File spoon-archives/french-feminism.archive/french-feminism_1996/96-07-07.000, message 62


Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1996 21:10:24 -0600 (CST)
From: dralfonso-AT-msuvx1.memphis.edu
Subject: Re: the big link



On Sun, 23 Jun 1996, Sharon Sliwinski wrote:

> What i mean is, how are prositutes (of the kind Don describes) and lesbians
> related? 

Hmmm... provoking question! One difference:  the one is representable and 
the other is not within phallocentric economies. The prostitute figure has a 
(his)tory, as you continue to say:

> Thinking of Freud and Lacan, and our former discussions, the relation might
> be in the escape from the phallus althogether. Think of the treatment of
> prostitutes in literature -- there are usually strong, powerful, desirable
> women. _House of Spirits_ by Allende leaps to mind (okay, _Pretty Woman_ is
> the exception...).    

Apropos prostitutes in literature, I am reminded here of Dostoyevsky's 
prostitutes.  He portrays these women as fallen angels (there is some 
literature on this) while at the same time they are the source for the 
redemption of his "fallen" men.  The irony with these women is that they 
are neither strong nor attractive nor powerful in the conventional sense, 
and yet they posses a 'gift' by virtue of their condition and frailty, an 
insight into the human condition which escapes Man, and which He needs in 
order to become virtuous again, a re-birth of sorts. Here is another link 
to the role of the prostitute in spiritual healing. Still, she serves man 
that he may be well served...

> Sorry, for my hopeless naivity, but, this seems especially true for lesbians
> - how, exactly, would you physically go about "conquering" your partner? In
> a normal hetro coupling it can be very one sided - one person is the object
> and one the vessel; one the sword and one the sheath; one the master and one
> the slave (to use Cixous' lingo). This is impossible for lesbians, no? and
> reversed for prostitutes. Perhaps, in part, this is why prostitues (and
> lesbians and F-F's) throw ideas of individual and sexuality/spirituality
> into convulsion...?

I am confused -- Which is which again?  But seriously, is that how it is in 
the hetero camp, really?  You must mean representationally? (But then, 
what is the relationship between representation and "reality"?)

At least since Plato, erotic love/desire has been thought of as this 
"conquering," which finds its origins in the Greek practices of 
pederasty.  But conquering is an odd term which betrays itself -- 
con-quirere, to want with.  I am not so sure that desire is so much about 
"conquering" in its usual sense, but being conquered, taken over, 
empassioned (passive latin verb form.) 

But our conceptions of love is an odd mixture of Greek read through 
Latin... The Greek term eros, unlike the latin passion, has both active and 
passive forms; this made Greek thinking on the 
subject a bit different. Actually, Plato coined its two forms:
It is with Plato that we get the distinction between erastes and 
eromenos, lover and  beloved, subject and object, etc, of which you 
speak. Again, modeled after Greek pederasty. A theory on love taken over 
>from the 'priestess' Diotima, and turned on its head, as Irigaray and 
duBois write, albeit differently.  Again, here is a link to the spiritual 
>from the carnal.  It has been though of Diotima that she was, in fact, a 
prostitute, an instructor on love and things pertaining to 
spirituality -- unlike her Sapphic sister...

And at least since Plato love/desire has been modeled after a lack --
wanting what one doesn't have and keeping it forever. Love is all about 
filling a lack, the priviledge of the male subject, the phallocentric 
expereince. Where is she in all this? She who may be of various persuations?
 
SOooo, can/do lesbians physically conquer, or seek to?  Well, yes and 
no.  Lesbian love, on one hand, escapes these signifiers, and I would 
even argue, and probably will some day, that even heterosexual love is 
mistakently modeled in this fashion.  On the other hand, if your question 
is "What (ever!) *do* lesbians do in bed?", practices vary widely, I should 
say.  Some play the femme butch game, but there are other games as well. 
Physically and psychologically dominating and being dominated is a part 
of the equation with lesbians as well, I think I can say, with one 
partner often playing the one part consistently -- but this is neither 
here nor there.

Finally, I would say that neither lesbians nor prostitutes escape the 
phallus.  We lesbians just might put a different spin on it!

rita



   

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