In Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic,” the word “erotic” is broken down into what its actual components and function in human life are. Erotic, birthed with the roots of “personification of love in all its aspects” and “personifying creative power and harmony,” should be exercised to renew oneself (55). The erotic functions to positively enrich people, and it is the beauty of being powerful and sharing intense emotions with another. Emotions such as joy when having a bonding moment, or feeling warmth with your closest friend, in a memory that wants to be remembered for a lifetime. Lorde argues that erotism is a unique means of power that everybody holds to represents creativity, deep emotion, and it is a necessity of being in touch with one’s identity. Yet, there is a notion that erotism belongs to the world of patriarchy and pornography, not to the strong women using this part of their identity to survive.
The erotic was claimed by a patriarchal society, now used against women in the over-sexualization of sensation. This notion enabled women to be systematically taught not to explore their erotic power because instead of thinking of the erotic as a source to information, it is confused with explicit pornography and taboo images that are learned to engage in secret. Pornography focuses on the sensation of sex, not the empowering feelings, and denies to a majority of the public what genuine eroticism is. According to Lorde, “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” (54). Being in touch with yourself benefits in many ways: feeling honor, self-respect, and recognizing the power we lock within us. The erotic encourages the awareness of how an individual leads and their actions towards society’s structures; especially to a queer, woman of color, mother, and artist none other than Audrey Lorde. Erotism encourages us to reach the greatest depths of knowledge to push back against the murder of beauty in exploring erotism. From accessing this self-knowledge and all the feelings attached to it, it fulfills us in areas that need patching up. There is satisfaction attached to the sensation of sex, but eroticism explores the completion of self-growth.
Society cycles the idea that pornography and erotism are the same when they are two opposing views of the sexual realm. As a result, the bigger picture that Lorde creates is split: “spiritual” aspects in life considered to be the psychic and emotional are viewed as separate from the politics, creating unnecessary tension. Eroticism in the lens of patriarchy makes women feel disgusted and dissatisfied with demanding pleasure from essential areas in our lives other than sexual activity. In our society, erotism is exploited for profit, rather than for the human connection and benefits gained from self-exploration. Lorde voices, “Of course, women so empowered are dangerous. So we are taught to separate the erotic demand from the most vital areas of our lives other than sex” (55). We are instilled with the fear of this aspect of what makes us human since childhood. We are taught to fear this power of erotism that clarifies the world around us, and the skills of analyzation that would help us survive in relative to our personal existence. We conform to a structure that numbs us and places human needs last.
Lorde speaks of the erotic as a born gift to exercise. If this power betters individuals, then erotism being reclaimed by society as crucial for self-development and as a reminder of the beauty of feeling, the world would be a more peaceful place. This unique knowledge that was generated from one can be shared to bloom a life of brightness instead of constriction. I adore the comparison Lorde makes to show how the erotic functions in a human’s life: her composing a good poem, and being close to a woman she loves in sunlight. There is no difference in the feelings she exudes, the certainty she feels within herself. Lorde states: “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 reclaiming in our languages, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives” (55). The self-connection made through the erotic that can be shared with joy around others reminds us that we are blessed as woke humans to feel this deeply. The erotic “heightens,” strengths” and “sensitizes,” our individual experience, yet brings us all together. The argument is that if the erotic was something a community of marginalized groups was in genuinely in touch with, we would be less willing to accept powerlessness against the dominant culture. The need for sharing deep feelings is a human need. Though it can be shared, the erotic cannot be felt secondhand. Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world, rather than settling for the anti-erotic, patriarchal, and racist environment.
Discussion Questions:
- What activities do you do throughout your week that you now realize falls under the term erotic? Why does it bring you power, happiness, knowledge, or any other descriptors Lorde uses in her reading?
- Why do you believe that society continues to frame the erotic as just sexual sensation? After starting to learn about “Pleasure Activism,” why do you believe that Lorde’s voice and other members of this movement are not being heard? What steps can you take to be a “Pleasure Activist” instead of enabling the current societal notion on erotism?
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Hi Kianna, I enjoyed your post but particularly the way you have framed your discussion questions. I suppose I have always thought of eroticism in terms of how patriarchy defines it- which is in the scope of pornography. I had never thought of how it becomes applicable to things outside of that until Lorde’s essay. When Lorde stated “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”, I had never considered until then that this seemed to be the exact argument I have heard people have concerning pornography (54). All of the women in my life had made it clear that porn is not an acceptable display of what Lorde describes as the erotic (the experience of feeling in its entirety) due to the lack of love within it and yet it still was maintained that porn is for men, by men, and every other form of consumption that is solely beneficial to men. In my own life, I would say that I notice writing as a form of eroticism due to the emotional investment I have within it. Even in my writing that isn’t directly linked to sex or the erotic, there is still an influx of emotion I pour into it.
Hi Kianna, I really liked your blog post. Your discussion questions are also very interesting and really got me thinking further about what Lorde was talking about in this chapter specifically. I feel like there isn’t anything in my life that is specifically erotic, but I think that is mainly because society has put standards in how that term is used. I feel like when I was reading this chapter I was in a way trying to redefine what erotic meant. I was trying to step away from what I’ve been told that it meant. I really like when Lorde says “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”(55). I feel like mostly in my life things that could be considered erotic are personal writings. I don’t think anything I write has to primarily do with sexuality or it’s not erotic, but the fact that it might be a personal type of writing has that sense in a way.
Hey Kianna, your blog post is amazing, and I really loved your use of language when it came to this line, “to push back against the murder of beauty in exploring eroticism.” To answer your first question, I think the power of sharing, as Lorde emphasized, is what I probably do the most in any given week. As Lorde wrote, “The erotic functions for me in several ways, and the first is in providing the power which comes from sharing deeply any pursuit with another person. The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between sharers…” (Lorde, 56). I would easily say that what gives me the most power, knowledge and joy is when I get to share those things with others whether its sharing thoughts, music, jokes or books. I think these things all speak to what power Lorde saw in her friendships and the transformative power of communicating thoughts and feelings.
Hi Kianna, I think you did a really good job on this blog post! I have read this essay of Lorde’s before and I think it is more powerful, or maybe just more clear to me on the second reading. Erotic always aligned my thoughts with pornography as society wanted it to. I would like to focus more on the eroticism in my own life in the way Lorde describes. Especially during the semester I find myself driven and only focused on class work, which is rewarding to me but not joyous. Lorde writes, “when we live outside ourselves…when we live away from those erotic guides from within ourselves, then our lives are limited by external and alien forms, and we conform to the needs of a structure” (58). That really struck me because I think that is the most common way that we lose our sense of the erotic. For whatever reason the patriarchy is so scared of erotic-minded women that it feels the need to oppress and cut us off from ourselves. I hope that I can be more of a pleasure activist, or at least keep myself rooted in my own eroticism.
Lorde, I believe, was trying to convey the necessity that women shed the coat of what we should be from a patriarchal standpoint. I mean, she says that in everything she writes but this delves more into the boundaries of what it means to be a woman.
Throughout history, women have been seen as or viewed as highly sexual creatures. This is why men deem us to emotional for certain aspects of life and should leave it to them. In so doing this we, as women, have allowed men to put this “fear” label on the innate power within us. We have allowed men to “corrupt and distort” (53) and made us see it as “vilified, abused, and devalued” (53). We have let men manipulate the power of the erotic into a “context of male models of power.”(53).
Lorde talks about how the erotic is not just the act and feeling of sexual intercourse but in the joy and pleasure of being with our loved one or in the work that we love. So, in that sense by limiting the erotic and stifling it. Women have smothered our “creative nature” and “energy to pursue genuine change within our world.” (59). This harkens back to Lorde saying in Power how it is up to the mothers to guide and shape the youth to affect true change. By taking that nature and putting a hold on it we have allowed change to pass by.
We have shut the “lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence” (57). Women have let men and their power dictate how we help and create the world.
Hi Kianna,
I completely agree with your response as well as Lorde’s views on the corruption of the idea of the “erotic”. In contemporary society, the term “erotic’ brings connotations of the objectification of women, particularly through porn and prostitution. Within our society, sex has been restricting and anything that is not heteronormative is demonized, people who perform non-heteronormative acts are constituted as sexual deviants. However, the erotic is not something that should be suppressed, rather, it should be celebrated. The erotic relates to our unique views and is an intrinsic quality which should be deemed as beautiful. One thing in my life which I view as erotic after reading your post which I do frequently, is reading for pleasure. I like to read what I want, sometimes what I read is considered controversial and a large portion of my friends don’t understand how I take pleasure in it. However, when I read I am able to make valuable insights into my own life and reflect on my intrinsic values.
Hey Kianna! I absolutely loved your comments and ideas about the subject of eroticism. I also loved the title that you used. I think the idea of the rebirth of eroticism is important because it is a change that society needs to happen. I believe that our patriarchal society looks down upon people who have erotic desires. This is almost a parasitical ideal that has woven its way into women’s thoughts. Women are meant to feel guilty about their erotic desires where as men aren’t. I also was naïve and always associated the erotic with pornography but never realized that the erotic desires in humans were not that but something more beautiful and meaningful to people and women as a whole. One quote that stood out to me in Lorde’s Uses of the Erotic was, “This meaning of the need and the deed give rise to that distortion which results in pornography and obscenity-the abuse of feeling.” I agree with this quote because the use of pornography lacks emotions, which in opposition, the erotic is supposed to invoke the desires within us and the feelings that go along with them. The feelings that make us human.
Hi there Kianna! Truthfully I thought your response was perhaps one of the most insightful and thoughtful responses I have read thus far. Your analysis of the essay reminded me immensely of when we analyzed lesbian novels, which included far more than just homosexual works, as the primarily heterosexual novel “Sula” was considered lesbian. When truly delving into the word “erotic” it becomes more evident that it breaches far beyond the sexual level, and encompasses a love and life force. Lorde describes how: “the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing.” This particular quote emphasizes the separation between the sexual usage of erotic and the powerful usage. I thought your response truly focused on this specific definition, and only moved to enhance the description that Audre Lorde allotted it. Thank you for your great response!
Hi Kianna! Your post really opened my eyes in regards to the ‘standard’ definition of erotic. I had always thought of erotic in the sexualized patriarchal way. I never thought of it to be something that can simply be an empowering feeling. The connection between pornography and erotism now has a much different meaning to me. I agree with you when you said the patriarchal claim of erotism makes women feel like they can’t explore their erotism. Lorde speaks about how erotism is meant to empower and better ourselves, not be seen in a sexualized way. When Lorde said, “When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the life force 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”(55), it made me consider how many things I do daily should be deemed erotic. Whenever I get a chance to step away from my school work, I love to take the time to read. I read a variety of different genres and each make me feel different types of emotions. I now see these emotions as erotic. They bring me happiness, as well as furthering my knowledge. I learn more about what I like and what these emotions make me feel. Lorde has yet again shed an inspiring light of knowledge on me. Her view of erotism had really changed my view on the one I was raised to believe was part of a sexualized patriarchy.
Hi Kianna- this was beautifully written. This is such an important topic in literature that young adults tend to shy away from. Your question regarding activities we do within the week (that could be defined as erotic) is such a great way to dive into this topic. I feel that most people are reluctant to speak about eroticism because of the taboo around it (because of the patriarchal society and how it has skewed the definition) and it’s sad. I think a lot of people lack a mind/body/spirit connection, and until someone works on all of those aspects of themselves, it can be hard to feel erotic. I have a wellness coach who helps women recover from abusive relationships, eating disorders, self-sabotaging and more. Working with her helps me redefine what it means to be a woman and step into my higher self. This has brought me so much power, confidence and security in who I am. And just as “Pleasure Activism” notes that we are taught that love is linear (which it is not) I understand that my self-love will not always be this way, and that it will come and go in waves and I have to push through it. Working with a healer has made me proud of the skin I’m in even more proud of the soul that’s locked in it. In “Pleasure Activism,” there’s a quote that resonated with me: “we feel victimized, so we try to hold tight to whatever we figure out as a way to survive”. We tell ourselves a certain story each day that we get up and present ourselves. Whether it be to the person in the mirror, our friends, our family, strangers or our partner, we live our lives around a story of our traumas and we hold on tightly. We allow that to limit us and prevent us from rising in to who we should be. This prevents us from fully loving anyone – let alone ourselves – and keeps us back from stepping in to our power. In order to take back eroticism and redefine it, we have to love ourselves and heal our traumas, stop making excuses, and “indulge” in what makes us comfortable in ourselves for “self-preservation”. I’m really looking forward to this facilitation in class and everyone’s comments have been so interesting to read!
Hey Kianna,
I really enjoyed your post. Before learning about this in class and reading your post, I assumed erotic was associated with sexual desires. But now, thanks to you, I can related erotic with things that make me feel empowered. I really liked how you went in depth of why we associate the erotic with pornography. Being that it stems from patriarchy, I feel it is our job as women to take the erotic back and reclaim it as an empowered feeling. Lorde definitely tries to do this. For me, I would say when I write I feel empowered. It is one thing that I tend to think I’m fairly good at and it is what I have shaped my future around. When I write I use my emotions and feelings. It gives me a sense of empowerment because no one can take what I’m writing away from me.
Hi Kianna,
I loved you blog post! Before reading and talking about this in class I associated erotic with sexual desires. But your blog post really helped me to understand that it can be something that is empowering for women. It allows them to feel different emotions. One of my favorite quotes is, “When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the life force 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”(55). In this quote I can relate to so many things. When I am with my friends and we are talking about anything that has happened in our lives whether that is what we did this weekend, stress about school or boy drama, I always feel so empowered after that! I would have never thought of that being a form of the erotic!
Heyy Kee! Your blog post was very provocative! (all pun intended lol) Even before reading Audre Lorde’s essay “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic Power”, I understood that one’s sexuality doesn’t only pertain to the act of sex. As you pointed out in your blog post eroticism is a key component in being in touch with one’s identity and emotions. To answer your question you posed, doing my skincare routine is an activity that I now realize falls under the term ‘erotic’. My skin care routine is composed of six steps; double cleanse, tone, exfoliating mask, serum, moisturizer and sunscreen. It’s very intricate but I gain so much tranquility when I indulge in this form of self care. Self care is not selfish but, as Audre Lorde would say, it is self-preservation. Treating my skin care routine as a ritual has taught me the power of intentions. Intentions guide our actions by allowing us to focus on our values and desires. The intention behind my skincare routine is more than just clear skin but rather the chance for self-exploration.