We need to integrate the erotic back into the totality of humanity (and not exclude

it for being counter to rationality) and to investigate and identify the origins of
distinctly human modes of sexuality (later says: I am for a view of the whole so
what is important is the total change, the transition, in the present case, from
animal to man, not the point where things began.(72)
-------(prohibition of incest)-------------Human v. animal (restated on 61: man is the animal that negates nature.)
Levi-Strauss on incest prohibition (origins, variants, functions in circuits of
exchange/gifting rites)
Obscenity is relational and arbitrary (not objective), so is incest (p54). Incest is the
first evidence of the basic connection between man and the denial of sensuality, of
sensual animality. [] it is only a matter of setting aside domains where sexual
activity cannot enter
Extreme negation (of animality/sensuality) is part of our (false) conception of full
social humanity, but this creates the home/family as the image of (civilized)
humanity by depicting it as an asexual space (contributing to incest prohibition).
(p56)
Gifts (renunciation, restraint, respect) are the complement of eroticism (no
eroticism w/o respect for forbidden values -- no respect w/o temptation to erotic
deviation)(p57)
the prohibition does not change the violence of sexual activity, but by founding the
human milieu it makes of that violence something that animality did not know: the
transgression of the rule.(57) (transgression and asexual milieu are extreme
spectral end)
Marriage is a moment of transgression (p58) incest prohibition is an
effect/consequence of human sexuality, not its cause/origin (61)
--------------(Natural objects of prohibitions)-------------Sex and natural fxns. (excretion) are banished to the dark (p62) -- but this rejection
is not natural, instead a negation of nature (p63) (hence our aversion to primitive
peoples who are closer to nature and thereby closer to our object of
hatred/repulsion)
Menstrual (and less so, childbirth) blood aversion, (adult) intestinal excrement (less
so for urine),
Humanity and prohibitions begin with repugnance (at nature/natural processes)
(~p70) and adherence to prohibitions (or having anxiety about observing them) is
linked to material standing/wealth. But it is not wealth that determines class, but

ones observation of prohibitions (though wealth also provides one the means to
transgression) (67-70)
Not all cultures or times periods have the same aversion to dejecta, though
proximity seems to have affected the sexual realm: Nothing will prevent this
indelible shame from rubbing off its mark onto the adjacent domain of the
reproductive orgassns(70). So the prohibitions against sexuality are framed in
relation to filth: Its dirty(72).
Prohibition is the first step of the revolt against the given (nature), and after this
was accomplished, prohibition then appeared as the given (negation and return)
(77)
Death prohibitions forbid murder and limit contact with corpses (79). Death not only
produces repulsion due to the horror of annihilation but because it restores us to
nature (like Freud says of the Todestrieb, though he says we seek this reunion with
an earlier state)(80)
work goes against erotic freedom, hampers it; and conversely, erotic excess
develops to the detriment of work. [] the consciousness of death is itself opposed
to the return of eroticism, which is likely to reintroduce avidity, fever and violence
that will not wait. But anguish, which lays us open to annihilation and death, is
always linked to eroticism; our sexual activity finally rivets us to the distressing
image of death, and the knowledge of death deepens the abyss of eroticism. The
curse of decay constantly recoils on sexuality, which it tends to eroticize: in sexual
anguish there is a sadness of death, an apprehension of death which is rather vague
but which we will never be able to shake off.(83-4)
Life is the luxury of which death is the highest degree(85-6)
-----------------(transgression)-----------------Death leads to despair, which allows for sanctioned transgressions. But this
transgressive festival is not the return to animality, it is a consumptive frenzy that is
based on rules (and lasts only temporarily). (its not a return to nature, its a
temporary cessation of humanity that nevertheless happens within society and
with meaning relative to the context of the human world.) festival is the opposite of
a return to nature, in that it is not a renunciation of humanitys independence from
nature, but a culmination of the movement toward autonomy.(91)
what is sacred is precisely what is prohibited and becomes the devine itself.
relative to profane life this sacred animality has the same meaning that the
negation of nature (hence profane life) has relative to pure animality.(92) [] the
movement of the festical liberates these animal forces, but now their explosive
liberation interrupts the course of an existence subordinated to ordinary ends. There
is a breakdown an interruption of the rules [] what originally has the meaning

of limit has that of shattering limits. Thus, the sacred announces a new possibility: it
is a leap into the unknown, with animality as its impetus. [] The force of a
movement, which repression increased tenfold, projected life into a richer
world.(93)
Freud: corpses defenselessness justified the forbidding of contact (97) // but the
prohibition against murder must be linked to corpse prohibitions because the desire
for murder is lived by proxy through contact with a corpse (the desire is not for the
corpse, per se). but this is reductionist/only a part of the mystery of our attraction to
the dead, which is best evoked by the festival to explain the complex that
combines death, eroticism and murder: perhaps that is the comprehensive view we
must adhere to..(98)
The exists a link between the horror of the dead and the desire that relates to the
total movement of life. [] the sexual life of human beings, eroticism, would not be
intelligible without this connection. [] sexualitys fragrance of death ensures all
its power. This is the meaning of anguish, without which sexuality would be only an
animal activity, and would not be erotic. Comparable to vertigo, or uncontrollable
laughter (100)

------------------------------------------history of eroticism-----------------------Marriage eroticism developed out of illicit sexuality (outside of marriage) the
dubious character of marriage (as sanctioned transgression) marriage and habit
(marriage ceremony/habit drains it if eroticism, the signs and figures of eroticism
werent composed in marriage, but outside it
Unlimited fusion, the orgy the ritual orgy (it is certain that the regular framework
of marriage could not give an outlet to all the feverish energies that kept individuals
under pressure, expressed first by a suffocating sexual anguish, then by violent and
uncontrolled explosions(129) (orgy heightens the erotic (131)) the witches
Sabbath (worship of the devil carried the festivals sense of reversal to
extremes.(132) the link between eroticism and evil (Christianitys oppositional
ideology associates eroticism with evil) eroticism, or the demon of evil versus the
god of good (Christianity took up in a renewed form the movement that set the
first men against nature. Christians repudiated the pagan world in which
transgression counterbalances the prohibition to form the totality(135))
The object of desire (objectification is a prerequisite to being an object of erotic
desire(139) the object of desire and the prostitute (wife is objectified for her
childbearing and domestic labor, prostitute is completely erotic and dictates the
signs of eroticism that command the reactions of mans sexual life, replacing the
motive signs of animal sexuality(140)) object of desire signifies instantaneous
gratification (prosititute is generally the figure of death under the mask of life in

that she signifies eroticism, which is itself the locus where life and death become
confused with one another 142-3); the desired object intrudes: the positing of
desires object is the intrusion into the world of clear and distinct objects of the
lightning stroke that left the dazzled Maenads in darkness. It is the lighteniung
stroke given to consciousness(144)) prostitution and idleness (the desirable
form is always that which servile necessity has not subjected to its laws. By nature,
the object of desire has nothing to do in this world except to respond to
desire(145))