The deepest desire is to be objectified, not to possess
Evidence
Desire is construed here in terms of simple appropriation (this equivalence is yet another way in which Kant is in tune with Sade). But what Kant — and those who follow him in condemning pornography because it “objectifies” — fails to recognise is that our deepest desire is not to possess an other but to be objectified by them, to be used by them in/as their fantasy. … The perfect erotic situation would involve neither a dominance of, nor a fusion with, the other; it would consist rather in being objectified by someone you also want to objectify. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 182
Categorization
- DEFINE: Spells out one sense of Lacan’s ‘desire is the desire of the other’.
- DEEPTHINKING: Rewires the standard anti-pornography and Kantian ethics objection to objectification by inverting its direction.
- XREF: connects to: The desire to possess aims at unity with the object; Man is fundamentally the desire to be, a lack of being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1329; Desire has a double determination toward being and toward appropriating concrete objects — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1363 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- The desire to possess aims at unity with the object
#contradicts(0.85) - Losing oneself in an object is secretly the emptiest assertion of subjectivity
#corroborates(0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 44 - Desire has a double determination toward being and toward appropriating concrete objects
#qualifies(0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1363 - Sexuality expresses an underlying quest for being rather than grounding it.
#expands(0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 127 - Man is fundamentally the desire to be, a lack of being
#corroborates(0.70) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1329