Pleasure Is A Matter Of Technology - Relationship, Sex

In the second half of the last century, the civilized world, which had known thousands of wars and revolutions before, felt for itself what a sexual revolution is. And the consequences of this coup changed society forever. Men learned: women also love sex, want it and can initiate. The sexual revolution marked the beginning of major changes in the interaction of the sexes. How did this happen? And what's next for us? How will relations between men and women develop in the near future? Pavel TISHCHENKO, Doctor of Philosophy, spoke about this.

Dossier

Pavel TISHCHENKO - Head of the Sector of Humanitarian Expertise and Bioethics at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Philosophy. Research interests - philosophy of science, bioethics, philosophical problems of death and dying in the modern era. Author of books and scientific articles, including in English.

Pavel Dmitrievich, how did it all start?

The sexual revolution has seriously influenced the psychology of relationships. People are very difficult to change their attitude to issues such as sexuality. But in the 20th century, the first technology to change sexuality was safe abortion. Abortions have been done in all ages before, but now doctors have made them more or less a safe medical technology. And this is very important! It wasn't just some midwife who gave an incomprehensible potion. A scientifically based approach has been developed!

And thanks to the massive use of medical abortion in sexual relations, a crack is revealed - the difference between receiving pleasure and procreation.

Doctors developed this technology in order to help women who were not allowed to give birth for medical reasons. But as soon as this technology appeared, it was immediately supported by feminists who fought for their rights.

It turns out that the development of medical technologies coincided with certain moods in society?

Yes. And safe abortion began to be used as a social technology for birth control. By the way, it was no coincidence that the Soviet Union was the first to legalize these techniques in the twenties: the state needed women in production, and they needed to be freed from the extra hassle of childbirth.

A lucky coincidence: technology development coincided with social needs - and here's a revolution for you?

Yes. And the next stage is the development of effective methods of contraception. Again, contraception has been known since ancient times, but science began to develop new, more effective methods, because a problem arose: due to mass abortions, mass infertility occurs, disorders occur in the body of women. Let's save them from this: prevent abortion and develop contraceptive technology. This is how hormonal contraception was born. And in the sixties of the last century, it turned society upside down.

The woman became as free in sex as the man. Previously, she constantly lived under fear of pregnancy, so she was limited in her activity, and contraception gave her liberation. This is why we call the 1960s the sexual revolution.

And then new forms of relationships arose. Boyfriends and girlfriends have appeared - people who enjoy each other without thinking about procreation. The final stratification has taken place: pleasure is one thing, but reproduction is another.

Biomedical technologies have dramatically transformed the social factor.

Actually, at the same time homosexuality from pathology began to be viewed as an orientation. Because when sexual pleasure is associated with procreation, homosexuality is unnatural. And when you can get pleasure with a woman without consequences, does it really matter who you get it with? The argument that something was unnatural stopped working.

The time will come when our descendants will be surprised that we did not know such obvious things

Seneca

It turns out that medical technologies separate the animal part from a person (children and sexual pleasure were previously inseparable, but now - please), but where can this lead humanity, do you think?

Then what is called technologization happens. That is, a woman and a man do not just become equal thanks to technology, but the differences between them are already quite insignificant. For example, only somatic cells are needed for cloning. It doesn't matter who - men or women. And with sufficient development of this direction in technology, the sex of a person ceases to play a role.

The next stage is an artificial uterus. In many countries, work is underway to create it. And as soon as she appears, the woman will no longer be needed even to bear the future man. You can take several cells, multiply them in a test tube, then place them in an artificial uterus, and get a baby. Women will not suffer giving birth. But still in our world there is a huge mortality rate during childbirth. All this can be stopped. And children will be born from a test tube, from somatic cells for which the male and female principles are not important.

But this is a huge cultural layer! For new people it will be completely incomprehensible that our ancestors suffered, fell in love, suffered … Everything on which our literature, and indeed art in general, is based - will become alien to them. What were the "troubles" because of what if they were born so easily? A couple of generations - and they will look at us the way we now look at people of the Stone Age - it is not clear what they were doing there at all. These social consequences need to be foreseen and discussed well in advance.

It turns out that the development of medical technologies coincided with certain moods in society?

It turns out that we are slowly but surely moving towards simply living for pleasure. Moreover, the pleasure that can be achieved even without a real sexual partner. Technologies for creating sex robots are actively developing. They have a very flexible character, they are tireless. And no problems, even with HIV and hepatitis. In parallel, work is underway in another area. Our pleasure from sex has biochemical support in our heads, which means that you can create such a pill that you can eat and immediately get an orgasm. It will imitate all the reactions that naturally occur in our brain.

But personally, I am most concerned about another question: all the changes that occur in technology and in society remain unobservable. Nobody wants to discuss and notice trends. But the changes that have already begun are difficult to stop. Biotechnology is developing very rapidly. And you need to respond normally to this. But at the same time, regulate. Prohibiting is useless, but you can regulate. Respond to technology challenges in a smart, civilized way. If an artificial uterus is invented, it cannot be banned. But what will be the consequences? We need to think about it today.