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Jacalyn McCarthy
Section EK
Julia Bowes
12/1/15
Assignment 5
How authentic are our needs and desires? What role do social relations and technology play
shaping our needs and desires?

Human needs and desires are not entirely authentic due to the immense amount of
influence surrounding them. Desires and needs are a part of human life, that cannot be disputed.
Things like air, water, and shelter are necessary components of human life, and can be
considered authentic needs. Needs and desires for things like socialization, intimacy, and
physical affection cannot be considered authentic. The family dynamic, technology, environment,
and even socialization in ones personal life can all play a part in the formation of that
individuals needs and wants. This is evident in Sherry Turkles piece Alone Together: Why We
Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other where the complicated relationship
between children and their toys fulfills their need for socialization. Leslie Bells work Hard to
Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom compares and contrasts
two kinds of desires, and proves that desires are altered for many reasons. Finally, The Naked
Citadel by Susan Faludi focuses on the idea that certain needs and desires are altered by the
social situation or environment in which the individual is immersed, using The Citadel as a prime
example. When subjected to numerous issues, human needs and desires are subject to easily
change in order to be fulfilled or make the individual more comfortable in an uncomfortable
situation, making the needs and desires unauthentic.
Human needs can be fulfilled in ways that are not traditional, causing the authenticity of
the needs to be questioned. Socialization and intimacy are two needs that are crucial to human

development. These needs are being fulfilled by individuals in untraditional ways, making the
needs seem trivial and inauthentic. Children are using Furbies and Tamagotchis to fulfill their
need for socialization by settling on the robots being alive enough for companionship (Turkle
462). The children are fully aware of the toys being unreal, but the toys display enough emotion
to be a friend. The children are choosing to accept the Furby as a friend, even though they know
it is not alive because as Wilson says in Turkles story, the Furby is alive enough to be a friend
(Turkle 463). The children are doing this so they can have a friend, and to fulfill their need for
socialization. Socialization is thought to be a huge part of childhood, something that directly
shapes individuals for the rest of their lives. Children settling for socializing with robot toys and
things they know are not entirely alive in order to fulfill their socialization need jeopardizes the
theory that the need is authentic and necessary. If children can bond and socialize with something
that is hardly interactive, then the need for socialization and human-to-human interaction is not
that important after all. The idea of needs being fulfilled in untraditional ways can also be seen in
The Naked Citadel. Similar to Turkles piece, The Naked Citadel by Susan Faludi discusses
the need for human affection and interaction, but inside the harsh misogynist walls of the
military academy. Physical affection is a component of socialization, and is a common need for
most people. The cadets at The Citadel, like the children in Alone Together, were able to fulfill
their needs in untraditional manners. Faludi states The result is a ruthless intimacy, in which
physical abuse stands in for physical affection, and every display of affection must be
counterbalanced by a display of sadism (Faludi 100). The cadets are using physical abuse and
violence, often in the form of hazing, to fulfill their need for physical affection and intimacy
because they do not think the need for physical affection as an authentic and acceptable need. By
hazing and using violence, their cadets need for physical affection is somehow being fulfilled

without the cadets even realizing. This supports the idea that needs and desires cannot be
considered entirely authentic. If the cadets are able to fulfill something by doing the exact
opposite, and without even knowing, the need for socialization and physical affection cannot be
truly authentic.
Desires are also a component of human life that cannot be considered entirely authentic,
due to the altering of the desires based on social situations and stigma. People can want a
plethora of different things, for a plethora of different reasons. Desires are able to be easily
altered, however, causing wants to be unauthentic. Sexual desires are one example of desires that
are easily altered. Leslie Bells story Hard to Get talks about many different desires regarding
relationships. Women have different desires, and those desires are often looked down upon by
some aspect of society. Many women who are facing sexual freedom feel ashamed by their
desires to either experiment or settle down. One women interviewed by Bell was even quoted to
say, I wish I could take a pill to kill my desire (Bell 25). Women are so ashamed and
embarrassed by their desires that they are wishing they could eradicate them entirely, like by
taking a pill. The same women who are embarrassed by their desires are, in effect, not acting out
on those desires. Instead, women are commonly doing the opposite to counteract what they think
are bad desires. These desires cannot be considered authentic, because the women experiencing
them are just avoiding them, caused the desires to never be fulfilled. Authentic desires would be
desires that people would not be ashamed of, and desires that would not be avoided. Another
example of desires being easily altered can be seen in Alone Together. Children who loved
their Furbies and wanted to take the best care of them as possible, suddenly become violent and
aggressive with a My Real Baby, which doesnt show pain or distress like a Furby. The desire to
be caring and nurturing disappeared immediately when there were no consequences. One of the

children playing with the doll started to shake the doll violently, claiming that it had no
feelings (Turkle 477). The children felt it acceptable to torment and be aggressive to the doll
that did not show pain, but not to the Furby who said things like Me Scared (Turkle 476). The
children only felt the need to be nurturing and caring to the toy that showed feelings, but not the
one that didnt. A real desire to be nurturing and caring would be enacted on all things, feelings
aside. The fact that the children were so easily able to change their minds and desires based on
one small factor shows that the desires were not authentic in the first place. The ability of desires
to change and be altered so simply proves that the desires are not authentic. Authentic desires do
not change as simply as that.
The environment of an individual can lead to the altering of needs or wants, once again
causing them to be unauthentic. Women in certain environments can alter their needs or desires
in order to be more comfortable in the situations. Bell talks about a woman named Alicia who
abstained from sex to have an alternative to the well-worn path of teen pregnancy, sexual
exploitation by older men, and dropping out of school that was so common in her environment
(Bell 37). She was from an impoverished, working class background, and tried to avoid making
the same mistakes that girls she knew made. Alicia altered or avoided her desires, and became
abstinent in order to have an alternative to what her environment commonly created. If her
sexual desires were true and authentic, she would not have been able to avoid them to fulfill her
other desires, they would have been equally as important. Environment playing a role in
inauthentic desire and wants is noticeable in the cadets at the Citadel. Faludi explains the
environment at the Citadel by saying, they can act like human beings in the safety of the
domestic life of the barracks. But, in return, the institution demands that they never cease to act
like a man (Faludi 103). The environment of the Citadel plays such a huge role in how the

cadets act, and what they need and desire. The environment inside the barracks allows the cadets
to feel normal, however, it does not allow the cadets to embrace their feminine wants and desires.
Authentic needs and desires would be embraced and fulfilled everywhere, not embraced in
certain environments and stifled in others. Since needs and desires are able to be so easily altered
and avoided based on the environment they are submerged in, they are not truly authentic.
Human needs and desires are not all truly authentic based on their ability to be fulfilled
untraditionally, their ability to be altered due to social situations and stigmas, and the impact that
the environment has on the needs and desires. Truly authentic needs and desires, like food and
water, are definite things that people want and need, and cannot be avoided. Other human needs
and desires, like socialization, sexual desires, and physical affection cannot be considered
authentic since they are so subject to change, or be to be avoided. Children are substituting real
human interaction with robots, women are avoiding what they want from relationships because
how they think people will think of them, and soldiers are pretending to be something theyre not
because of the environment they are in. The Naked Citadel by Susan Faludi, Alone Together:
Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle, and Hard
to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom by Leslie Bell all
showcase that needs and desires cannot be considered authentic for multiple reasons. When
subjected to numerous issues, human needs and desires are subject to easily change in order to be
fulfilled or make the individual more comfortable in an uncomfortable situation, making the
needs and desires unauthentic.