sexual pleas-
5 The declaration of the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995),
which includes a clause on the right of women to have a satisfying sexual life, should
have brought about a turn in the stalemate discussions concerning abortion. Of
course, it did not.
80
