“Just Sex;” or, The Optical Illusion of an Aphorism
Part I: Logic, Painting and the Aphorism
There is no such thing, as “just sex”. Otherwise I would certainly get married.
Given that we could rescue the statement mentioned above from being classified as a contradiction, we could see that it is in fact, not even a paradox but an aphorism. Aphorisms often exhibit the structure of a contradiction, where in reality they present us only with an apparent paradox. The aphorism needs to be unpacked, like a knot, to see the straight line of reasoning, hidden behind the complexity at the surface.
The aphorism needs to be observed at the right angle, so to speak, in order that the picture forms a whole, instead of the fragmentary distortion seen from all other frames of references. In this sense, an aphorism is very similar to an optical illusion.
The painting on the left can be interpreted as a visual aphorism. Especially if you observe the bottom part. When looked at directly, it is a badly drawn and altogether dismantled image of a skull at best. When observed directly, it makes no sense visually, even though the rest of the painting is perfectly coherent. But if we step to the side of the painting, the real skull begins to show. At a different angle, the painting depicts a regular skull with normal proportions.
Going back to our phrase: “There is no such thing, as “just sex”. Otherwise I would certainly get married.” Besides the logical structure of the statement, we have to evaluate its semantic content. In fact, logically there is no contradiction, unless by “logic” we mean common sense as opposed to the universal laws of human reason, which is what many logicians take logic to be. But the paradox is in fact a result of the culturally conflicting notions. The notions of sex and marriage, together with the complicated rules of their mutual inclusion and exclusion.
What I would argue for, is that the “angle” from which this statement needs to be “observed” in order for the paradox to dissolve, that is, in order for the “skull” to emerge, is the perspective which assumes a critical attitude towards marriage and sexuality. But before we continue, let us quickly look at the rather simple logical structure of the statement:
There is no such thing =df. There does not exist an ‘x’ such that […]
notation: ~Ex : […]
“just sex” = df. an adjectival noun, which can be categorized as a property of x i.e. […] is just sex
notation: JS(x)
The first part of the phrase “There is no such thing, as “just sex””, can then alternatively be formalized as:
~Ex: JS(x)
and it can be read as, “There does not exist an ‘x’, such that x is “just sex”.
The main operator of this statement is the term “Otherwise”, because it binds the whole structure together, we will leave it aside for now and formalize the second part of the aphorism.
Marriage is a relation, a function with two variables, “x is married to y” and it can be written down M(x, y). This would read “x is married to y”, but it would include all other relations of past and future forms as well, including “x was married to y” or “x will be married to y”. Traditionally, logic is atemporal, which means that it treats statements as frozen in time. A defining feature of all analysis is that the less time figures as a variable, the more accurate the result will be. Though temporal or tense logic does exist, it would introduce an unnecessary level of complexity here.
The first variable in the M(x,y) function is the first-person pronoun “I”, we can therefore re-write the function as: M(I,y). And now we are faced with the following partially formalized statement: ~Ex: JS(x), Otherwise M(I,y). How would we formalize “otherwise” (pun intended)? In robot language, (which is the mediating language between human language and logic), “otherwise” means “If it is not the case that […], then […]”, which in logical notation is written down as ~a →b and it reads: If it is not the case that a, then it is the case that b. By now, you may have guessed that the notation for ‘Not’ or negation is the sign ‘~’.
Now instead of ‘a’ and ‘b’, in the formula ~a →b we have to substitute ‘~Ex: JS(x)’ for ‘a’ and ‘M(I,y)’ for ‘b’ respectively, leaving us with:
~~Ex: JS(x) → M(I,y)
Notice the two negation signs. As in everyday parlance, two negations make an affirmation. I.e. robot language: ‘It is not the case, that there is no such thing as “just sex” is equivalent to there is such a thing as just sex’, leaving us with a simple statement: Ex: JS(x) = df. there exists such a thing as “just sex”. (The ‘df.’ sign stands for “definition”)
Formally: ~~Ex: JS(x) = Ex: JS(x)
Now the final formalized version of the statement “There is no such thing, as “just sex”. Otherwise I would certainly get married” would be:
Ex: JS(x) → M(I,y)
This is a perfectly normal logical proposition, free of all and any contradiction. This “simplified” version of the original sentence does in fact, help us see that another way to formulate it, is ‘If “just sex” is a thing, then I will get married’. There is nothing wrong with this phrase; grammatically it is perfectly well formulated. Though it is an awfully peculiar thing to say. And logic provides only limited resources to understand the nature of this peculiarity.
Part II, Sex and Marriage: The Forged Institutional Double Bind
What answers for the discomfort we feel at reading the aphorism is our own hypocrisy concerning marriage and sex. But similar to the skull in Holbein’s painting, uncovering the real meaning results only in more discomfort when faced with the true image. The implication of the statement should be clear by now: “People don’t get married because they love each other, they get married for sex. And doing so is completely ridiculous, because “just sex” is as big of a lie as the sanctity of marriage itself.”
There is always a little bit of marriage in every casual encounter; a possibility for friendship, common interests, a temporary alliance. And the ulterior motives in a typical marriage are certainly a well worn-out theme of both classical and contemporary literature.
A critical attitude towards what is essentially an economic transaction with the ideological façade of a sacred ritual is still not what gives originality to the aphorism. The message that carries the most weight, is the dismantling of the consumer one-night-stand-airBnB bachelor lifestyle as the only alternative to marriage. Both lifestyles feed into the same system of economic governance. They both present ways of managing and directing sexuality to useful ends without having to repress it completely. In fact, a produced sexuality is much more profitable, than a repressed one. While neither is of course, conducive to practicing our so called freedoms.
The aphorism reveals the artificial institutional double bind of normalized sexuality and marriage, with the body, allegedly, caught in between. Posed as conflicting opposites, in reality, they feed into the same system of control and domestication of human lives. Married or single, we are forced to conform to pre-fabricated identities and follow market trends. “Just sex” has been one of the most successful American PR campaigns serving to hide the indispensable role that sexuality has played in the governing of human bodies. From sex education, to advertisements and pornography, the State has a serious interest in training the population to produce the needed amount of birth-rates and consumption patterns. Sex is what shapes the labor-force and transforms “free” individuals into consumers and producers. An ongoing surveillance of sexuality is an absolute must for a growing economy. The nodal power-centers responsible for the sexual training and upbringing of individuals is the family, the school, the medical institutions and the psychiatric wards. The point in fact, is not that conjugality is a lie, nor that sex is liberating, but that the opposition between the life of a “libertine” and a married couple is a political construct. That precisely is the “skull;” the memento mori hidden in the paradox.
Aphorisms are useful tools for exposing contemporary cultural and political power-structures, no less so for everyday human hypocrisy and bad faith. The alluring power of aphorisms lies in their ability to pose as exemplary pieces of non-sense. Aphorisms often speak from a position of utter insanity. At first a blatant contradiction, transforms into a paradox, reappearing finally as a provocative truth and resting at last in clarity and self-evidence. An aphorism can place us outside of the entire field of power relations, at least for a moment, so that we can assume a real critical attitude.
