Beata found a nice text by Lauren Berlant, that very nicely sums up what….
we intend with our work. Checkt it out:
"[...] people indulge in projections of what makes them uncomfortable about sex: its weirdness (I was just standing up and talking and now I’m doing this?), its sloppiness, its awkwardness, its seeming disconnection from so many other 'appropriate' drives (to eat, for example).Then there’s one’s fear of becoming a mere instrument of someone else’s pleasure, in a way that one doesn’t want.
Nonetheless, I’m just saying, I really like sex. We have no idea what sex would be like in a world that saw it basically as a good. A weird good. A good that can tip you over and make you want to do strange things. A good that can reveal your incoherence, your love of a little disorder, your love of a little control (adjust the dial as you like). A good that can make you happy, for a minute, before the cat starts scratching the corner of the bed, or the phone rings, or the kids mew, or you’re hungry and sleepy, or you need another drink, or the taxi comes.
In 'queer theory' [...] sex is often associated with shame. It is not only that people shame us because of our association with sex (“erotophobia” [fear of sex, tinged toward hatred of sex. [...] Disgust at the appetites. The strangeness of sex, the ordinary out-of-controlness of sex acts and sex drives that we all experience (if we’re having it). Actually, usually, sex is not a threat to very much. But it feels like a threat to something, which is why so many people stop having it.).
Sex itself is said, variously, to reveal our narcissism or regressive tendencies, and our aggressions too. It is not just 'pastoral', an expression of goodness or communication between (or among!) hearts. It is not just lovely and loving. It’s a drive, and that’s shaming. And exciting. It needs 'sexual ethics' for taming.
At the same time, it’s also playful, if you can remember that part; it’s also ridiculous and hilarious, if you can remember to notice that. It can also be very interesting and various, if you want it to be, as lots of people do.
And who knows what else it could be if so many people didn’t fear and hate it so much that people with complicated needs have to hide and secret it from their loved ones, to whom they have promised to make more sense than anyone can make. Who knows what sex could be if people were encouraged to enjoy it as play rather than as a drama, a genuine test of recognition, or tool of unwanted control over selves and others.
[...] I feel sorry for sex. [...] [It] appeared in public [...] as a bad thing that people do to people. Sometimes, too often, it is. But realism about sexuality, about what it could be, deserves better. It deserves comedy too – not romance, and not, so inevitably, more stories about tragedy and scandal."
from: "Against Sexual Scandal" by Lauren Berlant, March 12, 2008
