Sartre’s concept of the slimy encodes a gendered fear of feminine appropriation

Evidence

We also fi nd Sartre’s struggle against self-abandon to the other, again seen in a negative light, in Being and Nothingness’s section on the slimy. Th ere we fi nd the in-itself as the slimy, displaying itself like the overripe breast of a woman lying on her back— and there is the possibility that it will absorb the for-itself in a feminine revenge, for being appropriated by the for-itself. Th is surreptitious appropriation of the for-itself could mean the loss of control or mastery from which only activity can save it. “I am no longer the master in arresting the process of appropriation,” Sartre writes (BN, 609). — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 133

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to feminist critiques of Sartre’s philosophy of the body; also to the Beauvoir–Sartre influence debate about whether Beauvoir’s philosophy of embodied ambiguity counters this tendency. — connects to: The slimy haunts consciousness as its own feared dissolution into facticity; The slimy symbolizes the In-itself absorbing the For-itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1403; The slimy’s horror is the fear that facticity will absorb the For-itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1406 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Slime and femininity both symbolize consciousness’s threat of lapsing into in-itself #expands (0.82) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 378
• Sartre’s ontology of the slimy derived from personal disgust rather than pure insight #qualifies (0.78) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 392
• A narrative intended as masculine can be overtaken by its female characters #expands (0.72) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 687