I would first like to apologize for the lack of any blog activity the last week and even this one I’m getting in right before the deadline. I would like to take this time to apologize for this as well as an appearance of lack of enthusiasm in the classroom and my two absences. I would like to explain this behavior as I am not a slacker or a lazy student and I pride myself in my work and want to do my best for my professors to show them the learning that is taking place. That being said, I do not want to give the impression that I am anything less than a serious student. I am about to explain this recent behavior—not excuse but explain. I have been going thru a rough time recently with a depressive episode and have been doing my very best to cope and to push forward and power thru my homework and classes trying my hardest to focus on my studies. At times, it is difficult to even read as I struggle with every word and feel illiterate. On the days, I have missed classes I was in very bad places and had I gone to class I would have not gotten anything out of it and I probably would have concerned the students around me and may have left in the middle of class anyway. On these days, I also felt I could not go to class, not just mentally, but I felt I physically could not move. Like with any severe illness I have good days and bad days and I am working with an on campus therapist to ease the burden of these feelings. This is mainly to apologize to my fellow students because the class is a discussion-based one, that includes the blogging, and when one person neglects this, the whole class suffers. My professors will receive a separate email explaining the situation in more detail. Thank you all for your understanding and I apologize again.
Now on to the blog:
This week I would like to talk about my SLAP since I did not get a chance to on Wed, however, the conversation that we did have was interesting indeed. I turn to the first paragraph on pg. 23. I disagree with her statement that the Platonic myths “take sexual differentiation for granted without attempting to explain it”. I admit that they may take it for granted but the myth she refers to does explain it in a sense. In addition, one could argue that if people did not really care that there was sexual differentiation, they might be more inclined to see the sexes as equal. The myth she refers to is a story that Aristophanes tells Plato to try to explain sexual intercourse. Beauvoir agrees with this but she feels it is only about sex while I interpret this story as being much more romantic than pure sex. One could interpret Aristophanes story to explain why people “make love” I thought of this when I remembered Robert Rowland Smith’s interpretation of the story in his book Breakfast with Socrates that I highly recommend. Smith gives a beautiful interpretation of the story as follows:
“Ever since [our bodies were cut in two], the severed individuals have been seeking to come back to their other half, defining sex—the gluing of fragments—as deep satisfaction of being once more complete. Aristophanes’s story holds no biological water, of course, but like many myths it makes up for it in psychological insight: it interprets the craving for sex as nostalgia, a desire for return to a lost paradise of wholeness and haleness, a site of familiarity and sameness. In tumbling into the exquisite comfort of a lover’s arms, you are seeking to repair your perforated soul.”
He puts it so poetically but I agree with him fully. I know that Beauvoir has a different agenda here, but she does wave her hand over this story of sex as if it does not do as much as it should or that the philosophers were not focusing on the real issue at hand—which may be true. Do not get me wrong, I agree with pretty much everything she has to say, which makes it difficult to make a SLAP being in such agreement.
However, shouldn’t this class talk at least a little bit about male and female relationships? Especially since most of the complaints of either sex are directed at the opposite one as a direct result of relationship problems. Most of the clichés and stereotypes and genders and sexes are based in the differences that cause problem in log term relationships—most sitcoms that deal with couples focus most of their attention on this subject such as Home Improvement and Everybody Loves Raymond, as well as others. The only problem here is that usually the issues refer back to straight couples, as does Aristophanes story, although he never specifically mentions that when the humans were split one-half looks male and the other female, it is almost certainly implied.
Moreover, since ALL types of relationships and gender\sex differences are equally valid, it may be a waste of time for our class to discuss these issues, which seem to be on a different level than our class. This was all just some food for thought and since that, it was these blogs are for I hope I sparked some thoughts about the nature of intercourse at the very least.
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