The science of sex is not just another sex book. It is a compilation of the articles that, since 2005, the expert in sexology, Valérie Tasso, has published in the magazine Muy Interesante.
Edited by Pinolia , The Science of Sex is aimed at all those who want to enhance their critical sense about everything related to human sexuality , about what is written about it in this world that, according to Tasso, is increasingly infantilized and polarized and in which recipes that are the same for all are sought. A world that with each passing day becomes more puritanical.
On the occasion of the launch of The Science of Sex , we wanted to ask its author a few questions. You can not miss it!
Q- We know that a satisfying sex life has health benefits, but what happens the other way around? How does the state of our health affect our intimate life?
A- Our sexuality, that is, the way in which we display, manifest and put into action our sexual condition, is not at all something independent of our state of health, as, for example, neither is our personality (which, as a term, it would be comparable to “sexuality” but applied not to sex but to the person). Both issues, the ways of our sexuality and health, affect each other and condition each other, and not only do they do so in a timely manner, but they always remain intertwined. When we talk about health and our sexual condition, we usually think almost always of some specific or unforeseen problem; for example, when a male patient comes in saying that he has suffered a coronary scare and that he has erection problems or a woman who speaks of a lack of vaginal lubrication and is in the climacteric. In both cases, the relationship between the problem and this new state in which they find themselves can have a direct impact and both can be approached in parallel. However, we tend to forget the health issues that are chronic or that have accompanied the patient throughout his life and do not take them into account when it comes to how that circumstance has conditioned or intervened in his dynamic process of dynamically generating a “sexuality” .That said, it should be noted that in the vast majority of cases in which what we call in sexology a “common difficulty” occurs, the origin of this is not organic or at least there is no significant alteration of any kind in the health of his body, there is no organic pathology that triggers it but the triggering agent is elsewhere; usually in the difficulty of giving meaning, understanding and managing certain and varied phenomena that may affect their existence.
Q- In your book you comment that, with exceptions, many health problems that are routinely addressed with drugs actually have a cultural cause, can you mention any examples?
A- Yes, as I mentioned before, the vast majority of “common difficulties” are taken up in this case that you mention. In sexology we call them this because we understand, firstly, that the term “problem” achieves that our sexual condition is seen as a problem above a value, and because they are general since there are affections to the aforementioned condition. The “common difficulties” can sometimes be tremendously complex, for example, when they affect the question of the sexes, other times they require a lot of capacity on the part of the therapist, as in those related to erotic ones, but the most frequent and those that They tend to require more our attention are those that have to do with the human sexual response according to the DEMOR scheme, that is, those that affect desire, arousal, plateau, orgasm and resolution. In this last group we would include as “common difficulties” and to give you an example, alterations of desire (such as “hypo” or “hyper” active desire), erectile dysfunction in men, vaginismus, arousal disorders, female anorgasmia (primary or secondary depending on the frequency with which it appears), premature and delayed ejaculation (I prefer the term of lack of control in ejaculation), etcetera, etcetera. Well, in the vast majority of these cases the problem does not reside in an organic failure or in a pathology but in a problem of understanding a certain inducing situation that manifests itself symptomatically in the subject in the form of that sexual difficulty.The resolution of these passes, then, for the most part, through the detection of that knot that the subject cannot or does not know how to solve and in providing them with enough resources and tools so that when they understand them, as soon as they make sense, they can face them and unravel. You mention the drugs and, in this regard, I will tell you the following; There are times when it may be necessary or additional help but it is not usually necessary to resort to them because they obviate or distract from what really underlies the difficulty. Take, for example, the case of erectile dysfunction. We have highly effective drugs to treat it, such as those with active principles such as sildenafil (under the trade name “Viagra”), tadalafil (“Cialis”) and vardenafil (“Levitra”), but their scope is simple and simply the mechanics of the erection, that is to say, they do not care at all about why in a healthy subject this blockage in their sexual response can occur. He is not interested, he does not care at all about the pharmacological active principle, for example, if he feels like it or not, if there is any reason for rejection, if there is a traumatic situation that he solves by blocking the erection … And why do you want a pick if you can’t make sense of it when digging?
Q- Unlike other animals, the human being is not only instinct, but also reason. What is the perfect balance between the two?
A- It is quite debatable, and an exciting topic, to argue that humans still have “instincts” and perhaps it is more appropriate to speak of “drives” in this case or in its more elaborate form of “desires” but, semantic issues aside, What there is no doubt about is that we are traversed by irrationality, by blind forces and inertia that are beyond our rational control and that, at times, cause us to act, yearn and build ourselves in ways that are not gratifying to us (which is very unreasonable). Ovidio made it very clear when he put in Medea’s mouth that famous “video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor” (“I see what is best and I approve it, however, I do the worst”) or said in more traditional terms by Camarón ” If I like everything bad … “. Faced with this need for balance between the two poles, I would like to have the key that has taken our entire existence as humans trying to resolve itself, but I would tell you that Aristotelian that virtue is in the middle. Too heeled to the rational pole, there are psychic structures of an obsessive and manic nature that tend towards staticity, since that part of irrationality that shapes us is also the one that proposes openness to new things, affections and territories, that is, to the “ existence ”in the etymological sense (the“ positioning outside ”of oneself). Too much in the hands of Dionysus, the destructuring can be complete. Ours is an extraordinarily fragile holding between both components and that makes us possibly the most unfortunate creatures in existence, but also the most fascinating without a doubt.Sophocles, for example, described us in his “Antigone” with the Greek term “deinteron” which, depending on the context and the time, could mean both “wonderful”, “fascinating” and “creepy” or “terrible”.
Q- You dedicate an extensive chapter of the book to the relationship of man with machines. How are sexual relationships changing in an increasingly connected and technological world? Do you think robot sex will be normal in the near future?
A- Sexually interacting with androids is a possibility that is already very open and that seems in a certain way “inevitable”, not only because of the technological progression that is taking place in issues such as Artificial Intelligence and humanoid robotics but also because of the Puritan boom to conceive the other human as a bad beast that comes to tear me apart and never to love me seems to push us to that destiny. But personally I believe that it is something that is still being handled, contrary to what may be believed, in very future-oriented fields, more of science fiction than that it will soon be a reality installed in our lives. Sexual contact with a human has some components, except for certain fetishists, for example, extraordinarily peculiar and extensive that does not achieve or reach any other experience that we may have with something that is not human. That does not mean that in the burgeoning sex “toy” industry, the lines of work and investment can be directed there as they have been directed, for example, to women and specifically to stimulation of the clitoris (something unthinkable just a few years ago). decades) with great and deserved success from critics and the public, but in this case it would be presented more as a complementary contraption and, in no case, as a substitution or replacement of what is properly human … And the fact is that a human body has a lot of fabric to cut .
