Uses
of the Erotic: The erotic as power
by Audre Lorde I
love this essay. Written by the black lesbian poet Audre Lorde,
it hit me directly in my body. It's as though she's talking
to me, about me - as if she's talking to all women about being
women. About being strong, passionate women. Lorde refers
to the erotic, not only as a sexual component but also as much
more, as the source of a woman's strength and passion:
The
erotic. lies in a deeply female and
spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed
or unrecognized feeling. As women, we have come to distrust
that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge.
Our culture prides itself on being so, so
open and so, so liberated about sex, but it isn't. Instead
we act like adolescents, snickering, instead of respectful
of the power of our sexuality, male and female.
I've always seen sex as potentially transcendent, and how many
transcendent experiences do we get in life? But our culture
makes sex dirty and it makes sexual everything related to prescribed
zones of the body - the breasts, the penis, and the vagina.
...pornography is a direct denial
of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression
of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.
I'm actually not against all pornography,
but I am against exploiting sexuality and making the erotic
seem dirty. Lorde sees a woman's sexuality and eroticism
as a well of great power, and I believe the same holds
true for men. I agree with her that our power and
passion, our creativity and love, our joy and our strength...
all arise from our sexuality.
.the erotic offers a well of replenishing
and provocative force to the woman who does not fear its revelation...
But because our culture
insists on seeing sexuality as naughty and dirty, we negate
our power and conceal it, because we're afraid of it. We're
afraid of our own strength.
We have been raised to fear the yes
within ourselves, our deepest cravings. .. The fear of our
desires keeps them suspect and indiscriminately powerful. The
fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may
find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient,
externally defined...
...when we begin to live from within
outward. we begin to be responsible to our selves in the deepest
sense. we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with
suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so
often seems like the only alternative in our society.
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