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Sex, Power and Otherness

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  • user warning: Table './www2web_drupal/sex_cache_filter' is marked as crashed and should be repaired query: UPDATE sex_cache_filter SET data = '<p>\n<i>No bill of sexual rights can hold its own against the lawless, untamable landscape of the erotic imagination.  </i><span style=\"font-weight: bold\" class=\"Apple-style-span\">Daphne Merkin</span>\n</p>\n<p>\nLet\'s face it, power is absolutely intrinsic to desire.  Desire and egalitarianism don\'t always play by the same rules.  Desire is about wanting and wanting has a charge to it -- it has a sense of agency that needs otherness and difference to thrive.  You don\'t usually experience desire for your best friend.  When you flatten power, it is much more difficult to desire.  \n</p>\n<p>\nDesire needs air (and a certain amount of distance) to burst into a flame.  If we are too close to our partners - or no longer see them as separate from us - the fire is smothered.  We often experience the hottest sex when we see our partner as the Erotic Other (the \'bad boy\' that agressively takes us -- the \'good boy\' we want to violate....)  We NEED Otherness to have a great sex and, of course, the central agent of eroticism is the imagination.  \n</p>\n<p>\nPlayfullness, mystery, curiousty the lure of the transgressive and the forbidden - this is all part of the erotic mind.  It\'s exciting... it makes us feel alive, but the erotic mind is completely politically incorrect!  &quot;Sexual desire,&quot; says Esther Perel author of <em>Mating in Captivity: Reconcilling the Erotic and the Domestic,</em> &quot;never plays by the rules of good citizenship.&quot;  It\'s not necessarily what we want in reality -- but it is naughty.  It\'s about creating a performance stage where we can play out our fantasies... play out the various parts of us that need to express themselves.   &quot;Tonight, I want to be the girl you can\'t get enough of... I want you to worship me all night long.&quot;  Or, the Story of O type fantasy, &quot;I\'m a beautiful sex slave tied up and used by a whole bunch of men.&quot;  We are the creator of the characters.  \n</p>\n<p>\nSometimes the best sex I\'ve had is when my husband and I actually play roles... he\'s the aggressive power boy type and I\'m the secretary he\'s having an affair with.  He\'s the dominant, I\'m the submissive.  It\'s illicit, transgressive, and HOT.  So there you have it -- love is about \'having\' but desire is about \'wanting\', and wanting needs a space between self and other -- it needs a place to safely lose control, and sometimes it needs to play with power dynamics. \n</p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;\n</p>\n<br class=\"clear\" />', created = 1219911933, expire = 1219998333, headers = '' WHERE cid = '3:c322106d99e3a6c4a2c598f37dfdae24' in /netapp/web/webnet/cpanel/home/www2web/public_html/includes/database.mysqli.inc on line 151.
Mon, 06/18/2007 - 16:03

No bill of sexual rights can hold its own against the lawless, untamable landscape of the erotic imagination.  Daphne Merkin

Let's face it, power is absolutely intrinsic to desire.  Desire and egalitarianism don't always play by the same rules.  Desire is about wanting and wanting has a charge to it -- it has a sense of agency that needs otherness and difference to thrive.  You don't usually experience desire for your best friend.  When you flatten power, it is much more difficult to desire.  

Desire needs air (and a certain amount of distance) to burst into a flame.  If we are too close to our partners - or no longer see them as separate from us - the fire is smothered.  We often experience the hottest sex when we see our partner as the Erotic Other (the 'bad boy' that agressively takes us -- the 'good boy' we want to violate....)  We NEED Otherness to have a great sex and, of course, the central agent of eroticism is the imagination.  

Playfullness, mystery, curiousty the lure of the transgressive and the forbidden - this is all part of the erotic mind.  It's exciting... it makes us feel alive, but the erotic mind is completely politically incorrect!  "Sexual desire," says Esther Perel author of Mating in Captivity: Reconcilling the Erotic and the Domestic, "never plays by the rules of good citizenship."  It's not necessarily what we want in reality -- but it is naughty.  It's about creating a performance stage where we can play out our fantasies... play out the various parts of us that need to express themselves.   "Tonight, I want to be the girl you can't get enough of... I want you to worship me all night long."  Or, the Story of O type fantasy, "I'm a beautiful sex slave tied up and used by a whole bunch of men."  We are the creator of the characters.  

Sometimes the best sex I've had is when my husband and I actually play roles... he's the aggressive power boy type and I'm the secretary he's having an affair with.  He's the dominant, I'm the submissive.  It's illicit, transgressive, and HOT.  So there you have it -- love is about 'having' but desire is about 'wanting', and wanting needs a space between self and other -- it needs a place to safely lose control, and sometimes it needs to play with power dynamics.