What Causes Sexual Attraction?

The issue of sexual desire is one of the great mysteries of the ages: it is a phenomenon that has persisted since before the Greeks, a phenomenon as old as sexuality itself. The issue, at first, seems as though it should be painfully obvious. Have not all of us experienced sexual desire? Yet, for most, introspection becomes revelation: few can explain why they are attracted to some and not to others. This, then, is our purpose here – to explain the nature of sexual attraction and its causes. In order to do so, we must begin in the only place possible to us, the brute fact of sexual attraction.

Let us say, for example, that you see a beautiful woman and you are instantly sexually attracted to her. Now, what if you were told that this same woman had a deadly disease that is easily sexually transmitted, would you feel the same attraction? What if instead of having a deadly disease this woman was the mother of three children; would you be more or less attracted to her than you were initially? Has anything changed about the woman?

Let us say that now you see a rather nondescript man and you feel no attraction to him. Would your attraction to him change if you found out he was an extremely popular musician? What if you were dying of cancer and found out that this man had just found the cure that would save you and countless others? Would you find him arousing then? Did anything change about the man?

What if you meet a person through correspondence, whether by letter or online, and you are very attracted to his intelligence, his wit, and his ability to see the best in every situation, but find out (upon meeting him in person) that he is also hideous in appearance, would this affect your attraction? What if, instead of being hideous, he instead misrepresented his gender, would this affect your attraction? What changed about the person?

It’s clear that there is something strange going on here: attractions that appear at first to be solely physical are either heightened or destroyed by intellectual judgments, while attractions that appear at first to be solely intellectual are either heightened or destroyed by physical considerations. The issue is not whether your personal attraction actually changed, but the fact that such change is possible based on different kinds of judgments. Clearly, there is some connection between judgments and sexual attraction.

One should carefully note that I have just shown that there is a connection between judgments and sexual attraction: an obvious connection, but one that has historically been vehemently denied. Perhaps it’s due to the immediacy of the response or perhaps it’s due to poor introspective skills; either way, few people recognize the element of judgment in sexual attraction until it is pointed out for them. Thankfully, once the aspect of judgment is elucidated, most people are able to introspect on their own situations and see that it is indeed operative in their own lives. To say that judgment is operative in sexual attraction is merely to find a starting point: the apparent profundity of the position lasts until one realizes that judgments are not irreducible.

The judgments underlying attraction can be based on different things: above we saw judgments based on beauty, on intelligence, on gender, on fame, et cetera. In each judgment, an individual is judged according to his possession, or lack, of certain characteristics. These characteristics are considered either values or disvalues to the judge: consequently, they are either pursued or avoided. Thus, attraction is the product of a special kind of judgment: evaluation. 

Evaluation, as etymology would suggest, is the particular type of judgment that deals with values. A value is that which promotes our lives; a disvalue is that which retards our lives. Given that we are mortal agents, we must identify values and act to acquire and secure them for ourselves; failing in this endeavor is literally deadly. Indeed, evaluation is so important in life that it is a major focus of Ethics. 

Evaluation can be performed either consciously or sub-consciously. Conscious evaluation is done by identifying an existent or state of existence, judging whether this thing would improve or retard one’s life, and then acting to either pursue it as a value or avoid it as a disvalue. However, in our fast-paced lives we do not always have the time to analyze every situation sufficiently to render a conscious judgment. Consequently, by the time that we are adults, we become adept at quick sub-conscious value judgments so that we rarely evaluate consciously. 

Subconscious evaluation is based entirely on prior conscious value judgments. As we grow and mature, we make many conscious judgments and choices: both great and small. If there is any truth in the myth of a great judge who records everything, it is to be found in our subconscious, which records all of our choices and judgments. Our sub-conscious then uses this information to form the basis for subconscious evaluation. Our subconscious does not, itself, have the power of judgment per se (which is a conscious faculty). Rather, our subconscious compares our current situation with all of the information it has gathered in the past to see if any of these past judgments are relevant. By making a comparison to relevant past judgments, our subconscious can give us an immediate evaluation of the situation at hand. The existential experience of this process of subconscious evaluation is known as emotions.

Emotions are a class of existential experience. Specifically: emotions are the existential experience of our antecedent value judgments. When we experience an emotion, we are experiencing an instantaneous response to prior value judgments. In terms of the emotion being experienced, there is no conscious control. I cannot cause myself to feel a particular emotion at a particular time, nor can I stop myself from feeling an emotion. Even in the case of emotional repression, I can merely deny that I should be having an emotion and try to force it away: I cannot cause it to stop by an act of will.

Emotions can range from very particular emotions with a definite object like Love, to broader emotions without a direct object like Joy, to emotions that sum up the entirety of our view of ourselves and existence itself like Sense of Life. In general, the broader the emotion, the more complex its operation; however, even simple emotions can be quite complex in their underlying operation. Because of the immediacy of our emotions, it is easy to think of them as unanalyzable primaries and just accept them as they come to us. However, it is important to remember that our emotions are based on prior value judgments and since they are the results of antecedent value judgments, we can analyze them in terms of these judgments. 

Now, we digressed into emotions and their operation in order to better understand sexual attraction, since sexual attraction is in the genus of emotions. Sexual attraction is properly classified as an emotion because it shares the same underlying operation. However, sexual attraction is differentiated from other emotions given its very specific object and its close connection to sexual arousal. It is important to note here that attraction and arousal are two different things: attraction creates a desire for a specific person or activity, whereas arousal is a physiological response that puts one’s body into a state necessary for sexual activity.

We also must distinguish sexual attraction from more general forms of desire. In general, desire operates with a value judgment giving rise to a strong inclination to attain the object of the judgment. One can desire any object that one thinks will be a value in one’s life: that is, it operates on perceived value and not on objective value. Conversely, one cannot desire that which one thinks would be detrimental to one’s life. This is not to say that one cannot be mistaken about whether a thing is or is not detrimental to one’s life, but to point out that value judgments operate on one’s evaluation and not the facts of the matter. While general desire can be for any object that can be valued, sexual attraction is limited to people and actions. 

Sexual attraction, along with love, forms the foundation of intimate relationships. When looking for someone for a relationship, a person usually operates through his explicit ideas about what he wants in a lover. Most people, in order to do this create for themselves a mental list of traits that they want a person to have. The list could be long or short, detailed or general. Regardless of its specificity, everyone is looking for certain characteristics. In order to make the process easier, most people look for a certain “type” of person instead trying to hold a complete mental list. So, for example, a man may be looking for the type of girl who is intelligent and witty, but leaves open issues of her physical appearance, or his type could be “buxom brunettes who are into skiing.” 

Now, the other major component of finding a lover is what is now called “chemistry,” or that indefinable feeling of: this is the right person for me. In order to do full justice to the issue of chemistry, we would have to delve into the subject of sense of life, which is rather outside the scope of our current endeavor. However, in the realm of chemistry between lovers, we are in a position to understand it: chemistry is sexual attraction. When one feels that sudden rush of desire, the quickening of pulse, one’s mind racing with possibilities, one is feeling attraction. (Remember, sexual attraction is not only sexual arousal.)

Sexual attraction is a desire to be with someone, to have them as part of your life in a very specific way. Sexual attraction is the desire to unify with a lover: to become one with each other. The spiritual manifestation of this is romantic love and a shared identity; the existential reality of this is sex. Thus, sexual attraction has two primary components: love and sex.

Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics, was the first to identify and elaborate the idea of unity with another person and the resulting shared identity. When two lovers open themselves completely to each other and internalize each other’s ends as their own, the good for one becomes the good of both. These lovers will constantly strive for perfection in order to be the best they can for their lover and will push their lover to be better as well. They will see the reflections of their actions in their lover’s and will be better able to judge their own actions through the eyes of their lover.

It is the complete openness to each other and the internalization of each other’s ends that comprises unity. In this kind of relationship, one’s self-identity necessarily involves his lover and her ends. That is, I cannot define who I am as a person without reference to my fiancée and her ends. In a very real sense, in this kind of unity there ceases to be a “me and you” and there becomes an “us.” This is not to say that there ceases to be two distinct persons, but rather that each of these persons incorporates the other into their identity and that this description of identity would be fundamentally incomplete without reference to their lover.

Let us conclude by noting that this sense of unity or completeness fulfills a real human need that is well illustrated in an ancient allegory. In Plato’s Symposium, the character Aristophanes tells the story of how humans of old, complete beings in themselves possessing four legs, four arms, and two heads, attacked Mt. Olympus through their hubris and how Zeus split them in half. The result is human in its present state: two legs, two arms, one head, and a longing to rejoin with the other half of itself in order to be complete again. Now, while we can obviously discard the mythology, let us not deny the truth that it seeks to express: there is a fundamental yearning in people to find another with whom to share their life and spend their time. 

Thus, we can now explain what causes sexual attraction in two different senses: sexual attraction operates through unconscious antecedent value judgments in order achieve human completion through the unification with a good lover.

Chapter Overviews

Chapter 1: Ethics

The very first question we must ask, following the advice of Ayn Rand, is whether Ethics is even necessary at all and, if it is, what facts of reality give rise to it. I contend that it is our mortality, the fact that we can die, that gives rise for the need for principles to guide our actions. Yet, merely continuing to breathe is not the same as living well and if we wish for the latter, then we must identify our nature and those actions that will promote a good human life.

I argue that it is our rationality that defines us as persons and differentiates us from all other animals and, as a consequence, it is this aspect of our nature that must be developed if we are to achieve the state of lasting flourishing that we call happiness. This conception of morality is hypothetical in nature: morality is only “binding” as long as one seeks to live as a person. Further, for an action to be moral means that this action sustains or furthers one’s life as a person.

In order to achieve true and lasting happiness, there are certain conditions we must achieve. Minimally, we must secure for ourselves the freedom to act and maintain a healthy body. Once we have these minimal conditions in place, we can begin to act to perfect our character through the cultivation of the virtues.

Chapter 2: Emotions 

Emotions have historically been considered to be irreducible primaries beyond the ability of our reason to penetrate and, certainly, most people experience them this way. However, our passions, etymology aside, are not simply something we suffer. Reason and emotions have only been set up as antagonistic opposites because emotions have always been considered to be brutish and animalistic.

Yet emotions are actually responses to judgments: they are an automatic form of evaluation. Although we cannot consciously control their operation, they rely upon our judgments as their standards. Thus, if I consciously come to accept a judgment as true, and I internalize this truth, my emotions will begin to use it as a standard. This, consequently, gives us an avenue for analysis. Not only can I ask what I am feeling, I can ask why I am feeling it and be able to find an underlying judgment.

This gives us the ability to both understand our emotions in a way entirely closed to us before and gives us the opportunity to structure our emotions so that they help contribute to our lives. Our emotions, once they are properly understood, can become another avenue for us to build meaning in our lives. Furthermore, this framework gives us the basis for analyzing the roots of love, how it can be maintained, and how it can be deepened, and we can use this knowledge in our pursuit of a good lover.

Chapter 3: Relationships and Love

While there are many different kinds of relationships in life, Sexual Perfection focuses solely on two distinct kinds: friendship and love. A good friend is minimally necessary in order to have a good life; reciprocal good action and a mutual movement towards perfection characterize good friendship (cf. the Aristotelian idea of mirroring from the NE).

Although friendship can help one attain a good life, it cannot rival the ability of a good lover to do so. The level of intimacy and openness in a good relationship gives it a unique advantage as the lovers will be willing to change to improve themselves for their lover and they will drive themselves to be the best they can in order to be worthy of each other. A good relationship is, of course, no easy achievement. Yet, it is only on the basis of a good relationship that we can hope to incorporate sex in a life-affirming way into our lives.

Chapter 4: Erotic Attraction and Fantasy

Our new conception of emotions will yield a surprising result central to our concern: it gives us the framework necessary to explain sexual attraction. Historically, sexual attraction has also been understood to stand outside reason: it is merely something that strikes us, or not. Yet, just like emotions, sexual attraction operates based on our judgments. Consequently, we will no longer be forced to consider our desires as something thrust upon our “real selves” by our bodies, we will understand our desires as following from our rational judgments and therefore entirely our own doing.  

Moreover, understanding erotic attraction will enable us to see the intimate connection between it and fantasy. Indeed, fantasy has a much more important role in sexuality than is currently understood: without it, attraction would be bereft of much of its passion. This is because fantasy creates for us an idealized object of attraction and this serves as the locus for the attraction. Fantasy, however, is not limited to its role in attraction. Fantasy allows us to simulate an experience in the safe confines of our mind. This has three primary uses: to test whether we would be interested in a particular experience, to explore this experience’s possibilities, and to help us to relive past experiences. Thus fantasy is critical for both understanding our sexual limits as well as serving as fuel for erotic encounters and masturbation.

Chapter 5: Erotic Identities

Clarity and precision in concepts facilitates understanding and this is especially true of sexuality. Consequently, we need to recognize a conceptual distinction between the categories of eroticism and sexuality; the former being the genus subsuming all genital pleasure and actions that cause it, while the latter is a sub-category solely differentiated by being between members of the opposite sex. This distinction carries more than merely etymological weight; it follows from different kinds of arousal and attraction that are explored in chapter 4.

It is important to stress here that homosexual and heterosexual, which are currently understood as categories of people, are actually categories of actions. Since attraction is based on our judgments, our sexual “orientation” is a function of our ideas: it is not innate. Indeed, humans are naturally bisexual and it is not until our sexuality is shaped as we mature that we begin to take on an orientation: immature sexual arousal is amorphous and lacks any external focus. 

However, in most cultures this shaping begins very early in a child’s life, as his parents will instruct it about what is “right and natural”. Yet, if this early structuring were missing or neutral, the child would grow up without a predisposition to be attracted to one sex over the other. Indeed, there are many cases of young children examining each others genitals and engaging in “sex play,” in what would be an erotic way were they mature, without a regard for their gender as they don’t yet know that one is “right” and the other “wrong”. Thus, it is only appropriate to talk about homosexual as categories of actions or desires, but not as categories of people.

Chapter 6: Sex

We have already seen that eroticism is the genus subsuming all genital pleasure and actions that cause it, while sexuality is a sub-category differentiated by being between members of the opposite sex. Thus, sexual pleasure would be the pleasure derived from the genitals from the union of a man and a woman. However, while the genitals are the locus of sexual pleasure, they are not its focus. Sexual pleasure is as much of a spiritual, or mental, pleasure as a physical pleasure: the same physical action may or may not be pleasurable depending on our judgment of the other involved and the context (i.e. sex with our lover and being raped can be the same action, but with fundamentally different experiences). The focus of sexual pleasure is partly the physical pleasure, but in a more fundamental sense the focus is our union with our lover that we can only experience during sexual intercourse.

Sexual intercourse is different in kind both from the intercourse of other animals and other human erotic pleasures. Other mammals have sex only during heats, periods where the female is fertile and capable of receiving a male, during other periods these animals neither desire sex nor are capable of doing it. Humans, on the other hand, are capable of sexual intercourse at any time after puberty, although they are capable of erotic pleasure at almost any time during their life. Sex for humans, being unrestricted to special breeding times, is free from biological necessity. Thus, and let me emphasize this, human sexuality has no necessary connection to reproduction. Sex can be used for reproductive ends, but there is no inevitability in this. A couple could just as easily have sexual intercourse for the simple pleasure of it or because they want to enhance their connection to each other. Indeed, as we shall see in the next chapter, there is no better way to become close to someone than sexual intercourse.

Chapter 7: Sexual Perfection

Once we understand attraction and sex, we shall discover a phenomenon unique to the sexual encounter: the sexual essence. One can only understand the sexual essences in contrast to each other, just as magnetic North by itself would be incomprehensible: it is the presence of their antithesis in a sexual context that gives rise to the sexual essences. The sexual essences form a large part of our sexual identity; when we experience them, we experience ourselves as an embodied man or woman in a sexual body. The two essences are exceedingly different, yet form the perfect complement to each other. The essence of masculinity is characterized by penetration and the drive to dominate the feminine, to force her to acquiesce to his will, to make her surrender. The essence of femininity is characterized by reception and the drive to find to a man worthy of surrendering herself to, to find a hero worthy of her adoration, to find the man who can earn her submission. The combination of the sexual essences provides the basis for what I call sexual union.

The sublime union of masculinity and femininity arises only in a sexual situation, once the sexual essences have been actualized. If the lovers are truly in love and have established a good relationship, then they will be open to each other and to the possibility of their union. In sexual union, intercourse goes from being just intensely pleasurable to the experience of the totality of your values and goals as embodied by your lover, who is also your highest value. Sex becomes an act of unification: as you physically become one, you also spiritually open yourself to the importance of your lover and her irreplaceability. By accepting your lover’s pivotal role in your life, and her status as constitutive of your happiness, you internalize her ends as your own, her goals as your goals, her happiness as yours. In this way you become one in spirit as well as body, you achieve complete unity with your lover. In sexual union you meet your lover both naked in body and spirit: you open yourself up completely to your lover, without reservation, and offer to them the sum of your existence.

Sexual union is the primary impetus for sexual perfection: if one wants the best kind of lover, then one must become the best kind of person and worthy of the lover you hope to attain. This provides a drive for both of the lovers to continually push themselves for perfection in their lives: constant improvement becomes the leitmotif of the relationship. This is pivotal to becoming the best kind of person for two reasons: this kind of relationship with an excellent lover is part of happiness and the drive to perfection from it is unrivalled. Sexual perfection is the key to becoming the best kind of person possible and the path to maintaining this high level of excellence.

Chapter 8: Applications

Neither eroticism nor sexuality is necessarily life affirming. Indeed, any erotic act can be perverse: it can cause a decline in life. This can come from conscious intent or poor premises that leads one to be attracted to decadence. Alternatively, one can develop a sense of false power (fetish) from fixating on certain rote actions or artifacts. Perversion and fetish are not only symptomatic of unhealthy ideas about eroticism, but they also preclude healthy eroticism as far as they are practiced. Learning about perversion and fetish can help us ward against them in our own life and this can help us to achieve, and maintain, a life-affirming sex life.

The abortion debate has so far focused on questions of personhood concerning the status of the fetus and of a woman’s right to choose an abortion if she wishes. However, both sides habitually over-simplify the issues and, consequently, both sides have gone astray and the debate has become deadlocked. In order to answer it, we first need to understand what sorts of existents qualify as people. Having disqualified non-existent (although potential) entities from personhood, we shall turn to the question of under what conditions it is moral for a woman to choose to have an abortion and when it is not. Although qualified that abortion is not moral in all circumstances, we shall nevertheless insist that abortion should be a legal freedom and that if a woman is denied the ability to choose the course of her own body, then she is effectively denied the right to her own life.

Book Overview and Status

Chapter 1: Human Ethics and Happiness (Complete!)

1. Ethics and Life (Complete!)

2. Eudaimonistic Ethics (Complete!)

Chapter 2: Emotions (In Progress)

1. The Nature and Development of Emotions (In Progress)

2. Love

3. Happiness as Emotion?

4. The Passionate Life

Chapter 3: Relationships

1. Kinds of Love

2. Friendship

3. Romantic Relationships

4. Friendship v. Romantic Love?

Chapter 4: Erotic Attraction and Fantasy (In Progress)

1. Erotic Attraction (In Progress)

2. Fantasy

3. Masturbation

Chapter 5: Erotic Identities

1. Issues

2. Distinction: Eroticism v. Sexuality

3. The Categorization of Desire: Homosexual v. Heterosexual

Chapter 6: Sex

1. The Nature of Sex

2. Sexual Pleasure

Chapter 7: Sexual Perfection

1. Masculinity and Femininity

2. Union

3. Sex as a Fundamentally Ethical Act

Chapter 8: Applications

1. Erotic Decadence

2. Abortion (In Progress)

3. Birth Control

4. Children and Eroticism

5. Gay Marriage

6. Prostitution

7. Strip Clubs

8. Abstinence

Query Letter #2

Dear [Agent],

Ethics, Sex, Happiness. What do these concepts have to do with each other? Everything. The purpose of my new book, Sexual Perfection: Foundations of a New Sexual Ethic, is to show how these concepts are intimately related: to show why it is not only morally permissible, but morally necessary, to integrate sex into one’s pursuit of happiness. This is because humans are naturally sexual beings and to deny fundamental aspects of our nature is to preclude oneself from the possibility of happiness.

Sex and ethics are not inimical: indeed, true happiness can only be found in their union. Sex can provide the impetus and passion necessary to fuel ethics and achieve happiness, but only if it is understood. The mindless hedonic, or the ascetic religious, approach to sex invites only shame and regret. However, if we understand what sex is and its proper role in life, then sex can become life-affirming. It is important to understand that humans, unlike most mammals, do not have only certain times of the year in which sex is possible. Sex for us is more than a biological drive for reproduction: one must choose to have sex. 

Sex, however, is not a simple act: it has necessary connections to intimate relationships. Whether or not one chooses to enter into a relationship with a lover, there is no denying that the intimacy of the act of sex leads one to feel a connection to his lover and that it is this intimate connection that forms the basis for an intimate relationship. Because of this, there can be no such thing as simply having sex with a person with nothing further: all sex entails emotional responses, whether they are acted upon or repressed.

If we want to be able to integrate sex into our quest for happiness, we must understand all of this and much more. This is the purpose of Sexual Perfection: to gain the requisite knowledge of sexuality and its role in life in order achieve happiness.

I invite you to request my proposal and see for yourself the full theory of Sexual Perfection.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Jason Stotts
Cell: ###-###-####

Query Letter #1

Dear Mr. Agent,

Everyone today seems to be searching for happiness, but few are able to find it. There are numerous books published on the subject, lectures addressed to full audiences, workshops and seminars designed to show one how to be happy; and a burgeoning sense that the happiness they seek is either illusory or unattainable. The problem is that these searchers have not taken the time to properly identify the end that they seek. By identifying happiness as a simple emotion and seeking to achieve it, they have set themselves up for misery. The fact is that happiness is a state of existence arising from the achievement of one’s values and working to achieve one’s moral perfection. Happiness is a core concept from Ethics.

Although many treatises have been written in the history of philosophy on the subject of happiness, none of these treatises discuss the most pivotal aspect of happiness: sexuality. For too long sex has been considered to be shameful, a simple thoughtless pleasure that corrupted both body and mind. Sex has been relegated to the role of an inescapable necessary evil: an incessant drive that we cannot control and which causes us much anguish in our lives.

Yet, without sex, life would be incomplete. We must learn how to integrate sex into our lives if we want to be happy. In order to do this, we must first come to understand both sex and happiness. This is the purpose of Sexual Perfection: to outline the path to happiness through sex.

If you think that you are the kind of agent who can handle a project with the potential to change the world, I invite your response. 

Sincerely,

Jason Stotts

Philosopher

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Themes of Sexual Perfection

Overarching Theme
Sex is necessary for Happiness

Chapter 1: Human Ethics and Happiness
The Purpose of Ethics is Happiness and this requires Sex.

Chapter 2: Emotions
Emotions are reasonable and can be harnessed to improve our lives.

Chapter 3: Relationships
A good friend is necessary, but a good lover is better.

Chapter 4: Erotic Attraction and Fantasy
Attraction and Arousal are functions of the Mind.

Chapter 5: Erotic Identities
Homosexual and Heterosexual are categories of volitional action.

Chapter 6: Sex
Sex is not just for reproduction anymore.

Chapter 7: Sexual Perfection
Human completion is to be found in the Union.

Chapter 8: Erotic Decadence
Sex does not necessarily increase one’s Life.