It’s likely that at some point, you’ve found your morals have felt incongruent with a sexual scenario you’ve found yourself in. While this can feel pretty blindsiding, what would it mean to stop and think about it? 

 

Damon Young is an award-winning philosopher and author of “On Getting Off”, a book about sex and philosophy. In the book, Damon urges us to grapple with the complexity of sex in an honest and self-deprecating way. 

 

In this episode, Damon and Caroline discuss what it means to think about sex, the importance of humour in the bedroom, and embracing the ethical dilemmas sex gives rise to. Find “On Getting Off” and Damon’s other works here.

 

Recommendations from Damon:

Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous 

Irving Singer, Sex

David Halperin, ‘What is Sex For?’, Critical Inquiry 43 (2016).

Anna Clark, Desire: A History of Human Sexuality

Arthur Schopenhauer, ‘Metaphysics of Sexual Love’, in The World as Will and Representation, Volume 2

Audre Lorde, ‘The Uses of the Erotic’ in Sister Outsider 

Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties.

Jordy Rosenberg, Confessions of the Fox.

Milan Kundera, ‘The Hitchhiking Game’ in

Laughable Loves.

James Baldwin, Another Country 

Sharon Olds, The Connisuers of Slugs

 

Connect with us:

@becuming.me

 

Credits:

Creator & host: Caroline Moreau-Hammond

Editor & original music: Zoltan Fecso