104.-lorde-and-clarke.pdf
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Lesbianism: an Act of Resisiance
by Cheryl Clarke



Uses of the Erotic:

the Erotic as Power
by Audre Lorde

poctry by Marge Pierce

Lesbianism: an Act of Resistance
Cheryl Clarke

For a woman to bea lesbian in 4 male-supremacist, capitalist
ynist, racist, homophobic, imperialist culture, such as that of Newth
‘America, is an act of resistance. (A resistance thal should be a
foned throughout the world by all the forces straggling fo lib
feo the same slave master | No matter hew a woman fives out her les:
bianistn ~ in the closet, in the state legislature, in the bedroom ~ she has
rebelled against becoming the slave masters concubine, viz. the male-
dependent (emule, the female heterosexual. This rebellion is
‘ous business in patriarchy. Men at all levels of privilege, of all classes
and colors have the potential to act out legalistically, moralistically,
1d viuleritly when they cannot col
Circumscribe our sexual, productive, reproductive, creative prerega:
lives and energies. And the lesbian ~ that woman wh, as Judy Grahn
says, “has taken a woman lover" has succeeded in resisting the shave
master’s imperialism in that one sphere of her life. The lesbian has
decolonized her body. She has rejected a life of servitude implicit in
Western, heterosexual relationships and has a ial of

mutuality in a lesbjan relationship —roles notwithstanding
Historically, this culture has come to identify lestaans as wowen,
who over time, engage ina rangeand variety of sexual-envotional rela
tionships with women. |, for one, identify 3 woman as a lesbian who
says she is. Lesbianism is a recognition, an awakening, a reawakeuing
of our passion for each {woman} other {woman} and! for same (wom.
‘This passion will ultimately reverse the heterosexual imperialism of
mate culture. Wornen, through the ages, have fought and died rather
than deny that passion. In her essay. “The Meaning of Our Lave for
‘Women Is Whai We Have Constantly to Expand” Adrienne Rich states
Before any kind of feminist movement existed, or could exist,
lesbians existed: women who loved women, who refused to com
ply with behavior demanded of women, who refused to define

themselves in relation to men. Thuse women, 01
lions whose names we do nat know, were tortured and burned at
witches, slandered in religious and later in “scientific” tracts, por
trayed in art and literature as bizarre, amoral, destructive, «
dent women. For a long time, the lesbian has beena personification
of feminine evil.



I













“epted the pote









foresisters, mil










Lesbians have been forced to live between two cultures, both

male-dominated, each of which has denied and endangered our

‘stence. . . Heteroserual, patriarchal culture has driven lesbians
into secrecy and pill, often to cel hatred and suicide.” Y

The evolving synthesis of lesbianism and feminism - two women-
centered and powered ideologies—is breaking that silence and
secrecy TH nalysis is offered es une small cut against that
stone of silence and secrecy. It is not intended to be original or all-
inclusive. I dedicate this work to all the women hidden from history
whose suffering and triumph have made it possible for me to call my
name out loud.

The woman who embraces lesbianism as an ideological. politica,
and philosophical means of of all women from helerosexual
tyranny must also identify with the world-wide struggle of all women
to end male-supremacist tyranny at all levels. As far as | am con-
cerned, any woman who calls herself a feminist must commit herself
to the liberation of all women from coerced heterosexuality as it
‘manifests itself in the family, the state, and on Madison Avenue. The
lesbian feminist struggles for the liberation of all people from patti
archal domination through heterosexism and for the transformation
of all socio-political structures, systems, and relationships that have
been degraded and corrupted under centuries of male domination.

However, there is no one hind of lesbian, no one kind of lesbian
behavior, and no one kind of lesbian relationship. Also there is no one
kind of response to the pressures that lesbians labor under lo survive
a5 lesbians. Not all women who are involved in sexual-cmofional
relationships with women call themselves lesbians or identify with
sry particular lesbian community. Many women are only lesbians to
# particular community and pas: as heterosexuals as they traffic
among enemies. (This is analogous to being black and passing for
white with only one’s immediate family knowing one's true origins |
Yet. those who hide in the closet of heterosexual presumption are
sconer or later discovered. The “nigger-in-the-woodpile” story retells
itself, Many women are politically active as lesbians, but may fear
holding hands with their lovers as they traverse hetcioseaual turf
(This response to heterosexual predominance can be likened to the
reaction of the black student who integrates a predominately white

ory and who fests leaving the door of her room upen when she











followings















lar acknowledgment tothe Combalie River Collective
Hecanse ths document espasnes “Mri spine

md las oppression ihe Heaton

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s
plays gospel music.) There is the woman wh engages in sen!
‘emotional relationships with women and labels herself bisexual [This
is comparable to the Afro-American whose skin color indicates her
inixed ancesiry yet who calls herself “mwslatio™ rather than black }
Bisexual is a safer label than lesbian, for it pasits the possibility of a

regardless ol how
the female bisexuals relationships with me
isthe lesbian whoisalesbi:
dlivect anid const







frequent or non-existent
mighthe, Andthen there
nanywhere anil everywhere and wh isi

lation with heterosexual presumption
privilege, and oppression. (Her struggle can be compared tathal of the
Civil Rights activist of the 1960's who was out thece on the streets for
freedom, while so many of us viewed the action en the television |

Wherever we. as lesbians, fall along this very generalized political
continuum, we must know that the institution of heterosexuality isa
die-hard custom through which male-supremacist institutions insure
their awn perpetuity and control over us. Women are kept mai
{ained, and contained through tertor, violence and spray of semen. It
is profitable lor our colonizers to coniine our bodies and alienate us
from our own life processes as it was profitable for the European te
enslave the African and destroy all memory of a prior freedom anc
self-determination - Alex Haley notwithstanding. And just as the
foundation of Westem capitalism depended upon the Noah Atlantic
slave trate, the system of patriarchal domination is bultressed by the
subjugation of women through heterosexuality. So, patriarchs must
extoll the boy -gitl dyad as “natural” to keep us straight and compliznt
in the same way the European had (o extoll Caucasian superiority to
justify the African slave trade. Against that historic backdrop, the
woman whi chooses 19 he ot lesbien lines slanger suse

‘As a member of the largest and second most eppressal group ol
people of color, as a woman whose slave andl ex-slave furesiater> >
fered some of the most brutal racist, male-supremacist imperialism in
Western history, the black lesbian has had lo survive also the psychic
mutilation of heterosexual superiority. The black leabi
into the experience of institutional racism ~ like every ather in
America -and must suffer as well the homophobic sexism of the
black political community, some ot whom seem to have forgetten se
soon the pain of rejection, denial, and repression sanctioned by racist
‘America. While most political black lesbians do not give a dam if
white America is negrophobic, it becomes deeply problematic when
the contemporary. black political community [another male
dominated and male-identified institution) rejects us because of eur
commitment to wonten and women's liberation. Many black mule
members of that community seem still net to understand the historic





































en the oppression of African peoples in North
“ and the universal oppression of women. As the womens
fights activist and abolitionis, Flizabeth Cady Stanton, peinted out
luring the 1850's, racism and sexism have been produced by the same
animal, viz. ‘the white Saxon man?
{ie the male exploitation and control of
somen’s productive and reproductive energies on the specious basis
of a biological difference} originated {rom the first division of labor
vir that between women and men, and resulted in the accumulation
of private property, patriarchal usurpation of “mother right’ or matt
lineage, and the duplicitous, male-supremacis! institution of hetero-
sexuuil monogamy (for women only}. Sexual politics, therefore, mirror
the exploitative, class-bound relationship between the white slave
aster ard the Alrican slave - and the impact of both relationships
[between black and white and woman and man) has been residual
beyond emancipation and suffrage. The ruling class white man had a
ies old model for his day-to-day treatment of the African slave.

Nefore he learned to justify the African’s continued enslavement and
the ex-slave's continued disfranchisement with arguments of the
Abrican’s divinely ordained mental and moral inferiority to himself (a
smokescreen for his capitalist greed) the white man learned, within
the structure of heterosexual monogamy and under the system of
Patriarchy, torelate toblack people ~ slave or free - as aman relates to
8 woman. viz. as property, asa sexual commodity, as a servant, as a
source of free or cheap labor, and as an innately inferior being.

Although counter-revolutionary, Western heterosexuality, which
advances male-supremacy, continues to be upheld by many black
people, especially black men, as the most desired state of alfairs
between menand women. This observation is borne out on the pages
of our most scholarly Wack publications to cur most commercial black
Publications, which view the issue of black male and female relation:
ships through the lens of heterosexual bias. But thisis to be expected,
as historically heterosexuality was onc of our only means of power
over our condition as slaves and one of two means we had at our
Usposal to appease the white man

Now, as ex slaves, black men have more latitude to oppress black
women, because the brothers no longer have tocompetedirectly with
the white man for control of black women's bodies. Now, the black
‘man can assume the “master” role, and he can attempt to tyrannize
black women. The black man may view the lesbian — who cannot be
manipulated or seduced sexually by him — in mach the same way the
‘white slave master once viewed the black male slave, viz. as some per-
verse caricature of manhood threatening his position cf dominance


























over the female body. This view, of course, is a “neurotic illusion
imposed on black men by the dictates of male supremacy, which the
black man can never fulfill because he lacks the capital means anal
racial privilege 7

Historically, the myth in the Black worlds that thereare only two
free people in the United States, the white man and the black
woman. The myth was established by the Black man in the lang
period of his frustration when he longed to be (ree to have the
material and social advantages of his oppressor, the white man. On
examination of the myth this so-called freedom was based on the
sexual prerogatives taken by the while man on the Black female. It
was fantasied by the Black man that she enjoyed it.

While lesbian-feminism does threaten the blick maw's prestatory
control of black women, its gualas a political ideology and philosophy
is not to take the black man's or any man’s position on top.

Black lesbians who do work within “by-for-about-black- people”
groups or organizations either pass as“straight” or relegate our lesbian:
isin to the so-called “private” sphere. The more male-dominated o«
black nationalist bourgeois the organization or group, the more resist
ind thus, the more homophobic and anti-feminist. tn
these sectors, we learn to keep a law pro

In 1979, at the annual conference of a regional chapter of the
National Black Sucial Workers, the national director of that boy was
given a standing ovation for the following remarks:

Homosexuals are even accorded minority status now And white

women, too. And some of you black women who call yourselves

feminists will be sitting up in meelings with the same white women
who will be stealing your men on the sly

This type of indictment of women’s revolution and implicitly of
lesbian liberation is voiced throughout the bourgeois black {male}
movement. But this is the insidious nature of male supremacy. While
the black man may consider racism his primary oppression, he is
hhard-put to recognize that sexism is inextricably bound up with the
racism the black woman must suffer, nor cannhe sce that no women (or
men for that matter] will be liberated from the original “master
slave" relationship, viz. that between men and women, watil we are all
liberated from the false premise of heterosexual superiority. This
corrupted, predatory relationship between men and women is the
foundation of the master-slave relationship between white and black
people in the United States.

The tactic many black men use to intimidate black women from
embracing feminism is to reduce the conflicis between white women
and black women to a ‘ug-o-war" for the black penis. And since the
black lesbian, as stated previously, is not inicrested in his penis, she


































heterosexuality. Black lesbians and all black women involved in the
struggle for liberation must resist this manipulation and seduction

The black dyke, ike every dyke in America, is everywhere—in the
home, in the street, on the welfare, unemployment and social security
rolls, raising childcen, working in factories, in the armed forces, on
television, in the public schoo! system, In all the professions, going to
college or graduate school, in middle-management, et. al. The black
dyke, like every other non-white and working class and poo: woman
in America, has not suffered the luxury, privilege or oppression of be:
ing dependent on men, even though our male counterparts have heen
present, have shared our lives, work and struggle, and, in addition
have undermined our “human dignity” along the way like most men in
patriarchy, the imperialist family of man. But we could never depend
‘on thent "to lake care of us” on their resources alone—and, of course,
it is another “neurotic illasion” imposed on our fathers, brothers
lovers, husbands that they are supposed to "take care of us” because
we are wo







en. Translate: “to take care of us” equals “to control us!
Our brothers’, fathers’, lovers’, husbands’ only power is their man:
hood. And unless manhood is somehow embellished by white skin
and generations of private wealth, it has littie currency in racist,
capitalist patriarchy. The black man, for example, is accorded native
clite or colonial guard or vigilante status over black women in im-
perialist patriarchy. He is an overseer for the slave master. Because of
his maleness he is gi leges, eg. employment,
‘education, « cat, life invurance, a house, some nice vines. He is usually
a rabid heterosexual. He is, since emancipation, allowed lo raise @
“legitimate” family, allowed to have his piece of turf, vir. his wife and
children, That is far as his dictatorship extends for, if his wife
that she wan's to leave that home for whatever reason, he
does not have the power or resnurces to seduce her otherwise if she is
dctermined to throw off the benign of malicious yoke of dependency.
The ruling class white man on the other hand, has always had the
Power to count women among his pool of low-wage labor. his means
0! production. Most recently, he has “allowed” women the right fo sue
for divorce. to apply far AFDC, and to be neocolonized.
Traditionally, poor black men and women who banded together and
stayed together and raised children together did not have the luxury to
‘cultivate dependence among the members of their families. So, the
black dyke, like most black women, has been conditioned to be self
safficient, i not dependent on men. For me personally, the condi-
tioning to be self-sufficient and the predominance of female role
models in my life are the roots of my lesbianism. Before Ihecamea les













decid




bian, Loften wondered why ! was expected togive up, avoid, and rive
alize the recognition and encouragement [fell from womnen inorder to
Pursue the tenuous business of heterosexuality. And Tain nol unique
As political lesbians, ic. lesbians who are resisting the prevailing
cullure’s atlempts to keep us invisible and powerless, we must
become more visible (particularly black andother lesbians of colet| to
our sisters hidden in their various closets. locked in prisons of sell
hate and ambiguity, afraid to take the ancient act of woman-bonding
beyond the sexual, the private, the personal. | am not trying to teily
lesbianismor feminist. Lam trying to point wut that lesbian fe
has the potential of reversing and transforming a major component in
the system of women's oppression, viz. predatory heterosexuality. If
radical lesbian-feminism purports an anti-racist, anti-classist, ant
woman-hating vision of bonding as mutual, reciprocal, as infinitely
negotiable, as freedom (rom antiquated gender prescrplions and pro:
scriptions, then all people struggling to transform the character of
relutionships in this culture have something to learn from lesbians
The woman who takes a woman lover lives dangerously in patri
archy. And woe betide her even more if she chooses as her lover «
woman who is not of her race. The silence among lesbian- feminists
the issue of lesbian relationships between black anal white
women in America is caused by none other than the centuries old
tatoo and laws in the United States against relationships between
people of color and those of the Caucasian race. Speaking heterosexu.
ally, the laws and taboos were a reflection of the patriarchal slave
masters attempts to control his property via controlling his lineage
through the institution of monogamy {for women only} and justified
the taboos and laws with the argument that purity of the Caucasian
Face must by preserved fas well as its supremacy}. However, we know.
that his racist and caciatist laws and taboos did not apply to him in
terms of the black slave woman just as his classist laws and taboos
regarding the relationship between the ruling class and the inden
tured servants did not apply to him in terms of the white woman ser
vant he chose to rape. The offspring of any siniens between the white
ruling class slave master and the black slave woman or white woman
ured servant could ot legally inherit their white or ruling class
sire’s property or name, just thei »
lack and white people relating at any other level
than master-slave, superior-nnferior has been propouritedin America
keep black women a
acommon oppress
organizing against


















Fegar





















thers’ condition of servitude.







atthe hands of the ruling class white man, {rom
hat common oppression. We, as black lesbians,




uy resist being bound by the while man’s racist, sexist
tawss, which have endangered potential intimacy of any kind belveren
whites and blacks. o

1 cannot be presumed that black lesbians invalved in lave, ork,
ani social relationships with white lesbians do so out of self hate onal
Genial of our racial-cultural heritage, identitioe, and eppressives, Why
should @ woman's commitment to the struggle be questioned ey
Accepted on the basis uf her lovers or comratk's skin colin? White les
bians engaged likewise with black lesbians or any leshians of colon
cannot be assumed to be acting out of some perverse, guilt ridden
racialist desire.

Upersonally am tired of going to ev
planning sessions that involve a coming together of black and other
{rshians of color for pultical or even social reasons and listening to
black lesbians relegate feminism to white women, castigate beck
fromen who propose forming coalitions with predominantly white
feminist groups, miiuimize the white woman's oppression and exag
Berote her power, and then finally juclge that abblack lesbian's commit,
ment tothe liberation of black women is dubicus because she des not
sleep with a black worn. All of us have to accept oF reject allies om
the basis of polities not on the spericus basis of akin color, Have mer
lack people suffered betrayal from our own peuple?

Nes. Hack women's experiences of misogyny are different from
white womens. However, they all add upto how the patriarchal slare
masicr decided to oppress us. We both fought each other for hisfaver,
approval. and protection. Such Is the ellec\ of imperialist, heteroseiet
patriarchy. Shulamith Firestone. in the essay, “Racicim: the Sexieen sf
{he Family of Man”. purports this analysis of the relationship between
white and black won

How do the women of this racial Triangle fee! about cach other?

Divide and conquer: Both women have grown hostile toeach other,

white women feeling contempt for the “sluts with no morals, black

women feeling envy for the pampered ‘powder pulfs." The black

‘eonran is jealous of the white woman's legitimacy, privilege, and

comfort. but she also feels deep contempt... Similarly the white

oman's contempt for the black womanis mixed with envy: forthe
plack wonan’s greater sexual license, for her gulsiness. for her

freedom {rom the marriage bind. For afier all. the black wursan i

not under the thumb of a man, but is pretty much her own bose te

ome and go. to leave the house, to work (much as i is degrading

werk] of to be“shiftless". What the white woman eles know f

{hat the black woman, not under the thumb of one man, can news be

sauashed by all. There is no alternative for either of them then the

choice between being public or private property, but hecause each











Is, conferences, workshops,


























sill believes that the other is gelting away with something both can
be fooled into mis-channeling their frustratian anto each other
rather than onto the real enemy, The Man.”

‘Though her statement of the choices black and white women have
under patriarchy in America has merit, Firestone analyzes only @
specific relationship Le. between the ruling dass white woman and
slave or ex-slave black woman.

Because of her whiteness, the white woman of all classes has been
accorded, as the black man has because of his maleness, certain privi-
leges in racist patriarchy, eg. indentured servitude as opposed to
enshvement, exclusive right to public assistance until the 1960s,
“legitimate” offspring and if married into the middle/upper class) the
luxury to live on her husband's income, et.

‘The black woman, having neither maleness sor whiteness, has
always had her heterosexuality, which white men and black men
have manipulated by force and at will. Further, she, like all poor
peuple, has had her labor, which the white capitalist man has also
laken and exploited at will. These capabilities have allowed black
‘women minimal access to the crumbs thrownat biack men and white
women. So, when the black woman and the white woman become
lovers, we bring that history and all those questions to the relationship
as well as other people's problems with the relationships. The taboo

jyainst intimacy between white and black people has been internal-

ized by us and simultancously defied by us. If we, as lesbian femin.
ists, defy the taboo, then we begin to transform the hisiory of
relationships between black women and white women.

In her essay, “Disloyal to Civilization: Feminism, Racism, Gyne-
phobia” Rich calls for feminists to attend to the complexities of the
relationship between black and white women in the United States
Rich queries:

Whit caricatures of bloodless fragility and broiling sensuality still

imprint our psyches, and where did we receive these imprintings?

What happened between the several thousand northern white

women and southern black women who together taught in the

schools founded! under Reconstruction by the Freedmen’s Bureau,





























side by side braving the Ku Klux Klan harrassment, terrorism, and
the hostility of while communities? “>






halt) the yyccsnsn ab Use





Asse
Gaver
Press, Hoston, 140) Thiougl I
coxperiences asa bc



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nent anal er No





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~ jv wo wenaiaio wellto stop fighting each other for ou space at
the bottom, because there aint nn mere room, Wehave spent ss much
time hating ourselves. Time to love ourselves And. that, fey all

lesbians, as lovers, as comrades, as freedom fighters, is the final
resistance.

ENDNOTES,

Pree (yin The Common Woman, The Work of a Common Woman. Diana
Press. Oakland, 1978, . 67

Nach Mitienne, On Lies. Secrets, and Silence: Selered Prose 1966. 1979. WW.
Norton, New York, 1979, p 225,
waotinson, Pat and Group, Poor Black Women Sindy Papers by Poce Bleck

Roman of Mount Vernon, New York, in. Cade dl, The Black Viseas at
Anthology. New American library New York. 1970. p. 194

‘Firestone, Shulamith, The Dialectic of Sex
Bantatn Books, New York, (972, p. 119
Rich, op eit. p. 298.





The Cose fur Fennisi Revstution
Uses of the Erotic:
The Erotic as Power
-Audre Lorde

There are many kinds of power, used and unused,
acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource
wiuhin each Of us that lies in 2 deeply female and spiritual
Plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or
copes Qknized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every
Cppression must corrupt or distort those various source of
somes, nim the culture Of the oppressed that can provide
energy for change. For women, this has meant «
Suppression of the erotic ss a considered source of power
and information within our lives.

We have been taught to suspect this resource,
Ulitied, ‘abused, and devalued within westem society, On
the one hand, the superficially erotic has been encouraged
as a sign of female inferioris
have been make to suffer and 10 feel both contemptible
and suspect by virue of its existence.

It is a shon Step from there to the false belief that
only by the suppression of the erotic within our lives and
consciousness can women by truly strong. But that
Strength is illusory, for it is fashioned within the context
of male models of power.

As women, we have come 10 disirust that power
We havises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge.
We have been wamed against it all our lives by the mat











but which fears this same depth 100 much to examine. the
Possibilities of it within themselves. So women. sre
mieegned at 2 distanv/inferior position to be psychically
milked, much the same way ants maintain colonics of
aphids to provide 2 life-giving substance for their masters.

But the erotic offers a well of replenishing and
Provocative force to the woman who does not fear its
fevelation, nor succumb to the belief that sensation is
enough.

The crotic has often been misnamed by men and
used against women. I has been made into the confused,
the tivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation. For







this reason, we have often timed a the a4
exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of
power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the
pomographic, Bul 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 sclf and the chaos of our strongest! feclings. It
is an internal sense of satisfaction to whick, once we have
experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and
recognizing ils power, in honor and self-respect we can
require no less of ourselves.

It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves,
from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is
to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to
encourage excellence. But giving in to the fear of fecling
and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional
can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not
wich 10 guide their own destinies.

This internal requirement toward excellence which
we eam from the erotic must not be misconsirued as
demanding the impossible from ourselves nor from others
Such a demand incapacitates everyone in the process. For
the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a
question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing
Once we know the extent to which we are capable of
feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can
then observe which of our various life endeavors bring us
closest to that fullness.

‘The aim of each thing which we do is to make our
lives and the lives of our children richer and more
possible, Within the celebration of the erotic in all our
endeavors, my work becomes a conscious decision - a
longed for bed which I enter gratefully and from which 1
rise up empowered.






















Of course, women so empowered are dangerous. So
we are taught to separate the erotic demand from most vital
areas of our lives other than sex, And the lack of concer
for the erotic root and satisfactions of our work is felt in
our disaffection from so much of what we do. For instance,
how often do we truly love our work even at its most dif-
ficult?

‘The principal horror of any system which defined
the onnd in terms of nrofit rather than in terms of human
psychic and emotional components of that necd - the
principal horror of such a system is that it robs our work
of its erotic value, its erotic power and life appeal and ) 5
fulfillment. Such a system reduces work to a travesty of
necessities, a duty by which we cam bread or oblivion for
vursclves and those we love. But this is tantamount to
blinding a painter and then telling her to improve her
and to enjoy the act of painting, It is not only next
possible, it is also profoundly crucl.

‘As women, we need to examine the ways in which
our world can be truly different. I am speaking here of
the necessity for reassessing the quality of all the aspects
of our fives and of our work, and of how we move toward
and through them.

The very word erotic comes from the Greck word
eros, the personification of love in all its aspects - bom of
Chaos, ana personifying creative power and harmony.
When 'I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an
assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative
energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we
are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our
dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.

There are frequent attempts to equate pomography
and .eroticism, tow diametrically opposed uses of the sexual.
Because of these attempts, it has become fashionable to
separate the spiritual (psychic and emotional) form the
political, to sce them as contradictory or antithetical.

"What do you mean, a poctic revolutionary, a meditating
gunrunner?" In the same way, we have altempted to
separate the spiritual and the erotic, thereby reducing the
spiritual to a world of flattencd affect, a world of the
ascetic who aspires to feel nothing. But nothing is farther
from the truth, For the ascetic position is one of the
highest fear, the gravest ‘The severe
abstinence of the ascetic becomes the ruling obsessio

And it is one not of self-discipline but of self-abnegat

The dichotomy between the spiritual and the
political is also false. resulting from an incomplete
attention to our erotic knowledge. For the bridge which
connects them is formed by the erotic - the sensual - those
physical, emotional, and psychic expressions of what is
deepest and strongest and richest each of us, being
shared: the passions of love, in its deepest meanings.


























Beyond the superficial, the considercd phrase, “It
feels right 10 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 undcrstanding.
‘And understanding is a handmaiden which can only wait
upon, or clarify, that knowledge, deeply bom The crotic
is the nurturer or nurscmaid of all our deepest knowledge.

‘The crotic functions for me in several ways, and the
first is in providing the power which comes from shasing
deeply any pursuit with another person, The sharing of
joy. whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual,
forms a bridge. between the sharers which can be the basis
for understanding much of what is not shared between
them, and lessens the threat of their difference.

‘Another important way in which the erotic
connections functions is the open and fearless un-
derlining of my capacity for joy. In the way my body
Streiches to music and opens imo response, hearkening to
its deepest rhythms, so cvery level upon which I sense also
opens to the erotically satisfying experience, whether






itis dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, examining an
idea.

That self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which |
know myself ta be capable of feeling, a reminder of my capacity
for feeling, And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my
capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it be
lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible,
and does not have to be called marriage, wu: god, nor an afterlife

This is one reason why the erotic is so feared, and so often
relegated to the bedroom alone, when itis recognized at all. For
once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin
to demand from oureelves and from our life pursuits that they
feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be
capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens
through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing
us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative
meaning within our lives. And thisis a grave responsibility, pro-
jected from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient,
the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.

During World War Il, we bought sealed plastic packets of
white, uncolored margarine, with a tiny, intense pellet of yellow
coloring perched like a topaz just inside the clear skin of the bag.
We would leave the margarine out for a while co soften, and
then we would pinch the little pellet to break it inside the bag,
releasing the rich yellowness into the sof pale mass of
margarine. Then taking it carefully between our fingers, we
would knead it gently hack and forth, over and over, until the
color had spread throughout the whole pound bag of marga-
tine, thoroughly coloring it.

Hind the erotic such a kernel within myself. When released
from its intense and constrained pellet, it flows through and col-
ors my life with a kind of energy that heightens and sensitizes
and strengthens all my experience.







‘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 co 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, ex-
ternally defined, and leads us to accept many facets of our op-
pression as women. 1

When we live outside ourselves, and by that | mean on exter-
nal 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 il-
luminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin
to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense. For as we
begin co recognize our decpest 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 alter-
native in our society. Our acts against oppression become in-
tegral with self, motivated and empowered from

In touch with the eroric, | become less willing t to accept
powerlessness, of those other supplied states of being which are
not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-ffacement,
depression, self-denial.

And yes, there is a hierarchy. There is a difference between
painting a back fence and writing a poem, but only one of quan-
tity. And there is, for me, no difference between writing a good
pocm and moving into sunlight against the body of 3 woman |
love.

This brings me co 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.

In order to be utilized, our erotic feelings must be recognized.
The need for sharing deep feeling is a human need. But within




the european-american tradition, this nced is satisfied by cen
proscribed erotic comings-together. These occasions are almost
always characterized by a simultaneous looking away, a
Pretense of calling them something else, whether a religion, a fit,
mob violence. oF even playing doctor. And «les misnaming. of
the need and the deed give rise to that distortion which reaslte
in pornography and obscenity ~ the abuse of feeling,

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 chjects of satisfaction rather
than share our joy in the satisfying, rather than make connec.
tion with our similarities and our differences. To refuse to be
conscious of what we are feeling at any time, however comfort.
able that might seem, is to deny a large part of the experience,
and to allow ourselves to he reduced to the pornographic, the
abused, and the absurd,

The erotic cannot be felt secondhand. As a Black leshian
feminist, I have a particular feeling, knowledge, and under.
standing for those sisters with whom I have danced hard,
played, or even fought. This deep participation has often heer,
the forerunner for joint concerted actions not pessible belore

Bur this erotic charge is nox easily shared by women who con.
tinue to operate under an exclusively evropents american aale
tradition. I know it was not available to me wher I was tryiny to
‘adapx my consciousness to this mode of living and sensation

Only now, I find more and more womer-identified women
brave enough to risk sharing the erotic’s electrical <harge
without having to look away, and without distorting the enor
ously powerful and creative nature of that exchange.
Recogniring the power of the erotic within our lives can give us
the energy to pursue 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 profoundly creative
source, but we do that which is female and el affirming
face ofa racist, patriarchal, and anti-erotic society


2D

Memo to: atta, margaret Atwood, Olga Broumas, Diane
iam Dyak, July Grab, Susan Griffin, June Jordan,
‘sine Kumin, Denise Lavertov, Karen Lindsey,
| Honor Meare, Robin Morgan,

clive, Kathleen Spivack, Alice Walker.

wets











AMV the reat of us fe



Subject: Alternatives to what has become expected

When living resembles airport food 5

awhen the morning paper hands you Chile

With the throat slit; the black children of South

ike fish in a basket,

phall the sun dries; when your last lover

her conversion to the Reverend Moon
scplainingg how your impure body impeded her pure mind;

when the second lo last lover publisiies

hhis novel in which you sprawl with your legs

spread saying all those things he always

wanted you tosay, garish scenes you will have

to live with as if you had lived them

ike « candid snap of you

onthe Loilet for the next twenty years;

when your daughter elopes with an FBI accountant

stealing your only credit card: when your son

shoots sugar and shit; when disdain

mounta you on a colored toothpick














2

like a smoked clam; when your friends misunderstand
your books and your enemies

understand them far too well ;

when you lie alone on the sharp stones of unspoken
retorts fallen in the ravine of garrulous night

in the canyon of echoes where the dead

whisper reproaches; when you are empty of words,
& worm in your own apple,

ignore, ignore that death murmuring at your ear
like a lover far tou pretty for you, whose attentions
flatter you, and how people will talk,

you will show them yet if you

but turn your head. Ignore those soft

shapes from the stone cold fog

welling from the hack of the throat.



Heis not pretty, that boy, only well
advertised. Give your enemies nutiting.
Let our tears freeze to stones

wean throw from catapults.

Death is their mercenary, their agent.
He seduces you for hire.

After your death he will pander

your books and explain you.

Lknow we can’t make promises.

Every work pushed out through the jagged
bottleneck sewer of the industry

is adefeat, mutilated before it’s born.

My faucets drip at night too. I wake
tired. From the ceiling over my bed
troubles spin down on growing threads.
Only promise if you do get too weary,
take a bank president to lunch,
take a Rockefeller with you. Write
your own epitaph and say it loud.
‘This life is a war we are not yet



winning for our daughters’ children.
Don't do your enemies’ work for them.
Finish your own.