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

Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power Reviews

• 
  Troy

  I was absolutely blown away by the ideas presented in what was, in fact, a brochure.
  
  What really resounded with me were two things; the postulation that the erotic lives in all of us and cannot be tapped because of its reformative powers in regards to setting our goals and life purpose, thus getting co=-opted into something that's dirty, immoral, and to be avoided, and the notion that what we do and enjoy and can share is erotic.
  
  The erotic, Lorde writes, has the potential to give us an idea of something bigger than mediocrity. If we find huge joy and fulfillment in doing something, then that starts to affect the rest of our lives because we want that feeling again. We WANT to stretch our limits, or to find them in the first place. If we're not encouraged to do so, and never really find our limits, we have lives of mediocrity ad settle for what life gives us instead of exploring what we can get out of life. The erotic is larger than just sex or what happens in the bedroom.
  
  I really enjoyed the notion that, well, what I'm doing right now is erotic. I'm putting into words and sharing with you what the meant to me on an intellectual level. A new idea that I'm excited about. The erotic can be formed out of things I draw, things I do, places I go, things I see and can't wait to tell someone else about. It's a tribute to a culture that doesn't really want me stepping outside the box that views this with suspicion and, in terms of naming it, has sought to co-top "erotic" as sensuality of only the sexual kind.
  
  So, yes. Read the book.
  
• 
  Chanti

  Yes! This essay is short and SO DAMN GOOD. Lorde argues that eroticism, which has been inappropriately relegated to the domain of sex only, should instead be understood as a basic life force of vitality and creative power that guides us truthfully in all interactions. It is a depth of feeling & engagement with ourselves and others. It relates to sexuality, but doesn't end there. It transcends all domains of life (that we've been instructed to keep in neat, separate boxes).
  
  I especially love the distinction Lorde makes between eroticism and pornography - that they are actually diametrically opposed uses of the sexual because "pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling" and eroticism feels (and responds) deeply. (Not trying to do any shaming, just loving that her exploration asks us what lies beyond the "low-hanging fruit" of engagement with our sexual natures. She's like, 'what's beyond that, what's more creative, more liberatory, more powerful?').
• 
  libraryofjonna

  I read this essay because Sally Rooney mentioned it in her newest novel Beautiful world, where are you and was so impressed! So many interesting things to think about and read again. Will try to form some more developed thoughts on the actual things discussed once I’ve pondered over it a bit. Will definitely pick up a longer collection of hers soon.
• 
  Christian Kennedy

  there was my life before reading this and then there was my life after reading this ... hope to see you on the other side
• 
  Riegs

  "Beyond the superficial, the considered phrase, 'It feels right to me,' acknowledges the strength of the erotic into a true knowledge, for what that means is the first and most powerful guiding light toward any understanding."
  
  Thank you, Audre, for being the most important philosopher in my life.
• 
  anna grace

  should be a bible for all women
• 
  courtney

  porn vs. eroticism. try that on for size.
• 
  Maggie

  Really interesting passage that probably requires several readings. Lorde is exceptional in exploring a concept which has been flattened in modern society, as she says, to be synonymous to pornography, and expanding its definition to mean love as embodied in the sharing and experiencing of real feeling from others, as different from the current method of separating our feelings/emotional life from sex, work, etc. I really liked her discussion of the false dichotomy b/t the spiritual and erotic; reminded me of a comment from a previous English teacher that “ecstasy has two uses: in the Biblical and sexual sense”.
• 
  Courtney Trouble

  i wonder how this essay would be different in 2015, knowing how much pornography has changed. would she agree that the power of the erotic has been funneled into feminist art that operates as pornography?
• 
  Rosa Ramôa

  "Tendemos a pensar que o erotismo é a excitação sexual como primariamente esta é conhecida. Eu falo do erótico como a força mais profunda da vida, aquela que nos move de uma maneira fundamental à existência."
• 
  artie

  such a strong writing never heard her voice but somehow i know exactly how it sounds
• 
  إيما

  "Only now, I find more and more women-
  identified women brave enough to risk sharing
  the erotic’s electrical charge without having to
  look away, and without distorting the enor-
  mously powerful and creative nature of that
  exchange. Recognizing the power of the erotic
  within our lives can give us the energy to pur-
  sue genuine change within our world, rather
  than merely settling for a shift of characters in
  the same weary drama.
  For not only do we touch our most pro-
  foundly creative source, but we do that which
  is female and self-affirming in the face of a
  racist, patriarchal, and anti-erotic society".
• 
  Ariadna

  A veure, tenia moltes ganes de llegir-lo i gràcies a ell i a la Greta (<333) he complert el meu reading challenge de 51 llibres, que el veia trontollar molt aquestes últimes setmanes.
  Ara, l'article com a tal, de tantes ganes que en tenia, m'ha decepcionat una mica. Ha fet algun comentari sobre la feina que no m'agrada i en general crec que està tot escrit al voltant d'una idea molt essencialista pel que fa el gènere. Tot això que l'erotisme és una espècie de poder que tenim les dones, com si els homes no el poguessin tenir (d'on ens ve el poder aquest? és una cosa biològica i per tant sexual, o quelcom social i per tant del gènere i no del sexe? ª). No sé, per sort es curtet i en veritat com en tot alguna cosa xula he pogut trobar. Això sí, l'he acabat llegint en castellà perquè en anglès la meitat es quedava lost in translation.
• 
  Hugh

  This has very consequential ideas wrapped up within its few pages. That everything starts with the erotic, though she expands the term from merely a sexual connotation. That only the erotic encourages us to embrace the depth of our feelings. That the erotic is the opposite of the pornographic, which is objectifying instead of celebrating the sharing of feelings with the other. The erotic therefore should be a presence in all of our activities with others, because its like a compass that can inform us on the orientation of a relationship. Are we staying with the sensationalistic or moving towards an authentic relationship with the other (sexual or not..). Anyways, I'm reading it this morning and just beginning to digest the repercussions of this small pamphlet.
• 
  jess

  “When we look away from the importance of the erotic in the development and sustenance of our power, or when we look away from ourselves as we satisfy our erotic needs in concert with others, we use each other as objects of satisfaction rather than share our joy in the satisfying, rather than make connection with our similarities and our differences. To refuse to be conscious of what we are feeling at any time, however comfortable that might seem, is to deny a large part of the experience, and to allow ourselves to be reduced to the pornographic, the abused, and the absurd.”
• 
  Chanelle

  Definitely will have to re-read. Lorde has a lot of good stuff here. Uses of the erotic reminds me of bell hook's All About Love, but Lorde is compact and coming from a sort of different place. A more sensual and self-actualized place, if that makes any sense at all. I would recommend this essay to everyone everywhere especially those from marginalized communities.
• 
  Morgan

  Interesting read. Discusses masculine eroticism vs feminine. Not necessarily sexual which i think is important. Shared some quotes below from what I liked from this. I found a PDF for this but Lorde also has a reading of it on YouTube.
  
  "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. "
  
  "For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society"
  
  This brings me to the last consideration of the erotic. To share the power of each other’s feelings is different from using another’s feelings as we would use a kleenex. When we look the other way from our experience, erotic or otherwise, we use rather than share the feelings of those others who participate in the experience with us. And use without consent of the used is abuse."
• 
  Daniela Castillo Zavala

  Qué ganas de tener/cultivar/desarrollar un cerebro como el que tiene Audre Lorde porque todo lo que hay en este texto es increíble. No pensé que iba a abordar un tema mucho más allá que el que una pensaría de manera básica al leer el nombre, pero se pasó; es increíble y poderosa, poderosísima.
  
  La recomendaré y compartiré el texto porque uff, QUÉ MUJER MÁS SABIA.
  
  "This is one reason why the erotic is so feared, and so often relegated to the bedroom alone, when it is recognized at all. For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of."
  
  
• 
  Baily

  Amazing. I really don't know what more to say other than that this is the first text of hers I have read, but then upon looking at her other work on the poetry foundation I only grew fonder of her work.
• 
  Lizzie

  reread this for a seminar recently and it was even better reading the second time round. just incredible.
• 
  Lola T

  You can listen to this on yt feeling ready to channel the erotic through this day 😁😁
• 
  vicalicalic

  Can't argue with Audre!
• 
  Molly Moreau

  Not sure I necessarily agree with Lorde’s description of pornography as “sensation without feeling,” but regardless I will be thinking about this essay for a while. There were several points throughout that literally had me shouting “YES!!!” out loud to my empty bedroom
• 
  Racheal

  This essay speaks deeply to the fundamental shift many of us have experienced in our knowledge of ourselves and in our relationship to the world around us during the pandemic:
  
  

  We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings. But, once recognized, those which do not enhance our future lose their power and can be altered. The fear of our desires keeps them suspect and indiscriminately powerful, for to suppress any truth is to give it strength beyond endurance. The fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, externally defined, and leads us to accept many facets of our oppression as women.
  
  When we live outside ourselves, and by that I mean on external directives only rather than from our internal knowledge and needs, 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 that is not based on human need, let alone an individual's. But when we begin to live from within outward, in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense. For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society. Our acts against oppression become integral with self, motivated and empowered from within.
• 
  Alizard

  I think this is a good entry point that draws you in to Lorde's writing. Though I feel like I needed more context to her definition of the erotic in her terms to better understand the significance of this essay. The message of it seems simple and self-evident enough (low key feel like this is YOLO but make it the female empowerment version of #that girl sort of way), yet I realized through the first half that I hadn't been really *living life* in accordance with these values. I also think my experiences with my dysmorphia/questioning of my identity's various facets and my depression were the most prominent ways through which I connected with the text.
  
  It does feel a bit too optimistic though, but I can understand that it's loftiness is due to the breadth of it's subject matter. It's accessible and beautiful in an easy-going way, so I would imagine that I'd enjoy Lorde's other works. Would have probably been better reading this as a companion to her works rather than by itself, but I do want to see how it affects my interpretation of the other things I'm reading at the moment and towards other stories/texts/media with similar themes as well.
  
  Quotes (for my own reference lol):
  - "The severe abstinence of the ascetic becomes the ruling obsession. And it is one not of self discipline but of self-abnegation."
  -"For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society."
• 
  Dylan

  Was pointed to this (or excerpts of it?) online :-):
  http://www.metahistory.org/guidelines/EroticUses.php
  
  Currently reading through it, really intriguing and matches some of my own experiences. A whole lot of mysterious, undiscovered countries of the sexual, the sensual and the erotic out there for all of us, methinks :-).
• 
  Nao ♡

  idk whts up w me reading things tht makes my brain feel like its being set aflame but yeah uhm i think im gonna tattoo this essay onto my face so when i look in the mirror i remember wht ms lorde said abt the erotic as power
  
  2nd read: oh audre how can i thank u for providing the best anchor as i try to unlearn shame and live a fulfilling life
• 
  Fatima

  CHAI 3/2010
• 
  Michel

  Found out about Lorde from "quote of the day" — look forward to reading this essay, and some of her poems.