Summary and Analysis

"Sexual Plethora and Death" The author begins this lengthy chapter with a discussion of how reproduction, either sexual or asexual, is essentially the culmination of a buildup of excess energy, a "plethora". The result of action taken on that buildup, he says, again either sexual or asexual, is the creation of a new individual, a fundamental discontinuity—separation between individuals which, the author points out, can take place either immediately, as in asexual reproduction, or eventually, as in human sexual reproduction. Here again, he demonstrates the circular nature of these two states of existence, a defining of the relationship between sexual plethora and death. The former, a trigger for reproductive discontinuity is, he suggests, a precursor of the latter, a trigger for a return to continuity. Eroticism, therefore, as a manifestation of sexual plethora, is itself a precursor to...