Uses of the Erotic: An Adventurer’s Interpretation
When you hear the word “erotic”, what comes to mind? Do you feel a blush rush to your cheeks thinking of sexual experiences? Do you feel a warmth in your heart thinking of your partner? Do you feel passion, spirituality, love?
Do you feel alive?
You see, the erotic is not simply defined. It is most often intertwined with the idea of sex, but at the core of that idea is pleasure. Pleasure can come in a million different forms, intimacy being one of them. Why does our society see the erotic — the purest expression of pleasure — as inherently dirty? Are we not pleased in other ways? One may be pleased when their child gives them a drawing to hang on the fridge, or when a friend surprises them with their favorite coffee, or when reruns of your favorite sitcom come on TV. Perhaps you find pleasure in dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, examining an idea — Audre Lorde certainly thought these to be pleasurable, erotic things.
In her work “The Uses of the Erotic”, Lorde explores the idea that eroticism is deeply personal and comes from a place “firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling”. In other words, eroticism is the joy, the pleasure, the excitement that you feel so naturally when doing activities that simply feel right to you. It may be something you have never really thought of as being of importance to you, or it may present itself in every aspect of your life. The erotic is born into us, into the core of our beings, and it may be unlocked in different ways. Could it be in a sexual manner? Absolutely! But it is more likely connected to a passion of yours, such as art, and it may bring about that feeling of peace with oneself or give you a sense of belonging.
For me, I connected with the erotic in me in Cusco, Peru in January 2020.
I had signed up for a 10-day study abroad based on resource management in the heart of the Andes, not so much as on a whim, but as if I had known where the train was heading my entire life, and only now had I told the conductor it was time for me to go. I was beyond thrilled. It was my first time traveling alone, first time going through customs alone, first time being entirely responsible for myself, first time I got to live an adventure. At first, the anxiety outweighed the excitement, but the moment the plane dropped beneath the clouds, dipping between Andean peaks, and I could see Cusco sprawl out beneath me, there was this internal bubbling that was impossible to miss.
Looking back, I know I had unlocked the erotic power within me.
It is hard to put it into words if I am being quite honest. But there’s this memory in my mind, clear as day, when I felt so at home with myself, even in a foreign land. We had hiked an Incan trail to Tipón, and we were doing geographical surveys of the waterways the Incans had constructed. My group finished our portion a little early and I decided to wander the hills a bit. I came to this ledge where the fields were overgrown and the wind was whipping my hair. The air was thin but sharp and clear, as if I was living in a world of glass. Everywhere I looked was new. The mountains climbed toward the sky, the town nestled between its peaks, and the streams babbled ever downwards to meet the river in the valley. If ever heaven did exist, it was on that cliff in Tipón.
There was something so freeing about standing on that cliff. I felt so small, so miniscule, but as if the universe were laying itself out for my exploration alone. Here I was on another continent with no friends or family, feeling perfectly at home in my own body. Pure, unadulterated joy, even giddiness, was flowing through my veins. It felt as if I had been meant to find that spot and to revel in its glory. I could have ceased to exist, let my body become one with the soil, and in that moment, I would have felt nothing but peace.
So, when you hear the word “erotic”, what comes to mind?
The thing about the erotic is that it's different for us all. Audre Lorde could have stood on that same cliff on that same day and felt nothing at all, but I felt alive. It was a new feeling for me, one that had lied dormant for so long. Every nerve ending in my body was on fire. Perhaps for Lorde, that is what she feels when she writes. But I have discovered that the erotic within me, that spiritual, feminine power, lies in my sense of adventure and my endless curiosity. It is in my openness to the novel and to the weird. It is in these moments of revelation and reflection that I connect with my eroticism. It is in the unknown that I find my truest self.
“That self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which I know myself to 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, nor god, nor an afterlife.” — Audre Lorde
I now know that I am capable of great joy, and I demand to feel such satisfaction again. Should we all be so lucky as to find our own Tipón.
