[D-G] sex appeal pf the inorganic

[Mark Crosby]

--- Liza Kozner <liza_kozner at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> deceived by the title of the book.,the sex appeal of
> the inorganic is not one book thus we would
> recommand buying.

very funny! I would not COMMAND buying it either. But
I would RECOMMEND (in addition to Steve Shaviro's
review that I mentioned) Anna Camaiti Hostert's "Sexy
Things" 5-page discussion of Perniola's book at
http://www.altx.com/ebr/ebr6/6cam.htm

Anna Camaiti Hostert cites Perniola insisting that "To
perceive ourselves as things who feel means freeing
ourselves from an instrumental conception of sexual
arousal based on the achievement of an orgasm". Fine,
but is there more here than the old Tantric methods?
Perhaps holding back from orgasm is not the only way
to achieve the "displaced decentralized experience" of
"a thing who feels"? Does Perniola's categorical
requirement disallow those, such as myself, who have
no sexual partner (for long periods of time ;) and,
through a VARIETY of means, try to approach EVERYTHING
'sexually' - that is, as a dance of passionate "things
that feel"? 

Another odd presumption in ACH's essay is the idea
that having an orgasm is "similar to the action of
slowly climbing a mountain in order to fall very fast
into a crevice after having reached the highest peak
of pleasure". I don't understand orgasm as "the
highest peak of pleasure"? and why should the
aftermath be depressing? ACH says: "Reaching the
condition of a thing instead is to enter into the
serene and neutral state of an endless and aimless
dimension". Gee, this sounds very close to the
relieved state of having gotten the sexual exhertions
over with!

I'm aware that Deleuze and Guattari say much that
sounds similar to Perniola. For example, some of the
series in Logic of Sense, or the Plateau where courtly
love is described, but Perniola's understanding of
sexuality seems awfully strange to my experience.
Stelarc, for example, has a much more comprehensive
understanding of what's involved in this "displaced
decentralized experience" of "a thing who feels" -
without any need to make it depend on sexual practice
in such a Freudian? way..

> concepts set to the mode of the  idiot guy playing
> the role of the intellectual.

Here's the philosopher's stone, no need for concepts
anymore! "The philosopher's task therefore is to
proclaim the greatness and dignity of this lifeless,
orgasmless sexuality", says ACH, "an orgasmless
sexuality allows the body to become not an object of
the partner's pleasure, but rather a subject of the
impersonal, insatiable, and speculative excitement of
philosophy".

> later on would like to read the societe du spectacle
> debord for more because i am in it. 

We are all 'in it', regardless of any instrumental
practice.. 
Mark Crosby
> <Crosby_M at rocketmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ---
> _PSYCHOMEDIA: The Journal of European
> Psychoanalysis_
> (JEP 1996-1997)
> http://www.psychomedia.it/jep/number3-4/contpern.htm
> has a 3-page conversation about Mario Perniola's
> _The
> Sex Appeal of the Inorganic_ w/Sergio Contardi.