Have the Oddities and Origins of Sexuality Been Revealed Correctly? Polemical notes

Abstract

The article discusses the article "Oddities and origins of human sexuality." It outlines the concept of sexuality, which is quite popular in our time, based on the concepts of a biological approach and psychoanalysis. The main provisions put forward and proved by the author of the article are formulated. Why, he asks, despite centuries of efforts by morality, religion and law, at great risks, adultery does not stop? If the female orgasm is not a by-product of the evolution of the male, what function does it serve as an adaptation? How to explain such a big difference between the usual integrity of women's feelings, sexual attraction and their frequent splitting, torn apart in men? The analysis of the conditions of thinkability of these provisions is offered. Within its framework, the methods of argumentation offered by the author are questioned. These include generalizations of ideas about man and the ways of his historical development, the use of facts refuted by other facts, the reduction of man and evolution only to the biological plane, a psychoanalytic interpretation of his behavior, and the use of Dawkins' theory. These views are analyzed for reasons and consequences. Other provisions are put in opposition to the main provisions of the article. Man is not only a biological being, but also a social, psychological, semiotic, spiritual, cultural, that is, a multidimensional centaur. In addition to the biological plane, evolution contains a sociocultural plane. Love and sexuality are a cultural, historical and psychological phenomenon, in the formation and development of which such factors as the change of culture, types of individuality and personality, the nature of semiosis (sign systems, schemes, works of art) play an important role. However, criticism of the article "The Strangeness and Origins of Human Sexuality" does not mean a desire to ban the ideas expressed in it. The presence in the culture of modernity of different channels of socialization and ways of life, liberal-democratic values ​​and institutions presuppose, as Kant wrote, freedom to express their opinions and beliefs.