Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German EditionWeininger, Otto
Philosophy
Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition
Weininger, Otto
Character; Sex; Sex (Psychology); Sexual ethics
Thus the parallel between sexuality and love is complete. Love is
murder. The sexual impulse destroys the body and mind of the woman, and
the psychical eroticism destroys her psychical existence. Ordinary
sexuality regards the woman only as a means of gratifying passion or of
begetting children. The higher eroticism is merciless to the woman,
requiring her to be merely the vehicle of a projected personality, or
the mother of psychical children. Love is not only anti-logical, as it
denies the objective truth of the woman and requires only an illusory
image of her, but it is anti-ethical with regard to her.
I am far from despising the heights to which this eroticism may reach,
as, for instance, in Madonna worship. Who could blind his eyes to the
amazing phenomenon presented by Dante? It was an extraordinary
transference of his own ideal to the person of a concrete woman whom the
artist had seen only once and when she was a young girl, and who for all
he knew might have grown up into a Xantippe. The complete neglect of
whatever worth the woman herself might have had, in order that she might
better serve as the vehicle of his projected conception of worthiness,
was never more clearly exhibited. And the three-fold immorality of this
higher eroticism becomes more plain than ever. It is an unlimited
selfishness with regard to the actual woman, as she is wholly rejected
for the ideal woman. It is a felony towards the lover himself, inasmuch
as he detaches virtue and worthiness from himself; and it is a
deliberate turning away from the truth, a preferring of sham to reality.
The last form in which the immorality reveals itself is that love
prevents the worthlessness of woman from being realised, inasmuch as it
always replaced her by an imaginary projection. Madonna worship itself
is fundamentally immoral, inasmuch as it is a shutting of the eyes to
truth. The Madonna worship of the great artists is a destruction of
woman, and is possible only by a complete neglect of the women as they
exist in experience, a replacement of actuality by a symbol, a
re-creation of woman to serve the purposes of man, and a murder of woman
as she exists.
When a particular man attracts a particular woman the influence is not
his beauty. Only man has an instinct for beauty, and the ideals of both
manly beauty and of womanly beauty have been created by man, not by
woman. The qualities that appeal to a woman are the signs of developed
sexuality; those that repel her are the qualities of the higher mind.
Woman is essentially a phallus worshipper, and her worship is permeated
with a fear like that of a bird for a snake, of a man for the fabled
Medusa head, as she feels that the object of her adoration is the power
that will destroy her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account