Archive for Sex+ Art
Flowers, Precipitation, and Arousal: Women in Lust
And there it is, really—one of the most salient considerations about sexuality I have observed in the aura of our culture. It has often seemed to me that sex is viewed not only as a “separate” part of life, disconnected from the rest of it, but that also this “separate” part is not nearly as important as “real” life considerations and may easily and reasonably be one of the first things to be dismissed or dropped by the wayside on the quest of, as they say, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. How absurd. As befits its title, lust could be a motivator, even an overwhelming one, in the pages of Women in Lust. But this book was not simply filled with indulgent, un-contextualized references to this intriguingly powerful urge. There were additonal emotions, contexts, and considerations amidst any sense of lust—even if lust ended up overpowering them. Sometimes, though, it did not—and there was nothing less hot about those times. On the contrary, these were complex characters, so the story was often not just about unconsidered obedience to a sexual drive—Women in Lust included discerning, aware choosing where lust was concerned. To me this was epitomized in Brandy Fox’s “Unbidden.” I was fascinated by the considerable journey that unfolded in “Bite Me” and the engaging turn(s) of events in “Ode to a Masturbator” (Lucy Hughes and Aimee Herman, respectively). And the book closed with “Comfort Food” (Donna George Storey), one of my favorite stories by one of my favorite writers—I’ll be honest and say I looked forward the whole book to reading it! As with a luscious dessert, the anticipation was justly rewarded. :) I myself experienced a kind of climactic trifecta toward the end of reading this anthology. It began with “Orchid” (Jacqueline Applebee), which I found not only scorchingly hot and quite delightful but also hilarious, which was of course a treat. (Truly, I laughed out loud more than once while reading it.) “Orchid” was followed by “Cherry Blossom” (Kayar Silkenvoice), which continued the extraordinary momentum I was experiencing with its gorgeous imagery and intricate depictions of the narrator and her lust interest. After “Rain,” by Olivia Archer, which was next, I took a break. I’ve been known to do that while reading a collection of stories after I’ve found a story so beautiful, so striking and affecting in a breathtaking mosaic of ways that I don’t want to continue yet (even if the next story is by one of my favorite authors, Justine Elyot!) because what I just read has possessed my consciousness such that I know it needs time to process, to settle, to land—to have that space to occupy unencumbered the notice it has just seamlessly commanded. I was still remembering “Rain” hours after I put the book down. I was reminded while reading Women in Lust that for me, erotica really isn’t just about fantasy, and the truth is, how I feel about it is not even determined by whether it turns me on or not. I find sex such a compelling subject that I simply don’t require arousal to appreciate it artistically—sometimes very deeply. I realize I may be in the minority about that, and of course that is fine—I’m not suggesting everyone’s perspective should mirror mine! It simply occurred to me as I was reading that erotica, to me, is not necessarily writing that turns me on. Rather I see erotica as writing that approaches sex/sexuality not with gaze averted and posture defensive or salacious but rather with the same curiosity and truth with which it approaches any other aspect of humanity/experience/life. It lets sex do what it does, whatever feelings, acts, contexts may be involved. If it does that with ease, curiosity, and not with any professed—implicitly or explicitly—”literary,” “moral,” or other formulated standard that intrudes upon the place sexuality takes in life, it seems, to me, erotic writing.* Often, this does turn me on not by virtue of what specific sex acts are described or included but from the core of the connection, the desire, that emerges from the words on the page. I have historically felt no sexual desire for women, for example, but the imagery and pull I experienced reading “Cherry Blossom” altered my breathing and indeed aroused me in a way different from the way I seek when I’m simply looking to get off—arousing my being, my senses, my awareness, not just my genitals and a base urge I have historically easily reached orgasm via the stimulation of. It’s not that one is better than the other. I just find them different. And erotica is usually something I seek to (and have) appreciate(d) beyond simple sexual stimulation (for the pursuit of which I have usually used video porn). Historically I have not postulated an inherent difference between “pornography” and “erotica.” I still don’t. This has mainly been because the concept has almost always seemed to contain judgment—arbitrary and unhelpful judgment, as far as I’m concerned—with the “pornography” label frequently postulated to be at least inferior and at most inherently unfavorable. (I’ll add that it’s seemed to me that most of the time, if it has occurred to someone to ask, this is likely the case.) I subscribe to no such perspective, so I have not found making a distinction between the two words a compelling endeavor. If, for me, there personally is one, this is it—pornography is what I use (and love) solely to get off on; while erotica is the unabashed exploration of sex I find fascinating and affecting. It doesn’t mean the sex itself has to be or is unabashed—it is the exploration of it, the sharing the author is offering, that I wish to be unencumbered by virtue of its subject. The subject being sex, sexuality, and its incumbent, myriad, contexts. Sometimes, of course, it happens that there is overlap: I find a story simulating on numerous levels and discover the pleasant effect that it has turned me on as well. When I returned to Women in Lust, it happened that I experienced this with a vengeance. Following “Rain” in the table of contents is Justine Elyot’s “The Hard Way.” I’ve loved Justine’s work, so I wasn’t surprised that I loved her story, but I will say I think this was one of my favorites of hers that I’ve read. And right after “The Hard Way” was K D Grace’s mind-blowingly hot “Strapped,” which really almost took my breath away. It was clever, beautiful, and held the considerable appeal for me of depicting a scenario I wouldn’t have predicted would turn me on or perhaps even interest me—and unequivocally doing both. I am sincerely glad I took the time to read Women in Lust, which contained stories I found delightful, intriguing, compelling, and breathtaking. In places, in fact, this anthology included some of the most impressive work I have experienced in the erotica genre. It has been my pleasure to share this ode to what I loved about it. On that note, once again the schedule and attendant links for the rest of the blog tour may be found here, and the book is of course for sale on Amazon as well as at this list of retailers found on the book’s website. Thanks so much for joining me at my stop on the Women in Lust virtual book tour! Love,“Either way, their lust is a valued part of their lives, not a pesky afterthought or a to-do list item on ‘date night.’”
Emerald
*If it describes actual act(s) of harm that happen to involve sexual contact, that to me is not an act of sex but something different, encapsulating other aspects of experience that do not to me seem focused on sexuality; thus, such for me would not fall into the category I described.
“I wonder if you feel the same way I do, I can see it in your eyes, I entice you…”
-Toya “I Do”
As I See It
Fellow erotica author Shanna Germain posted on her blog yesterday a response to a recent article in the New York Times magazine. The article was about the author Nicholson Baker, who has penned, among other things, fiction of an erotic nature. Shanna, for her part, has called on those who also write erotic fiction to post a picture, if we so desire, that flouts the author’s opening description:
“Nicholson Baker does not look like a dirty-book writer. His color is good. His gaze is direct, with none of the sidelong furtiveness of the compulsive masturbator.”
Overall I found the exposition on Mr. Baker rather interesting. However, there were things I interpreted about the tone and implications from the article’s author (Charles McGrath) that I did not appreciate. Shanna quotes the above opening lines. In addition, I took exception to the following:
“What kind of person dreams up this stuff? It’s as funny as it is filthy and breathes new life into the tired, fossilized conventions of pornography in a way that suggests a deep, almost scholarly familiarity with the ancient tropes.”
Hmmm. Does it seem so hard to imagine someone who appreciates contemplation devoting his/her/their attention to the arcane subject of sexuality? As though, oh, the subject held some kind of significance or interest to the species or something?…
And:
“As Rosenthal pointed out, Baker is no ordinary, adult-bookstore pornographer. In addition to what might be called his sex trilogy, he is the author of six other novels, none of them racy in the least.”
This might not be meant this way, but the way I read that is as though it should elicit surprise or astonishment that someone who devotes attention at times to the subject of sex could also then feel drawn to and expound on other subjects in other ways with other tones. This, of course, would presumably apply to almost all adults outside an artistic context.
I feel less incensed now than when I first read the piece, but I do feel the article is loaded with what seem to me shallow assumptions about the artistic exploration of sexuality, especially coupled with other artistic exploration (as though those who write or express artistically about sex would not dream of or have the capacity to express similarly about other subjects). Truly, are we not past this kind of ignorance, pubescence, prejudice, or whatever may account for these kinds of seemingly un-nuanced or, as Shanna said, uninformed perceptions?
Here’s a gaze for you, Mr. McGrath:
Emerald “In libraries and railway stations, in books and banks, in the pages of history…I recognize myself in every stranger’s eyes…”
-Roger Waters “5:06 AM (Every Stranger’s Eyes)”
Unblocking
Of late, I have been experiencing anxiety to a higher degree than in much of the last decade. I trust this is due to something I have mentioned before, namely that anxiety may be an indicator of things being shaken up and reaching the surface of the unconscious. Given the last couple breathwork sessions I have had, I do feel this is likely. Much has been moving, it has seemed, and shifts have occurred, and the ego/superego in me as such may feel alarm and resistance and have shifted into “Oh shit!” mode.
Even as I’ve felt mostly aware of this, it does not mean I have not still experienced the effects of anxiety, most notably (to be discussed here anyway) in practical ways. The world continues functioning even if I feel genuine anxiety for what seem to me noble reasons of personal growth. I have especially felt challenged being in contact with people, emailing them back when they have emailed me, and the more I have not done that (despite how much I may desperately want to), the more I have felt concern and anxiety about it, which has tended to result in a cycle of avoidance. I have felt it prominently the past few weeks.
I’ve not been writing as much as I’d like. But I realize and admit that hasn’t seemed only recent. I have noticed especially lately that there are so many writers I adore and admire who seem so busy, day jobs, kids, (pregnancy!), numerous commitments besides writing who manage to write anyway (sometimes with an output that seems astonishingly prolific to me!), dedicating their time and attention to it around the numerous other things they do.
I have almost none of that. Yes, there are things that I do, but I don’t have kids, I don’t have a 9 to 5 job that demands I attend to it during certain set hours—what I have is ample time and opportunity to write. Especially when I see so many of my colleagues who don’t have that luxury but write anyway, I have been known to feel a scathing resentment directed toward myself for not taking advantage of the precious gift I have of a largely unmediated time and opportunity to write.
During a recent breathwork appointment, I saw very clearly something around this. I became aware that it is not that I need to discipline myself more, effort further, try harder to get my ass in gear and write. (Really, it’s seemed to me the superego in me has had the market close to cornered on those kinds of demands.) It is that I need to relax—what is in me is there, waiting and wanting to come out, and there is something in me blocking that flow (perhaps ironically related to said superego). I don’t need to work harder to write what I want to say. What is called for is to let go of the block and allow the writing forth.
I wasn’t particularly shocked by this, though I hadn’t received the understanding with such clarity before. However, despite this awareness, after leaving that breathwork session I have still felt frustration with myself for not, then, unblocking the block! It seems funny how something (superego) ranting at me to relax just doesn’t seem to elicit such….
Last night I was feeling this familiar frustration, and I sat with it. Rather than engaging in the loop in my head of hearing the internal accusation and tensing against it and feeling mad at myself, which intensifies both as they cycle around and around with each other, I allowed myself to simply feel the anxiety resulting from the self-accusation. I didn’t tense against it or start engaging it in my head but just let it be and sat with how it felt.
Almost immediately the frustration relaxed. And instead of tenseness and irritation and accusation, I felt something else.
Hurt.
Beyond the tension, after it relaxed, I felt the pain of not writing. While intellectually I guess I am/was not surprised by this, I’m not sure I had ever felt the raw pain beyond the self-accusatory talk of this before. That seems amazing to me, but it’s true. I felt, physically in the heart space, the pain of not writing/expressing. The direct and unmediated hurt of what wants to come out not doing so, of not taking (or getting, depending on how one looks at it) the chance to say what is in me ready/wanting to be said.
It is possible that I felt more like a “writer” that moment than I have at many other times.
Then I thought about people who experience repression, blockage, and/or anxiety around sexuality. I faced these things in myself very pointedly years ago—which is certainly not to say I have that area all figured out. Self-awareness is literally unending. There is always more to know, and we are always new. I don’t feel for a second that I have discerned and attended to all there is to know about sexuality in me and issues in me around it. What’s important to me is that I recognize that though and keep examining, exploring, facing what is there. I know, somehow, there is much to learn.
But the reason this occurred to me, I suspect, is because as I struggle with particular anxiety around blockage in me and writing and wanting to allow out what wants to come out, I’ve remembered people dealing with sexual repression and wondered how such things are/have affected them. How would it feel if they sat with it; if they didn’t engage with the historical tension cycle and faced what was there with kindness and love?
How deeply repression can hurt, and how much more to us there is than the unconscious patterns with which we often automatically engage without realizing that—that there is more. That that’s not all we are. That that’s not all we can be. That it could take just sitting, just seeing it, just allowing whatever we have tended to tense against (perhaps without even knowing it) to get to a deeper level, something new, something that may indeed be uncomfortable—but that may put us more in touch with ourselves…the real Self, that is not made up of unconscious patterns.
It may hurt. But it may also be that unconsciousness is far more painful in the long run.
This blog post, of course, is a release, a coming out of something in me that wants to be said.
Words feel (ironically) inadequate to express the exquisite gratitude within me.
Love,
Emerald
“I thought maybe I was this, I found out that I am That…I can’t promise I won’t fall, and I can’t say I’m never scared…let go, give in, give up, surrender…”
-Ben Lee “Surrender”
An Uncomfortable Proclamation
This is hard for me to post, but it reflects some current circumstances as I understand them, so there seems little way around it.
I had a conversation today with Rod MacIver, founder of Heron Dance and publisher of The Other Dance (see my previous post), and it seems he discerned over the weekend that he wants to take Heron Dance in a new direction…that doesn’t include The Other Dance or exploration of the erotic. It appears that The Other Dance is no longer planned for future publication—and thus, of course, that I will not be serving as its editor. I interpreted Rod as pointing out that artistic endeavors do tend to fluctuate, and especially amidst considerations of one’s livelihood (Rod’s, as the sole proprietor of Heron Dance), sometimes sacrifices or seemingly dramatic measures may be placed at the forefront.
Indeed…. That withstanding, I will admit I felt shocked by this news. As may have seemed evident from my post announcing the launch of The Other Dance, I had the impression this endeavor was solidly planned and supported by its publisher.
As I said in the opening of this post, this feels a hard announcement for me to make here. While I understand the reasons I interpreted Rod as relating for the shift eliminating The Other Dance from consideration as a part of Heron Dance, I dislike very much that I indicated here that something was planned to be a certain way and now have to say that it is not. I have tended to experience consistency and credibility as deeply important, so the degree to which this instance feels contrary to them feels very uncomfortable to me.
Of course, I meant everything I said personally in that post, and as far as Heron Dance and The Other Dance, I did understand it all to be true at the time. I apologize deeply to all readers of it and especially to authors who had taken the time to submit (incidentally, all who did will hear back from me individually with this information) or begin to consider doing so. Most especially I apologize to Robin, our first (and only, as it turns out) published author with me at the helm as editor of The Other Dance—I thank her for her beautiful piece (which I love), “Strands of Imagination,” which I experienced Rod as very enthusiastic about publishing, as was I, and I appreciate her letting us publish her work.
In addition—I thank indescribably everyone who expressed support to me about this endeavor here. I don’t know how to express how much I appreciate your commenting and the way I experienced all of you as seeming to feel I would effectively undertake this endeavor and seeming willing to support me in doing so. My appreciation of it seems all the more poignant to me in light of my having to, in effect, retract the entire announcement of the publication of (and my involvement with) The Other Dance. Again, I apologize.
I read a quote a few days ago from one of the players on my favorite baseball team, the Yankees. Nick Swisher (Rick Write‘s favorite player) said his father used to say to him, “Sailors never perfected their craft sailing smooth water.” Recalling that makes me smile wryly right now, as while it seems not a new sentiment, its current relevance seems well placed. Despite the dismay I feel in publicly acknowledging this situation, I’ve noticed there are things I experienced from/in/about myself throughout this endeavor that seem significant, even luminous, to me…perhaps even more than I recognize right now.
One of them includes my accepting of the position Rod offered me. I felt nervousness about agreeing to undertake the editorship of The Other Dance. I felt very flattered being approached, but I still felt the historically familiar concern that I wouldn’t perform it well (which has tended to mean “perfectly” to a part of me that runs via outdated habits and patterns). The fact is, acquiescence to fear—consciously or unconsciously—has often kept me from doing things. It has resulted in avoidance, refusal, reticence, and the basic passing up or missing of opportunities. In times when I have felt any fear that I won’t or won’t know how to perform something effectively or perfectly—which has seemed to be almost always—fear has often been the final arbiter of action (or inaction) from me.
It wasn’t this time. I felt nervousness about my potential performance, but I agreed to do it anyway. However this opportunity has turned out, I did not let fear keep me from accepting it. I accepted it anyway.
It is undeniable that I feel humiliation in having posted something here that turned out to be not nearly as solid and reliable as I thought it was. I truly apologize for that. I was excited about The Other Dance and my involvement with it, and I feel sadness that the opportunity has been relinquished, not only (or even mostly) because of my own position, but because of the loss of, as Donna so graciously put it in a comment on my post, the “opportunity to bring quality erotic work to a wider audience.”
Regardless of how short-lived this venture has turned out to be, all of my actions related to it were sincere, and I do see value in the indications of growth in me that manifested in its midst. The more awake I am, the more I may serve in the way(s) I aim to. Perhaps that is what I will focus on in this.
Thank you to all who read my The Other Dance announcement (and who are reading this), and thank you especially for all the beautiful comments that were offered there. Even (perhaps especially) amidst this humble apology, I profoundly—indescribably, really—appreciate the support you all offered me.
Love,
Emerald
-Sugarland “Stand Back Up”
Announcing The Other Dance!
In 2006 my mother introduced me to a small literary arts-and-nature-focused journal called Heron Dance. I experienced her as saying she suspected it would resonate with me, and she was correct. I have been a subscriber and follower of Heron Dance, which has traversed numerous transitions of format, focus, and personnel at the helm, ever since.
by Rod MacIver
The (both original and current) founder and painter of Heron Dance is Rod MacIver, whom I have mentioned or quoted a few times here at The Green Light District. A year and a half ago I even posted an announcement that he was beginning a new venture, an erotic newsletter to correspond with the nude and erotic paintings he had been doing. Shortly after that announcement, a number of transitions, including with staff, occurred at Heron Dance (a very small company and press), and my understanding was The Other Dance was put on indefinite hold in the face of more pressing business concerns that unexpectedly inhibited the practical embarkment on a new project at the time.
At this time Heron Dance has recently undergone a few transitions again, most notably in ceasing the print publication of its journal and instating an online membership fee (of $2 a month) for daily receipt of written content by Rod (entitled “Reflections of a Wild Artist”—this may still be received once a week for free by signing up here), discounts on the purchase of paintings, and access to certain areas of the website only accessible by members.
One of which will house The Other Dance, the erotic online newsletter Heron Dance is now ready to create and develop as an integral part of its professional offerings. The Other Dance will publish a new edition each Tuesday, featuring one of Rod’s nude or erotic paintings alongisde a piece of erotic fiction.
I am introducing and speaking about this so much because, I am thrilled and honored (and a little stunned!) to say, I have been hired to be the editor of The Other Dance.
Since The Other Dance area is only accessible to members, I will take the liberty to quote here from Rod’s paragraph introducing the venture from its page on the Heron Dance site:
”A common denominator in all of the diverse perspectives Heron Dance has explored over the sixteen years since it was founded is a probing of the boundaries of the human experience. The edges — the edges between wilderness and civilization, the edges in terms of the human search for meaning and in terms of what it means to live a highly-creative life. Delving into human sensuality and sexuality is a natural evolution of that exploration.”
As those familiar with me or my work will know, it has long been an aim of mine to open dialogue around sexuality, ease the collective discomfort our society seems to feel around it, relax the repression of the innate and exquisite phenomenon of the human sexual impulse, and ultimately support the cherishing and respect for this facet of life. Ingredients I see as integral to these aims include self-awareness, contemplation, openness, and love. Since I first heard of it, I have experienced Heron Dance as embodying a respect for and focus on the importance of these qualities as well, and my aim continues as the editor of The Other Dance to be to support the manifestation of these aspects in the context of sexuality.
by Rod MacIver
Before I move into the business side of things, I want to mention that at this time, the publisher is only seeking to publish work by female (or female-identified) authors—and I personally and truly apologize to the numerous beautiful male authors I know and whose work I adore that I won’t (for the time being) get to seek to work with them in this endeavor.
With that said, The Other Dance technically launched May 3, when Rod published a piece he had received last year to officially solidify the creation of The Other Dance. After he got in touch with me a couple weeks ago regarding this endeavor, he wanted to publish an edited version of “Rain Check,” my story from Rachel Kramer Bussel‘s anthology Tasting Her (as I understand it, Rod’s introduction to my work was clicking on the video of my reading said story at In The Flesh in 2008 when he visited my website), and it went live last Tuesday, May 10.
Two days ago, on Tuesday, May 17, the first piece officially published with me as the editor went live: “Strands of Imagination,” by Robin “Erobintica” Sampson! It has been an honor and delight to work with Robin as I take my first steps into this venture, and I offer her my thanks and congratulations. Robin wrote “Strands of Imagination” for one of Alison Tyler‘s flash fiction contests some time ago, and when I presented it to Rod, I experienced him as very in favor of publishing it.
For any female erotica authors reading this, I would likely love to work with you in such a capacity too! :) The Other Dance submissions guidelines may found on the Heron Dance website here, and I plan to submit them to the Erotica Readers and Writers Association call for submissions page as well.
There is a page on the Heron Dance site where reader feedback is posted—and it is not confined to the complimentary. I have had the impression over the years that Rod has received feedback encompassing varying perspectives and levels of appreciation for his offerings throughout the 17-year duration of Heron Dance. As I recall his stating at the time, never did this seem so active as when he first introduced the subject of sexuality to the work he offered to the public and his followers. When I was perusing the feedback page a few days ago, this comment caught my eye:
“Please cancel sending me Heron Dance, after a number of years! I am a published author and enjoyed your readings and paintings, etc., until you got all hepped up about sex. You had a nice, decent, above board periodical, now you have trash just like the next guy.”
While I honor this commenter’s experience and perspective, I feel sadness that the inclusion of discussion about or the mere mention of sexuality would relegate a literary/artistic endeavor to seeming like “trash.” I was a subscriber to Heron Dance when Rod’s transition to sharing and speaking about sexuality occurred, and whether or not one desired to see or be exposed to the subject, I never felt like anything I read seemed like “trash” at all. Granted, I have tended to feel quite receptive of open dialogue about sexuality, but I also truly found what Rod expressed on the subject quite in line with the way I had experienced his sharing in general about art and nature—probing, thoughtful, curious, raw, and sincere.
At the time, I certainly never imagined I would be offered the opportunity to become the first editor of the project into which that orientation would develop: a weekly electronic newsletter created to feature Rod’s erotic/nude paintings alongside written content of an erotic nature.
It is my honor to accept it.
Love,
Emerald
-LIVE “Dance With You”
Then As Now
“But paradise, we found, is always frail; against man’s fear will always fail…”-From the narrated poem in the opening of Dangerous Beauty
The movie is Dangerous Beauty. The screenplay is adapted from the book The Honest Courtesan, a biography by Margaret Rosenthal of Veronica Franco, sixteenth-century Venetian writer/poet and courtesan. Ms. Franco lived, and thus the events in the movie and the time period in which they are contextualized occurred, 450 years ago—a time so far in the distant past it may seem archaic or hard to conceptualize in light of how different human society is now.
Except it’s not. Different, that is. As I finished watching Dangerous Beauty for the first time that day last year, I was struck by how much, on some level, we have not changed.
Now indeed, I will say first that there are things that have on some level shifted or rearranged such that our gender roles, for example, seem less strict, and of course I appreciate that. At this point and in this location on the earth, I have additional options as a woman to survive financially beyond marrying, becoming a nun, or working as a courtesan or prostitute. There are practical ways in which women in many parts of the world have far more opportunities for financial independence now than they did in sixteenth-century Venice. This of course calls for acknowledgement, and I duly extend it. My personal appreciation for such is profound, and to not acknowledge that would be disingenuous and inappropriate.
That withstanding, however, I would argue that throughout our collective civilization, deep-seated and unconscious perceptions and distortions still exist that relegate us in very fundamental ways to the same as we were then. We’re dressed up a little bit differently—but we’re the same. So much so that it’s staggering.
Marriage is still a contract (if in doubt, observe phenomena such as alimony and the state’s having anything to do with whom is “allowed” to marry), and though what we tend to associate with romantic love seems more of a reason to marry now than then, people still feel political, financial, or other reasons to get married. Marriage itself is still expected—monogamy is still the default, the standard for people’s lives in romantic relationship. Affairs still exist, and we still pretend not to acknowledge their prevalence or potential complexity as any invitation to examine the possibility that monogamy and marriage are perhaps not the ideal configurations for all individuals.
“The Church” still inserts itself into public affairs—sometimes via official governments—claiming an esoteric authority and the position to judge the general populace according to the standards it chooses to set. We are still compelled by war. Poverty, disease, populist unrest remain. There is still rampant evidence of nationalism, classism, sexism, and political manipulation. We are still encouraged to follow the rules, whatever they may be, and not question or flout them lest we interrupt the fragile illusion of whatever arbitrary perspective of “reality” our ego-based selves have created and think they feel comfortable with.
In Dangerous Beauty, when the plague begins to run rampant through Venice, the townspeople/collective society turn on what is considered the decadence and indulgence of the city, of which courtesans are perceived to be squarely in the middle. A following of religiously oriented purveyors develops and overtly blames “those who tempt us” with “fornication and carnal practices” for the “God”-inflicted downfall of the republic.
In response to a protest that the Inquisition has appeared in Venice, the doge (presiding figure of the republic at the time) responds, “Fifty-six thousand people are dead. The living want answers. They may be the wrong answers, but they want them just the same.”
To me this line virtually epitomizes that which has not changed in four and a half centuries. Throughout society there are examples of selective intervention in human rights abuses, astounding hypocrisy in application of laws, and scapegoating of cultures, people, entities in order to get “answers” that a part of us finds tolerable internally and/or in response to the cognitive dissonance in us.
What seems most concerning to me about this uncanny similarity to a time centuries ago is not just the clarity with which it seems that we are such a parallel reflection of it but that we do not seem to realize that. We truly think we are different. That things were so primitive then, that they were so inhibited, their roles so strictly defined. We think we are so advanced because we have skyscrapers and spaceships and smartphones. But we still use that technological capacity to create ways to destroy each other and ourselves—which tells me we are not.
It seems obvious to me that despite our apparent advances and some level of progress in social redresses, under the surface the same prejudices, constraints, ignorance, and fear that formed what was seen in sixteenth-century Venice is with us now and still forming the same things. The seemingly obvious things like racism, classism, xenophobia, sexism are outcrops, manifestations, of what has remained the same—which is our ignorance of ourselves. We have not awakened enough to be consistently aware of our true nature. We are not conscious of the unconditional love that is the deepest level of ourselves and the innate oneness of the universe.
Underlying this lack of awareness is the resistance and refusal to examine ourselves, to see that it is what is inside ourselves that may be tormenting us rather than projecting it onto a perceived external. Repression is one of the key ingredients in this phenomenon, and repression of a fundamental instinct—such as, say, the sexual one—is one of this phenomenon’s very bedrocks.
As in the movie, many of the above-described circumstances and the societal responses decrying and attacking them have to do with sex. All over the world, a conservative populace still behaves as though perceived “immorality” around sexuality is or will be the downfall of civilization. “The Church” (represented by fundamentalist perspectives of virtually all major religions) still bewails “fornication and carnal practices” and proclaims our collective suffering “punishment” for a culture steeped in “sin.” These perspectives seem to see open sexuality rather than denouncement, vilification, and repression as dangerous, sinful, and undesirable.
Why would this be? As depicted so beautifully in Dangerous Beauty, sexuality is one of the preeminent paths to love (not just romantic, but love in the universal sense), self-awareness, Divinity, connection, gratitude, openness, and beauty. Then as now, this aspect is so fundamental to us that it instills the kind of fear that has through the ages attracted measures of denouncement, repression, fear, violence, and desperation in the face of truly experiencing and interacting with it because it is so impossibly close to us, so unavoidably reflective of ourselves—we cannot not see ourselves if we are truly and openly acknowledging and examining the sexual impulse within us. It forces us to face ourselves, and to truly do that is something we have found, probably throughout our human existence, excruciatingly difficult to do. Sexuality, our instinctive drive for what it represents, for pleasure and beauty and openness and love, is so close that we must either surrender to it or do everything in our power to control it. Yes, there are measures in between, but the sexual impulse does not give up—it doesn’t have that capacity. No matter how we try to control it, sexuality just is. It’s how we be with it that is the opportunity.
Sexual repression appeared rampant at the time of Dangerous Beauty‘s depiction (and highly encouraged by social structures at that time). It appears rampant to me now (and highly encouraged, perhaps in superficially different ways, by social structures currently). Am I suggesting that a large part of the fear, hatred, and relentless harm we do each other around the world at this time is based, at least in part, on sexual repression?
I am.
At a key point in the film, Veronica Franco’s character states,
“I confess I find more ecstasy in passion than in prayer. Such passion is prayer. . . . I confess I hunger still to be filled and enflamed, to melt into the dream of us, beyond this troubled place—to where we are not even ourselves.”
Those lines gave me chills the first time I watched the movie, and they did again yesterday when I watched it most recently. I would certainly not say that everyone should agree with them and feel the same way—we are all unique and experience things as such. I do wish, though, truly and deeply, that we would see the offering in them and open to discover whatever truth resonates uniquely and authentically within each of us.
It is in that, it seems to me, that true progress lies.
Love,
Emerald
-Adam Lambert “Aftermath”
Call-in Radio Chat with Rachel Kramer Bussel and Authors Today!
I’ve just returned from Florida so am rather late announcing this, but today (Saturday, March 19) at 2:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time (which is in an hour!), there will be a live call-in chat on BlogTalkRadio for Rachel Kramer Bussel‘s brand new brand new Online Book Club! The club debuted last week, and today’s chat will be recorded and archived afterward as well.
I will be one of the authors on the call today, and listener call-ins are welcome. The call-in number is 626-414-3413, and the call will be for one hour. Find all the details here. Feel free to join us just to listen in, and if you feel so moved to call, we’d love to hear from you!
UPDATE: The call-in chat, which included host Rachel Kramer Bussel and authors Mercy Loomis, Tenille Brown, Elizabeth Daniels, and myself, has taken place and been archived! It may be found here or listened to here via this widget:Emerald
“Operator, won’t you put me on through…hurry up, won’t you put her on the line, I gotta talk to the girl just one more time…”
-Garth Brooks “Callin’ Baton Rouge”
Art of Heartness
I recently read a quote by Rod MacIver, painter and founder of nature and arts/creativity journal Heron Dance, on Heron Dance’s Facebook page:
“And it has given me something to think about, to write about: How we construct boundaries around our worlds to make sense of them, but those boundaries limit our experience of life. The role of art is (poetry, novels, music films), in part, to question the limits we place on ourselves; the role of art is to offer a glimpse of a different reality. It stands there beckoning to us, –there is greater potential in you and in life than you can see, than you are trying to see.”
Indeed. I have mentioned here before why it has seemed to me that the inarticulable, intangible, perhaps preverbal moving quality of art has felt so important to me. I suspect that sometimes the historically rigid, self-controlling, hypervigilant part of me does want a break, perhaps allows it in this seemingly “safe” area of being affected by art. Of course, perhaps unwitting to or forgotten by it, such hasn’t always seemed so “safe”—sometimes it has resulted in an outpouring of affect that the aforementioned part of me has not seemed to feel comfortable with; sometimes it has even felt overwhelming. Sometimes it has led to insights, shifts, openings that are healing and nourishing for the soul and not so job-security-increasing for those structures of ego in me that don’t know how to see beyond themselves.
What an amazing, beautiful gift of art.
I wrote that blog post opening a few weeks ago. I was going to write about re-reading novels, how I have experienced some differently upon the second or further readings at different times in my life. Sometime, I may still do that. It happens that now, though, I just finished reading a book for the first time, and it is what I want to write about instead. It, as well, fits impeccably with the quote above.
Which, along with what I wrote following it, rings very poignant right now.
I finished a novel (not in the erotica genre) last night that I started reading a couple weeks ago after feeling inexplicably drawn to and purchasing it at Barnes and Noble. I’m not going to identify it here, partly because some that I say about it is not particularly complimentary, but mostly because in discussing what I want to about it, I’m going to spoil the hell out of it.
There were many things I found beautiful about this novel. The setting, the history, the writing in general were such that I pictured the scenery and the overall novel very vividly; such vision has stayed with me after finishing it and often while I was away from it during the reading of it. Most of all, I loved the main protagonist besides the first-person female narrator—her love interest and later husband, Tom. I fell in love with Tom upon our first exposure to him, and that never changed.
Other things I found lacking in the work. Frequently, especially during the second half, I found myself feeling like there was no central conflict in the book—we were reading along with what was happening in their day-to-day lives, but I was not seeing the conflict that was described on the back of the book (to me it had seemed to be resolved fairly early on in the first half), and there didn’t seem to be another “point,” if you will, holding the story together. Occasionally I felt impatience with the narrator, seeing her as selfish or a bit oblivious in ways that didn’t seem particularly convincing. Neither the story nor the characters ever really “pulled me in”; though I enjoyed it, I did not really feel invested in the story. I felt like I “knew” almost none of the characters and did not feel like I particularly cared about them.
The exception was Tom—who, incidentally, I feel was superbly written. It was because of Tom and the relationship between him and the narrator that I kept reading the book. He was the only character that I cared about—looking back, really, I was swept away by him.
To illustrate what I’m describing, about 15 pages from the end of the book, I was reading what I suspect was intended to be an intense scene. I was not particularly finding it so. It may have even consciously occurred to me then that the only character I really cared about was Tom, and as long as he and the narrator were together, I felt a fairly detached disinterest in how they would handle the potential tragedy that was in front of them. Probably in part because he was the main character, but also because of how I had interpreted the tone and content of the book, I felt no suspicion that Tom was going anywhere, so I was feeling fairly nonchalant as I read, my love for Tom and their relationship forming a background of appreciation for a novel I was finding fairly lukewarm on other fronts.
Nine pages from the end of the book, Tom died.
It seemed to me then from a writing standpoint as though all those things I mentioned—character development of most of the characters, pulling into the story, strong central conflict—weren’t even needed because the end of the book was one of the main protagonist’s meeting an untimely death. The “climax” was at the very end, if you will. All that came before was made instantly more poignant by, its meaning as a work of art perhaps even largely derived from, his death at the end of the work. Likely exacerbated by how I experienced this circumstance in the book personally, I did not appreciate this.
Emotionally speaking, I was stunned to a degree that I found stunning in and of itself. I actually found myself in denial, sure he hadn’t actually died and was going to reappear any second (which would have worked under the circumstances). It was literally not until I read the last sentence of the book that I understood that in this story, Tom really did die. And funnily enough, as I was reading the last page I didn’t even know I was doing so yet, because it is followed by an “Author’s Note” that I had not glanced at yet and thought as I was reading the last page was still more of the book.
When I realized the book had ended, I experienced some anger (a furious hurling of the book to the floor with a What a stupid book I hate it! may have been involved) as I felt the flood of feeling related to this occurrence in the book rising to potential overwhelm in me. It struck me as almost ironic in that I had not felt very invested in the story and had certainly not anticipated that I would experience much of a significant degree of affect after finishing it. I had not in the slightest expected or seen coming what happened, had felt no wisp of a hint that Tom was going to be taken away, that the emotional wind was about to be knocked out of me, that I was about to feel the flood of pain and devastation that I did: sobbing for intermittent periods over the course of the day and night, experiencing difficultly sleeping, physically feeling pain and unease in the heart area of my chest, and feeling as though, despite his status as a fictional character, I was really almost grieving Tom a little bit.
I may not have been invested in the book…but I sure was invested in him.
Less than a week ago, I experienced a realization. It was not a deduction or an analysis (or the result of one) or an intellectual examination. It was a seeing, a spontaneous embodiment and insight through which I was made aware of something about myself.
The awareness was of the absence of heart. I experienced a sudden seeing of how absent connection with my heart had been in my experience over a period of the past several months. The immediacy of this insight was breathtaking, and I was stunned that I had not seen it, had not been aware of it for the several months that it had been taking place. Granted, since the phenomenon of disconnecting from and holding myself outside of my heart is an unconscious pattern in me developed at quite a young age, it has not been an uncommon thing for me to do in this lifetime. But it is something I have become more aware of and worked on quite a bit in recent years, so to see suddenly that I had been so oblivious to its occurrence, that open awareness of and connection with my heart had been almost entirely absent in this particular period of time, was astonishing as well as heartbreaking.
At the time I saw this, I stated out loud that I desperately did not want to operate without heart, to be disconnected from my heart and exclude it from my experience and awareness. I unquestionably wanted to reconnect with it. And I felt—and said—tearfully, right then, that I did not know how.
It has occurred to me in the 24 hours I’ve had to contemplate since I finished this novel that the relationship between the narrator and Tom seemed one of the most beautiful I’ve ever read about and felt privy to observe. Seeing such heart between two people (and especially in Tom, whose inner workings the reader did not get to directly see) may have felt like the observation of something new and incredible, that has not always been forthcoming in my own experience and that calls to something profound in me. Particularly at this moment in my existence, this may have occurred to a degree that I felt, really, awestruck by it and experienced from it both a yearning and a satisfaction not unlike that akin to drinking water in the face of urgent thirst. I can—and do—appreciate that I have realized I actually felt a shift reading about them, reading the relationship between them. More and more I have felt a gratitude about this. Though I hate with a passion that the book ended with Tom’s dying, I have felt the energetic shift in me in remembering the witnessing of the love between them. In ways, that being one of them, I did love this book.
Given how I saw this relationship and how it moved me, it makes sense to me that I would have found the abrupt and unexpected loss of one of the participants in it, and thus in a way the relationship, as stunning and excruciating as I did. It occurs to me that other readers may not experience or have experienced it that way did they not have the circumstances and current experience I have described in common with me. Even I may have experienced it differently at a different time.
As it was, I was overwhelmed—blindsided, I had no guard up against the devastation that was coming because I had no idea that it was coming. The rawness in my heart has felt scathing, initially almost unbearable as I felt the fury at this book’s ending and the soul-wrenching awareness that I could not undo the experience of reading it, of falling in love as I did with Tom and experiencing his disappearance from the form in which I came to do so. That it was a fictional work and he was a fictional character seemed to have little effect on the anguish to which I was privy when I realized the story was over and Tom was dead and I had no choice but to experience what I would as a result. Emotionally, I was laid out flat.
Days ago, I said that I wanted desperately to reconnect with my heart—but that I felt I did not know how to.
Here is my answer.
If I take seriously that I want to connect with and open to and integrate my heart, then the invitation to me is to see this for the opportunity that it is. To see the offering, as Rod put it, “that there is greater potential in you and in life than you can see, than you are trying to see.” There was no guarantee, or even a likelihood, that it was going to be comfortable. As wrenching as my response to this book may feel, this is the opportunity I asked for. This is what I said I wanted.
And I love it for that.
Poignant as it felt to me to read when I started this post, I am brought back to the assessment I offered at the beginning of it, that I wrote long before I finished reading the novel I have discussed here: What an amazing, beautiful gift of art.
In humble appreciation.
Love,
Emerald
“And if your glass heart should crack, and for a second you turn back, oh no, be strong…I know it aches and your heart it breaks…walk on…”
-U2 “Walk On”
