Sex, literature and communication

Abstract

Summary This paper addresses the question of the literary representation of the relationship between sex and communication by focusing on a number of pertinent instances in literature (and in one case cinema) where clues are afforded concerning the generation of meaning in this area of human experience. Various philosophical‐theoretical perspectives are employed to shed light on the specificity of communication in a sexual context, guided by the question whether communication is more basic than sex or vice versa. It is especially the work of Kristeva that enables one, finally, to grasp sex ‐ as represented in literatùre or cinema ‐ as being comprehensible in terms of the semiotic, as opposed to the symbolic, mode of signification.