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CHAPTER 4. CULTURAL BODY

Lecture



4.1. Communicative forms of objectification of physicality

Another, no less important than pathology, method of objectivization of corporeality is associated with the specific features of human being. Man is included not only in the world of external things, opposed to him by the very force of nature, with the impersonal “same useful” necessity of imposing his own laws on him, but also in the human environment that implements his communicative prohibitions. “Communicative acts reveal, add design and constantly recheck the presence of the speaker in the space of human communication. They create his “place” and at the same time the place of others, with those who resist contradiction, the speaker in this space collides ” (Tishchenko, 1991a, p. 29). From early childhood, children are taught to “correct” the implementation of a number of functions related to nutrition, administration, mastering tools. The mother, seeking control over the functions of his body by the child by observing the diet, rewards and punishments, attributing responsibility and guilt, essentially creates a set of "resistances" that give rise to the configuration of the "cultural body", a special contour of self that does not coincide with borders I, delineated by natural barriers. The cultural function is not only not equal to the natural one, on the basis of which it is formed, but it is capable of modifying it to a significant degree. The metaphor of F. Kafka becomes literal, and society “cuts out” its sentence on the body of its victim. The result of this operation is a new reality of “cultural”, containing in itself new possibilities and a space of “cultural pathology”.

Just as in the case of "my body", my identification can be born within the framework of communicative difficulties. The empirical self is clarified by the restrictions imposed on me as a subject of social relations. When I identify myself with my father, warrior, citizen, it is about replacing a pure Ego with an empirical Ego in the form of a physical, social or spiritual personality (if you use the terminology of W. Jems). I, identified as the Father, do not coincide with the pure Ego of the knowing consciousness. This very interesting discrepancy can be noted at various points, but above all in the degree of freedom, open expression of will, the border of initiation and control of movement. James has a clear example of such a mismatch: “... for example, a private person can shamelessly leave a city infected with cholera, but a priest or doctor would find such an act incompatible with their concept of honor. The honor of a soldier encourages him to fight and die under circumstances where another person has every right to hide in a safe place or run away without putting a shameful stain on his social self{James, 1901, p. 137). Note that the social self is far less free, and its actions are not determined by rationality (meaning free choice), but by a more or less clear, written (and therefore not completely rational) canon of preserving one or another form of self-identification. These identifications are limited in will and it is these restrictions that are created. The subject identified with the father, salt, etc., must perform acts that do not arise from his will, but are prescribed by the chosen role. A citizen of the ancient polis, committing suicide, prescribed to him by the concept of the benefit of the polis, did not commit a free deed. His freedom ended with the choice of his social identification.

The problem of suicide as a certain extreme existential situation clearly clarifies the specifics of "social" corporeality. So, justifying the possibility of "rational" suicide, PD. Tishchenko (1993) suggests a kind of thought experiment. It is about the interrogation in Lubyanka, during which the investigator who is trying to dislodge the necessary testimony, threatens the victim with torture of his children. In this situation, the most rational act will be to sacrifice yourself, using the opportunity to suicide.

Strictly speaking, the mere fact of saving children does not yet prove the rationality of such an act. On this basis, it would be possible to judge the rationality of the suicidal behavior of the chicken, which protects the chickens from the attack of the hawk. The behavior of a person in a similar situation we will call rational, if, unlike a chicken, he makes this decision consciously, making a choice.

As PD Tishchenko (1993) writes, a separate morally developed person and a civilized community have values ​​that are certainly higher than individual existence and bodily self-preservation. For example, the preservation of their own identity. But in this case, while preserving the chosen role of the “father,” I just do not commit suicide in relation to my “social body,” whereas the installation of physical self-preservation leads to a similar result. Thus, rational suicide does not work in any case: either I save myself as a certain self-identity, or, if I refuse it, as a physical body.

Of course, this largely depends on the “rigor” of the rules of identification and, as a consequence, on the stability of identity. The density of communicative restrictions, prohibitions, taboos “cuts out” a special configuration of responsibility and guilt for the manifestation of my desires and the realization of pleasure. Super - ego is the essence of the product of folding, the internalization of a kind of control probe that forms a special form of self-identity: the topology of a social, moral subject.

4.2. Conversion as a pathology of the "cultural" body

The discrepancy between the natural and “cultural” body of a person forms a gap, in the space of which specific disorders develop, usually attributed to the group of functional or conversion symptoms. The principal feature of such disorders is the combined absence of any objective pathology with a special symbolic meaning of this violation. The fundamental possibility of their realization is due to the mobility of the boundaries of the bodily self, which allow the creation of a special configuration of “false boundaries” imitating organic pathology. Although this hypothesis needs special discussion and proof, it can be assumed that the mechanism for the formation of conversion symptoms is that they unfold only in the sphere of "translucent" functions that a person masters (or can master in principle). The essence of conversion pathology lies precisely in the refusal / breakdown of the management of these functions (or, on the contrary, the introduction of latent control of previously automated functions) and the movement of the subject’s boundary from the external to the internal contour. Movement impairment in the case of astasia-abasia, mutism, colitis, pores, diarrhea, enuresis, impaired swallowing, vomiting, shortness of breath, aspiration, etc., do not occur at an anatomical or physiological level, namely as a dysregulation, movement of the control zone. They tend to disappear in a dream, under the influence of psychotropic drugs, or even with distraction. The very possibility of conversion functional disorders is a plan for the transformation of an anatomical organism into a cultural body and its acquisition of semiotic properties.

The “culture” of the function suggests the possibility of mastering it and including it in the contour of arbitrary regulation in accordance with certain rules that do not coincide with the requirements of nature. Arbitrary and involuntary functions in relation to the transparency of the bodily mechanism to them are similar only in appearance. Under conditions of normal functioning, non-involuntary functions are transparent to the subject primarily, they can only become opaque when they are mastered, they are subject to the logic of the mechanism and are described in the language of tropism. “Transparency” (post- arbitrariness ) of arbitrary functions is secondary, they have already become transparent after mastering, but the possibility of becoming again an object inside them can easily show itself in various difficult situations. They can become arbitrary only after passing the path of dissolution in the subject, gradually promoting the boundary of subjectivity. But once they were objective and kept their original character in disguised form. We simply forget how much effort it was necessary for the child to learn to eat properly, use the pot, walk, run, talk, write, draw, ride a bicycle, etc.

Incorporating a child into a cultural context is associated with a special practice of objectivizing his physical activity, physiological manifestations, imposing restrictions, subsequent overcoming, “folding” of which is the way of socialization, development of arbitrariness and secondary “transparency” of bodily functions. The creation of “objects” on the path of the subject is the constantly current task of a new topology of subject-object division.

Pathology in this case only confirms the existence of this already hidden internal "supporting structure".

Different cultures and historical epochs, attributing to the subject specific attributions of responsibility and guilt, create different configurations of subject-object rupture and, accordingly, different types of hidden constructions that determine the cultural-historical pathomorphism of conversion disorders (Yakubik, 1982).

4.3. Sexual "cultural" body 1

The restrictions imposed by society on natural functions create a fundamentally new “landscape” of the cultural body. The prohibitions and the rules of food and items form a new reality of the “ali mentar body”, the rules of hygiene are a subjective phenomenon of “cleanliness and dirt”, sexual bans are the “erotic body”.

The last group of banners is especially demonstrative in this sense. Sexual need, when confronted with the regulation of its manifestations, forms completely special ideas about the erotic / non-erotic, closely related to the historical, religious and ethnic variants of the prohibited / permitted.

In the European culture of the XVII - XIX centuries. erotic provocation for men was the exposure of a woman to even a part of her leg, just as the size of the neckline, which was clearly above the allowable in our time, did not carry almost any erotic tone. Along with a decrease in the requirement for the degree of closeness of the legs, their erotic attractiveness also decreases. It is hard to imagine a modern poet, who, like Pushkin, could be so agitated by a female ankle. The same part of the body, depending on the regulation of the situation of its exposure, can cause completely different feelings. As an example, we can name situations on the distant beach, bath and striptease. In our opinion, the absolutely necessary condition for the existence of erotica is the very existence of the prohibition, in the zone of violation of which it arises. Erotic precisely this “overcoming”, whereas the complete abolition of the prohibitions will lead to the destruction of the “erotic body”. The subject of eroticism demonstrates another, rather interesting example of the need for another for the emergence of self . Almost any form of sexual activity (with the exception of some “incomplete”, marginal forms: onanism, etc.) requires a “partner”, i.e. an opaque other , creating the density of my erotic body.

-1 Sections 4.3, 4.4, 4.5 are written together with Yu.P. Zinchenko.

Despite the fact that sexual attraction is traditionally regarded as one of the basic, most fundamental human needs, the rationing of its implementation can be traced from the earliest stages of human history, especially European culture.

The reasons for such an early development of repressive sexuality are not fully understood, since ethnography describes cultures of a different type, such as antisexual or prosexual.

The former are quite rare and are associated with the notion that sex life makes people weak, susceptible to dangerous diseases, or because it is viewed as something shameful or humiliating (Micronesian tribes of the Caroline Islands, Papuans).

The opposite, extremely tolerant attitude towards sexual manifestations is noted among the Polynesian tribes, where the ideals of beauty are frankly erotic, any forms of manifestation of sexuality are openly encouraged (Kohn, 1989).

European culture forms a kind of intermediate version, characterized by the allocation of zones of "permissible" manifestation of sexuality and a clear "marking" of the forbidden. The specificity of such an attitude requires a person to master his erotic drives and transform sexual need from natural, involuntary into arbitrarily regulated.

Starting with the work of 3. Freud, the assimilation of prohibitions and, above all, the taboo on incest, is considered the main socio-psychological factor in the transformation of the primitive horde into a human tribe. Although, as G. Marcuse (1995) notes, are too obvious, and the difficulties of scientific verification or the mere logical agreement of such a hypothesis are possible, the psychological sense of normalizing sexual manifestations is quite obvious: the formation of an arbitrary regulation of human sexuality.

At the same time, the fact that such regulation was fragmentary in specific socio-economic conditions was often completely irrelevant, often declared rather than actually embodied, that there were numerous instances of violations of the most stringent prohibitions and channeling forms of implementation of prohibitions - in all these deviations are not about denial of the fact of arbitrary regulation of the sexual function, but only about the fact that in some cases such regulation is not always perfect.

If you count, followed by LS. Vygotsky, which is the most important “property of higher mental function — mastering one's own process of behavior” (Vygotsky, 1982), is logical enough that sexuality at a rather early stage loses its involuntary character. Moreover, it is the only human function whose implementation canons were fixed even within the framework of the legislation, as a result of which a new, socially determined regulatory principle of sexual behavior was formed (Foucault, 1996; Marcuse, 1995; Freud, 1924; Horney, 1993). It is sexuality that most responds to the idea of ​​“cultural development”, which consists in the fact that “not nature, but society should be considered as the determining factor of human behavior” (Vygotsky, 1982, Vol. 1, p. 184).

The hierarchical structure of human sexuality is manifested in the fact that the natural need for procreation, instinctive in nature, having a clearly delineated circle of unconditioned stimuli, realized in the form of a chain reflex in conditions corresponding to these unconditioned stimuli, begins to obey at some point conventions that are not biological, but social in nature, and are transformed into a “genetically more complex and higher form of behavior”. The hierarchy of the structure of human sexuality is manifested in the possibility of its re-splitting, for example, in the case of "removing" higher regulatory forms, in situations of alcohol or drug intoxication, states of pathological affect, frontal syndrome, or other lesions of the cortical regions of the brain. As with other variants of higher mental functions in the new structures of human sexuality, as opposed to the lower ones, the difference lies primarily in the fact that "... the direct fusion of stimuli and reactions in a single complex turns out to be disturbed" (Ibid., P. 116) .

4.4. Shaping human sexuality

In the same way as other higher mental functions, human sexuality is characterized by the lifetime social character of the formation. However, the specificity of socialization in this case is determined by a combination of the rigidity of the prohibition, its internal inconsistency and not always an explicit formulation. The radical difference between sexuality and classical higher mental functions is determined by the fact that the interpsychic stage of formation is characterized by the separation not of performing the function, but of its prohibition, and at first not only the implementation model but the stereotype of inhibition is assimilated.

Although the concept of socialization is not related to LS. Vygotsky with the repressive function of culture, there is no principal theoretical limit to its use in interpreting repression. Such an extension of the concept will make it possible to use the advantages of the theme of the repressive function of culture, well developed in modern Western philosophy and psychology, and to combine it with the advantages of the domestic cultural and historical approach.

With regard to sexuality, the system of restrictions, rules and regulations, which initially exists as a developed extrapsychic joint activity of the child and his carers, is internalized.

The fact that the specific articulation of the topic of sexuality at a childish age is quite rare should not mislead us. М.Фуко (1996) в своей «Истории сексуальности» указывает, что, начиная с XVII в., когда в педагогике возникает идея греховности проявлений детской сексуальности, о сексе не начина ют говорить меньше, — напротив. Но говорят совсем по-другому, и другие люди. Он замечает, что ни один из педагогов XVII в. не стал бы, как Эразм Роттердамский в своих «Диалогах», давать совет ученику по поводу выбора хорошей проститутки. «И громкий хо хот, который так долго сопровождал раннюю сексуальность ребен ка, мало-помалу затих... Само молчание, вещи, о которых отказываются говорить или которые запрещают называть, сдержанность, которая требуется от говорящих, — все это является не столько абсолютным пределом дискурса, другой стороной, от которой он якобы отделен жесткой границей, сколько элементами, функцио нирующими рядом со сказанными вещами, вместе с ними и по отношению к ним в рамках согласованных стратегий. Не следует проводить здесь бинарного разделения на то, о чем говорят, и то, о чем не говорят; нужно было бы попытаться определить различ ные способы не говорить об этом, установить, как распределяются те, кто может и кто не может об этом говорить, какой тип дискур са разрешен, или какая форма сдержанности требуется для одних и для других. Имеет место не одно, но множество разных молча ний, и они являются составной частью стратегий, которые стяги ваются и пересекают дискурсы» (Фуко, 1996, с. 123—124).

М. Фуко демонстрирует, что это молчаливое руководство про явлениями детской сексуальности в виде интерпсихической дея тельности может реализоваться даже не в словах, а просто в самой архитектуре учебных зданий. «Глядя на образовательные колледжи XVIII века, — говорит он, — может показаться, что о сексе здесь практически не говорят. Но сама архитектура, планировка, дис циплинарные уставы и вся внутренняя организация доказывают, что речь все время идет именно о сексе» (Там же, с. 125). О нем в вещественной форме думали строители, все, кто обладает властью, приведены в состояние постоянной бдительности мерами предосто рожности, игрой наказания и ответственности.

Пространство классов, форма столов, планировка спален, — все явственно «говорит» о сексуальности детей и реализованном стремлении управлять ею. Это своеобразный внутренний дискурс учреждения, исходящий из молчаливой констатации того, что сек суальность существует и ею необходимо управлять 2 .

«Было бы неточным говорить, что педагогическая институция в массовом масштабе навязала молчание о сексе детей и подростков. Напротив, начиная с XVIII века она умножала формы дискурса о нем; она установила для него разнообразные точки внедрения; она закодировала содержание и определила круг тех, кто имеет право говорить. Говорить о сексе детей, заставлять говорить о нем воспи тателей, врачей, администраторов и родителей, или же говорить им о нем, заставлять говорить о нем самих детей и окутывать их тка нью дискурсов, которые то обращаются к ним, то говорят о них, то навязывают им канонические познания, то образуют по поводу них ускользающее от них знание, — все это позволяет связать усиление власти и умножение дискурса. Начиная с XVIII века, секс детей и подростков становится важной ставкой, вокруг которой вы страиваются бесчисленные институциональные приспособления и дискурсивные стратегии. Вполне может статься, что и у взрослых, и у самих детей отняли определенный способ говорить об этом, и что этот способ был дисквалифицирован как прямой, резкий и грубый. Но это было лишь оборотной стороной, и, быть может, условием функционирования других дискурсов — множественных, пересека ющихся, тонко иерархированных и весьма сильно артикулирован ных вокруг пучка отношений власти» (Там же, с. 126—127).

Отсутствие темы сексуальности в структуре реального общения может свидетельствовать о совершенно противоположном феноме не—о незримом, молчаливом, но постоянном присутствии.

-2 Полицейский устав для лицеев, 1809 г. (Цит. по: Фуко, 1996, с. 124):

Статья 67. Во время классных и учебных часов всегда должен быть клас сный воспитатель, наблюдающий за тем, что происходит снаружи, дабы воспрепятствовать ученикам, вышедшим по нужде, оставаться и соби раться вместе.

Статья 68. После вечерней молитвы ученики должны быть препровожде ны обратно в спальню, где воспитатели сразу же должны уложить их спать.

Статья 69. Воспитатели должны ложиться спать не ранее, чем удостове рятся, что каждый ученик находится в своей постели.

Статья 70. Кровати должны быть отгорожены друг от друга перегородка ми высотой в два метра. Спальни должны быть освещены в течение ночи.

Хотя со времени, описываемого М.Фуко, прошло почти три века, тема «асексуальной сексуализации» остается более чем акту альной. Яркий пример этого — актуализация за последнее десятилетие в протестантских странах темы « sexual harassment » или « sexual abuse », заставляющей обнаруживать скрытый сексуальный подтекст в самых невинных поступках. Отсутствие темы сексуальности в «приличном обществе» на самом деле — изнанка ее постоянного те кущего присутствия.

4.5. «Культурная» патология эротического тела

Другая особенность интерпсихического этапа социализации сек суальности, оказывающей решающее значение в формировании ее патологии, — это противоречивость, двойственность предъявляемых к ней социальных требований. С одной стороны, сексуальные про явления должны подавляться, либо быть заключены в узкие границы канонической реализации, с другой — постоянно поддержива ется и сосуществует параллельно с этими границами тема «мужской предприимчивости», активности, инициативности, нарушения та- буированных запретов. Канон одновременно и существует, и его надлежит «выполняя, нарушать», что в дальнейшем создает плодо родную почву для формирования различных сексуальных рас стройств.

Social of The, a determined Historically, Relatively conditional nature of the prohibitions and restrictions of manifestations of sexuality is Clearly the associated with the peculiarities of the Formation of arbitrariness in the regulation The of for These manifestations.

M. Foucault (1996) gives a very vivid example of this kind of zap, forming through the attribution of responsibility a new type of arbitrariness, the problem of children's onanism, objectified through the establishment of cultural communicative restriction. Until the beginning of the XVIII century. There was no such pedagogical problem as a child's masturbation (especially in the lower classes), because all forms of child sexuality were regarded as completely innocent, and the child was not blamed or responsible for their manifestation. Since the articulation of the ban, the situation has changed dramatically. During the XVIII century. it becomes a public and pedagogical problem. Doctors, pedagogues, parents are united in their persistent desire to completely destroy any manifestations of child sexuality (from this moment scary “scientifically based” theories about the absolute harm of child onanism originate). Although these limitations are articulated by the beginning of the 18th century, it is possible to establish direct borrowings or very close successive connections between the first Christian doctrines and moral philosophy of antiquity: “The first significant Christian text devoted to sexual relations in matrimonial life is 10 chapter II the book "Teacher" by Clement of Alexandria, - is based on several passages from the Holy Scriptures, but also on a number of principles and prescriptions directly borrowed from pagan philosophy. Here you can already see a certain association of sexual activity and evil. In this text, it is easy to recognize those obsessive fears that have been cultivated by medicine and pedagogy since the 18th century ... The progressive depletion of the organism, the death of an individual, the extermination of his race and, ultimately, the damage inflicted on all of humanity - all this the flow of talkative literature promised to those who would abuse their sexual function. In the medical thought of the 19th century, these fears raised by people seemed to constitute a “naturalistic” and scientific replacement for the Christian tradition, which attributed pleasure to the field of death and evil ” {Foucault, 1996, p. 285–286). “Around the college student and his sex, a whole literature of instructions, warnings, observations, medical advice, clinical cases, reform schemes, plans for ideal institutions is growing rapidly. Thanks to Bazedov and the German "philanthropic" movement, this derivation into the discourse of teen sex took on a significant scale. Salzmann even organized an experimental school, the peculiarity of which was in such well-thought-out control and education in the field of sex that the universal sin of youth should never have had a place there. And among these measures, the child should not have been just a wordless and unconscious object of concern agreed between adults alone, he was prescribed a certain discourse about sex: reasonable, limited, canonical and true, a kind of discursive orthopedics ” {Ibid., . 125).

Here M. Foucault comes close to the main theme of the cultural-historical concept of the formation of higher mental functions, connecting arbitrariness with sign-symbolic mediation. For ls Vygotsky these aspects of higher mental function are inextricably linked, because it is through sign-to-symbolic mediation that the mode of arbitrariness is realized. The difference between lower (natural) and higher functions occupying a different hierarchical position lies primarily in the fact that between the stimulus to which the behavior is directed and the person’s reaction a new intermediate element is put forward, and the whole operation takes on the mediated nature and the direct fusion of stimuli and reactions in a single the complex is impaired (see: Vygotsky, 1982).

L.S. Vygotsky here uses the concept of "mediation" proposed by Hegel, who said that reason is as cunning as it is powerful (Hegel, 1992), to explain the mechanism of arbitrary regulation. The trick, in his opinion, consists in mediating activity, which would allow objects to act on each other according to their nature and deplete themselves in this effect, not interfering directly in this process, but realizing, nevertheless, their goal. The concept of mediating activity was further extended by introducing as a tool for mediating signs, or, in a broader sense, “sign”, and a new type of behavior necessarily corresponded to a new regulatory principle.

The meaning of its novelty is that development appears in the form of a certain natural history of signs, the history of their internalization through the application to itself of the same forms of behavior that were originally used from outside.

Human sexuality, like other forms of bodily experience, is fully subject to this law. A person becomes not just a ram of his instinctual instincts, but also possesses a whole set of psychological instruments for controlling bodily impulses.

Some of them are quite obvious, for example, whole techniques of mastering, such as cooking or pornography, have been developed to enhance appetite or excite sexuality . Other mediating tools are less obvious and are based on giving sexuality special semantic nuances or giving it a special meaning.

Since the erectile component is the most visible and real manifestation of sexual energy and, consequently, male consistency, over a rather significant historical period it is precisely this important, but, nevertheless, private aspect of sexuality that is closely monitored. In any case, it is practically in a modern form recorded in one of the oldest literary monuments, the “Satyricon” of Petronius Arbitrator, dating from around the first century of our era. The protagonist of the novel, Encolpius, deprived of male power for insulting Priap, appeals to his disobedient body with an accusatory speech: “Well, what do you say, disgrace in front of people and gods — because you cannot even classify you as a little bit serious ? <...> Did I really deserve, so that you, having taken away the blooming spring freshness from me, imposed on me the impotence of deep oldness? ” (Petronius, 1990, p. 214). In this fragment, two points are of particular interest: first, the attitude towards the incident, as to something personally discrediting the hero, is “disgrace”, and secondly, the feeling of responsibility for the actions of its body, which must always be unfailing.

The last conviction is so ingrained that “the identification of a man’s sexual abilities with the presence of an erection is specific to European civilization. Complaints of weakness of erection occupy a leading place among the reasons for the treatment of European men to sexopathologists or charlatans.

Of course, if a man goes to bed with a new partner or even another soup that is familiar to the tips of his nails, a man may worry about whether a woman will be satisfied, himself, etc. But only in European civilization, these problems take the form of hypertrophied fear: will there be an erection? From the purely technical details of sexual intercourse, erection has become a symbol of man's dignity, sexual power, degree of attractiveness for a woman. The European ideal of a man is a certain circus artist, always ready to perform a worked out trick - to master a woman in any conditions ” (Builing, 1995, pp. 11–12).

A strange aberration occurred: on the one hand, an enormous semantic field of various meanings and personal meanings was loaded onto an erection, and on the other hand, the whole area of ​​sexuality was concentrated solely on the erectile component. Instead of a wealth of sensual fabric that includes all the modalities of sensations: sound, image, groin, touch, taste, sexuality turned out to be concentrated solely on the “technical detail of sexual intercourse”.

Due to such asymmetry, this design turned out to be unstable and with paradoxical psychological fragility with high physiological strength (Vasilchenko, 1983). The European man became vulnerable precisely because of the excessive mediation of sexuality, which developed in the conditions of its voluntary regulation.

Since sexuality has an excessive semantic field, along with the value aimed at “artificial” stimulation, disharmonious denotative complexes associated with the fear of inconsistency with the level of assertions, confirmed by inadequate self-esteem and infantile fears, are actualized. Therefore, the redundancy of signified ones does not improve the voluntary regulation, but, on the contrary, worsens it significantly, and in proportion to the personal significance of the situation of sexual contact, the height of the claims and the alarm to be inconsistent with high expectations.

This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that the frequency of sexual failures increases with respect to a highly appreciated object, or in an unaccustomed situation of new sexual contact, requiring an adequately high level of confirmation of male qualities understood only through the prism of the erectile component.

Functional psychogenic impotence, thus, can be considered as a dysfunction of an arbitrary regulation associated with a violation of the mediation of a natural organismic act due to the redundancy of semiotic connections. This disorder has a structural similarity in the psychological mechanism of symptom formation with a large class of conversion and dissociative disorders associated with impaired voluntary regulation of various mental functions or activities.

Another confirmation of the stated hypothesis can serve as the fact that there is no functional impotence in cultures where there are no requirements for an arbitrary regulation of sexuality as rigid as in Europe. This phenomenon becomes understandable if one considers that attribution of responsibility for the occurrence of erection in these cultures is attributed not to a man, but to a woman, or to otherworldly forces in general. R. Levy noted that for a resident of the island of Tahiti, the absence of an erection does not in any way mean a failure in intimate life or whatever the creditor. “If, starting to caress a woman, the man discovers that the erection does not occur, he decides that this woman at the given moment of time does not excite him and refuses to recuperate. This is not considered a fiasco. He simply concludes that he does not want to have intercourse ”(quoted in Prokopenko, 1989, p. 12).

This hypothesis can be considered as an additional to the existing analytical, cognitive and behavioral models of psychogenic impotence, since it determines the universal link of the actual psychological syndrome.


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The psychology of corporeality

Terms: The psychology of corporeality