S2 E13, On the Erotic

In this final episode, we will turn again to Audre Lorde for a way to reframe and reconstitute our relationship to the erotic. Rather than see the erotic as a synonym for the sexual, we will explore how the erotic—as a register of our deepest feeling and intensity—can and should animate so many of our life endeavors. What would it mean to define your life as an erotic project? What if we believed and expected our education, work, political commitments, and relationships to generate the passion that we are told is only possible in sexual relationship? What if the erotic was not barricaded in the bedroom? And what if we began to demand deep feeling from all that we are told is predictably and unsurprisingly numbing? Let’s think about the personal and the political implications of expanding our understanding to the erotic and refusing the lie that it is a private occasional feeling. SHOWNOTES In this episode, I quoted from two works by Audre Lorde: ‘The Use of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power’ ‘Poetry is Not a Luxury’ Both of these essays are readily available online or can be found in Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Essays https://www.silverpress.org/products/your-silence-will-not-protect-you I also briefly quoted from Adrienne Rich’s Twenty One Love Poems (VII). You can find the lines here: https://www.best-poems.net/poem/twenty-one-love-poems-viii-by-adrienne-rich.html