Eros Reconsidered

A few days ago I wrote about the precariousness of writing about sex and sensuality and how people always want to know “did you do that?” Since then I’ve been thinking about that story of true erotica that I wrote but was glad that it was never published. Stories do that. They’re like children. When you want them to behave, they won’t but, if you ignore them, they will bug you to death.

The story is called Being Fifty and was written about the summer I turned fifty and was in a very passionate relationship with a guy who was no damn good except in one area. Thank God for men like that. The reason I wrote it was because during that affair both he and I turned fifty and we kept making jokes about it. How could two fifty year olds keep behaving like we were? - but we loved it.

After the affair ended - and believe me - that’s a story I won’t write, I had mixed feelings about the story. The thing about having a sexually thrilling affair is that it leaves you so vulnerable and devastated when it is over, even if you knew from the beginning that it was a bad idea.

Now, rethinking that story I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t re-write it a little, change a few names and details, and include it in the short story collection I am working on. It certainly would fit with the others. But am I ready to be that vulnerable before the world? Tough question.

Eros is a tricky thing. It is power, that is for sure, and it is exciting. For years I had a quote from poet Audra Lord on my wall, “The ecstatic offers a well of replenishing and provocative force for the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb to the belief that sensation is enough.”

“Nor succumb to the belief that sensation is enough” - therein lies the problem. If we forget that eros is a power that we own, and that we can direct however we wish to direct it, then I think we are in danger of falling under the spell of sensation.

Now sensation is a fun thing and I certainly don’t want to deny the pleasure of that, but, ultimately, it’s one of those self-perpetuating experiences that can lead you into really stupid places. The whole “if it feels good do it” problem. Feeling good is also a good thing but if you don’t know that you own the power to create feeling good, and that you can direct it in a lot of different directions, it is easy to get hooked on the thing that made you feel good instead of the feeling itself. That’s the trouble with mere sensation. Sensation is a lot like chocolate - yummy and luscious and I-want-more.

So all of this comes back to eros and its inherent power. When I was involved with the man I wrote about in Being Fifty I spent an entire summer in a state of erotic delirium in which life was just what I did in the times between being with him. The problem was he became the source of supply for that erotic delirium - without him I was without the luscious sensation. But all those feelings were mine and still are. Now when I reread that story I get glimmers of the truth that Lord wrote of - he helped me find my erotic power but maybe he didn’t take it with him when he left. I know when I am writing and writing well I feel just as heady, just as delirious, as I did when I was with him.

I’m thinking about getting that story out and dusting it off. Maybe there’s something in it that needs to be shared. I just have to think about how much vulnerability I can handle. But that’s what being a writer is about anyway.

Thanks for reading.