On Mar 15, 2005, at 13:36, Dominic Fox wrote:
> Incidentally, where does this idea that the poetic articulation of
> erotic longing will help to construct a more mutually respectful
> social milieu come from? It seems like wishful thinking at best to me.
> I don't find in my sexual makeup a great deal that would be of use in
> making a better society.
I think you're oversimplifying the case (and am aware that you've since
gone off to re-read, but felt like throwing myself into the discussion
all the same). To state the obvious, writing is always about more than
what it's about, and as the essay in question puts forth, this holds
true for erotic literature as much as for any other. To me the most
important issues put forth were not any attempts at constructing "a
more mutually respectful social milieu" but explorations of identity
and, crucially, language.
It's a difficult and ambivalent project, reconstructing oneself and
one's culture in the face of a radically new context and new language.
It's interesting to read of these Native American writers who pull in
non-English words in their otherwise English literature to describe an
experience they feel is outside the English tongue. On the one hand,
taken on the surface, it does seem a little naive: "The English words
cannot seem to encompass both emotional intimacy (sweetheart) and
sexual desire (lover) as the Cree word can. The sense of a community of
love, in all its varieties, is implied by the use of this single word
in a poem otherwise expressed in English..." I'm sure there's a way to
express just that in English, if one really were to try. (This might be
the "primal innocence" you take issue with?) On the other hand it bears
witness of a deeper current underneath the language itself, a desire to
express things which are otherwise going unexpressed.
(These are important issues to me personally, as bilingual and
bicultural, because the experiences I have in Norwegian and the
experience I have in English are surprisingly different from each
other. The last issue of Poetry Wales had some interesting thoughts
regarding similar problems in the Anglo-Welsh community).
Anyhow, this -- as far as I'm concerned, I clearly can't speak for the
writers in the essay -- is where sexuality pulls in -- such a very
concrete act (or set of acts), one traditionally fairly suppressed and
unexplored in our society (recent decades and certain spectacular
exceptions aside), leaving an open space to explore for those in need
of redefining/reconstructing themselves. One of the writers I love
most, Samuel R. Delany, is a black homosexual who has filled volumes
with explorations of sexuality in relation to social and political
constructs. At the risk of being reductive, I don't believe he would
have done this, or done it in nearly the same fashion, if he were a
white heterosexual.
So on the one hand, I agree with you, the sex is superficial. It's
"internal to the system of overlapping functions and imperatives that
make up our make-up," and not in any way liberating in and of itself.
But by being a relatively unwritten space it provides a wealth of
opportunity for exploration and expression, for expressing exactly
those things which are otherwise going unexpressed. It also provides a
rich space of contrasts; by being a domain so controlled by religion,
taboo, and spiritual practice it potentially becomes an extreme version
of the differences between societies. Just look at the contemporary
West vs. the majority of muslim nations.
(And, by some terrible twist of irony, "Desperate Housewives" has been
running on the TV behind me while I've been writing this reply, I
wonder what that says about sex practices and liberation),
--Knut
>
> I guess it's a little bit like saying, "if we can all learn to be
> respectful of one another's sexual selves, then in that regard at
> least we will all have learned to be respectful of one another". That
> might be true, but it begs the question rather.
>
> I'm inclined to believe a) that our erotic selves are inherently
> conflicted, and b) that these conflicts are not directly or
> necessarily due to the fracturing of some primal innocence by
> external, e.g. familial or societal, conflicts, but are internal to
> the system of overlapping functions and imperatives that make up our
> make-up. It would follow that the content of our sexual lives is not
> inherently worthy of respect - in some cases, pity might be more like
> it.
>
> To respect another person as a sexual being might mean taking a proper
> care of the miseries and anxieties to which their sexuality makes them
> vulnerable, as well as acknowledging their capacity for pleasure.
> There is no possibility of a straightforward "liberation" here, no
> unqualified good that need only be released to realize itself.
>
> Dominic
>
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