TITLE:
Eroticism: Why It Still Matters
AUTHORS:
Ferdinand Fellmann
KEYWORDS:
Human Sexuality, Erotic Feelings, Sexual Morality, Biology and Psychology, Life Sciences
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.7 No.7,
June
30,
2016
ABSTRACT: This article is about Eroticism as a key-concept in the psychological understanding
of the human mind. The meaning of the term can be defined as follows: Eroticism
is the way humans experience sexuality as a self-sufficient mental activity. Sexuality
underlies different social rules in varying cultural contexts and may lead to different
ways of thinking, but there is no evidence that cultural diversity actually leads
to fundamentally different ways of feeling. The constant disposition for recreational
rather than procreational sex makes eroticism a medium of human creativity. In this
sense, eroticism is considered a central factor in the process of hominisation.
The crucial cognitive competence which makes for the uniqueness of our species is
due to the transformation of sexuality into eroticism and its disposition for social
learning. In the animal kingdom, sex contributes to the welfare of the horde, while
in human society eroticism contributes to individual self-recognition and paves
the way to moral awareness. Methodologically, I plead for a cooperation of psychological
and anthropological research, each utilizing and combining the complementary aspects
of both approaches.