One can experience the pleasurable sensations of sex and enjoy the act, yet feel repulsion later
1.3 Sexual Pleasure
“Pleasure” refers to various phenomena: (a) physical sensations, with specific bodily locations (e.g., scratching an itch); (b) enjoyment, as when one takes pleasure in solving a jigsaw puzzle or lying under the sun (enjoyment does not have a specific bodily location, though the same phenomenon can be experienced as sensation and as enjoyment (e.g., lying under the sun); a “pure” feeling that is felt all over but has no specific bodily location, and that need not be focused on a particular activity, such as being elated (Goldman 2016: 88); and (d) an attitude, to be “pleased at something”; the belief that what one is pleased at is good (Goldman 2016: 83–90).
We thus have four types of pleasure: pleasure-as-sensation, pleasure-as-enjoyment, pleasure-as-feeling, and pleasure-as-pro-attitude. All four concepts can be relevant to sex, but it is the first two that are important, because each can be a type of sexual pleasure, whereas the third is typically consequent to sexual activity and the fourth is about sex. (a) The pleasure of orgasm is an obvious example of the first, and (b) enjoying sexual activity is a usual experience that people undergo. (c) One can experience elation because of having had great sex, and (d) one can feel pleased at that.
Moreover, one or more parties to the act might experience pleasure-as-sensation, yet not enjoy the activity itself. g., at being anally penetrated), one can endure a sexual act (not enjoy it), and one can feel nausea at what one has done sexually.
We can thus see how each pleasure has its opposite: one can feel painful sensations during a sexual act (e
Although orgasm does not exhaust the pleasures of sex, there is something to the idea that the pleasure of orgasm is unique. המשך…