While I stretch open my mouth from tedium rather than excitement when
considering the relationship between sexuality and art, an interview
statement from Marguerite Duras causes me to curtail my yawn: "We [women]
don't write at all in the same place as men. And when women don't write in
the place of their desire, they don't write, they are plagiarising."
Now I'm not sure I know what this means given that to write about sexuality
seems to me as a male to require a dissociation of subjectivity from bodily
function, rather than the enactment/fulfilment of desire through language.
It may be that a distinction needs to be made between gender and sexuality
when assessing Duras' use of the word 'desire'.
Whatever, I'm interested to hear from the female writers (regardless of
orientation, which seems to me secondary and probably only of biographical
interest) on this list such that I can develop a sharper understanding of
how that place which is the locus of writing might differ between men and
women: does it differ and, if so, is this because of or irrespective of
desire?
David Howard
|