According to him the interest our society pretends to show in eroticism is completely artificial. Most people in fact are quickly bored by the subject but they pretend the opposite out of bizarre inverted hypocrisy. Our civilization suffers from vital exhaustion. In the days of Louis XIV, when the appetite for living was great, official culture placed the accent on denial of flesh and pleasure. Such a discourse could no longer be tolerated today. We need adventure and eroticism because we need to hear ourselves repeat that life is marvelous and exciting; and it is abundantly clear that we rather doubt it.I am not overfond of historicism, but agree with the claim that people are dull (no drive, no ambition, no interests). Plus, the modern overstress of eroticism strikes me also as incredible, but for a different reason: unlike Houellebecq's speaker of the passage above (a priest and therefore presumably celibate), I do know firsthand something about the sex life they have and thus know that most of it is profoundly not worth having, let alone overemphasizing.
I get the impression he considers me a fitting symbol of this vital exhaustion. No sex-drive, no ambition; no real interests, either. I don't know what to say to him: I get the impression that everyone is a bit like that. I consider myself a normal kind of guy.
But then their lives are profoundly not worth having, either, and against the backdrop of the life's worthlessness and boredom dull, repetitive, mechanical, textbook sex is fine, I suppose.
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