Last week I posted a lecture I gave on the importance of, and suppression of, male-male bonding and obsessions in comics. (Part One, Part Two.)
Some interesting comments and criticisms were brought up in the comments to those posts, particularly questions about Freud and why on earth I thought writing about this sort of thing was a good idea. I’m going to try to address some of those questions here. The result is going to be a bit rambling, but hopefully not completely uninteresting. So with that endorsement — off we go.
To do a quick recap of the argument: my basic point was that Western comics are obsessed with male-male relationships and heterosexual identity. That obsession is structured by homosexuality and the closet; maleness is always furtively in danger of splitting into a hypermasculinized overman (and hypermasculinity equates with gay) and into a feminized underman (which again, can be equated with gayness.) The fraught, agonized tension of of male-male desire becomes both the emotive force and the excuse for self-pity, and ultimately for violence, directed at women (who are despicably feminine and constantly interfering in all the male-male bonding) and towards other men (as objects of desire who can only be furtively embraced through physical chastisement.) Homophobia, misogyny, and violence, in other words, are motivated by a crisis in heterosexual male identity — a fear of an inescapable homosexuality, which becomes more inescapable the more (or less) male one becomes. I argued that this dynamic was present in classic super-hero comics like Superman, Batman, and Spider-man, and that it also existed in more well-respected indie comics like Cerebus and Jimmy Corrigan. Finally, I suggested that shojo manga dealt with gayness and emotional bonds in rather different ways. (Many of these ideas are adapted from Eve Sedgwick, who I’ll discuss some in this post as well.)
So that basically bring us up to date. The essay provoked a certain amount of skepticism, most notably from Pallas, a frequent commenter. He eventually asked a series of perceptive questions, among which were these:
What “erotic” means?
Is there such a thing as platonic friendship, or only “erotic” friendship?
Is the appreciation of a parent towards a child inherently “erotic”? (Hey, you brought up the Batman surrogate father examples, not me!)
Is it possible to appreciate aesthetic qualities without that appreciation being “erotic”?
I think, as Pallas suggests, these questions are central to my argument. They’re also, though, rather more broadly important; they’re essentially questions about how human beings interact with each other, whether as lovers or family or political actors.
I do have a couple answers for Pallas, I think. To start at the beginning:
“[Explain] What erotic means.}
I think “erotic” in this context means touched by, or having to do with, desire. So, for example, Clark Kent’s relationship with Superman can be seen as erotic, in that Superman can be seen fairly easily as a power fantasy; Clark desires to be Superman. That’s erotic — and since they’re both men, it can be read as homoerotic (and when I say “can be read” I mean it can be read that way not just by me but by Clark and to some extent by his creators.) Similarly, Lois desires to humiliate Clark — that’s erotic. Superman desires to humiliate Lois — again, that’s erotic — and, obviously, sado-masochistic. Or, as another for instance, Joker desires to destroy Batman; Jimmy Corrigan desires to become powerful like Superman; Cerebus desires to remain continent. Desires are erotic — and desire, in one form or another, exists in all human relationships. Thus, to answer Pallas’ second question, there is no clean “platonic” friendship, because all friendship is involved with desire.
This isn’t an original insight; most obviously, it’s associated with Freud, who argued that all human relationships, even the most sacrosanct (as, for example, those between mother and son) were charged with erotism and desire. He was roundly hooted for being a dirty old quack — and the scientific certainty he brings to his more outlandish theories is, I have to admit, kind of hard to take. When Freud insists “all human beings are bisexual…Psychoanalysis has established this fact as firmly as chemistry has established the presence of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and other elements in all organic bodies,” it’s hard not to respond with a heartfelt, “You wish psychology was chemistry, Ziggy.”
I think the scientific foderol can obscure the fact, though, that when he argued that desire was central to human existence, Freud wasn’t just making shit up; he was restating a very old truth. Desire is, I think, a fairly good shorthand, secular definition of sin — a fairly important concept before the Enlightenment declared we were all clean, rational, democratic automatons. Freud was a benighted heir of the Enlightenment too, in his own way — thus his insistence that he was doing science instead of theology. But I think there’s a fairly strong argument to be made that he was a theologian in spite of himself; that, in focusing on desire and eroticism, he was simply (or not so simply) reintroducing sin as a motivating force in the affairs (variously defined) of human beings. Freud says this himself, when, for example, he points out that “prohibited impulses are present alike in the criminal and in the avenging community. In this, psycho-analysis is no more than confirming the habitual pronouncements of the pious; we are all miserable sinners.”
In short, the statement “all people are bisexual” is not a scientific truth. But that doesn’t make it false — and, in fact, since desire is part of all human relationships, I, at least, think that the statement “all people are bisexual” is, in fact, true.
So on to Pallas’ next question:
“Is the appreciation of a parent towards a child inherently “erotic”?”
…which lands us neatly in the Oedipal complex. Both Freud and Christianity, I believe, would answer Pallas’ question with an affirmative; the love of parent and child is erotic; it is charged with (selfish) desire, just like every other human relationship since the Fall.
Freud would illustrate this with the Oedipus drama. But comics fans don’t need to go so far afield. Consider, for example, Spider-Man. Peter Parker is, like all super-heroes, surely a power fantasy; he’s a nerdy, nebbishy, feminized nothing who, though the miraculous oral intervention of an insect, is transformed into a paragon of masculinity, able to beat up professional wrestlers and earn money with a single upgraded chromosome. He changes, in short, from pitiful son to masterful father. In doing so, he also, inevitably, kills his own father (“Uncle” Ben)— and all the guilty emoting can’t quite erase the fact that the death of the father is not the end of the fantasy, but a continuation of it. To be a man is not just to have great power, but great responibility (for protecting the womenfolk, among other things); Peter can’t take his father’s place as protector of the weak (i.e., the women) if his father is still there.
(I googled Spider-Man and Oedipal conflict, incidentally,and was kind of startled not to immediately discover, like, 50 people making the same points above. Despite my failed googling, though, I am sure as sure can be that I am Not The First Person to Think of This — it’s pretty blatant after all. I’d imagine it at least occurred to Lee and Ditko themselves, for that matter.)
Or, to put it in less psychoanalytic and more Christian terms — children and parents envy and compete with each other; their love for each other is stained with desire. Even Peter’s noblest impulses (his desire to take responsibility and do good) are in part a selfish desire to be perceived as being as powerful as and as good as his father; to set himself up as an idol and take the place of God. (Probably the basic sin of the super-hero genre in general.)
Another way to look at this dynamic is through the work of Eve Sedgwick. I talked about Sedgwick a good bit in my original posts; she was a feminist and queer theorist, who (like a lot of feminist theorists) took Freud’s scientific/psychological ideas and recast them in a social/cultural context. In comments, Eric B (also known as “my brother”) provided a good summary:
Sedgwick’s point (derived partially from Claude Levi-Strauss’ account of kinship systems) is that we live in a patriarchal culture, where men have the power and are interested in maintaining that power. One of the ways in which this done is in the “trading” of women. Marriage serves a central function in cementing bonds between two families, consolidating patriarchal power, by joining two or more men in “homosocial” bonds. Women traditionally had no power in marriage (obviously this changes post 19th century) and so become “objects of exchange.” So…marriage itself is a weird structure–less about sex than about power and perpetuating bonds between families “ruled” by men. So…women become mediators of “relationships” between men. This reverses some old second-wave feminist accounts of “feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice.” Instead, its “patriarchy is the theory, homo- bonds is the practice.” This is how she links homophobia with misogyny. Women are treated as object in this model…but necessary objects. Without marriage (and therefore love and heterosexuality), you have no consolidation of power. Because of this “necessity” (just a structure–no “natural” reason why its necessary other than reproduction, which doesn’t require marriage, just sex)–homophobia develops as a part of patriarchal culture. Once marriage becomes important to power/economic structures, it must be maintained by powers-that-be and one of the ways that happens is a discouragement of same-sex relationships. So…misogyny and homophobia are linked…but they are also linked to homoeroticism (which isn’t always erotic, but often is), since the system requires (yes) the repression of homosexual sex, but also requires close bonds “between men.” It’s convincing to me more because of the links to Levi-Strauss account of kinship…an anthropological theory that is fairly widely accepted as helping to explain various “taboos” against certain kinds of marriage in a variety of different cultures/societies. I think there is some reliance on Freud, but the “repression” is less internal/psychological and more “socially necessary” to perpetuate a certain kind of culture. We don’t repress homosexual desires because of an overactive superego–but because we know society frowns on it and we can be gay-bashed for it, etc.
From Sedgwick’s perspective, then, the Oedipus story, and the Spider-Man origin, can be read (without too much of a shift from Freud’s version) as a fantasy, not about the infant’s love/hatred of his father, but about a man’s love/hatred for patriarchal power. Aunt May ends up as a chit in the power exchange between Uncle Ben and Peter. Peter’s feelings for his father — the patriarchal bonds of affection — are dangerous and inexpressible. Thus, Ben gets put out of the way, so that Peter can express his power fantasies (taking his father’s place in the patriarchy) through the safer medium of loving Aunt May on his dead father’s behalf. (Obviously, Peter isn’t marrying May — though it’s interesting that MJ is introduced to Peter by May. And it’s also interesting how important evil fathers are in those early stories; Norman Osborne, obviously, but also Doc Ock, who engages in an odd courtship with May.)
In any case, the Spider-Man story also shows pretty clearly how the Oedipal conflict, especially as interpreted by Sedgwick, ends up being structured by closeted homosexuality. Peter’s desire, his libido in Freud’s terms, is directed towards male power — the story is a power fantasy. As such, Peter is split in two; on the one hand, he’s the uber-father, with hyper-masculine powers, taking on the patriarchal father. On the other hand, he’s still a weak, helpless kid. This is what Sedgwick means, I think, when she talks about bifurcated identities — masculinity is always split like this, between absolute patriarchal power (which can perhaps be embodied momentarily, but is never absolutely attainable) and the individual self, (which always falls short of patriarchal ideals/responsibility/power.) It’s Spider-Man who takes the place of Uncle Ben…Spider-Man’s who signals that Peter has taken on the power and responsibility of the patriarch, or the father. But though he’s a man, Peter’s still also a frightened child.
So Peter is split. Oedipally, one part of him identifies with the powerless child, one part with the all-powerful (all-responsible) father. That split is charged with homoerotic desire; Peter desires the power of Spider-Man, which is also the power of his father, or of the patriarchy. I think too, contradictorily, Spider-Man desires the powerlessness of (ahem) Peter — the lack of responsibility. The Peter Parker/Spider-Man relationship is homoerotic — it’s about men’s desire for certain kinds of maleness.
At the same time, this relationship (and not coincidentally) is structured around the closet. The closet is about repressing male-male desires; presenting a united patriarchal front of power and responsibility to the world while concealing potentially dangerous emotions. The Spider-Man/Peter relationship is gay, and that gayness — or that feminization — has to be concealed. Spider-Man wears a mask because masculinity has no face; it’s an anonymous power. Beneath that mask is the face of someone who is not a man — a child — but the mask erases the child’s face. To become the patriarch is the desire and also the fear — the strength of the patriarch is also the strength of a monster: Thing, Hulk, Spider. The mingled desire and fear is why these relationships are agonized — to take on great power and great responsibility, you must be split. I discussed this in the context of the Friday the 13th films here.
All of which is to say, you can’t undermine masculinity by cutting it apart, or by pointing out that this or that person doesn’t measure up. Jason isn’t less of a man because he’s actually a child — or rather, he is less of a man, which is what masculinity is all about. Masculinity is always already bifurcated. On the one hand you have the Law — pitiless, perfect, unattainable. On the other hand, you have the implementer of the Law, the person the Law inhabits. That person is inevitably stunted, powerless, pitiful — feminized. The Law uses imperfect bodies, but that doesn’t make it less perfect. On the contrary, it merely emphasizes its disembodied perfection.
Again, you can see this in a Christian context as well — where too, obviously, father-son dynamics are fairly important. In some ways, Christianity is an effort to get out from under the Law; to replace the law with platonic love. Humans aren’t capable of platonic love, though. Instead, such love as humans are capable of (like Peter’s love for his father-figure) leads, via desire, back to a wish for power and thus to the law. That’s why Jesus has some harsh things to say about treating family bonds as more important than salvation, and why, ultimately, you need grace. (It’s interesting in this context that Spider-Man, Superman, et. al. were created by Jewish creators — “with great power comes great responsibility” is not exactly a Christian sentiment.)
Anyway, on to Pallas’ next:
“Is it possible to appreciate aesthetic qualities without that appreciation being “erotic”?”
If “erotic” is seen as meaning “desire”, I think the answer is no. Art is tied up in desire — the desire of the creators and the desire of the audience. This isn’t surpsing, since art is a human product meant to communicate with human beings,
The irony, of course, is that a lot of aesthetic criticism is tied to determining whether a given piece of art is free of desire, or pure, in particular ways. Art that seems clearly intended to make money, for example, is often denigrated as being inauthentic or impure. Similarly, art that caters to observers’ prurient interests (which is clearly erotic, in other words) is often downgraded.
Nonetheless, I don’t see how you separate aesthetics and desire. You identify with a character because you like something about him or her, and affections are (for humans) tied to desire. Even if you’re talking about abstractions, you’re talking about beauty, which is certainly linked to desire. There’s almost always, too, something compulsive about art — collecting, viewing, knowing, discussing — which seems inextricable from the mechanics of desire.
I think to me this is a big part of why art is worthwhile, or interesting. Desire — according to Christianity, according to Buddhism, according to Freud, according to innumerable pop songs — is at the heart of the human experience. If art isn’t erotic — if Spider-Man doesn’t satisfy and address desires — what would be the point, exactly?
Gene Philips correctly points out that there are types of desire other than homosexual or homosocial which can be dealt with through art, and, sure, I don’t have any problem with that (I talk at great length about bondage on this site for instance.) But relationships between men — tinged as all relationships are with desire — seem to me to be especially important, inasmuch as men, even now, play a disproportionate role in running the world.
___________
Update: More on this topic here.
"[T]here is no clean 'platonic' friendship, because all friendship is involved with desire."
I would also add that the modern usage of "platonic" is rather misleading. Plato's definition of love in the Symposium was fundamentally erotic, and this included love between two males.
Freud says art is a result of desire, though. "Art," literature, viaducts…all of these things are "sublimation" of basic desires (food, sex). Since we must repress those desires sometimes, other things…like art…result.
Richard Reynolds talks at length about the Oedipal in Superheroics (in Superheroes: A Modern Mythology). Extended treatments of Superman and Batman are in there (although, I think, less or no attention to Spider Man).
Grant Morrison's oeuvre is obsessed with this kind of thing self-consciously. Esp. with the notion of "good fathers" as models for behavior, and "bad fathers" to be overcome/transcended.
I also think it's easy to read early superheroes (esp. Superman) as "desire" to be Christian–That is, the nebbishy jew Clark Kent is actually an immigrant who fails at "passing" as "from here" (as Clark), but succeeds in being "ideal goy" as Supes. So…you suggest that maybe there are "not exactly Christian" ideals at work here…which may be true (I'm not so sure), but certainly the "desire" to be Christian is operating.
I see this kind of thing somewhat less in Spider-Man I guess…perhaps linked to the time when it was written—but I certainly see it insofar as Spidey works off the template established 25 years earlier in Superman
It's not clear to me how the Spider-Man origin could be any more Oedipal, really. It does seem to be less about immigration and passing — or less about doing so successfully, anyway.
That's interesting about art being the result of desire. I don't think that conflicts with what I'm saying exactly. I guess I'd be less willing to put it in a base/superstructure framework (if that's the right terminology.) That is, it's not clear to me that the desire in art is a second-hand or sublimated offshoot of family dynamic desire. Rather, I guess I'd argue that art is a kind of communication between people, just like family relationships, and as such they're all involved with desire, without one necessarily being the primary, "real" expression of desire.
"(I googled Spider-Man and Oedipal conflict, incidentally,and was kind of startled not to immediately discover, like, 50 people making the same points above. Despite my failed googling, though, I am sure as sure can be that I am Not The First Person to Think of This — it's pretty blatant after all. I'd imagine it at least occurred to Lee and Ditko themselves, for that matter.)"
I don't find it all *that* surprising that people haven't made this connection. Uncle Ben is initially, as depicted, I get the impression, not a particularly masculine father figure, and Aunt May is such a thoroughly unsexualized mother figure that its hard to imagine anyone feeling desire for her at all.
Plus there's the constant harping on the rather two dimensional morality fable, "great power comes great responsibility," which is the stated theme of the story, at any rate.
I never got the impression, either, that the creators of Spider-man were particularly deep individuals…
I'm fine with a "death of the author" sort of view of a story, but its hard to make assumptions on what the author was thinking.
There are some creators like Grant Morrison who clearly analyze the heck out of everything they work on, Alan Moore as well, but I bet there are others who don't give their stuff this sort of thought.
To give an anecdotal example, I once approached David Mack- who does the Kabuki series- at a comic convention.
Kabuki, the title character, was at the time in a story dealing repeatedly with the concept of "imaginary friends". There is a children's book Kabuki reads called "My Imaginary Friend", which was a story within the story, and Kabuki also has a secret helper, named Akemi, who sends her letters in the mail, and it was implied that Akemi might be imaginary.
There is also a sequence where David Mack himself does a cameo in his comic and interacts with Kabuki, and a sequence when she sees herself as a character in a comic sitting in David Mack's room.
So anyway, when I met him at a convention I asked "Is this a metafictional theme? Kabuki has an imaginary friend, while she's actually your imaginary friend?"
Mack responded "Maybe… Actually, my brother had an imaginary friend when we were kids, and I thought it was funny, so I put in in."
I take the "maybe" to mean, there's no wrong answers, but it wasn't anything he had in mind.
In another example, I had a television criticism teacher who was talking about the way that names in Cheers worked so well:
Sam Malone was always "alone" because he couldn't commit to being with a woman.
Frasier Crane is another example- Crane is like Cranium, he's the intelligent once, my teacher had some other arguments like that as well.
I think he said Diane Chambers implies a sort of maddona/ whore dynamic, with the virginal goddess diana and chambers implying an obsession with the bedroom.
My professor said he met the creators of Cheers, and told them his analysis, and they said it was not correct, and the characters were named after this or that friend or acquaintance in their lives.
Well, I wouldn't bet that Lee or Ditko were thinking "Oedipus conflict" necessarily. I just wouldn't bet it never occurred to them either.
I can see Ditko being horrified/pissed off at the analysis, actually. Lee would probably be more like, oh it's cool you found that stuff in there.
I do find it hard to believe nobody's thought of it in general, though.
Have you read Peter Coogan's Superhero book (I think it might just be called "Superheroes" or something like that). I'm betting some of this stuff is in there–haven't read it yet myself.
Among the academic comics types, there's general agreement that Oedipal issues are everywhere in and central to superhero comics (Fantastic Four is another good example–with Reed as Dad and you can work out the rest). Maybe Spiderman has been less treated than Bats or Supes–but those guys are more "iconic" as ur-progenitors of Superheroism. Spidey's origin, in particular, is barely a twist on Batman's. Anything you can say about one you can pretty much say about the other…Spidey is an orphan, after all…so Aunt May is really just a (first) mother substitute.
Reynolds discusses a great silver age Superman story wherein Lex Luthor goes back through time (and space) and woos Superman's mother–in an effort to prevent Superman's journey to Earth (and to generally fuck with his head, one would guess). Can't get much more Oedipal than this…since Supes has to "protect" mom from (alternate, "bad") father…yadda yadda, you can do the rest.
Freud basically says literature and "art" are like "dreams"–the repressed desires of the unconscious come out (as in Oedipus itself, for instance) in disguised form (thus phallic symbols–things that are not penises–but clearly symbolize them). So, yes, "desire" is at the center of art/lit. since they basically just express (usually Oedipal) desires in disguised form…and so symbol-hunting (i.e. literary criticism) is born! (Except it's really born from exegesis of the Bible–but that fits right into the old Noah argument).
You have to read Daredevil's blindness as castration too (remember Oedipus–self-blinding is an act of self-castration for Freud). We can do that kind of thing all day…. but insofar as castration is a kind of self-punishment of hypermasculinity, you're right back in Sedgwick territory. The question is more, "Are there any superheroes that don't fit this model?"– Kind of hard to find one.
What about Captain Carrot? (wink wink)–ok, I'm done.
"You have to read Daredevil's blindness as castration too (remember Oedipus–self-blinding is an act of self-castration for Freud). We can do that kind of thing all day…. but insofar as castration is a kind of self-punishment of hypermasculinity, you're right back in Sedgwick territory. The question is more, "Are there any superheroes that don't fit this model?"– Kind of hard to find one."
Sweet Christmas! Luke Cage is ALL MAN ALL THE TIME!
Luke Cage doesn't have a double identity, actually. I think that probably helps.
But I kind of remember Cage always wallowing in his own misery…thinking about how he's screwed everything up…is not the "Power Man" he's cracked up to be. So, he doesn't live up to his own image of masculinity either. (Harder, perhaps to read it sexually or Oedipally, maybe–I can't recall his family history).
Besides—he spends all of his time "fisting" with is closeted friend.
A load of psychobabble with no small measure of misandry.
My ire is directed towards masculinity, not men. There's a difference.
Also, it's not all psychobabble. There's Christobabble in there as well.
"But I kind of remember Cage always wallowing in his own misery…thinking about how he's screwed everything up…is not the "Power Man" he's cracked up to be."
Could be. I only have really read some of the recent Bendis written appearances of the character. He was pissed as society, but I don't recall him pissed at himself.
I figured as a blaxploitation character, some of the dynamics would be different.
Bendis likes to say he has a "heterosexual crush" on Luke Cage, whatever that means. His Mary sue- esque character, Jessica Jones, marries Cage.
I'm coming a bit late to this discussion, but I really think you're palming a card here. You're defining a word in an idiosyncratic way, and then you're not so much bringing evidence or making an argument as relying on people's association with the normal use of the word to make connections that aren't otherwise justified.
If you want to define erotic as "having to do with desire" in general, rather than having to with sex or sexual desire, fine. And if I'm late for work, and am waiting at a bus stop, I want the bus to come*. So according to your definition I have an erotic relation to the bus. Which, okay, whatever.
Except inasmuch as any normal reader of English will look at the sentence "I have an erotic relation to the bus," and conclude that I want to have sex with the bus. And not only that, but you're relying on people to make that leap — if they don't, your essay becomes incoherent.
I don't personally think that I want to have sex with a bus. Not even subliminally. If you want to convince me that I actually do want to have sex with a bus, go ahead, but you're going to have to use actual evidence and logic, rather than silly definitional games.
*Yes, I'm aware I said come.
The issues we're talking about here — desire and human relationships — are central philosophical and religious concerns, as I've tried to explain. Coming in with a common sense "the word doesn't mean that because the dictionary doesn't say so" seems pretty silly to me in that context. I guess it just means you believe in the Enlightenment's view that all this stuff can be explained simply by using common sense and reason (and, I guess, the dictionary). I happen to think much of Enlightenment thought, at least in this regard, is errant and, indeed, dangerous nonsense, as I explain in the post.
In any case, I'm not saying you want to have sex with a bus. I don't believe you want to have sex with a bus. I don't even believe you want to have sex with your father. Or your mother for that matter.
I do think your relationship to your father and your mother can be called erotic in that it is touched by desire, in various ways. I think it's a little less clear in the case of non-humans, whether animals or buses — but people do, you know, occasionally develop emotional relationships, and even sexual ones, with both animals and objects (such as, for example, money.)
Buddhists, I think, would argue that desiring the bus to come is as bad for your karma as various other kinds of desire. It certainly ties you to the world — and the dichotomy between world/spirituality is often seen in an erotic context.
"I think "erotic" in this context means touched by, or having to do with, desire."
Really, I'm not buying this, in a general sense. (But then I don't have all that much patience with Freudianism in general.) In the context of fiction, particularly "pulp" fiction, and particularly superhero comics, a lot of character motivation does become (subtextually) eroticized, but I don't think it's valid to say that all desire is erotic, even in fiction.
In regards the different conceptions of maculinity in shoujo/yaoi vs superhero comics: shoujo and yaoi are by definition aimed at women. I think you would find many more similarities between shoujo/yaoi and female-oriented Western comics, or between seinen manga (or gay men's manga, for that matter) and superhero comics.
Why isn't it "valid" to say that all desire is erotic, then? And if you don't like Freud, how do you feel about Christianity? (Nobody seems to want to talk about Christianity much — I guess the assumption is just that you don't even need to state your objection to Christianity at this point?)
I'd agree that there's more in common between super-heroes and men's oriented manga (at least what I've read.) Parasyte does interesting things with doubling, for example.
There just aren't a lot of comics in the U.S. for girls, though, so suggesting a comparison there is probably not going to be all that fruitful.
Re Christianity: I would say desire is certainly presented as sinful, but I don't think that translates to erotic.
"There just aren't a lot of comics in the U.S. for girls, though, so suggesting a comparison there is probably not going to be all that fruitful."
I don't know if you have to look at comics "for girls", so much as comics by women. A Distant Soil, to pick one, bends gender just as hard as any shoujo manga.
Haven't read that, but Ariel Schrag certainly does interesting gender things; as does Edie Fake.
Hhmmm. I was going to just go away and have a snack, until I got to the last comments. As an editor and a Buddhist and a woman with a serious love/hate relationship with Freud, though…
Except inasmuch as any normal reader of English will look at the sentence "I have an erotic relation to the bus," and conclude that I want to have sex with the bus. And not only that, but you're relying on people to make that leap — if they don't, your essay becomes incoherent.
I don't think that's true. As someone who spends a LOT of time thinking about how normal readers of English will read sentences, I think this argument is legalistic. By which I mean artificially restricted to make a point. I may be giving normal readers of English too much credit (although I can assure you that nobody has ever accused me of this), but I think most people understand "desire" to be something beyond wanting to have sex. It's also a major leap to say that one's desire to catch the bus (and I'm willing to call it desire, as it's something I often experience that way myself — it's more than need or want — sort of like when you really, really need to pee) has anything to do with fucking a bus. I'm just saying.
Buddhists, I think, would argue that desiring the bus to come is as bad for your karma as various other kinds of desire. It certainly ties you to the world — and the dichotomy between world/spirituality is often seen in an erotic context.
Buddhists think all kinds of things. Desiring the arrival of the bus is probably pretty karma-neutral, as these things go, but desiring anything is a problem, yes. As long as you desire — anything, be it a bus, sex, or a combination or the two (and you know somebody does — whatever it is, somebody wants to do it) — you're tied to the endless cycle or life and rebirth. And I think that does tie in pretty well with Noah's argument.
Kant and Nietzsche, coming from different perspectives, both believed pleasure was an important component of the Christian view of desire and sin. If you've got pleasure, desire, and sin, all wrapped up together, I think it's reasonable to label that as erotic.
You mention Kant and Nietzsche, but this line of thinking probably goes back to St. Augustine. Most of Christianity's discomfort with pleasure and its connection with sin are formulated in his writings (and, yeah, there are earlier theologians who discuss the topic but Augustine looms over Christian dogma like few others).
While it's been a while since I read City of God, I'm pretty sure you're views on love and eroticism are in keeping with Augustine's, though you probably don't share his conclusions. (You're not advocating celibacy, right?).
I'm not advocating celibacy, no. I do think desire/sin, etc., is an actual problem, but I don't know that refusing to have sex gets you out of it (the Catholic church's recent disaster in that regard is kind of a good case in point.)
Nice point about Plato way back at the top, too. As I was writing the piece I actually thought to myself "Plato believed in pure love without eroticism? That seems out of character, doesn't it?"
When did I ever mention a dictionary? I don't recall bringing dictionaries into this.
What I'm talking about is the way that most speakers of English use and understand the word erotic, and I believe — though I haven't done a study — that most speakers of English use and understand the word erotic to mean having to do with sex.
If, in fact, that is not the case, and there is a common usage of the word erotic to mean "having to to with desire, sexual or otherwise," then saying that Peter Parker wants to be Spiderman, therefore Peter Parker has an erotic relation to Spiderman, therefore Peter Parker is gay, makes no sense. Where did sex come into it? The answer is that sex came into it with the word "erotic," because that is what erotic means to most people.
I deliberately chose the bus example because it's more obviously absurd that I want to have sex with a bus than that I want to have sex with food or money.
And I am not a Buddhist or a scholar of Buddhism, so I'm wary of making statements about what Buddhism actually teaches, but yes, on the face of it it would seem that according to Buddhism my desire for the bus to come is bad. But bad does not actually equal sex all the time.
Yes, I'm an Enlightenment thinker, and you're a poo-poo head. But you happen to agree with me that reasoned argument is a worthwhile endeavor, or else why on Earth are you writing essays?
Thinking that not everything has to do with sex all the time is not the same as thinking that man is a creature of pure rationality and light. It so happens that I think sometimes there are even irrational things that people do, and think, and feel, and want, that have very little to do with sex.
Also, you brought dictionaries into this, not me. I never mentioned the word dictionary. I'm just sayin.
My apologies. You meant democracy and not dictionaries. Still, the enlightenment, but a slightly different strand.
Do you actually desire to get on the bus? Or do you need to get on the bus to get something you desire (money, for example — or to meet somebody?)
Your example is ridiculous because it's not really to the point. Your reductio ad absurdum is absurd, but not reducing (or something like that; my Latin is poor.) You're claiming that desire doesn't have to have anything to do with eroticism — so you resort to an example which doesn't actually have anything to do (necessarily) with desire.
I'm not saying that everything has to do with sex all the time. I'm saying that desire and/or sin is involved in all human relationships (I did emphasize human relationships in the post, you'll note; nothing about buses.) I think "erotic" is more complicated than just sex; lots of things can be erotic without leading to sex, or even getting very near it — that's what fetishes are about. Eroticism is about pleasure, desire, and arguably sin. Homoerotic doesn't mean two men having sex — or doesn't mean just or only that. It means bonds of desire, variously defined, between two men — desire which can have to do with sex, or love, or power. (Freud does privilege sex; any desire is libido redirected. I don't necessarily agree with him about that — and thinking through eroticism as desire is one of the ways I'm going about disagreeing with him.)
Basically, I think you're agreeing with Freud in defining eroticism too narrowly. I also would argue that you're thinking about desire in a way which is confused. If you really do desire to get on the bus — if you desire that as your end goal, if you are compelled, every day to get on the bus because boarding that bus, sitting on that bus, and being on that bus fulfills a desire, then I'd say your relationship with the bus is fetishistic, and, yes, erotic. Most people don't actually have that kind of relationship with a bus, though. But we do have those kinds of relationship, in various ways, with people.
"Erotic" strikes me as a rather loaded term to be using, rather than something more neutral like pleasure or bonding, but its your metaphor.
Just to present an alternative metaphor:
I always kind of liked the "circuit metaphor" whereas human being have different parts to their brain working in parallel, like a computer. So a predator might instill a fear circuit, a distressed child might instill the parental circuit, a pointless internet argument such as this one might involve the "pattern recognition circuit"
I thinks its silly, for example, to reduce stories to mere sublimated desire, as Eric B. says Freud did, there's a clear evolutionary benefit to tell stories to instill unified knowledge, values, and make sense of data in the otherwise ambiguous environment.
That doesn't mean there isn't a sublimated desire aspects to stories as well, however. Both circuits can be running at once. It may, however, depend on the story. I don't think a campfire horror tale need necessarily involve desire at all. A fear circuit and empathy circuit might do just fine.
Huh.
I actually have several fairly big disagreements with this essay, as it turns out.
First, "erotic" as a word means sexual desire specifically, not just desire. It's from Eros, the god of sex.
Platonic relationships, hat tip to Richard, which hat I will then sadly squash, is not simply from the Symposium, but instead from the Symposium as spoken by Diotyma through Socrates through Plato. It is also in the Phaedrus, where the voice is more clearly Plato's. Both explain Platonic relationships as abstract relationships with beauty/the divine and/or with other people in a nonsexual way. In the symposium, Aristophanes talks about nookie, but he's not the authoritative voice of Plato and he's certainly not discussing the Platonic relationship. Plato was pretty heavily anti-nookie in many ways. (See also the Republic and his ideal society.) Anyway.
I suppose you could, if you wanted, define erotic for the purpose of your essay to mean desire as any and all flavors of desire, rather than specifically sexual desire, but as an old and very cranky philologist, you will make me twitch.
As for sin. I don't believe that all human relationships are steeped in sin. I don't approve, and have never approved, of the fundamental shift that was Christianity's gift to the world, whereby the thought became as evil as the deed.
Hey Pallas. You do tend to like evolutionary metaphors more than me. And I think you're right (metaphorically, if probably not exactly intentionally) that evolutionary metaphors tend to turn us into computers — and, further, that if you take desire and sin out of human beings, you tend to be left with robots.
I guess in response I might point out that (1) instilling values is done, generally, through ideas about sin, punishment, desire, the law, and parent-child relationships that are, I think, quite erotic; (2) slasher films — which are essentially campfire horror stories — are willfully and inescapably perverse, basically for all the reasons pointed out in 1.
VM — alas! et tu?
I come unarmed (rather than four-armed) to the Plato debate. And I don't want to make you twitch. I do think it's useful to recognize/think about the erotic, compulsive, and sensual aspects of all desire though, for the purposes of discussing how humans relate to each other, and what Freud did and did not get right.
I don't think you have to believe that the thought is as evil as the deed to feel that Christianity (or Judaism, for that matter) was onto something when it pointed out that humans and human relationships are imperfect and imperfectable, and that people are fallen. But we'll probably have to agree to disagree here, since this is a pretty major and fundamental philosophical point.
And finally — Pallas, I think this internet disagreement has been pretty interesting and fruitful, as these things go. I certainly didn't expect to have anywhere near this much interest in my long, academic, and convoluted efforts to deal with these issues. I've learned things in the process, anyway. I mean, we're not curing cancer, obviously, but as far as human interactions go, it's been pretty rewarding on my end.
Hey Noah,
I do think it's worthwhile discussion the nature of desire and its qualities among human relationships; there are different amounts of sensual, erotic, compulsive, etc. I suppose that's why I'm so resistant to the idea of *all* relationships with desire as equally erotic, and that the level of erotic is equal to the level of desire. It pulls all the nuance out. There are male bonding stories that don't have slashy subtext, (I would say), just as there are male bonding stories that are pretty much romances except for on screen sex, and mooshing the two together is unhelpful if one is to get at what the bonding is doing, and how it's masculine or otherwise.
I should say that I do think humans are imperfect and imperfectable. It's the fallen part that I don't believe. Probably my early Catholic upbringing is showing. There's too much inherent hatred of self in that view for me.
To me it helps in putting some nuance back in. I think there's desire in all male-bonding stories, and that that effectively functions as erotic (involved with compulsion, pleasure, desire, power, sin) if not exactly slashy. There are different kinds of erotic though, is I guess what I'd argue.
I'm not necessarily against self-hatred — though, like self-love and other human things, it can end up in various bad places.
Both [Phaedrus and Socrates] explain Platonic relationships as abstract relationships with beauty/the divine and/or with other people in a nonsexual way."
My damn copy of Symposium is boxed up, so I may have to concede this round to Vom.
But I'll add that nonsexual does not mean non-erotic. It's possible to desire someone because they're beautiful but nevertheless remain chaste. IIRC, Plato argued that the chaste appreciation of beauty in another could be sublimated into an appreciation for Beauty (the divinely inspired Idea).
For what it's worth, I had a hard time understanding what you were trying to communicate until you explained your definition of erotic in the comments. Is your umbrella definition of erotic = all desire, both sexual and non-sexual, a well accepted meaning in literary criticism / philosophy circles, or is it your own construct? I've never seen erotic used in anything but a sexual context. Some of us science types aren't as well read as you liberal art majors :)
Hey Bryan. Nah, I just made it up. I think it's useful though…it sort of clarified some things for me that I've been trying to work through in terms of how Sedgwick and Freud work together, and how that connects up with Christian concepts.
I'm kind of working it through as I go as well, so my thinking may have been clearer in comments than when I wrote the post.