After all the back & forth, all I can say is that all four (& perhaps just
about everybody who 'talks' on this list) ahs at least a 'strong' (if not
autonomous) personality...
As to 'love', well, that's a much harder nut to crack. A small word, a
rather huge list of possibilities...
I've kept thinking of Samuel R Delany while reading Dom's interesting takes
on the Marquis. Delany has written some deliberately savage pornography (he
carefully defines it as such, another para-literature alongside the Sf &
fantasy he has also written [all of it amazingly intelligent, witty,
stylish]), wherein his texts ask very tough questions about violence in
sexual relations. His take on Sade, in the Introduction to Hogg, asks those
same questions, & I would argue that he's closer to Alison than Dom, but
also carefully philosophical in both his assumptions and his responses.
Personally, I don't like violence associated with sex, but having read
about the later life of Foucault, I am more aware than ever of the range of
human possibility even among philosophers...
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
It's all in books, save the best part; God knows
where that is: I found it once, wasn't looking
John Thompson
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