Outing, Slut-Shaming and Very High Price of Freedom
To my knowledge, there has never been a time or a culture that hasn’t suffered its share of hypocritical stances. Ours, at the moment, mostly revolves around sex. We use it to sell almost everything, we valorize people who use it as a weapon, we crave it, we demand that others should want what we […]
To See is to Be Seen
Apparently I said something deeply offensive when I tweeted that, among the many functions that sex serves, one is to see yourself through the eyes of your lover. When it finally occurred to me why the statement might be offensive to some people, it depressed me. It’s political, of course. Although I realize it is […]
The Long Hard Look
“…at the core of human being is an exhibitionistic impulse: in order for us to see ourselves we must be seen.” Alessandra Lemma on Lacan* Whether you believe in universal truths or you acknowledge that they are negotiated and constructed within cultures, it matters not. It is useful to entertain their existence. Being an atheist, […]
Not One Before The Other *
Emily let the tiny, clothbound book fall open in her hands. Like a woman spreading her legs, it offered up its unique scent. Beneath the musty, sweet smell that all old books have, this one surrendered hints of pine resin, tobacco and the tart creaminess of baby’s milk. Eyes closed, she brought the open tome […]
Spam
That’s not what I meant I sent Notice of a good memory I sent Yesterday’s words I sent Black over blue I sent Rapunzel’s missive I sent Saved up absurdity I sent Not a question I sent Unwisely I sent Poste restante, again I sent Inky cold fingers I sent Elvis Presley I sent Spam
Abstraction: Desire and Disgust
Jacques Lacan once famously said ‘the Woman does not exist.” Like so many French theorists, it’s a confrontational statement designed to draw a response. It’s important to really read it with care and to know, above all, who is speaking it. Lacan was male. But it’s a fun place to start an argument – there […]
On The Other Hand
Perhaps instead, you come bearing other burdens accrued over a lifetime of seismic events. With a pulse like a warzone, and a tic at the corner of your eye. Torn between a craving for sanctuary and bloodrush of the precipice. A smile that isn’t and a throat dry as doubt. You can leave your sentences […]
All You Ever Wanted
Isn’t this all you ever wanted? A place to spend the saved-up piggy bank of quotidian fantasies? I’ll do you and all your acronyms, baby. The glossy, stunned-faced pornographies of consumption, clutched so long in your sweat-slick hands, chicken-choked in the heat, the two-stroke engine of every banal wank you’ve ever had. All the positions […]
The Impossible Eroticism of Time
I’ve always been obsessed with history. I wank against old walls, moisten while reading about the Spanish Civil war, the Crusades, the Inquisition in South America, the Russian Revolution, the Long March. It has taken me a long time to unravel why it is that history does this to me and why, when I visit […]
Monster Porn: And the Sublime Attractions of Orientalism
I’d like to introduce you to the critical concept of ‘Orientalism.’ The word stems from a book, with the same title, written in 1978 by Edward Said. It is one of the foundational texts of the Post-Colonial criticism movement. You’re wondering how it relates to Monster Porn – I can tell – but it can […]