The Erotic as Power: Homage to Audre Lorde

“…there is, for me, no difference between writing a good poem and moving into the sunlight against the body of the woman I love.” 

–Audre Lorde, “The Erotic as Power”

(source)

Disclaimer/reader’s note: In the context of this article, I will be discussing the concepts of the masculine and feminine as Greek philosophy defined them, and as Westernized American imperialism defined them in opposition to one another. This means the masculine is equated with the mind, with the rational, with intelligence. The feminine is assigned to the body, to emotionality and physicality, to the unreasonable. 

This is not to say that every man is masculine and every woman is feminine by these definitions, or that those of different genders or no gender do not have a place. It is my belief that we are all much too complicated to fit into this dichotomy: be it past, present, or future. 

My discussions of the masculine and feminine in this article, and the excerpts included from Audre Lorde’s “The Erotic as Power” are in context with how contemporary American patriarchy has defined them. Lorde sought to subvert what was considered ideal and powerful, and this is my tribute to the essay that changed my view of the world and myself.

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“The Erotic as Power.” If you’ve never read poet and writer Audre Lorde’s essay, you may be thinking, as I did at first, that the piece has something to do about the power in sexuality. Are things about to get sexy? Well, the answer to that is that they could…but Lorde wants you to expand your definition of erotic and try to apply it to all areas of your life. 

She opens her essay: 

“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.”

Are you familiar with any iteration of the following commands?

“Stop being so sensitive.”“You’re just being emotional and dramatic.”“You need to stop letting your emotions lead you and think logically.”

While there is a balance to be maintained between emotion and logic, it is pretty clear what our society tends to value more. The tender and feminine is seen as weak. The very reason we see the word “erotic” and think of the explicit and sexual is because passion is so often a half-nurtured emotion within us, that we feel the need, or are constantly reminded to tame and keep to “appropriate” levels. The masculine reigns. Anything else is hysterical, somehow less acceptable of a human experience. 

Lorde goes on to explain the misconstruction of the erotic in her essay: 

“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 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.” 

Porn is confused with eroticism because (at least mainstream) porn is dictated by the masculine. Pornography is stripped of passion, of any type of love for another or oneself, and condenses sexuality into emotionless imagery. It is simply the act of some sort of sex. Nothing more.

In the same hot breath, our culture demands: have passions. Loving is important. But don’t be too passionate. Don’t love too much. You’ll end up in ruin. You’ll end up vulnerable. You’re holding yourself up as a target to be destroyed. When you’re not just performing an action, when practical objectivity starts to get clouded with feeling…you’re in harm's way. You may even tell yourself this, since you’ve been sold this narrative so frequently. 

But Lorde says:

“The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.”

To be erotic is to let go. And it’s terrifying. You are releasing the chaos inside of you and allowing it to be a larger factor in steering your words, actions, your life and your way of loving others and yourself. To be erotic is to be passionate and loving, and to find passion and love in your every movement and our every stillness. It is to be genuine most importantly to yourself, which entails letting ourselves feel what we feel without shame, without cutting out the ugly fits of rage, the bilecrawling fear, and accepting it all as a valid part of your experience. As valid as your fleeting confidence and happiness. It is to allow certainty and stability to become what they truly are, make-believe. 

This opens a realm where you can live your most truthful, painful, and sincere life. You can stop going through the motions and allow yourself to reach out and touch, or to close your eyes and be touched, whether that mean physically or by any other means. 

Erotic humans reject capitalism and patriarchy’s definitions of success and well-adjusted adulthood, Lorde says. 

"The principal horror of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, or which defines human need to the exclusion of the psychic and emotional components of that need—the principal horror of such a system is that it robs our work of its erotic value, its erotic power and life appeal and fulfillment."

To value the masculine over the feminine is to cheapen your life, deprive fire of oxygen. But to be erotic is to value your imagination, that fickle-fleeting moment of sadness, the rumination on the texture of your own skin…to let this all mean more than a part of us to hide away, to keep to ourselves. It is power to feel. Passion is power, not silliness. Lorde invites you to try to understand why you consider certain parts of yourself or others as impractical. Where did you learn that you had to keep your emotions at arm’s length? What value system is giving the feeling that being logical rather than emotional is going to earn you more respect? Lorde dares you to subvert it all. 

While I do say this essay changed many of my worldviews, I still struggle with this myself. But I think it’s important for highly sensitive people, empaths, poets—and even those with opposite interests alike to realize the erotic as power, and to consider Lorde’s definition of the erotic, repossessed from a culture that profits off of dismembering women’s bodies within porn and then turns around and shames women for enjoying or appreciating their bodies.

Lorde writes:

 “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.” 

Go get erotic. Embrace the fear and everything else that comes with it. With your body, your art, and your life. It’s about time. 

Read more of Alyssa's work on Floodmark.