THERE ARE MANY kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged
or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us
that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in
the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order
to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort
those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed
that can provide energy for change. For women, this has
meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of
power and information within our lives. (...)
It is a short step from there to the false belief that only by the
suppression of the erotic within our lives and consciousness can
women be truly strong. But that strength is illusory, for it is
fashioned within the context of male models of power. (...)
But the erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative
force to the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb
to the belief that sensation is enough.
The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against
women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the
psychotic, the plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have
often turned away from the exploration and consideration of
the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it
with its opposite, the pornographic. But pornography is a direct
denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression
of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without
feeling.
The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of
self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense
of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know
we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth
of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self-respect we
can require no less of ourselves.
The very word erotic comes from the Greek word eros, the personification
of love in all its aspects - born of Chaos, and personifying
creative power and harmony. When I speak of the
erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of
women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and
use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our
history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.
There are frequent attempts to equate pornography and
eroticism, two diametrically opposed uses of the sexual. Because
of these attempts, it has become fashionable to separate the
spiritual (psychic and emotional) from the political, to see the~
as contradictory or antithetical. "What do you mean, a poetic
revolutionary, a meditating gunrunner?"(...)
But this erotic charge is not easily shared by women who continue
to operate under an exclusively european-american male
tradition. I know it was not available to me when I was trying to
adapt my consciousness to this mode of living and sensation.
Only now, I find more and more women-identified women
brave enough to risk sharing the erotic's electrical charge
without having to look away, and without distorting the enormously
powerful and creative nature of that exchange.
Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us
the energy to pursue genuine change within our world, rather
than merely settling for a shift of characters in the same weary
drama.
--- Uses of the Erotic: the Erotic as Power (Sister Outsider)