To make way for the new normal one must clear the old: turns out the old appears to be doing an adequate job clearing itself. When a person is experiencing duration, a change over time, rarely does he or she recognize the metamorphosis. A caterpillar crawls upon the ground then encases itself in a cocoon, but how aware is the larva of its change while ensconced? It sleeps. Only when the worm begins emerging as a butterfly does it realize that it is no longer what it was; it has legs, it has antenna, and it has wings—it has become radically new. The process of becoming is a dangerous moment. A butterfly enters the world from its morphosis—delicately; to slowly and the still-drying wings will elongate, too quickly and the wings will be stunted—both consequences preventing flight. The correct moment and rate of emergence is of paramount importance. Consciousness among insects is debatable and their evolution appears entirely based on instinctual impulses: Human instinct has been replaced with language and symbols, resulting in dependence on intellect. But human intelligence is unreliable while experiencing duration. Intellect is muddled with memory. And yet, memory does not assist human metamorphosis; it causes hesitation and doubt. We are left with intuition.
Intuition operates differently from intelligence, although housed in a subset of intelligence—culture. Intuition is not reliant on differences in intensity, rather intuition seeks differences in kind. Differences in kind appear as repetitions that return, whereas differences in intensity appear as physical changes within space. Spatial variations such as increased pressure or the heat generated from friction announces differences in intensity. Temporal variations are herald by vibrations, oscillations and sensations of the past which have returned yet again.
covid-19 and the pandemic which resulted is clearly a difference in intensity; roaring economies were slowed, travel was curtailed, businesses closed, and careers changed. Life heated-up as friends and family were admitted to hospitals, people were quarantined or loved ones passed away. But the pandemic only seemed to exacerbate the intensity of a duration already in process. Climate change caused Greece and Spain to burn, both American coasts to flood, and Australia’s continuing drought. Friction in politics results in the erosion of democracy and a retreat into conservative rhetoric on a world-wide scale. Isolation ushers forth loneliness of the mind while the body fattens and our health declines from increasingly solitary days. Differences of intensity causing added pressure and friction on a level that cannot be ignored or postponed—this is recognized by the intellect as differences in intensity.
Career aspirations continue to change in the job markets; the United States is experiencing the “Great Resignation,” a signifier noting the increasing number of workers—Millennials as well Boomers—quitting jobs and careers in search of something more fulfilling—and less oppressively corporate. Democratic politics has seemed to slide back to the 1960s; demonstrators clash with police, abortion restrictions are upheld by federal courts, blatant misogamy is viewed on television, the return to theocracies or religious rhetoric, and the dilution of rights once thought solid for the lgbtq+ communities echo again. These cyclic returns indicate a difference in kind; they were not settled in the past, now they return seeking a different treatment. Within this frame we offer this collection, Sexuality and Eroticism in a Post-pandemic World: Beyond the Biopolitics of the New Normal.
This project began with a driving desire: I wanted to publish a great collection of essays on the current state of the erotic. The idea was to encourage interaction and dialogue between top-notch authors, renown artists and international scholars, inviting them to contribute with their work as chapters for the book. It all originated from my collaborations with a group of authors associated with Progressive Connexions and the Global Erotic conference held in Prague—informally known as the Prague Group. Initially established to explore human sexual desire and eroticism through scholarly production, The Prague Group examined eros as a philosophical subject as well as a subject of artistic expression, through edited collections such as Exploring Erotic
Then, at that very moment, the pandemic begins. As it was expected, scholarly production slowed down, and onsite conferences got cancelled everywhere. Around the middle of the 2020 pandemic, I received—and accepted—an invitation from Phil Shining, Founder and Director of the Sexuality & Spirituality Research Network (s&srn), to contribute as a Senior Advisor for the network. When I felt it was the best time to return to action, the driving desire of publishing an edited collection on the erotic just kickstarted everything again. I reached out Phil in December 2020, telling him about the idea of the collection of essays on the erotic. Phil embraced my initiative, and in January 2021 he came back with a proposal. Following the s&srn commitment to focus during 2021 and 2022 in the development of interdisciplinary projects designed to meet the needs of the individual and social conditions caused or accelerated by the covid-19 global pandemic, Phil designed the concept for a book project titled Sexuality and Eroticism in a Post-pandemic World: Beyond the Biopolitics of the New Normal. And this is how everything started coming together: the current state-of-affairs of the erotic is clearly conditioned by the pandemic’s effects, so this editorial proposal seemed to resonate appropriately with l’air du temps.
Once it was conceived, I started with the networking process, serving as a bridge between the Prague Group and the Oxford 2016 conference Exploring Sexuality and Spirituality, from which emerged the collection Exploring Sexuality and Spirituality: An Introduction to an Interdisciplinary Field (Brill, 2020), co-edited by Phil and Nicol Michelle Epple. I knew, rightly, that Phil’s philosophical insights and editing precision would be brought to bear perfecting this project. The book you have in your hands compiles brand new manuscripts written between 2021 and 2022, plus research material from the Prague Group. We petitioned selected scholars, researchers and practitioners on the erotic from different regions of the world, giving this edited collection greater scope and expanded magnitude. Authors were tasked with writing a chapter highlighting changes of erotic desire and pleasure resulting from the continuing duration of the covid-19 pandemic—like governmentality restrictions, how emergent technology and platforms are ushering forth differences in kinds of expression, or new ars erotica, among many other lines of research.
Sexuality and Eroticism in a Post-pandemic World highlights differences in intensity, as well as differences in kind. The collection is intentionally diverse, with authors exhibiting singular perspectives, many of them battling personal pressures and frictions in their own right—experiencing the challenges of
The new normal marks a duration. Like the Bergsonism of the caterpillar in a cocoon, we too cannot fully know we are in a duration until it is time to emerge. But one thing is for sure, the solid and familiar ground we once crawled upon has been left behind and, for over a year, we have found ourselves wrapped in something new—ensconced by a different reality in kind concerning the erotic. Our desires and pleasures have metamorphosized and we emerge, with wide wings ablaze.