Taboos and Transgressions:

Georges Bataille on Eroticism and Death

By: Renee Fuchs

What is the relation between the horror of death and eroticism? Such a relation
may seem initially unapparent, but 20th century French philosopher Georges Bataille
candidly describes the various ways in which eroticism and death interpenetrate in his
Erotism: Death and Sensuality. Such interpenetration is elucidated through Bataille’s
consideration regarding how taboos are interrelated, namely that they give us a glimpse
of our continuous nature. Bataille’s project is rare insofar as it examines human nature in
terms of its passions as opposed to stripping away the passions in order to see what is left
(the latter being perhaps the more common methodology of many philosophers). This
means that transgressions need to be addressed and examined instead of being ignored if
we are to have an accurate understanding as to what makes us human. His exposition of
eroticism is multi-faceted and provocative, albeit disturbing and controversial, utilizing
anthropological, sociological, as well as philosophical approaches. Interestingly, his
account of eroticism is pertinent to modernity because it involves the notion of
individuality, and investigates how this phenomenon runs counter to eroticism and
transgressions. Bataille’s account of experiencing life as a discontinuous phenomenon
(through work and other productive means) illuminates this point. He rethinks the
relationship between death and transgression through three key tensions: 1) continuity
and discontinuity, 2) taboo and transgression, and 3) productivity and unproductiveness.

I want to explore how eroticism is to be distinguished from sex for the purpose of
reproduction, how this dynamic transgression breaks down discontinuity, and why such a
dynamic is absent in non-human animals. I also want to attempt to explain the power
struggle between taboo and transgression within individuals (its allure and repugnancy),
which will lead me to consider the soundness of his characterization of women, their
bodies, and how he chiefly represents the distastefulness of sexual transgression through
reference to females. Finally, I want to address the violent aspect of transgression and
whether Bataille succeeds in making a case for the idea that the goal of transgressive
violence is to return to a lost intimacy.
 I will begin by addressing Bataille’s idea of continuity and discontinuity since he
sets up the rest of his notions within this ontological framework. The nature of the
cosmos is continuous, which is to say that it is undivided and unceasing. Human beings
as part and parcel of the cosmos are also continuous in essence, but the temporality of
their lived bodies veils such continuity. The life cycle is, therefore, contra continuity.
Transgressions arise alongside prohibitions and taboos (words Bataille uses
interchangeably) because transgressions provide a temporary approximation to continuity
by halting homogeneity and individuation (Bataille, 103). However, this temporary
approximation to continuity is just that-temporary; humans live primarily as
discontinuous creatures and can only truly arrive at their continuous nature through death.

Before turning to the idea that death denotes continuity, it is constructive to

examine Bataille’s account of discontinuity in more detail. There is more behind the
notion of discontinuity than the fact that human beings are finite. The world order of
productivity and efficacy reduces people to things, or perhaps automatons, which in turn
perpetuate individuation and discontinuity. Transgressions are accomplished because of
excess; they revolve around unproductive activity (such as erotic union and sacrifices)
(Bataille, 161). This is not to say that transgressions lack goals, but to say that whatever
goal a transgression may have (namely, to arrive at an intimacy which negates
individuality) is the antithesis of what the productive world order has as a goal (which is,
namely, to maintain homogeneity and individuation). Although some might suggest that
taboos and prohibitions exist (at least in part) to uphold moral standards, Bataille would
insist that they are established in order to maintain productivity. Insofar as prohibitions
keep a person individuated, the basic condition of her worth is her productivity (work or
labour). The world order is such that productivity is encouraged which includes hard
work, duty, and sobriety, whereas unproductive activity (such as eroticism) is
discouraged. Not only are humans discouraged from experiencing something beyond
individuation (such as real intimacy), but also, “man is afraid of the intimate order that is
not reconcilable with the order of things” (Botting and Wilson, 214). That is, “modern
society generally suppresses modes of unproductive activity. Hence the opposition to
sexual indulgence, gambling, drunkenness, [and] all forms of waste” (Botting and
Wilson, 23). Eroticism and death both disturb and undermine the world order of things.

I would like to return now to the idea that death denotes continuity. The
continuous nature of human beings is temporarily laid bare through the death of another.
Seeing another person’s corpse instills a sense of horror because it represents the
inevitable destiny of the witness. Bataille says, “Continuity of existence is independent of
death and is even proved by death” (Bataille, 21). Likewise, erotic union (which is
distinguished from, and not to be confused with sex for the purpose of reproduction)
gives human beings a glimpse of continuity since it is a union that is antithetical to the
everyday, individualistic experience of life. The ultimate union with the cosmos,
however, is only found in death: “Life may be doomed but the continuity of existence is
not” (Bataille, 23-4).

It is through the notion of continuity and taboos that death and eroticism can be
considered intertwining phenomena. Indeed, the author likens the moments following an
orgasm to a “mini-death” (ou “la petite mort”) (Bataille, 170). He says this because the
moments following an orgasm give each of the two perturbed beings a temporary glimpse
into the nature of the cosmos. This does not mean that the sex was so blissfully good that
one can say it gave her a “glimpse into the nature of the cosmos” as some romantic
exaggeration. Rather, the glimpse of continuity involves anguish. There is usually a sense
of shame or modesty attached to extreme pleasure. Furthermore, Bataille suggests that
eroticism and death cannot be separated, but rather that one presupposes the other:
“Anguish, which lays us open to annihilation and death, is always linked to eroticism; our
sexual activity finally rivets us to the distressing image of death, and the knowledge of
death deepens the abyss of eroticism” (Botting and Wilson, 245).

Again, sex for the purpose of reproduction is to be distinguished from erotic

union. This is because the former’s objective is to perpetuate the cycle of discontinuity
through giving birth (childbearing is a “denial of the established order” (Bataille, 54)),
whereas the latter is a fusion of two separate beings into one for the purpose of having a
sense of continuity and intimacy. Although at first glance it may seem counter-intuitive to
think of reproduction as being at odds with continuity, life insofar as it involves finitude
is discontinuous. Eroticism breaks down this sense of discontinuity, which is particular to
human beings. Since the cosmos is of continuous nature, everything which comprises it,
must also be continuous, but human beings are the only living creatures that attempt to
outstrip their continuous essence. We are peculiar beings because we are conscious of our
discontinuous nature and aware of the fact that we will die. Animals, on the other hand,
have no reservations about sexuality or violence, nor do they have any compunction in
fulfilling their every desire. Human beings are fortunate (or perhaps unfortunate) to be
endowed with the self-awareness that they are discontinuous (Botting and Wilson, 251).
The way in which we attempt to outstrip this is through setting and following established
taboos or prohibitions. Discontinuity transcends continuity through the “civilized” world.
Although work, labour, and other such activities enforce discontinuity, there nevertheless
remains an erotic longing (for the continuous) and the inclination to transgress. This
erotic longing was satisfied in pagan antiquity through rituals of transgression involving
violence, orgies, sacrifices, and other “profane” things (Botting and Wilson, 210).
However, there was (and perhaps still is) something sacred about the impure as well as
the pure. Prohibitions were directed towards something that was basically sacred.
However, Christianity held impure sacredness to be “the business of the profane world”
(Bataille, 221). Transgression was used in an organized way to escape the power of the
taboo: “The resolve is all the more powerful because the return to stability afterwards is
at the back of the mind […] the basic framework is not risked” (Bataille, 80). What was
considered sacred was limited by religion (namely, Christianity) through avoiding taboos;
it defined the boundaries of the sacred world after its own fashion.

Bataille struggles with these Christian notions of the body and what is sacred and
pure. Interested in the power of the obscene he points out the mingling of filth and
beauty. In one of his chapters entitled “Mme Edwarda (a prostitute)”, Bataille writes
about the connection between the sacred and the profane. The following passage
illuminates this connection:

I became unhappy and felt painfully forsaken, as one is when in the presence of
God. And so Madamme Edwarda’s ‘old rag and ruin’ loured at me, hairy and pink,
just as full of life as some loathsome squid. ‘Why’, I stammered in a subdued tone,
 ‘why are you doing that?’ ‘You can see for yourself’, she said ‘I’m God’. (Botting
and Wilson 229)

This is why anything denoting continuity is inextricably bound up with conflict - because
it is understood both as desirable and repulsive, or has an appealing yet repelling power.
Nakedness, genitals, and anything surrounding death are both alluring and repugnant.
Take for example the line spoken by actor Peter O’Toole in the 2007 movie Venus: “The
most beautiful thing a man will see is the body of a naked woman”. Contrast this
interpretation to St-Augustine’s comment regarding a woman’s body that exemplifies its
repellent nature: “we are born between feces and urine” (Bataille, 58). The latter quote
has truth in virtue of the idea that a woman’s body (and its functions) is vile, which is
maintained through taboo. Sexual organs are involved with decay and putrefaction. The
notion that the body is the locus of decay and corruption aligns itself with the Christian
notion of the body to which Bataille, despite his explicit denial at the beginning of his
book, somewhat persuaded. Although he wrote a significant portion of his book about the
Marquis de Sade who is the hallmark of violence, Bataille seems to be particularly
repulsed by woman’s body and usually refers to examples involving females as to
illuminate the distastefulness of sexual transgressions:

Picture the surprise of anyone who did not know about it and who by some device
witnessed unseen the passionate lovemaking of some woman who had struck him as
particularly distinguished. He would think she was sick, just as mad dogs are sick.
Just as if some mad bitch had usurped the personality of the dignified hostess a little
while back. (Bataille, 106)

The author emphasizes the indecency and corruption associated with sex especially in
observations concerning woman. Some such observations are contestable, for example,
“many women cannot reach their climax without pretending to themselves that they are
being raped” (Bataille, 107), and, “a woman regards herself as an object always trying to
attract men’s attention” (Bataille, 131). He also writes about the, “imminence of her
pride’s surrender in the tumultuous confusion of the sexual spasm” (Bataille, 131). It is
arguable that sex to a woman necessarily involves a surrender of her pride and that many
women need to imagine that they are being raped in order to achieve climax or that she is
always trying to be the object of a man’s attraction.
 Bataille addresses the surrendering of a woman’s pride in erotic acts but never
mentions man’s pride. He talks about women playing games and urging men to chase
them like animals. This describes women’s attitudes towards sexual acts in a way that
does not do justice to reality. Women also stalk men as their prey and often have little or
no shame in participating in erotic activity. Certain anti-pornography feminists such as
Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon may be likely to charge someone like
Bataille with sadomasochism as well as promoting a harmful view of women. This
accusation of sadomasochism may be contested based on the fact that Bataille
incorporates powerful and authoritative women in other books (such as Story of the Eye).
But I would like to charge him with not equally representing the repellent nature of man’s
body. The feminist charge that Bataille’s work suffers from sadomasochism is weaker
because it is usually understood as problematic on ethical grounds. I want to suggest that
Bataille’s one-sided approach to erotic disgust is problematic in light of his own project,
and not that it ignores ethical standards, since this is not of Bataille’s concern anyway.

How does a one-sided representation of the repellent nature of woman’s body

undermine his project? If talking about sexual transgression is exclusively described in
light of the woman, the option that the woman does not sexually transgress is left open
(unless she is a lesbian). If she is a lesbian, then erotic transgression is possible because
the elicited image of woman’s body as both filth and beauty is already present. The
woman’s body elicits the heterosexual man to transgress sexually, but the heterosexual
woman seems to be left with the man’s body, which is open to interpretation. Perhaps it is
neutral, neither repellent nor alluring. It leaves the impression that the woman is not
taking part in erotic activity in the same way (if at all), which is not something Bataille
would want to support. If erotic union revolves around intimacy and continuity, then
there should be no distinction between the sexes during transgression, yet this is not
stated. Both are equally profane and sacred, and both are entering a realm of continuity.
The woman needs to have a sense of being appalled and aroused by the man. Therefore,
man’s repellent nature also needs to be pointed out if we are to make sense of how a
woman could enter into an erotic union with him in the first place. If the seductiveness
and repugnancy of the man’s body is never addressed, then woman seems to have no
reason to sexually transgress. According to Bataille, allure is bound up with disgust in
matters of transgression (Botting and Wilson, 253). Therefore, if there is no account or
description of the man’s body or state, and how it resembles the woman’s body in
transgression, Bataille’s account of sexual transgression is missing a significant point.

Returning to the loss of pride in eroticism, it may be less arguable that prostitutes
are concerned with this feeling of a loss of pride in carrying out a sexual act.
Interestingly, Bataille does not write much about the males involved in the process of
prostitution either. This is a significant point because based on what Bataille has been
writing, it seems as though the male who pays for sex is still after a sense of erotic union,
which temporarily halts his discontinuous nature, whereas the objective of sex in the case
of the prostitute is presumably for money or out of a sense of duty. The intimacy sought
cannot truly lead to the longed for break in individualization if one person seeks it
whereas the other person is bound up with making money. What Bataille characterizes as
the “low prostitute” is associated with the “underworld”, which is the lowest class of
people (Bataille, 134). It is characterized by lack of work and little respect of the
established taboos. It is no surprise that such a life is in part demarcated by a significant
increase in sexual behaviour compared with other classes since work helps prevent sexual
transgressions. Bataille supports this point with the Kinsey Reports of sexual behaviour
concerning men and women. These Reports recorded the frequency of erotic activity
among lower class and upper class people. The result was that people who work less and
have less income have less regard for adhering to prohibitions and had much more sex
(Bataille, 159). Nevertheless, Bataille maintains that, “the life of the underworld is not to
be envied. It has lost a certain vital resilience without which humanity could sink too low.
All it does is exploit a complete loss of self-control unimaginatively and in a way that
minimizes apprehension for the future” (Bataille, 244).

However removed the white-collar worker seems to be from this “underworld”,

the antagonist nature of humans is inalienable, regardless of class. Although human
beings will vary with respect to what degree they transgress, taboos will nevertheless pull
them towards their discontinuous condition. This essential quality distinguishes humans
from animals. Bataille asserts that, “man flatly denies the existence of his animal needs”
(Bataille, 214), yet he is an animal before all else. Humans are discontinuous insofar as
they are embodied and mortal. Inasmuch as they are embodied, humans cannot flee their
discontinuous condition. Therefore, the crux of Batialle’s work is not so much to provide
value judgments or a moral code that are based on whether our behaviour aligns with the
cosmos’ continuous nature or our discontinuous condition, nor is he attempting to
provide a solution to our life of conflict. A life of conflict is the inevitable result of only
being able to partially transcend our discontinuity via transgression. The only salvation
human beings can anticipate is their death for it is only through death that discontinuity
dissipates. Human beings can never fully take part in the order of the intimate.

The goal of transgression is not necessarily to deconstruct or anarchize the

established moral order, although this may occur by default. The goal is, rather, to take
part in a process that denies autonomy and individuality in order to temporarily return to
a lost intimacy – and according to Bataille, erotic transgression can satisfy this goal.
However, as was highlighted earlier, intimacy involves violence, the knowledge of death
deepens our drive for erotic union, and sexual activity compels us to remember or ponder
death. Bataille says, “Paradoxically, intimacy is violence, and it is destruction, because it
is not compatible with the positing of the separate individual” (Botting and Wilson, 214).
Therefore, all transgressions have an element of violence and all intimacy involves
destruction. What about real physical violence or sacrificial rituals? What about wars and
wanton brutality?

The question remains as to whether, in spirit, transgressive violence really has a

return to a lost intimacy. How then, are we to rule out the possibility that transgressive
violence is carried out under the false pretense of intimacy since intimacy always
involves an aspiration for destruction? Bataille makes the distinction between external
and internal violence (Botting and Wilson, 217-218). Although most of the distinctions
Bataille makes are flexible, and not static, he associates external violence with the
calculated and productive world order. Wars, pillages, and torture can be identified with a
violence directed towards the outside. The external direction of such violence can be
contrasted with the type of violence that is directed towards the destruction of the world
order of productivity; this is a violence inflicted from within since it destroys the relations
to people as things, it destroys individuality. This type of violence inflicted from within is
necessary because it acts as a valve, a temporary reconciliation in the face of a productive
and moral world order. Bataille argues that the violence which occurs in sacrifices
(involving animals or even humans) is also inflicted from within because it involves
destroying the things which serve the people from within, whereas external violence is
associated with making glorious use of new resources (Botting and Wilson, 214). The
primacy of utility is contested in a most radical way through sacrifices because it is most
often enslaves or sacrifices the most useful and productive members. Violence from the
outside have the enemy as an object whereas sacrifice, “destroys an object’s real ties of
subordination; it draws the victim out of the world of utility and restores it to that of
unintelligible caprice” (Botting and Wilson, 210). The world of productivity is foreign to
the intimate nature of all people. Therefore, external violence is waged within the
confines of a calculated world of things and reduces human beings to this order; this is
the antithesis of transgressive violence that seeks to melt away distinctions through
intimacy. Although as Bataille notes, the victim of a sacrifice is usually a slave who
represents a destruction of a productive member, the group participating in the sacrifice is
supposed to be brought to a shared anguish with the victim; the witnesses identify with
the victim, which restores intimacy. Such anguish is intertwined with pleasure because of
the break in discontinuity, and the intimacy that results (Bataille, 82). What becomes
questionable is that the victim, slave, or animal does not necessarily consent in being
destroyed, and therefore may not share in the violent intimacy. Perhaps, however,
Bataille would suggest that the intimacy is a necessary and automatic effect in breaking
the cycle of production and discontinuity.

Bataille’s writings do not always present a consistent doctrine, which in my

view is not accidental. The reaction elicited by him usurps intellectual evaluation. His
undertakings may seem unintelligible to the Enlightenment project insofar as Bataille
emphasizes a will towards bodily agitation instead of attempting to outline a rational
project concerning death and erotism. Bataille’s conception of how death and sensuality
should be explained enriches what a strictly rational account would have to offer. Part of
his concern is to allow for the possibility to be able to think in the face of horror instead
of turning our gazes to nostalgia and comfort. Turning our attention towards the
underpinnings of transgressions instead of suppressing them is an indispensible part of
his enterprise. He wants to address what is least proper and most disturbing to cultivate
thinking that does not fall apart through an avoidance of horror (Botting and Wilson, 2).
At the risk of undermining Bataille’s project, the fact that he does not address or highlight
the repugnancy of the male’s body creates a disjunct between the sexes that cannot be if
sexual transgression is to be experienced in the way in which he describes it. His
articulation of sexual transgression through women fails on his own terms because the
likelihood of a woman entering into an erotic union is unlikely if the man does not elicit
the same image of filth and beauty to the woman that the woman’s body does for the
man. Although a case can be made that Bataille is challenging shame-based morality, his
ontology of a continuous cosmos seems reminiscent of Christianity, as does his starting
point that women’s bodies are always perceived as repulsive. Finally, his assertion that
violence necessarily involves intimacy can be a bit of a slippery slope. Although there
may be sacrifices and violent acts done in order to return to intimacy and continuity, we
must be prudent with regards to what violent acts are carried out to enfeeble the world
order of things and individuation, and the violent acts carried out in service to such a
system.

Works Cited

Bataille, Georges. Erotism: Death and Sensuality. Trans. Mary Dalwood. San Fransisco:
City Lights Books, 1957.

Botting Fred and Scott Wilson, eds. The Bataille Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers
Ltd, 1997.

Venus. Kevin Loader. Roger Michell. Peter O’Toole. DVD. Buena Vista Pictures, 2007.