Don Nathanson's Response

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

Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 13:54:12 -0400

From: Donald L. Nathanson, M.D.

To: tomkins-talk@tomkins.org

Subject: Re: Shame, Sex and Anthropology

Just a few comments on Bob's Most Excellent Post. I may not have mentioned to you all that Alex Bruzzone and I have corresponded for about a year, much to the improvement of my own knowledge, that I encouraged (with much affective magnification) him to begin airing his ideas in our forum, and that a comprehensive version of his ideas will be published in a future issue of our Bulletin. Now to the Mostest.

Robert E. Most wrote:

----------"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."

My own professor of Religion at Amherst defined religion as "intimate and ultimate concern---that which is closest to the core of each of us." In the language we have developed around the work of Tomkins, that would make religion an ideoaffective complex based partially on the work of those writers that resonate best with us, and on the Image of our best self formed through our affective development. In this way, Bob's statement about religion fits perfectly into our stable theme of the individual governed by scripts based on a finite package of affects and experiences.

Robert E. Most wrote:

----------"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?)"

From what source do you see monogamy as gender linked? The OED derives it from mono=one, and gamy from the Greek word for marriage. Looking further to gamete, which I think is a better path, the word has no gender connotation. I think monogamy is identical to monospousal.

Robert E. Most wrote:

----------"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."

In this, and the passages that follow, Bob makes the point that sexual function leading to orgasm produces the affect enjoyment-joy (contentment) and calms. In Shame and Pride I mentioned the Latin saying Omne animalium languo post coitum, which says about the same thing. Our ability to use the sexual system in relationships with others is quite a different realm of ideoaffective function.

Robert E. Most wrote:

----------"Paul Ekman (whatever happened to Paul Ekman anyway?) describes Silvan Tomkins' amazing ability to read Script from Affect."

Alive and well in San Francisco, in his early 60s, still writing up a storm of fascinating work, and shepherd of a hilarious e-mail system providing raunchy jokes for those of us who have published enough in the realm of emotion theory to be part of his crowd.

Finally, what Alex Bruzzone is asking us to think about revolves around the specificity with which we label homosexuality. Alex states quite clearly that it is possible for men to do sexual acts with men, and women to do sexual acts with women, in situations that are both free of dissmell/disgust for same gender arousal and free of dissmell/disgust for other-gender arousal. Most of his critics have used the duck law argument that if a man enjoys sex with other men that he is "a homosexual," and Alex argues forcefully that this argument is circular and self-validating.

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