Audre Lorde: Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Sally Rooney referred to the Lorde essay in Beautiful World, Where Are You?

I'm reading it now. "..., every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change."

"As women, we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge."

"So women are maintained at a distant/inferior position to be psychically milked, much the same way ants maintain colonies of aphids to provide a life-giving substance for their masters."

"...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."

"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 fulfilment. Such a system reduces work to a travesty of necessities, a duty by which we earn bread or oblivion for ourselves and those we love. But this is tantamount to blinding a painter and then telling her to improve her work, and to enjoy the act of painting. It is not only next to impossible, it is also profoundly cruel."

That's pretty intense.

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