Bob Most's Response

• Shame, Sex, and Anthropology Thread by Vick Kelly, 10/29/97
  
  

Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 10:09:13 -0500

From: Robert E. Most, M.D.

To: tomkins-talk@tomkins.org

Subject: Re: Shame, Sex and Anthropology

Early this morning, I began some readings in my religion, and had some thoughts of posting to Tomkins-Talk, as the topic of my shame about a previous post (of my own) came up. I could address the topic of my shame (It is important and relevant!) at another time. And for present purposes, I should only hint at the form of my own religion, which is syncretistic, and blends anthropology-proper with the anthropology-of-religion, with religion-proper in a complex interwoven structure that I can never keep fully conscious to myself, let alone explain well here. Here, I want to follow the association I had to Alex Bruzzone.

I wondered whether the non-response to some of his posts generated any shame in him. Or, Alex, have you already learned well, that your topic is so shame-laden, that even a group such as ours may have difficulty responding?

It seems to me, from the responses I have seen, that your posts are much appreciated. For me, they have been too far afield from my main-line interests, to hook me into picking up the thread. (Not a mix of metaphors, for weavers as well as knitters sometimes use hooks.) But your most recent post did hook me, so I must post a Most Post!

P. Kurth, J. Hannah, and Mark Milano are quite correct in their thoughts about the natural promiscuity of men. I strongly suspect that there is a similar, not identical natural promiscuity in women, but that it is more shame-bound than in men. There is an evolutionary argument that men may be more naturally promiscuous than women, but I will not examine that here. Rather, I note the promiscuity of our species.

Why do so many (Americans more than Europeans) identify morals with sexuality almost exclusively? I believe that the answer is implicit within Genesis. Shame has been noted as the first human emotion treated in the Bible. It is not! Interest-excitement and the quest for knowledge precedes shame by a few minutes at least. And the first instance of shame itself, in Genesis, may be interpreted in the context of interest-excitement/Knowledge without any reference to sexuality. But commonly, the Knowledge is quickly associated to sexual awareness, for good reasons. And, if shame were the first human affect treated in the Bible, then, the first object of shame would appear to be sexuality. I say 'appear to be,' because my own interpretation is bound by my own culture, and I do see the alternate interpretation that the shame is related to Interest per se, or Knowledge per se. Sexuality is tightly linked to shame in the Bible, because Genesis was written by a culture which was polygamous, and moving towards normative monogamy. Moving very, very slowly. Americans link morality to sexuality because of our historic incapacity to truly acknowledge our shame, (Nathanson, 1992) which continues now, even when the airwaves are filled with such shameless discussion. And our culture has never dealt with shame and sexuality with any grace. (I'm pretty broad-minded, but I still think that the ancient Greek aristocracy's pederasty was weird.) Hence, the magnification of sex-morality.

The problem, though, is in part genetic. Most of us agree that committed sexual relationships are good for us. All of us are imperfectly monogamous. (Does anyone have a better word for mono-spousal that isn't so gendertyped?) Our closest genetic cousins are the Bonobi chimpanzees, who use sex for reduction of distress, shame, and aggression. Both sexes of the Bonobi do so. Furthermore, so do the only other species on the planet that, so far as we know, ranks close to us and the Bonobi in intelligence. Sex play is common among the bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus), and occurs between mothers and calves, and aunts and uncles and calves, and outside of the nuclear or near-nuclear family. It is a mechanism which promotes group bonding (more than human polygamy), and reduces aggression.

The human data is, I believe, compelling. We (nearly) all use sex for reduction of negative affect, as well as for the celebration of positive affect. Societies vary immensely in their sexual scripts. I'd like to revise the revisionists of Margaret Mead in noting the total cross-cultural data, which confirms her liberating vision for women (even if she did distort her ethnography by her own ideology). The Murdoch files contain coded data for dozens of oral and literate cultures studied by anthropologists. There is a clear negative correlation between sexual promiscuity and physical aggression.(personal communication, Dr. Robert Daniels, Asst. Prof. of Anthropology At UNC Chapel Hill). In other words:

MAKE LOVE NOT WAR!

P. Kurth and J. Hannah are very right.

With whom we make love, remains problematic, and the source of much shame. Just how - the mechanics of sex - the male tumescence discussed on Alex' other list-server, as well as the inevitable mismatches between any two person's interest-excitement is another inevitable source of shame. The societal solutions, though, may be better or worse, at least from my very humanist, and NOT relativist, standpoint.

I agree with Alex that private sexuality is important for men, but also suspect that private sexuality is an arena for free expression of our most intimate positive characteristics - for both sexes - because it's one part of our lives where the direct societal conditioning (behaviorist term), or scripting (that already feels more free!) is nearly absent. David Schnarch (see Robin Dilley's post) of course is correct that sexual scripts will mirror general characteristics of our other intimate scripts, and can provide a path to greater freedom in life as a whole.

MY Interest and shame were hooked by Alex this time, in part because of my very own shame, as I acknowledged above, but in part also because I associated to the anthropological data. I have been vicariously shamed, I know needlessly, yet still shamed, by a striking passage from Paul Ekman in _Exploring Affect . My vicarious shame relates to the shame of two close friends, who are homosexual. I know of their struggles, and the relief that might be had from recent data that homosexuality is a "biologically" determined condition. If 3% of men are mainly homosexual, and if that orientation is determined by some combination of genetics and in-utero development, it must be a normal variant, and not the abomination seen by right-wing "Christian" Normatives. So what do I make of Don's explanation of our bisexuality and ultimate determination of sexual orientations? Basically, I agree!

But the question reflects back in ways that I feel are unresolved, and may be mis-interpreted by the more dissmelling members of our society.

The passage which highlights my discomfort is on page 214.(Exploring in paperback). Paul Ekman (whatever happened to Paul Ekman anyway?) describes Silvan Tomkins' amazing ability to read Script from Affect. I will not quote any of it here, because it is lengthy, and we all should own a copy!

Further responses? To any of my post?

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