Lacan: Autoeroticism and the Sexual Function of Disgust

SUMMARY

Jacques Lacan, known as the “French Freud”, has famously argued that “there’s no such thing as a sexual relationship”. According to his equally famous follower, philosopher Alain Badiou, this means that “in sex, you are really in a relationship with yourself via the mediation of the other”. On this account, all sex is just masturbation by means of other people, driven exclusively by auto-erotic desire, and the only thing that could cause us to discriminate in regard to whom we want to ’use for sex’ is sexual repulsion, the ‘disgust’ we feel for some sexual objects but not for others. In light of the Lacanian thesis, ‘disgust’ may be something functionally indispensable; a defining characteristic of human sexuality.

https://culturalanalysis.net/2018/08/26/lacan-autoeroticism-and-the-sexual-function-of-disgust/