First, even if the goal of sexual desire is sexual pleasure, unless we assume that sexual pleasure is uniform across different contexts (an assumption with which the feature-based view saddles the object-based one), one might not be indifferent to how the pleasure is produced
The feature-based view, however, might pass the buck: either “sexual arousal” means what we usually mean by “sexual desire” (the examples of sexual arousal-erections, lubricated vaginas-might serve equally well as examples of sexual desire), or it does not. If the former, we would still need a definition of “sexual arousal”, much like we needed a definition of “sexual desire”. If the latter, we would need an account of what “sexual arousal” is, because now it does not mean what we thought it meant: if it is not the same as sexual desire, what exactly is it? Continue reading “This independence lends support to pessimist views of sexual desire”