Pleasure, carnal
Tricky core
About an infamous formulation
Odo Marquard once made fun of the sociological talk of the “personal core” with the remark that this core is probably not what a cannibal would spit out. You didn’t have to, but you could still think of Kant. Because it’s about the consumption of a human being, which leaves not just a remnant, but even the whole person. It’s about “the pleasure derived from the enjoyment of another person,” which is placed aside from cannibalistic consumption. Because there are “two types of enjoyment of one person from another (of the flesh): the cannibalistic or the voluptuous enjoyment. The latter leaves the person alone.” Sexual pleasure, the commercium sexuale – even the kiss – is therefore a paradoxical relative of cannibalism; Like him, pleasure is his driving force to use a person or to allow himself to be used by another person; In the commercium sexuale, those involved are each other’s means of enjoyment. This of course raises a moral problem, because as people they are not allowed to degrade themselves or others into a means.