Conceiving Others
Think of a person. Not a stranger. Preferably a friend. Now imagine them with no clothes on. Imagine it in detail. Bumps, curves, folds of fat, body hair. Now Imagine them taking a dump. Imagine them having sex. Imagine them having sex with someone specific. If you're particularly daring, imagine it with you. You are no doubt feeling awkward by now, so I will desist. If you're not, do it with a friend who is just a friend in mind. Perhaps one of the same gender to make things more clear.
This is what I call the human conception thesis. There is no snappy acronym, stop looking for one.
We think of people in a very particular way, depending on how we categorise them. But we never ever think of them in terms of basic biological function. We never think of people as people in the most common sense that we are all people. We just don't. And that to me is interesting. I know this doesn't apply to strangers, the notion of a sex symbol puts paid to that. The ultimate body detached from its consciousness is what a sex symbol represents.I don't have any explanation or insight to offer here. I'm just puzzled.
On the other hand with people we know we relate to people as heads. To their heads as if they were just brains. To their brains as if we were only interested in their consciousness, that ethereal ghost in the machine. The actual mechano pieces are uninteresting to us until they malfunction. Why do we work like that? Do we work like that or it just civilised to work like that?
And don't you think its interesting that we do?
This is what I call the human conception thesis. There is no snappy acronym, stop looking for one.
We think of people in a very particular way, depending on how we categorise them. But we never ever think of them in terms of basic biological function. We never think of people as people in the most common sense that we are all people. We just don't. And that to me is interesting. I know this doesn't apply to strangers, the notion of a sex symbol puts paid to that. The ultimate body detached from its consciousness is what a sex symbol represents.I don't have any explanation or insight to offer here. I'm just puzzled.
On the other hand with people we know we relate to people as heads. To their heads as if they were just brains. To their brains as if we were only interested in their consciousness, that ethereal ghost in the machine. The actual mechano pieces are uninteresting to us until they malfunction. Why do we work like that? Do we work like that or it just civilised to work like that?
And don't you think its interesting that we do?
1 comment:
When we realise having sex with a particular person is not possible, we turn to other things. At the same time we "turn off" these thoughts that are associated with having sex with that person. No point thinking about things that will not happen.
Should we be uncomfortable doing that "exercise" you proposed at the start? I don't think we should, but I did feel uncomfortable anyway. Why? Because we were brought up to think like this. You can say it's only civilised to be embarrassed imagining a close friend naked, but again I disagree with this definition of civilisation. Being civilised is about recognising and even learning the "evil" things but not practice them. Covering your eyes and pretend they do not exist is called ignorance.
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