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 | Thinking Sex: Normalcy, Law, Poetry Forum |
Comments are posted in the order in which they are received, with earlier postings appearing first below on this page. To see the latest postings, click on "Go to last comment" below.
| Normalcy, Law, Poetry Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-10-14 16:45:22 Link to this Comment: 6898 |
Welcome back, friends, from your fall break. I hope everyone is rested and ready for more...
thinking and talking and writing about sex. This week's topics are "normalcy": what it is, how it functions, how we might challenge or expand its scope, particularly in the languages of "law" and "poetry." We all look forward to hearing your thoughts in response to the assigned essays on these topics (by Michael Warner, Mary Poovey, Mary Conway), to various legal decisions regarding the age of consent, the assessment of sexual offenders and Megan's Law--and out of your own experiences of the "norm" and its "variations" (at your praxis site, in poetry, in your life elsewhere).
Anne
| "No Sex, Please" Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-10-14 16:52:42 Link to this Comment: 6899 |
Related to these questions is an article in the Oct. 10, 2003 Chronicle of Higher Education: "No Sex, Please, We're Taiwanese," which describes how an English professor's outspoken views landed her in court: "Known for her refusal to pass judgment on prostitution and unorthodox sexual behaviors, the professor is, to conservatives, a symbol of what is wrong with modern Taiwan....In Taiwan's political and education environment, 'You were told to do things,' Ms. Ho says. At the U. of Geogia, her classmates' outspoken views seemed like poetry to her." See http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v50/i07/07a03601.htm for a fuller (though of course never complete....) report.
| re: no sex please Name: Sarah Date: 2003-10-19 22:11:09 Link to this Comment: 6922 |
| copyright... Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-10-20 21:28:58 Link to this Comment: 6925 |
sorry, sarah, there are copyright restrictions...
but i'm happy to e-mail you--as well as anyone else who's interested--a copy.
anne
| wanting to be normal... Name: Sarah Date: 2003-10-21 13:46:03 Link to this Comment: 6931 |
I'm working here with the idea of "normal" as being within an acceptable range of behaviors, with the word "acceptable" speaking to the way normalcy is a matter of perception. I won't break out the "human nature" phrase here, but I think most humans want to feel loved and accepted, and that requires the feedback (or at least the perceived feedback) of other people. Bryn Mawr's "determined individuals" may feel free to be as openly non-conformist as they want on campus, but how many of us modify our behavior off-campus, for our families or our high school friends or whoever? (My one friend here always wears makeup out in the real world but never wears it here; many people are "out" here but haven't told anyone in their family.) Are we truly being ourselves here because this is such an open, accepting environment, or are we responding to a different set of "norms" that exist here?
| normalcy and inconsistency Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-10-22 09:17:44 Link to this Comment: 6942 |
I know that for some of you (Laurel?) yesterday's conversation about "the norm" and our needs to claim/evade it seemed....
frustrating. I found it provocative, and wanted to link here to at least two other conversations on campus: "What Counts?" and Making Sense of Diversity, where the same ideas are being explored (and which you are warmly invited to join).
During our discussion of the languages of law and poetry tomorrow, I expect to challenge Mary Conway on her failure to suggest an alternative language for talking about sex in the courtroom, for her "retreat" from the public language of law into the language of poetry. And I also expect (inconsistently? how's this for an example of a divided subjectivity? and how can such an inconsistent self be confined to any category??) to revel in the reading of poetry, such as
Plumstone
eating a plum
I tongue the tight skin
drawn seam
that halves this globed
whole in two
it's midnight
blue outside
but when I bite in
bursting
with wet red flesh
the juice dripping down
my fingers sweet
sticky sticky
sweet pulp
engorged I
fill my mouth
eat it down
eat it down
all the way to the
plumstone.
Becky Birtha in The Forbidden Poems
After Love
Afterward, the compromise
Bodies resume their boundaries.
These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.
Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.
The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar
and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.
Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when
the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self
lay lightly down, and slept.
Maxine Kumin
| Out Week speaker Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-10-22 10:01:43 Link to this Comment: 6943 |
Laura Smoot, co-head of Haverford's Sexuality and Gender Alliance, Haverford's LGBTQI and ally student club, is bringing a speaker to campus on November 11 and 12 as part of "Out Week". She is Michelle OBrien, a social justice activist and a genderqueer trans woman from Philadelphia. She will be participating in two separate events: a workshop over dinner (Nov 11) and a lecture (Nov 12). If you are interested in the workshop, please email lsmoot@haverford.edu to reserve a spot.
(Below find descriptions of the workshop and lecture).
Workshop: Down To Basics: An introduction for trans allies
Primarily for those interested in transgender communities and seeking ways to be supportive allies, the workshop will cover some of the basics of vocabulary, community politics, respect and humility to trans people. Trans people are encouraged to attend to share insight in how others can support and respect trans communities. Down to Basics will include material on personal gender identity, discrimination in social service and other institutions, and honoring self-identification and self-determination.
Relevant for: Non-trans social justice activists interested in making trans-inclusive movements; students of health care and social services who will come into contact with trans communities; non-trans feminists interested in including trans communities and issues in gender politics and theory; faculty and staff who could work with trans students.
Lecture: Tracing this Body: Transsexuality, pharmaceuticals and capitalism
Tracing this Body locates forms of transgender body modification historically, politically and economically. OBrien examines the ways hormones are both a form of participation in and resistance to systems of transnational capitalism, the inequitable flow of pharmaceuticals and the complex terrain of the biomedical industry. Offering a blend of political economy, body politics and personal narrative, this lecture rethinks ideas of purity, complicity and resistance within capitalism. Calling on an understanding of trans bodies as cyborg forms both resulting from and disrupting forms of capitalist domination, she works to trace a redefinition of the nature of politics and bodies.
| trained to fit in Name: Tia Date: 2003-10-22 12:32:26 Link to this Comment: 6944 |
| sexual poetry Name: Heather Date: 2003-10-23 00:30:44 Link to this Comment: 6963 |
Of what does the burning mouth
Of sun, burning in today's
Sky remind me......oh, yes, his
Mouth, and ......his limbs like pale and
Carnivorous plants reaching
Out for me, and the sad lie
Of my unending lust. Where
Is room, excuse or even
Need for love, for, isn't each
Embrace a complete thing, a
Finished jigsaw, when mouth on
Mouth, I lie, ignoring my poor
Moody mind, while pleasure
With deliberate gaiety
Trumpets harshly into the
Silence of the room......At noon
I watch the sleek crows flying
Like poison on wings-and at
Night, from behind the Burdwan
Road, the corpse-bearers cry 'Bol
Hari Bol', a strange lacing
For moonless nights, while I walk
The verandah sleepless, a
Million questions awake in
Me, and all about him, and
This skin-communicated
Thing that I dare not yet in
His presence call our love.
-Kamala Das
| validation Name: Grannis Date: 2003-10-23 08:57:08 Link to this Comment: 6964 |
| my sexual poetry Name: Grannis Date: 2003-10-23 09:14:19 Link to this Comment: 6965 |
1. Upon Julia's Clothes by Robert Herrick
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes!
Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free,
Oh how that glittering taketh me!
2. by Edna St. Vincent Millay
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before.
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
3. A Woman Waits for Me by Walt Whitman
A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking.
Sex contains all,
Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk; 5
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals,
All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth,
All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth,
These are contain'd in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of itself.
Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex, 10
Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.
Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,
I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me;
I see that they understand me, and do not deny me;
I see that they are worthy of me—I will be the robust husband of those women. 15
They are not one jot less than I am,
They are tann'd in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear, well-possess'd of themselves. 20
I draw you close to me, you women!
I cannot let you go, I would do you good,
I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for others' sakes;
Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards,
They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me. 25
It is I, you women—I make my way,
I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable—but I love you,
I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,
I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for These States—I press with slow rude muscle,
I brace myself effectually—I listen to no entreaties, 30
I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me.
Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,
In you I wrap a thousand onward years,
On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America,
The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls, new artists, musicians, and singers, 35
The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,
I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,
I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you interpenetrate now,
I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,
I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so lovingly now. 40
| poem Name: Laurel Date: 2003-10-23 09:54:56 Link to this Comment: 6968 |
Teasing your eyes flicker like tongues on my lips
little roses your nipples become red mountains
My tongue climbs into you
shaking our legs sweat sliding
Your fingers in me are ruby-throated
humming birds Your eyes iridescent wings...
You laugh a gurgle of nectar
We go shining in the rainy road your palm kneading
my thigh mine yours
I murmur Am I affecting your driving too much?
Tossing your head smiling you answer
I want you to...
| Poem Name: Megan Hill Date: 2003-10-23 15:16:26 Link to this Comment: 6973 |
I wanted hanging tongues dripping with lust
drooling for my touch
I wanted permission
--as a member of the infamous female gender--
to quench the burning
that quivers through me
I wanted to be a different body
so I'd be used more than once
before I'm thrown in the closet to collect dust
but now
after each endorphin rush
when my blood feels carbonated
and orgasmic burning swells
from where the wooden clips press together
I want the satisfaction
of a job well done.
| is it getting hot in here? :-) Name: Sarah Date: 2003-10-23 16:07:32 Link to this Comment: 6974 |
senses
sensual
sensuous
sensitive
sensing I would like to use ALL my
senses to explore ALL of you
scent mmmmmmmm
scrumptious!
sumptuous
situation suggests sharing sexy scenarios
stately shaft sliding into slick
slippery softness
sensational!
share some?
ssssshhhhhh
secret.
| sexual poetry Name: Ro. Date: 2003-10-23 19:35:10 Link to this Comment: 6976 |
In "Spiderwoman," Longley makes love to Arachne, the spider...who also seems to be somewhat of a muse for his poetic imagination. These "musings" are often sexual. It's a great poem, but leaves me cool only because, as a would-be poet, I am the wrong sex to have a muse, so it would seem. Foiled again :-)
Spiderwoman
Arachne starts with Ovid and finishes with me.
Her hair falls out and the ears and nostrils disappear
From her contracting face, her body miniscule, thin
Fingers clinging to her sides by way of legs, the rest
All stomach, from which she manufactures gossamer
And so keeps up her former trade, weaver, spider
Enticing the eight eyes of my imagination
To make love on her lethal doily, to dangle sperm
Like teardrops from an eyelash, massage it into her
While I avoid the spinerets--navel, vulva, bum--
And the widening smile behind her embroidery.
She wears our babies like brooches on her abdomen.
| Discussion Today--the language of rape Name: Ro Date: 2003-10-23 19:56:42 Link to this Comment: 6977 |
For example, no one determines how to prosecute physical assault (as in a brawl) by defining what bodily parts were hit, how hard, if they bruised or bled or broke, etc. Assault is prosecuted when one party is involuntarily, physically accosted by another. Do you see where I'm going with this?
No wonder rape is so hard to prosecute, to prove. Rape is a crime committed by performing a perfectly normal act (unlike punching someone, with the resulting damages), but with intent and in a way that may or may not produce abnormal evidence. And look, I'm using the "N" word...just noticed that.
Can we come up with a language for the legal system to use to describe rape as a violent crime without sexual references and implications? Anybody want to counter this, or shed more light,...please!
| Lucky Name: KB Date: 2003-10-23 21:35:19 Link to this Comment: 6978 |
While I do think that the legal terms that we read today used to describe rape and other non-consentual acts do a great job of portraying the acts, they do a less than mediocre job in portraying the emotion involved. I know this sounds so obvious, but really, isn't that what a rape case is really about? This all comes back to the question of whether one can even begin to describe an event like this. Seabold decided to write a memoir, and to also write a book ("The Lovely Bones") about a little girl who is raped and murdered. I wonder if "The Lovely Bones" would have been as good if Seabold didn't feel and know the emotion behind being raped. Perhaps I am just going on and on, but I find myself thinking, maybe poetry and prose are the answer to allowing emotions to surface, or maybe not, and maybe it just worked for Alice Seabold.
On that note, here is the poem I read in class today, by E.E. Cummings:
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)
may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
cccome? said he
ummm said she)
you're divine! said he
(you are Mine said she)
| bottleneck Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-10-23 22:13:38 Link to this Comment: 6980 |
This afternoon, after our class finished working the distance between the language of law and of poetry (or what Ali identified as the spectrum from precise-exact to allusive-evocative language--for which see also a discussion of The Two Cultures-- I went to a meeting of the working group on Language. We were reading a book by Norretranders called The User Illusion and much of what came out of our conversation was an abstraction of--and very much relevant to and I think illuminating for--what we had been discussing, in more concrete terms, in class.
Norretranders argues that language functions as a "bottleneck": a large amount of information in the unconscious is compressed into language, in order to be transmitted to a receiver, for whom it serves as a "germ" to be "expanded out" again. In computer programming, this process of compression and decompression is an attempt to attain a faithful reproduction of the original, but natural language doesn't aim for that sort of equivalence (and, because not controlled--or controllable--both "horrifying" and marvelous in the range of reference and ambiguity it can evoke, for the speech [or text] "underdetermines" the meaning we get out of it). We decided that there may be two reasons--aside from efficiency--for this act of compression. It functions, first, as a means of evoking a response in the listener (so that language becomes less a process of transmission than one of inquiry: what will the hearer say back?). Secondly, because it is a reduction, an abstraction of some particular complexity, when it "expands out" again it may take the form of--and so create a link to--another language. Norretranders describes this process is as a "problem of bandwidth," but it seemed to us less a problem than a positive: the more compressed, the more productive of new linkages language may be.
| legal poetry Name: Heather Date: 2003-10-23 23:24:29 Link to this Comment: 6983 |
Name: Megan Date: 2003-10-24 03:21:06 Link to this Comment: 6985 |
To the discussion on normalacy I wanted to offer an experience I had this week at my praxis site. Being a middle-class white female who is working with low-income black females leads to the struggle of relating to these girls. In this instance, in order to best educate these girls, I must try to conform to what is "normal" for the group. That can mean the choice of langauge, the way I dress, or if I teach like a professional or as an equal. During the meeting, I thought our discussion of intimacy was going extremely well until one girl made a comment about boys only liking anal sex with girls with donkeys. Garron and I were puzzled so the girl said, "Let me translate for you: Girls with asses". It was definately a moment where a distinction was made that I was an outsider, someone who was not "normal" because I didn't understand their common language.
I also wanted to bring up the Kobe Bryant case in relation to the discussion on rape as a violent act vs. a sexual act. I was guilty of watching too much TV over break, including the coverage of the Bryant preliminary trial. I was struck by the defense's claim that it was somehow relevant that the victim had had sexual intercourse in the days prior to the alleged rape. Its as if they were making her out to be a slut, therefore she couldn't have possibly been raped. To the defense, it was all about sex. To the prosecution, it was about power.
.
| still thinking about poetry Name: Ro. Date: 2003-10-24 07:41:36 Link to this Comment: 6987 |
"1. A verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid and imaginative way, characterized by the use of condensed language chosen for its sound and suggestive power and by the use of literary techniques such as meter, metaphor, and rhyme.
2. A composition in verse rather than in prose.
3. A literary composition written with an intensity or beauty of language more characteristic of poetry than of prose.
4. A creation, an object, or an experience having beauty suggestive of poetry."
At its roots, the meaning of "poem" is to pile up, build up, create. So, yes, we could argue that the exercise/process we went through in class yesterday was this kind of "piling up"...using words chosen for their impact... the resulting aggregate might, therefore, convey the underlying emotions of each selector-poet and also a new "group emotion" or intensity. Did it? I don't know. Would it be felt only by those vested in its creation?
For me, the exercise went too quickly--both in the selection and in the creation of the poem. In thinking about this (a lot), I wish we had selected our phrases with a bit more care, i.e., time to do so. I wish we had not gone round-robin but written all of the selections down, then worked together to organize them into a sequence or poem. I wish we had read the "poem" aloud with more clarity and deliberateness so that we could fully take it in.
I guess what I'm saying is that I find I wanted this exercise/process to be executed well, because it resonates with me as a possible way to move the language of sex forward and into the realms of our praxis projects etc. In general, we're going through so much material so quickly that I fear we are going to rush right past the jewels our collective might uncover. I think that's what caused me to pass and also to grump.
Or maybe it's that I don't see a plate of thrown spaghetti dripping down a wall as "art," even if one places a museum placard next to it. I could be wrong!
Have a great weekend!
Ro
| Poetry as language...got it Name: Ro. Date: 2003-10-24 07:59:16 Link to this Comment: 6989 |
It just occurred to me that we are considering poetry as a medium for communicating--a language--and not as a form of art, although art certainly does communicate. We're after creating a vernacular for sex. I should have seen this, or maybe I didn't because it was too close to see clearly. The reason I'm at Bryn Mawr is to develop a sort of photo-journalism (where both parts of that hyphenated tag have equal weight) that communicates through the combination of two media... two channels at once...for the impact and for the compression it affords. In going after this, I know I'm perverting the intentions of most good Fine Arts departments who teach photography, because they teach it as Fine Arts, not language.
Dah!
Guys, Anne, THANK YOU.
BIG HUG,
Ro
Name: Catherine Date: 2003-10-25 19:07:27 Link to this Comment: 6999 |
| passive and active Name: Ali Date: 2003-10-26 22:26:38 Link to this Comment: 7003 |
| normalcy and culpability in rape cases Name: Jessie Date: 2003-10-27 17:20:20 Link to this Comment: 7014 |
Megan brought up the Kobe Bryant case: The reason why the woman is being made out to be a slut is so that she will seemingly violate Normal female sexual behavior and let Bryant's own disposition off the hook. Similarly, we can explain Brenner's need to normalize her relationship with Wright in court -- she has a legal need to appear "normal," to make lesbianism fit socially "normal" and acceptable models, despite a lack of language to do so. The motivation to be normal, then, has expansive societal effects, including juridical implications. In defending a rape case, the victim must seem as relatively normal as possible. Everything, even our legal system, is fraught with the importance of matching percieved norms.
Anyway, while I was thinking of "normal" sexual behavior, I did some sex poetry googling and found this poem.
"Kinky," by Denise Duhamel
They decide to exchange heads.
Barbie squeezes the small opening under her chin
over Ken's bulging neck socket. His wide jaw line jostles
atop his girlfriend's body, loosely,
like one of those novelty dogs
destined to gaze from the back windows of cars.
The two dolls chase each other around the orange Country Camper
unsure what they'll do when they're within touching distance.
Ken wants to feel Barbie's toes between his lips,
take off one of her legs and force his whole arm inside her.
With only the vaguest suggestion of genitals,
all the alluring qualities they possess as fashion dolls,
up until now, have done neither of them much good.
But suddenly Barbie is excited looking at her own body
under the weight of Ken's face. He is part circus freak,
part thwarted hermaphrodite. And she is imagining
she is somebody else-- maybe somebody middle class and ordinary,
maybe another teenage model being caught in a scandal.
The night had begun with Barbie getting angry
at finding Ken's blow up doll, folded and stuffed
under the couch. He was defensive and ashamed, especially about
not having the breath to inflate her. But after a round
of pretend-tears, Barbie and Ken vowed to try
to make their relationship work. With their good memories
as sustaining as good food, they listened to late-night radio
talk shows, one featuring Doctor Ruth. When all else fails,
just hold each other, the small sex therapist crooned.
Barbie and Ken, on cue, groped in the dark,
their interchangeable skin glowing, the color of Band-Aids.
Then, they let themselves go-- Soon Barbie was begging Ken
to try on her spandex miniskirt. She showed him how
to pivot as though he was on a runway. Ken begged
to tie Barbie onto his yellow surfboard and spin her
on the kitchen table until she grew dizzy. Anything,
anything, they both said to the other's requests,
their mirrored desires bubbling from the most unlikely places.
| the poems Name: Garron Date: 2003-10-28 01:37:07 Link to this Comment: 7023 |
As for my sex poem I had a similar dilemma to Catherine. Over the year's I've collected very few poems I consider overtly sexual, but I didn't want to hunt for a poem just because it had sex in it. I want to feel at least some connection to the poetry I offer for the group. So I'm not going to share with you sex poems, I'm going to share with you intimacy or desire poems that I like, that speak to me.
1)
Written by Chance
Fifteen years ago, beneath moonlight and flowers,
I walked with you
We composed flower-viewing poems together.
Tonight the moonlight and flowers are just the same
But how can I ever hold in my arms the same love
--Author unknown
2) This isn't a poem, but an excerpt from Tillie Olsen's book Tell Me a Riddle. Still, it has a poetic quality for me.
He slept badly, so used to her next to him. After all the years, old harmonies and dependencies deep in their bodies; she curled to him or he coiled to her, each warmed, warming, turning as the other turned, the nights a long embrace.
3) Again this isn't a poem, but it has a poetic quality to me. This is a lyric from Dar William's song Iowa
Back where I com from,
we never mean to bother,
We don't like to make our passions
other people's concern,
And we walk in the world of safe people,
and at night we walk into our houses and burn.
| a slippage between intention and reception Name: Laura Date: 2003-10-29 01:01:21 Link to this Comment: 7035 |
I decided to add on to the phrase that Sarah pulled forth in our class last week. Just one more word... does it change the meaning of this phrase for anybody? I am fusing the language of law with the 'suggestion' of poetry. Much like our class "poem".
I am also going over the idea that I was chewing on in today's class. To whom is agency admitted when literature or poetry is read? Is it the author who is violating/encroaching upon/subverting (I forget the word that we were using, ironic isn't it?) the text by writing it? Or is it the reader who is trespassing by reading, as I suggested earlier? If poetry is a slippage between intention and reception, can there exist a transgressor of language/ thought? Can literature/poetry exist outside of an author's intention and the reader's reception? Without one or both, is language nonexistent?
Trauma resists incorporation into the realm of language... how then can there be literature describing/ condemning/ analyzing trauma? There is theoretically no intention nor reception... or are they present but misleading? inadequate?
Here is a poem that I found eerily reflected Mary Conway's article. I believe that the poem can be read as someone reflecting upon their sexual entity, although it's not necessarily sexual/sensual in the way that we might think of sexual poetry... And I felt that reading this poem after I read the O.S. article invariably reminded me of the trap within which Brenner found herself.
Subsisting Existence
power and pleasure
intertwined
is it the truth
or a deep-seated fear?
have I been the chooser
or the chosen?
am I a participant
or a 'victim'?
doubts boil my mind
an integral Inquisition
plagues my pliable heart
I am so afraid
of the unknown
of the dark
is this due to programming
or instinct?
when I verbalize
my desires
"I want you"
and lay down when I'm not tired
just to dream about you
am I twisted
or queer?
am I perverse
because I miss your smell?
sometimes when I wake
I swear I feel
your hands on me
caresses are so sweet
but they delude me
mocking me with your absence
the weight of my own body
piled on top of itself
is dejected
rejected
I wish I had potent verbatim
forthcoming
but I don't
words can't pacify
they more or less
liquefy my emotions
I miss what I never had
paradoxal
c'est moi
au revoir.
Also, I would like to post my favorite Nathaniel Hawthorne quote. I read in this quote a timeless truth that applies to sex, as well as to life and everything/anything else. That truth has followed me around for the past five years since I first latched onto it when reading the Scarlet Letter (the sexual/sensual content of which I trust you all to be familiar...).
"But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it."
This quote is also reflective of the obsession that we targeted in Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body. This idea of fatal attraction is nothing new... But what we were contesting in class was the object or aim of the narrator's fatal/ obsessive attraction. And it's funny that I just thought to use those words, 'object' and 'aim'. Not to delve into Freud, but was Louise the object of the narrator's obsession and language the aim? Or could it be vice-versa?
One last comment... I thought our discussion of norms/ normative/ normal last week and its relation to the Secret Lives of Girls was very interesting. I believe that we pretty much refuted the thought that norms developed solely out of statistical findings. That norms can vary and do not necessarily need the support of a majority. Yet, when we first read the Secret Lives of Girls, I remember one of the attacks on Sharon Lamb was her attempt to establish a norm for young girls without the numbers or statistics to back her up. I thought that it was intriguing how the argument upon her work shifted with the change in context of our class discussion...
| where i found my poem... Name: Jessie Date: 2003-11-03 13:03:18 Link to this Comment: 7094 |
