Perhaps it is undeniable that the manifestation of sexuality in a person’s life is not the immediate exit of his/her inner biological demand/instinct to the outer world.
The awakened sexuality in teenage years passes a long way from being spontaneous/ instinctive to becoming rationally defined and developed sexual behavior and integrating into a person’s life, during which puberty period is equally affected by three major groups of factors: physical, emotive and cognitive.
The inclusion of cognitive function into the sexual sphere parallel to puberty and the subjection of emotional state to that function require certain age and certain level of self-consciousness; in other words, physiological changes characteristic of puberty period and inner strange emotional states, in order to integrate into a person’s harmonious development, are given a rational meaning and only then manifested.
In fact, the tendency of a person’s sexual fulfillment is a rationally defined set up of biologically inherited instinctive motives and feelings; in other words, subjection to cultural change, which in its perfect beauty is manifested through the symbolism of the husband’s bed, spouses’ mutual devotion towards each other and maintenance of sexual fidelity. Not having any essential meaning for the deep biological essence of a sexual act which, in itself, is a hormone-dependent pattern, those cultural “artificial ways”, nevertheless, serve as a criterion for the qualitative differentiation of a sexual act- one as an animal “junction”, and the other as a human “cohabitation”.
The dominant socio-cultural view presents certain sexual norms and taboos, social expectations of appropriate sexual behavior that undoubtedly brings forth adequate sexual behavior. But it’s not hard to notice that naturalistic direction of human consciousness that perceives sexual instinct as a substratum at the base of sexual behavior, and social environment as a socially acceptable way and constructiveness giving side for that instinct, creates a concept about sexual life which does not reflect reality but is our perception of that reality.
One of the reflections of this kind of thinking is the circumstance that in the last decade the dissociation between classical researchers of the sexology sphere on the one hand and social constructionists on the other is gradually becoming more crucial. Classical researchers of sexuality see and perceive reality coming from the biological basis of a person’s sexuality, whereas social constructionists are of the opinion that a person’s sexuality is a social construction, which is predetermined and changed under the historical-cultural context.
However, these two directions studying human sexuality are trying to deprive the object of their study from subjectivism, while the peculiarity of a human sexuality is the very fact that it bears the mark of human subject in itself as an essential component and getting rid of it means dealing with sexual autopsy and anatomical preparations.
Another direction of thinking is taking as a point of departure not the acceptance of object knowledge but a person’s attitude, his free activity, with which a person is able to have sexual alternative existence. Perception constructed in such a way does not create object knowledge about human sexuality, which could be used with the aim of its management-regulation, but leaves a person free to mentally formulate his/her sexuality inside, i.e. it does not create sexual culture for the person, but a person for living his/her own sexuality.
Sexuality as an inseparable component of personal subjectivity could not be considered real but is only rationally self-defined sexuality, which indeed carries the virtue of being human. Not natural, but rational is moral. Consequently, the research of sexuality by modern science studies something which is a self-manifestation gained through individual development and has habitual character, and cannot reflect a human character as an identity having creature.
For a human to exist means to strive for his ideal or, as Hegel says, to be one’s own perception in their being. A person’s self-overcoming and constant demand of going up to one’s ideal, are one of the deepest demands for a human. Realization of sexual belonging is only possible due to realization of the epicenter of personal identity. During this period sexuality is essentially modified, and actual eroticism appears.
The author, as a practically functioning doctor and researcher in the sphere of sexuality, constantly follows the mental tradition, about which it was also spoken by Socrates and Plato, according to which human existence is divided into physical, mental and spiritual. The physical and mental comprise its individual subjectivity, and the sphere carrying the ultimate idea of human existence is the spiritual one. It can be said that the latter is not the individual but transcendental subjectivity, transcendental ego. The non-realized existence merged with the emotive state cannot live up to its sexual belonging. Socrates’ quote that “you should love only ugly women” is very relevant and it should be understood by this very perception that only through mature spirituality it is possible to reach real sexual intimacy or pure eroticism.
