For the First Time—A Phenomenology of Virginity

FOR THE FIRST TIME—A PHENOMENOLOGY OF VIRGINITY by Bronwyn Singleton A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy University of Toronto © Copyright by Bronwyn Singleton 2010 FOR THE FIRST TIME—A PHENOMENOLOGY OF VIRGINITY Doctor of Philosophy, 2010 Bronwyn Singleton Department of Philosophy University of Toronto ABSTRACT I argue that virginity is a distinct phenomenon with essential structures that can be apprehended and described using a phenomenological method, and thus offer the first robust phenomenology of virginity. A more complex passage than the physical transaction of first sexual intercourse, virginity manifests the event of a coming to love through the conduit of the sexual-erotic body. Calling on Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, I argue that virginity qualifies as a saturated phenomenon, exceeding or overflowing intuition and signification in its paradoxical phenomenality. As a study in saturated phenomena my work pushes the limits of phenomenology by endorsing the exigency of a phenomenology of the evanescent and enigmatic to engage denigrated domains of human experience such as sex and love. Our access to virginity is possible because of our ontological constitution as sexuate beings, but also because of our essential potential to cultivate our sexuate existence through the lens of a primordial erotic attunement. Conscious development of our erotic potential is a form of ascesis that can elevate the sexual-erotic encounter to the ethical height of love. Still, virginity can never be forced, taken, or lost, since the phenomenon is ultimately only gifted through an act of erotic generosity and the intervention of grace. Virginity is not a one-time threshold crossing. It has the essential possibility of being perpetually renewed with each singular sexual-erotic encounter. I seek to sever sex from its legacy as mere animal instinct and from its functional and reproductive teleology in order to open a new way of thinking about our sexual-erotic being that focuses on its ethical potential and its usefulness as a model for being with others outside of the sexual-erotic ii relation. I take seriously the Irigarayan possibility that we can craft an ethics of Eros. My work draws broadly from twentieth-century literature on phenomenology, poststructuralism, and psychoanalysis, including that of Marion, Beauvoir, Irigaray, Derrida, Heidegger, Foucault, and Butler. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the following people for their contributions to the realization of this project. Bob Gibbs, Rebecca Company, and especially my doctoral supervisor, Mark Kingwell, provided thoughtful and astute guidance and support throughout the protracted production of this work. Mark also provided drinks, which were often much needed. My family, Malkin Singleton, Cynthia Archer, Rick Singleton, and Alison Buchanan offered various forms of sustenance for the duration of my studies (and beyond). My friends, especially Jenny Carson, Jessica Humphreys, Sarah Finkelstein, and my sister Malkin (who really earned two mentions) functioned as a cheering section, psychiatric service providers, and general clean-up crew. I could not have endured this without them. Stuart Grant said exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. Chris Maeda kept me in heels and handbags for my interminable student years. He endured countless dinner conversations about Heidegger and hymens. And he also taught me a thing or two about Eros. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 §1 Introduction to the Phenomenon of Virginity 1 1.1 The Phenomenology of Virginity 1 1.2 The Exigency of Sexual-Erotic Initiation 3 1.3 The Path to Love 7 PART ONE: VIRGINITY LOST 9 §1 A Reason for Sex—Reproduction 9 §2 How We Love—The Sexual Act 11 §3 The Child 14 §4 The Couple 18 4.1 Sexual Difference and Gender Dualism 22 4.2 Compulsory Heterosexuality 24 4.3 Polyamory 26 §5 Virginity Lost—Two Paradoxes of Virginity 27 §6 First Paradox—Virginal Purity 30 §7 Second Paradox—The Impenetrable Threshold 36 7.1 The Hymen—A Case Study in Threshold Crossing 37 7.2 Interminable Eros 40 PART TWO: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF VIRGINITY 42 §1 Why Phenomenology? 42 §2 Jean-Luc Marion and the Phenomenology of Givenness 42 2.1 First Reduction: Husserl and the Transcendental or Epistemic Reduction 43 2.2 Second Reduction: Heidegger and the Ontological or Existential Reduction 45 2.3 Third Reduction: Marion and the Erotic Reduction 46 §3 Saturated Phenomena 50 §4 Erotic Phenomenology 55 §5 Sexuate Phenomenologies 60 §6 Virginity and Time 65 §7 Virginity and Space 68 PART THREE: AN ONTOLOGY OF EROS 72 §1 Sexuate Being 72 §2 Erotic Being 75 §3 Loving Animals 80 §4 The Erotic World 83 4.1 Heidegger 84 4.2 Irigaray 86 4.3 Dwelling in Love 89 §5 My Beloved 89 §6 Flesh 93 §7 The Lover’s Touch—Intercourse 99 §8 The Look of Love—The Synaesthetic Face 103 §9 A Note on Orgasm 106 v PART FOUR: THE LABOUR OF LOVE 113 §1 Chastity and Virginity 113 §2 The Labour of Love 119 2.1 Potentiality 120 2.2 Ascesis 121 2.3 Kenosis 124 §3 Virginity and Risk 127 §4 Virgin Sacrifice 129 4.1 Material Sacrifice 134 4.2 Psychological Sacrifice 135 §5 Another Sacrifice 137 PART FIVE: GRACE AND RELEASEMENT 142 §1 Charis 142 §2 Grace and Releasement 146 2.1 Grace 146 2.2 Releasement 148 §3 Efflorescence 150 §4 Evanescence 154 §5 Falling Out of Love—The Problem with Technology 157 §6 Virginity and the Saving Power—A Defence of Eros 160 §7 Virginity and Philosophy 163 7.1 Virginity 163 7.2 Philosophy 164 BIBLIOGRAPHY 167 167 vi INTRODUCTION §1 Introduction to the Phenomenon of Virginity This work is neither a historical study of virginity nor a cultural critique of virginity’s use and abuse. Rather, it offers a phenomenology of virginity. I interpret virginity as a phenomenon in its own right with essential structures that are apprehensible and amenable to description using a phenomenological method. Virginity is often conflated with the first time of sexual intercourse, but this blunt physical transaction fails to reflect sufficiently the ethical potential inherent in Eros, and deflects our recognition of a more profound sexual-erotic initiation. I read virginity as manifesting the event of a coming to love through the conduit of the sexual-erotic body. Bringing this lost sense of virginity to light is the subject of this work. 1.1 The Phenomenology of Virginity First, by providing a strategic approach and descriptive analysis of the phenomenon of virginity, I will defend the initially counterintuitive claim that virginity counts as a phenomenon. Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness provides my primary methodological framework. Virginity ought to be recognized among what Marion calls saturated phenomena, a newly discovered class of phenomena distinguished in that they exceed intuition and signification. Saturated phenomena do not lack intuition; they overflow it. Among saturated phenomena Marion includes such difficult “things” as the face, the work of art, and the phenomena of birth and death.1 Because of their excessive nature, saturated phenomena have 1 Marion makes explicit that these phenomena are not actually thingly at all and ought to be construed as selves, which give and show themselves in unique ways. 1 2 often gone unrecognized or denied in their phenomenality, since our inability to grasp them with the mind can trick us into thinking that they lack an essential structure that presents itself to consciousness. We can never adequately grasp these phenomena, since their nature is inherently paradoxical; but Marion urges that we can gain access to them by implementing a phenomenological reduction to givenness that looks to their counter-intentional structure. Counter-intentionality, derived from Lévinas’ work on ethics and the call, reverses the notion that we impose intentionality on objects of consciousness in order to give them form. Rather, it argues that these objects, these saturated phenomena, impose themselves on us, giving us our selves in the process. Saturated phenomena do not first show themselves to us; they give themselves. They appeal to us in a way that is enigmatic and demanding of infinite response.2 Still, their enigmatic and evanescent nature makes saturated phenomena like virginity prone to skepticism and doubt. My project contributes to the evolving study of saturated phenomena (although it may not always remain entirely faithful to Marion’s own work). A phenomenology of virginity, in its very insistence that there is a phenomenon of virginity that gives itself to us, appeals to the exigency of developing a phenomenology of the evanescent and enigmatic. In this sense, it challenges the limits of phenomenology and philosophy in new and productive ways, opening access to domains like Eros that have sometimes been foreclosed from philosophical investigation. We may experience the consummation that both inaugurates and transcends virginity only ephemerally, but virginity is worthy of philosophical and phenomenological investigation, since this event discloses most viscerally our nature as loving beings and the attendant ethical responsibilities that flow from this way of existing. 2 For more on the counter-intentional structure of saturated phenomena, see Marion, Being Given 266–267. 3 1.2 The Exigency of Sexual-Erotic Initiation What is the significance of recognizing virginity as a phenomenon? Figuring virginity as the event of a coming to love through the eroticized body, sex is first and foremost an ethical relation. I seek to sever sex from its legacy as mere animal instinct, biological or reproductive drive, or sentimental expression of love. While it may reflect any or all of these things, the highest use of our sexual capacity cultivates the ethical potential inherent in Eros. Philosophy has been recalcitrant in its efforts to understand the existential and ethical significance of sexual and erotic love, often actively conspiring to cast Eros outside the domain of proper philosophical investigation.

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