Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• Slavoj Žižek

Professor of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, The European Graduate School (EGS), Saas Fee- Switzerland

Abstract

Will human sexuality survive the passage to Artificial Intelligence? To answer this question properly, we should first analyze the paradoxical inner structure of sexuality itself, which is never simply binary: it always involves a third element that gives body to the deadlock of sexual difference – this is what Lacan meant by “there is no sexual difference.” This is why sexuality is in itself excessive and perverse. For this reason, all attempts to “normalize” sexuality by way of keeping it within the limits of moderation miserably fail: today, we find on the market products deprived of their dangerous element (coffee without caffeine, chocolate without sugar…), and the moderate sexuality is sexuality without sex. The Buddhist attempts to contain the excess sexuality miss the point of sexuality: intense sexuality is in itself the greatest sacrifice (the sacrifice of peaceful moderate life) – in sexuality, we enjoy the pain, the renunciation itself. However, today, in our world pervaded by commodification and technological inventions, real human partners are more and more replaced by what Lacan called lathouses, artificial objects aimed at satisfying our sexual desire without another human being (plastic phalluses, digitalized pornography). The result is that we are thrown into a space of limitless pleasures where, although “everything is permitted,” our intense sexual desire gets anaestheticized. 

Keywords

• sexuality
• antagonism
• phallus
• undeadness
• Buddhism
• lathouse