Sex In Altas Shrugged

[Romantic Warrior]

If you haven't already read my introduction, please read it... but i'm still in the investigatory stage of my venture into objectivist thought, and am trying to grasp some of objectivism's ideas.

I haven't finished the book, but I've read enough of Altas Shrugged to be completely baffled by Rand's depiction of sex and its meaning. Dagny Taggart sleeps with both Francisco d'Anconia and Hank Rearden in different stages of her life, and they are both somewhat different, yet inately the same. In both situations, there is no personal connection beyond the physical elemnt, and both men take complete advantage of her.

What I guess I'm asking then is... is the act of sex totally lost to our natural instincts? Is it really nothing more than a mutual act for pleasure? Is it always a relation of the controller and the controlled? The way she depicts it in the mind of Hank Rearden is almost to the point of being sadomasochistic.

There is also a scene where Dagny almost says "I love you" to Francisco. What of that, if their sexual relation is only for pleasure?

[AshRyan]

...In both situations, there is no personal connection beyond the physical elemnt, and both men take complete advantage of her.

I think this is your mistaken premise. In fact, there is a deep emotional connection in both cases, and in each of them both parties deeply respect and value the other.

At the beginning of Rearden's affair with Dagny, however, he is operating under mixed premises and believes he has a duty to a family that hates and uses him, and therefore accepts an unearned guilt for many of the positive values in his life, including his relationship with Dagny.

Don't be too worried if some things don't make sense to you at first, there were bits of Atlas Shrugged that confused me the first time I read it. But once you've been all the way through it, on a second reading a lot of these issues will be much clearer (it also helps to have studied some of her non-fiction philosophical writings). It is good to ask questions about things you don't understand; you certainly shouldn't accept aspects of the philosophy that are unclear or disagreeable to you at this point--but neither should you fully reject them before you have studied enough to be in a better position to make a final, fully-informed judgment.

[FaSheezy]

I just now realized something from reading your post. I had always understood what Ayn Rand was saying in those moments, because what she is describing is the actual feeling in words. She does it so well, to the point where I can feel what she is saying when she says it. I dont know if that makes sense, I dont want to say "You really wont understand unless you've felt it.." But it more or less is precisely that. The feeling comes from understand the values at hand and their extreme importance to you. Once you have that fully integrated into your mind, it becomes easier to grasp. She is describing an intense emotion derived from the act of obtaining and keeping fundamental values to human life and happiness.