Sexual experience cannot be conveyed through instruction but only through lived embodiment

Evidence

It should be said that even coherent instruction would not resolve the problem; in spite of the best will of parents and teachers, the sexual experience could not be put into words and concepts; it could only be understood by living it; all analysis, however serious, will have a comic side and will fail to deliver the truth. When, from the poetic loves of flowers to the nuptials of fish, by way of the chick, the cat, or the kid, one reaches the human species, the mystery of conception can be theoretically elucidated: that of voluptuousness and sexual love remains total. How would one explain the pleasure of a caress or a kiss to a dispassionate child? Kisses are given and received in a family way, sometimes even on the lips: Why do these mucus exchanges in certain encounters provoke dizziness? It is like describing colors to the blind. As long as there is no intuition of the excitement and desire that give the sexual function its meaning and unity, the different elements seem shocking and monstrous. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 729

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the lived body and the Sartrean point that consciousness is embodied, both of which ground Beauvoir’s framework. — connects to: Lived bodily knowledge is absolute and pre-discursive, not built from explicit angles — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 734; Biology only matters to psychology through the lived, meaningful body — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 119; Repeated bodily practices form the self rather than merely express it — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival…, 1022 (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Establishes the phenomenological premise that sexual meaning only emerges through lived intuition of excitement and desire, a conceptual foundation for Beauvoir’s whole account.

Broader Connections

• Veiling and ritual bodily acts train the self into piety #corroborates (0.80)
• Embodied practice constitutes a precondition for religious experience #corroborates (0.78)
• Repeated bodily practices form the self rather than merely express it #expands (0.75) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1022