Existentialism, Sartre comments, has not thought of sex as primary because “men and women equally exist.” Thus sexual differentiation has nothing to do with existence. In response to this stance of existentialism Sartre raises several questions. Is the For-Itself sexual accidentally? Does sexual life come as a kind of addition to the human condition? Sexuality appears with birth and disappears with death.

Thus the fundamental problem is, “Is sexuality a contingent accident bound to our physiological nature, or is it a necessary structure of being-for-itself-for-others?” (384).

Sartre thinks that this question, whether sexuality is basic to being-for-others, must be answered by an analysis of desire. By desiring the other I discover his or her “being-sexed” (384). An analysis of desire reveals that sexual desire is quite different from strictly physical desires. This insight, that sexuality is peculiar among physical phenomena, that it points to an involvement of the whole person, is not pursued further by Sartre. He sees that sexual love in a human is more than a desire for physical release. Without exploiting this insight his analysis drifts inevitably into the general problem of subject-object relations. Sartre argues that sexuality is not just another desire, that sexuality is basic to human relations, but his qualifications are debilitating and his general satisfaction with abstractions leaves the issue hanging. “The sexual attitude is a primary behavior towards the Other” (406) and “sexual attitude” means masochism and sadism (406-407). Yet it is never shown how these are particularly sexual. The analysis of sexuality turns out to be indistinguishable from the analysis of the relation of dominance and passivity. Sartre thinks that in discussing this problem he is discussing sexuality.

Sartre uses the Hegelian categories (the master-slave relation) and sexual categories (sadism-masochism) interchangeably. The relation with the Other is a sexual relation. This seems a significant observation until it is noticed that the terms can be reversed: the subject-object relation is sexual and what is meant by sexuality is the subject-object dialectic. The particularities of sexuality turn out to be the abstractions of the broadest terms. Compare a description of the relation of the psyche to its body (“thus the For-itself is both a flight and a pursuit; it flees the In-itself and at the same time pursues it” — 362) with a description of the relation of the Ego to the Other (“the Other is on principle inapprehensible; he flees me when I seek him and possesses me when I flee him” — 408). The description of the sexual relation, it develops, is interchangeable with a description of the relation of the soul to the body, or with any relation between subject and object.

Sartre seems aware of the possibility of making sexuality into an Hegelian abstraction. But he is unable to extricate himself from his adopted conceptual framework. Sartre’s For-itself is too free and too much bound. It is free of the natural structures and objective givens in biology and physiology which are found perhaps peculiarly important in sexuality. This is “bad faith” in reverse, the treating of objectivities as though subjective. On the other hand, the For-itself is too much bound or confined to abstract categories. Is sexuality really a dialectic of subject and object? It is this, but is it only this? These broad categories cover all cosmic relationships. Sex disappears into an abstraction. Wherein lies the distinguishing difference of sexuality and what difference does this make? These considerations are nowhere in Sartre.

This is Sartre’s sexuality, a bloodless and a passionless dance of the categories.

Sartre and the Rationalization of Human Sexuality by W. M. Alexander.