So gross

AN APHRODISIAC?

There are those for whom that “cold lumpy phlegm sliding down the back of your throat” is not so much an aphrodisiac understood as the stimulus to future sexual engagement but rather the completion of the activity towards which that stimulus was initially directed. This is a difficult question, gesturing as it does to the nature of the aphrodisiac itself. What is the thing?

Some might argue that it not so much the stimulus to some future sexual engagement but rather the anticipation of its successful completion. In other words, the issue comes down to the syntactical distinction between intention and fulfilment. Are the two concepts necessarily mutually exclusive or, indeed, are they mutually complimentary?

To argue for their mutual exclusivity strikes one as odd. It strikes one as being merely philological, a matter of words, rather than a matter of reality. On the other hand, to argue that they are mutually complimentary suggests that, viewed ontologically, i.e., from the nature of its reality itself, the concept of an aphrodisiac, like other general concepts, is sufficiently elastic to embrace both perspectives. Thank you.

A pleasure as always,

Cheerio!

Montrealman, Ph.D.