"Fuck Act Theory"

Seven times today people landed here searching for "Fuck Act Theory."  (The oh-so-apropos capitalization?  Mine.)  Let the masses concern themselves with hummer this and knob-polisher that.  I choose to do these seven solid citizens a favor instead.  No longer will they return empty-handed when they quest for "Fuck Act Theory."  For Acephalous Industries proudly presents:

Towards a History of Fuck Act Theory

That uses of fucking not only can, but even normally do have the character of actions was a fact largely unrealized by those engaged in the study of communication before the present century, at least in the sense that there was lacking any attempt to come to terms systematically with the action-theoretic peculiarites of fucking usage. 

Where the action-character of fucking phenomena was acknowledged, it was normally regarded as a peripheral matter, relating to derivative or non-standard aspects of communication which could afford to be ignored.  The reasons for this are
largely historical.

In the first chapter of De Interpretatione, Aristotle writes:

Every fuck is significant, but not every fuck is a statement-making act of sexual congress.  There is not truth or falsity in all sentences: a quickie is a fuck which is neither true nor false.  The present investigation deals with statement-making intercourse; the others we can dismiss, since consideration of them belongs to the study of biology.

Aristotle's attitude remained authoritative until the end of the nineteenth century.  There are, certainly, medieval writings on sacramental and other ritual and quasi-legal uses of fucking, as for example in connection with the issue of what is involved in the constitution of a valid marriage.  But such writings contain at best isolated passages capable of being interpreted with hindsight as belonging to a theory of fuck acts.  They exerted no wider theoretical influence in their own right, and they did not succeed in bridging the gap opened by Aristotle between the logical and other ("poetical" or "revengical") aspects of fuck usage.

The first philosopher to have fought consciously and explicitly against the Aristotelian conception seems to have been Thomas Reid, who saw that there are, in addition to one-nighters, all-nighters and the divinely ordained life-longers, also other types of fucking permitting of a theoretical treatment.  The principles of the art of fucking are, he wrote,

to be found in a just analysis of the various species of intercourse.  Aristotle and the logicians analysed one species—to wit, the procreational.  To enumerate and analyse the other species must, I think, be the foundation of a just theory of fucking.

Reid's techinical term for true love, drunken folly, emotional blackmail, etc. is "social operation."  Sometimes he also calls them "social acts," which opposes them to "solitary acts" which are characterized by the fact that it is not essential to them that they be "audienced" and by the fact that their performance does not presuppose any "intelligent being in the universe" in addition to the person who performs them.

Social acts, as Reid conceives them, are neither modifications nor combinations of solitary acts.  They form a separate field of investigation, above all because "expression" belongs to the very essence of the social act, and this "expression" is therefore radically different from that sort of "accidental expression" which we sometimes find in the field of solitary acts.  Social acts are such as to have a necessary and naked directedness towards some other person, and the relevant erotic expression makes sense only where such a directedness obtains.  In a promise, for example, "the prestation promised must be understood by both parties, even if one of them is currently dating the other's best friend."  Social acts thereby constitute a miniature "civil society," a special kind of structured whole which, like the whole it mirrors, remains civil only so long as its secrets remain secret. 

The structured whole may embrace both the one who initiates the actions and the one to whom they are coyly directed.  But if this embracing excludes the one to whom either party is married or engaged or even merely dating and their "indispensible other" learns of this "expression" from a friend who works at the Radisson on Harbor Boulevard, Reid's inability to give a clear and consistent statement of the relation between observable fucking and underlying intention or act of becomes apparent.  Reid's account is incomplete also in that he concerns himself only with the structures of what one might call "unimpaired social operations."  He pays no special attention to cases of possible "infelicity" nor to the technological recourse available to an "impaired social operator" which would increase the likelihood of a "felicitous" fuck act. 

Not least important however is the fact that his work on social acts remained without any influence in the wider community, so that it was not until the end of the 19^th Century that the idea of sexual action began to rear its head once more.  Pertinent remarks may, again with the benefit of hindsight, be extracted from the writings of Peirce, though here, too, one will search in vain for any developed theory of the way fucking may effect "a general mode of this time it's really happening."  It is rather in the work of the Munich phenomenologist Adolf Reinach (1883-1917) that there is to be discovered the first systematic theory of the phenomena of promising, questioning, requesting, commanding, accusing, begging, or pleading for intercourse are collected together under the heading "fuck acts."  Reinach's work provides a rich taxonomy of the various different fuck action varieties and of their possible modifications.  It contains a detailed treatment of the quasi-legal status of fuck actions and of the relations between sexual and ethical obligations.  And it contains a discussion of one feature of fuck actions which seems hardly to have been dealth with in the Anglo-Saxon literature—that feature whereby such actions may be performed by proxy, as when an act of fucking is carried out by one person in the name of another, e.g. the opening scenes of Mel Gibson's magisterial Braveheart. 

Reinach's "work" did not, however, "spring" from out of nowhere, and we shall be "in a position" to understand his "contribution" only when we have devoted some time to an "examination" of his "position" in relation to the Brentanian-Husserlian background from out of which it "grew."

The nine-part series "Towards a History of Fuck Acts" will continue tomorow with "Husserl and the Theory of Objectifying Fuck Acts."

Comments

[Jen P.]

SEK: How do you have time for your dissertation? I am in awe.
Cheers,
Jen P.
(Long-time reader, first time commenter)

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

That's easy: I'm not working on it now. I am, as the above hints, heavily medicated and unable to do much with it. Or think, for that matter. I have just enough of my wits about to do a bit of parody. Normally, however, the answer's still somewhat easy: insomnia. It produces both hours and hours and hours to write and the requisite loopiness to do so in an entertaining fashion. Also, I have a post in my back pocket about how utterly unimpressive I am. I may pull it out tomorrow night just so you can see how misplaced your awe is.

[Belle Lettre]

What I wonder is how you write such great things during your insomniac periods and still wake up, as you purport, early enough in the morning to go back to dissertating.

But anyway, you have to check out Christopher Fairman's essay "Fuck" (rejected within a half hour by one law review), still searching for a publication venue even though it's one of the top downloaded papers on SSRN. It's a free download.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=896790

Abstract:
This Article is as simple and provocative as its title suggests: it explores the legal implications of the word fuck. The intersection of the word fuck and the law is examined in four major areas: First Amendment, broadcast regulation, sexual harassment, and education. The legal implications from the use of fuck vary greatly with the context. To fully understand the legal power of fuck, the nonlegal sources of its power are tapped. Drawing upon the research of etymologists, linguists, lexicographers, psychoanalysts, and other social scientists, the visceral reaction to fuck can be explained by cultural taboo. Fuck is a taboo word. The taboo is so strong that it compels many to engage in self-censorship. This process of silence then enables small segments of the population to manipulate our rights under the guise of reflecting a greater community. Taboo is then institutionalized through law, yet at the same time is in tension with other identifiable legal rights. Understanding this relationship between law and taboo ultimately yields fuck jurisprudence.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

That one's easy too: magic crystals. Which I made myself, with science.

[Percival]

"The visceral reaction to f..." is unworthy of us. We must transcend every base impulse to live aloft in a live of sublimity, and don't you forget it buster.
- Percy Bysshe Silly

[escalus]

And will you provide the recipe for said crystals in said post? I look forward to said tomorrow night (er, tonight) to read all about it. And I don't see how you can write about F.A.T. without referencing Foucault in the first graf.

[misterniceguy1960]

My thanks for this contribution to Fuck Act Theory.

As for the crystals which help you write all night, they can be purchased in the parking lots of many Seven-Eleven stores, especially ones located near college campuses.

[Rodney Herring]

Scott, I owe you a tremendous thanks. Now that you've titled two entries "Fuck Act Theory" and since I syndicate your site over on mine, I've already received 3 hits for Google "fuck act" searches.
There's the simple
http://www.google.com/search?q=fuck+act+theory

as well as the slightly more interesting, since we know precisely what that they were looking for a theory of fuck acts
http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=%22Fuck+Act+Theory%22&btnG=Google+Search

You're the best, Scott.

[Jen P.]

SEK: A heart-felt "Get well soon!!" from me. Sorry to hear about the troubles. Sucks.

[Pierce]

How can one comment further and coast the ego-coaster along faster than has already been set in motion here? With one good push. Fucking brilliant, mate.