Vita Sexualis

But love is not the same as sexual desire even though love may be closely related to it.

Mr. Kanai felt he wanted to write something, but he didn't want to imitate his predecessors

people in general had become erotomaniacs or he himself was abnormally frigid

That is, he wondered if the author's focusing on sexual desire itself was not abnormal

His thought at the moment was not that such a scene was probably impossible, but why the author had deliberately taken the trouble to depict it.

At the same time he was wondering if such representations were actually true to life, he suspected that perhaps unlike the rest of the human race he might be indifferent to such desires, that he might have an extraordinary natural disposition which might be called frigiditas

And that is why when he discovers an author has written with the intention of creating something sad or pathetic, it strikes him as quite funny, and when the intention of the author is to be humorous, he feels instead quite sad about it.

What interests him in these stories is the psychological condition under which the authors wrote.

the path along which Zola has been walking, he should also build another path high in the air, parallel to Zola's. . . . We should erect a spiritual naturalism.

debauchery is the raison d'etre of life,