Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Audre Lorde explores the power of the erotic as a force of empowerment for women, challenging societal suppression and reclaiming the importance of deep, unapologetic feeling in personal and collective liberation.

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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 individua... See more

Audre Lorde. • Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

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

self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which know myself to be capable of feeling, a reminder of my capacity for feeling. And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of our capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it b lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible and does not have to be called marriage, nor g... See more

Audre Lorde. • Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power

Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy. In the way my body stretches to music and opens into response, hearkening to its deepest rhythms, so every level upon which I sense also opens to the erotically satisfying experience, whether it is dancing, building a bookcase... See more

Audre Lorde. • Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power

he erotic functions for me in several ways, and the first is in providing the power which comes from sharing 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 lesse... See more

Audre Lorde. • Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power

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 lives and of our work, and of how we move toward and through them

Audre Lorde. • Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power

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 endeavours, my work becomes a conscious decision - a longed-for bed which I enter gratefully and from which I rise up empowered.

Audre Lorde. • Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power

This internal requirement toward excellence which we learn from the erotic must not be misconstrued 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... See more

Audre Lorde. • Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power

The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honour and self-respect we can require no less o... See more

Audre Lorde. • Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power

THERE ARE MANY kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within t... See more

Audre Lorde. • Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power