The first obvious thing about eroticism is the way that an ordered, parsimonious and shuttered reality is shaken by a plethoric disorder. Animal sexuality brings out this same plethoric disorder but no barrier of resistance is raised against it. Animal disorder is freely dissipated in untramelled violence. The rupture is consummated, the stormy floods subside and the solitude of the individual closes in upon it once more. The only modification of individual discontinuity possible for the animal is death. Either the animal dies or else when the tumult has died down its discontinuity remains intact. In human life on the other hand, sexual violence causes a wound that rarely heals of its own accord; it has to be closed, and will not even remain closed without constant attention based on anguish. Primary anguish bound up with sexual disturbance signifies death. The violence of this disturbance reopens in the mind of (one) experiencing it, who also knows what death is, the abyss that death once revealed. The violence of death and sexual experience, when they are linked together, have this dual significance. On the one hand the convulsions of the flesh are more acute when they are near to a black-out, and on the other a black-out, as long as there is enough time, makes physical pleasure more exquisite. Mortal anguish does not necessarily make for sensual pleasure, but that pleasure is more deeply felt during mortal anguish.

George Bataille