Most philosophical, psychological and psychoanalytical theories of sexuality would describe the phenomenon as an instinct; entirely inscrutable without vast study into human nature and biology. These concepts have been used for generations by philosophers to explain the desire humans have for each other. In the twentieth century Jean-Paul Sartre denied both. Referred to as the father of Existentialism, he developed a theory of sexual desire not as a result of some base urge that needs to be satiated, but rather, it is human capacity for embodying consciousness. A hypothesis that denies any kind of intrinsic human nature would seem to exclude sexist bias, yet Sartre consistently contradicts his own theory through his treatment of women as inevitably ruled by their femininity, his vicious assessment of the feminine essence in his broad scope of work, and his resultant exclusion of the female from transcendence. It is not only fair to accuse Sartre of sexism when he addresses the appeal of sexual desire, but undeniable in light of how he came to his conclusion.
Existentialism posits that the world as it merely exists is meaningless or absurd. Existentialists have often been characterised by having a sense of disorientation, confusion or dread in the face of this. Simply, Sartre’s answer to a world without meaning is that meaning can be created - existence precedes essence. Most beings are in-themselves: unconscious, unthinking, and unchanging; but minds can transcend this. By recognising that they are not merely in-themselves, beings can be for- themselves. They achieve conscience of their own consciousness and use it to cause change through projects, and imagine the world as it is not. Sartre clarifies that the choices one makes do not make one an essence; a philosopher who chooses to do philosophy is not a philosopher in the way that a tree is a tree. The distinction is that a being-for-itself may choose to no longer describe itself as a philosopher, but the tree, in-itself, has no such capacity. These conscious minds create themselves from what they are not. If they do not, they deny the reality and responsibility of the freedom they have and behave in what Sartre deems ‘bad faith’. From what was nothingness, a lack of meaning, they have all power to shape themselves; although they are incomplete because they cannot reconcile their existence as being in the world as an object, as well as for themselves as a conscience. One cannot have a sense of who they are without questioning themselves as other than what they are, and ceasing to be the person.
His theory of conscious beings then develops into the interaction between them. Sartre finds unavoidable conflict in the relation between beings-for-themselves, because the gaze of an Other forces one to apprehend themselves as seen. If one is objectified in such a way, they perceive themselves as objects being perceived, and falsely identify as being in-itself.
“It is as body-in-situation that I apprehend the Other's transcendence- transcended, and it is as body-in-situation that I experience my self in my alienation for the Other's benefit.” (Sartre, 1969)
The ‘body-in-situation’ can attempt to reject this, but in order to do so they in turn must objectify the Other with their own gaze. It repositions them as a being-for-itself by perceiving the Other as in- itself. Or they can wait for the Other to recognise them as for-themselves, which leaves one as nothing without them. One must be sacrificed for the other - it is inexorable contention. Yet Sartre does not see the situation as entirely bleak; he finds hope in sexuality. Desire is the one occasion wherein exception to this contest of perception can be found. To desire another is to be aware and attracted to their body, and the intention is that the Other returns that desire. As such the desirer is simultaneously aware of their own body, hoping it is also attractive to the Other; “he is and consents to be an object [...] but on the other hand, he wants to be the object in which the Other's freedom consents to lose itself” (Sartre, 1969). Contrary to the state of conflict, desire allows both parties to be aware of their own and the Other’s consciousness at the same time that they are aware of their bodies-in-situation.
“I recover my world by producing in the Other sexual desire towards me. In sexual desire I incarnate my own consciousness so as to produce a similar incarnation in the Other.” (Nathan Oaklander, 1980)
There is optimism in Sartre’s accounts of sexual desire because without it, beings-for-themselves merely recognise their conscience. While the Other can threaten their freedom, they can also be the means of embodying it. Only this state of mutual desire can complete the incomplete and mend the fissure between body, in-itself, and mind, for-itself.
This conclusion posits that sexuality is not a drive, since it is not the means to a result, but a capacity one discovers resultant from desirous interaction. This seems to rule out sexist accounts of women being only a vessel for reproduction.
“According to this account, one doesn't want just to employ the other person's body. Sartre would reject the sometimes popular idea that what men are generally out to get is just a woman's body. Rather, I will want to ensnare the other's consciousness by making her identify with and experience her own body [...]” (Russell, 1979)
In fact, Sartre depicts furthering sexual desire rather negatively. His state of double incarnation is quickly destroyed if desire culminates in action. The participants lose simultaneous awareness of their own and each other’s body and consciousness as they succumb to pleasure, no matter from whom it originates. “The pleasure of the orgasm is the "death and failure of desire” (Sartre, 1969). If an individual concentrates on their own pleasure, they objectify themselves masochistically; if they focus on the Other’s pleasure they objectify them sadistically. Sexuality is at its most noble when it is restrained in mere desire, and not allowed to reduce either party to what they are not.
Thus far, Sartre’s theory of desire appears to be free of sexism. His theory of being leaves no room for it; human nature is denied in the face of nothingness, and so is its legitimacy as an explanation for prejudice. Neither man nor woman could be discriminated against according to or for that which they don’t have; “indeed, anyone who uses such arguments would be guilty of bad faith” (Collins & Pierce, 1980). Sartre’s theory of interaction esteems desire because it allows one and the Other, or man and woman, to be at their most complete and free; and it criticises sexual activity because it objectifies the parties involved. If Sartre were assessed solely on this account of desire, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to accuse them of being prejudiced against women. It would not be fair, however, to make such an assessment without examining his encompassing works for why the account was drawn. It is there that the sexism in his theory becomes evident. Not only does Sartre view sexual activity as inevitably objectifying, he also sees it as the inevitable outcome of mutual desire. If one denies this Sartre would deem that they are acting in bad faith; they deny the responsibility of the freedom they had to desire. If sexuality is a capacity one has, then it is their choice to indulge it. To chose to do something affirms its value “for we are unable ever to choose the worse” (Sartre, 1969). Refusing to follow the progression of an action one chose is to deny what it entails despite their placing value on it — in this way, one is afraid of their freedom and falsely denies their being for themselves. Both man and woman can fall prey to bad faith, but unfortunately in describing sexual activity as both objectifying and rightly unpreventable he makes room, where it was not before within his own theory of desire, for permissible objectification.
It is obvious in Sartre’s work which gender he objectifies; his description of the female body as deficient renders it nothing but an object that must be completed in some way by man. Her genitals, by the fact of their appearance, are labelled as a ‘hole’. As the for-itself creates itself from lack, it follows that the hole which lacks should be filled to remove the nothingness. Woman, being incomplete, is inferior due to her anatomy,. During sexual intercourse, the hole is filled, yet while man may be able to compensate her deficiency, he can only do it through sacrifice of his own. To use a crude analogy, a hole is filled, but a shovel is buried. Sexual intercourse “castrat[es] the man; [...] devours the penis” (Sartre, 1969). Such a castration is allowed for the physical pleasure it brings. However, once the man has been pleasured he has no reason to sacrifice his own plentitude to compensate the woman’s lack any longer. Sexual activity, and the pleasuring of the Other, ends with male ejaculation; the woman’s pleasure is completely incidental. He speaks of his partner after ejaculation as such: “[...] I no longer know how to utilise this flesh. No goal can be assigned to it [...]” (Sartre, 1969). The parallel drawn with lack, and nothingness, along with the clear objectification that Sartre establishes in his theory of interaction as capable of stripping transcendence, leaves woman as nothing more than a being-in-itself, and her body is capable of rendering others the same. Woman lacks, and man does not, just as a being-in-itself lacks meaning, and that for-itself does not. Sexual desire, not activity, is the optimal interaction because the female and the feminine, in-themselves and ineradicably so, do not have the opportunity to threaten the transcendence of man.
The female body’s association with the in-itself is reinforced with blatant disgust for its design. Sartre describes femininity not unlike one would explain a trap; designed to force man to objectify themselves and relinquish their transcendence.
“The For-itself is suddenly compromised. I open my hands, I want to let go of the slimy and it sticks to me, it draws me, it sucks at me. [...] It is a soft, yielding action, a moist and feminine sucking [...] I cannot slide on this slime, all its suction cups hold me back... it is a trap. [...] Slime is the revenge of the In-itself. A sickly-sweet feminine revenge which may be symbolised on another level by the quality sugary.” (Sartre, 1969)
Here, distinctly feminine, or female, qualities are associated brazenly with negative connotation. The passage reveals “a traditional concept of the feminine, a sweet, dinging, dependent threat to male freedom” (Collins & Pierce, 1980), and clearly implies an unescapable female nature despite his theory claiming that such an essence could not exist. His fictional work pushes this conception as well; “L’Age de Raison” depicts four female characters who are intelligent and conscious, but are detained by their respective, inherent, female essences. One woman is criticised for exhibiting masculine characteristics as “artificial, implying a violation of nature, and troublesome, suggesting that women cannot escape or refuse roles as men can” (Collins & Pierce, 1980). Another is ruled by her anatomy; aged and having had no husband nor children, she is desperate for a relationship and pursues this as her only purpose before she is subdued by bodily illness. The third is referred to as a “pregnant belly” (Sartre, 1945) and reduced to nothing more than a reproductive vessel who tends to her children and home, and the last achieves self-awareness but does not have the intelligence to do anything with it. She admits this herself with some turmoil:
“What is the truth? Until now it has always been what Jacques said; if I stop believing in him, in whom can I believe? [...] I don't know enough about it.” (Sartre, 1945)
All of his female characters are subject to their feminine nature in some way or another, and it is clear that Sartre’s use of the masculine pronoun in his theory denying human nature was not merely indicative of the gendered author or said gendered author’s force of habit or identification, but also a mark of exclusivity. A male essence cannot exist because man creates himself from the lack of meaning, but woman is not man, and is unable to do the same because her femininity rules her.
Sartre’s theory of sexual desire seems, at first glance, to be impartial. Neither the desirer nor the desired are compromised; they achieve embodied consciousness simultaneously. His denial of any intrinsic human nature in conjunction with his distaste for the objectification of sexual intercourse would also appear to make sexism impossible. However, upon further analysis it is clear that it is not women who do not have an essence, but man, and due to their inferiority women cannot truly achieve transcendence. For Sartre, their roles as reproductive vessels and mothers are inescapable, and their feminine nature aligns closely with the in-itself and endangers man’s freedom. These are the reasons why he deems sexual desire to be so advantageous — not only because consciousness becomes embodied for man and woman, but the treacherous female body is distanced and unable to pose a threat. It is not only fair to accuse Jean-Paul Sartre of sexism when we speaks of desire, but necessary.
S O U R C E S R E F E R E N C E D
Gould, C., & Wartofsky, M. (1980). Women and philosophy: toward a theory of liberation (pp. 112-127). New York, N.Y.: Putnam.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980): Being and Nothingness. (2018). Retrieved from https:// www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/sartre/section2/
Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. (2004). Jean-Paul Sartre. In Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Stanford.
Murphy, J. (1999). Feminist interpretations of jean-paul sartre. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Russell, M. (1979). Sartre on Sexuality. Journal Of Humanistic Psychology, 19(2). Sartre, J. (1945). The Age of Reason. New York City: Vintage International.
Sartre, J. (1969). Being and nothingness : an essay on phenomenological ontology. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Soble, A. (1980). The Philosophy of sex (pp. 190-204). Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield.
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