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Eros And Transgression In An Age Of Immanence: Georges Bataille’S (Religious) Critique Of Kinsey, James Shields
Eros And Transgression In An Age Of Immanence: Georges Bataille’S (Religious) Critique Of Kinsey, James Shields
Faculty Journal Articles
This paper explores the religious implications of eroticism in Western culture since the Sexual Revolution, a period at once applauded for its open and immanent view of sexuality and denounced for its shamelessness and promiscuity. After discussing the work and effects of Alfred C. Kinsey, the father of the Sexual Revolution, I focus on a critical appraisal of Kinsey written by French theorist Georges Bataille (“Kinsey, the Underworld and Work,” in L’Erotisme, 1957). Bataille situates contemporary Western sexuality within a larger historical movement towards the “desacralization” of all aspects of human life: sex, under the scientific gaze of the Kinsey …