by Jason Stotts
In the Parts of Animals (PA, 645a17-23), the philosopher Aristotle relates to us a story about one of the most famous philosophers of his time, Heraclitus. The story goes that a group of potential followers were seeking out the great sage and came to his house. They found him “warming himself by the fire” (a euphemism for taking a shit) and were aghast. He told them to not be afraid and that “there are gods here too.” Aristotle, building on this point, extorts us to go out into the world and engage with all of its parts, even those that we may find repugnant or disgusting because “In all things of nature there is something of the divine.” How does this story, which is over 2400 years old, relate to the #medbikini twitter controversy?
Heraclitus was a great sage and these potential followers were off-put by finding him engaged in the common and “base” act of excretion, because that was something simply of the body and they supposed that such a great thinker would be above such things. So, too, with #MedBikini. Some people suppose that because physicians are smart and well-educated, they must be above the “baseness” of sexuality and that, if anything, these people should be more or less sexless.
Consider that the premise behind this is dualism: one is either more associated with the mind or the body. The position, however, is farcical. As humans, we have both minds and bodies and there is no way to drive a wedge between these different aspects of our existence. A intelligent and educated person is no less likely than anyone else to have sexual needs and a rich sexual life. In fact, research shows that higher levels of education are correlated with more adventurousness in sexuality (likely due to being able to challenge cultural norms) and so intellectuals probably have more interesting sex lives.
This deification and dualism hits women disproportionately hard as it’s assumed that women are either attractive or intelligent (but, inexplicably, not both). This is silly. A person’s level of physical attractiveness has no bearing on how intelligent they are or how educated they become.
We, as a culture, need to let this dualist doctrine go. Intellectuals can be sexual. And ALL intellectuals have bodies. Moreover, we need to reject the doctrine that sex is necessary “base” and somehow diminishes the “higher elements” of our humanity. As Aristotle says, “In all things of nature there is something of the divine” and this emphatically includes sex and sexuality.