I would like to invite you to think about your day so far and consider which moments felt right to you. Which moments made you feel as if a delicious energy released itself into your body, bursting through your veins outward like a sun scattering its rays, resting as a heating pad within you, spreading a comfortable warmth, refreshing as a cool, wet towel dabbing your forehead on a sweltering day. Profound satisfaction. It can be simple. Perhaps it was the cushions of the sofa embracing you when you got home, or the arms of a lover or friend. Maybe it was the feeling of soft fur against your fingers, when a random street cat allowed for the touch of your hand. The droplets of your morning shower on your face, slowly waking you up. Stepping outside after it has rained, breathing in an air so fresh and earthy. Crafting a mug out of clay with your hands. Kneading dough. Eye contact. Dancing. Trivial as these experiences may seem, they are the manifestations of a deep inner knowing, residing in the trenches. A knowing which may be named: the erotic. The use of the word erotic in this way was coined by Audre Lorde (1934-1992) in her 1978 essay Uses of the Erotic. Lorde was a New York born feminist writer and activist, or as she described herself “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”. For she knew “that the only way you can head people off from using who you are against you is to be honest and open first, to talk about yourself they talk about you.” (Lorde & Rich, 1981, p. 727). Her being a poet was not something she became, rather something she always was, from the day she was pushed out of her mother’s womb and into the world. As a young child, she spoke poetry before she spoke English, often reciting poems in response to the question how she was feeling (Lorde & Rich, 1981, p. 714). Furthermore, she decided to drop the “y” from her first name, because she was so pleased by the look of A U D R E L O R D E : two words, five letters each, ending in the same three. (Lorde, 1982/2018, p. 24).
Lorde defines the erotic as “a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.” (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 54). One way it functions is to underline the capacity for joy and satisfaction, which “does not have to be called marriage, nor god, nor an afterlife (Lorde, 1984/2007, pp. 56-57). She etymologically traces back the roots of the word erotic to Eros, the Greek god of all-encompassing love, which holds the universe together. Lorde’s conception of erotic therefore includes all forms of love and pleasure, not just the ones related to sex. The first time Lorde realised the world could be so beautiful she did not have to imagine the beauty in her writing, was when she was nineteen, walking over a green hill in Mexico, to the sound of a crescendo of birds (Lorde & Rich, 1981, pp. 716-717). Her description of this experience seems to connect the erotic to the poetic, which makes sense, because the beginnings of the thought which is fleshed out in Uses of the Erotic can be found in Poetry Is Not a Luxury, which she wrote one year prior (Lorde, 1984/2007, pp. 36-39). There she states, “For each of us as women, there is a dark place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises,” (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 36). This closely resembles the “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.”, which she describes in Uses of the Erotic (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 53). In reading these quotes, it might seem as if Lorde regarded the erotic as a strictly female thing. However, Gill points out that the focus on women could be (partially) attributed to the audience Uses of the Erotic was first delivered to, which was a conference of (mainly white and heterosexual) women historians (2018, pp. 7-8). Therefore, they propose we should read Lorde’s concept of eros as applicable to as many people as possible, with regard for each individual’s lived experience (Gill, 2018, pp. 7-8). In Poetry Is Not a Luxury, Lorde advocates we should take our (unrecognized) feelings seriously, and not merely rely “upon our ideas to make us free” (1984/2007, p. 37). We should use poetry to “help give name to the nameless so it can be thought” (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 37). In that way we can find knowledge through feeling, and once written down, connect it to the rational and turn it into action (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 37). Furthermore, in an interview with Adrienne Rich, Lorde says she sees feeling and thinking not as a dichotomy, rather they are a “choice of ways and combinations” to reach knowledge and understanding. (1981, pp. 729). Essentially, we should learn to trust the voice in our head that says, “it feels right to me” (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 37). A phrase which “acknowledges the strength of the erotic into a true knowledge, for what that means is the first and most powerful guiding light toward any understanding.” (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 56). Additionally, she says that once we have experienced the intense satisfaction that is the erotic, we know we can aspire to it, and we start to demand it from all aspects of our lives (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 54). We have the responsibility “not to settle for the convenient, (…) nor the merely safe.” (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 57). However, note that this does not mean we should demand the impossible from ourselves, rather we should explore which life endeavours make us able to feel most deeply and fully (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 54). This exploring would be a necessary rebellious act, for all our lives we have been taught to distrust the erotic (Lorde, 1984/2007, pp. 53-54), and separate it from all but the sexual (Lorde, 1984/2007, pp. 53-54), to keep up patriarchal power structures. This suppression makes us confuse the erotic for the sensational, and to fulfil our human need for sharing deep feeling, “we use each other as objects of satisfaction rather than share our joy in the satisfying” (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 59). Instead, we should embrace the erotic together, for “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 lessens the threat of their difference.” (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 56). In The Transformation of Silence Into Language and Action she further elaborates on the importance of connecting across difference, stating we should “not hide behind the mockeries of separations that have been imposed upon us and which so often we accept as our own” (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 43).
In Uses of the Erotic, Lorde critiques the pornographic for emphasising “sensation without feeling” (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 54) and states it is the opposite of the erotic (Lorde, 1984/2007, p. 54). Lorde is not the only feminist critical of pornography. In a 1984 lecture for example, legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon defined pornography as “a civil rights violation” and “a practice of sex discrimination” (MacKinnon, 1987, p.163). Furthermore, MacKinnon theorises about free speech, criticising the First Amendment for overlooking that whole segments of the population are “systematically silenced socially.” (MacKinnon, 1987, p.195). She talks about how “the free speech of men silences the free speech of women” (MacKinnon, 1987, p. 193) and takes from Andrea Dworkin the notion that pornography is the silence of women (MacKinnon, 1987, p.194). This can be related again to Lorde’s The Transformation of Silence in which she encourages people to speak up even though they are afraid, because if they do not speak up, they will still suffer regardless. (Lorde, 1984/2007, pp. 43-44). Nevertheless, Lorde is also critiqued for her erotic/pornographic divide. Many authors have advocated for a more nuanced view of the pornographic. For instance, Ferguson mentions Siobhan Brooks and Mireille Miller-Young, who explore the pornographic through the ethical possibilities of sex-work (2013, p. 299). Apart from pornography, or perhaps in extension, Lorde is also critical of sadomasochism. In an interview in the book Agaist Sadomasochism she states, “SM is not the sharing of power, it is merely a depressing replay of the old and destructive dominant/subordinate mode of human relating and one-sided power” (Lorde & Star, 1982, p. 66). She further says she does not want to tell anyone how to live their lives, but she does think the personal is political and therefore we should subject all aspects of our lives to scrutiny (Lorde & Star, 1982, p. 67). She problematises that even though it is play, SM affirms the domination of powerful over powerless as having erotic and empowering qualities (Lorde & Star, 1982, p. 68) Furthermore, she believes the politics of SM are rooted in our “learned intolerance of differences (…) : superiority and thereby the right to dominate.” (Lorde & Star, 1982, p. 69). Of course, there are also people who call themselves feminists and are simultaneously in favour of SM. Upon analysing the debate, Hopkins (1994, p. 116) proposes a distinction between replicating and simulating the patriarchal power structure. They state that SM can be a heuristic site of sexual subversion (Hopkins, 1994, p. 136) and that the power dichotomy in SM is a playful, simulated one, of which the actors are self-conscious (Hopkins, 1994, p. 135). Simultaneously, they recognise that SM still involves problematic binary structures, essentialism, and identity politics (Hopkins, 1994, p. 136). Bringing it back to Lorde, she advocates for an “underlying integrity (…) in all of our actions” (Lorde & Star, 1982, p. 68), rather than separating life into real and simulation. She asks the important question “who is profiting from this?”, “who profits from lesbians beating each other?” (Lorde & Star, 1982, pp. 68-69).
Lorde inspired people not only when she was still alive. Up to the present day, the ideas articulated in Uses of the Erotic and other works continue to resonate with academics, artists, and activists. Even though Lorde herself stated she does not write theory (Lorde, 1984/2007, introduction by Boreano, p. 8), her work is used in philosophy by many, such as Young (2013, pp. 301-305) who uses Lorde’s prose to teach queer studies, and Gill (2018, p. 10), who reconceptualised the erotic into a “trinity that holds together the political-sensual-spiritual”. Furthermore, she inspired brown (2019, pp. 29-41) to write the book Pleasure Activism, and many others to build communities, such as the Sister Outsider collective in Amsterdam (Frank, 2019), and the Audre Lorde Project in New York (The Audre Lorde Project, n.d.). The erotic is all around, and Lorde (1984/2007, p. 58) said, she felt “no difference between writing a good poem and moving into sunlight against the body of a woman I love.” May her words inspire:
Speak earth and bless me with what is richest
make sky flow honey out of my hips
rigid mountains
spread over a valley
carved out by the mouth of rain.
And I knew when I entered her I was
high wind in her forests hollow
fingers whispering sound
honey flowed
from the split cup
impaled on a lance of tongues
on the tips of her breasts on her navel
and my breath
howling into her entrances
through lungs of pain.
Greedy as herring-gulls
or a child
I swing out over the earth
over and over
again.
(2000, p. 216)
brown, a. m. (2019). Pleasure activism: The politics of feeling good (a. m. brown, Ed.). Ak Press.
In Pleasure Activism, brown has gathered essays, interviews, poems, and tools to guide her readers in their erotic awakening. She aims to inspire them not to settle for less than a fulfilling life and find pleasure in social justice. She covers many topics such as race, gender, the climate crisis, sex-work, and drugs. Drawing on insights from other feminist thinkers, such as Audre Lorde, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Cara Page, Joan Morgan, and Sonya Renee Taylor, she investigates the relations between politics and pleasure. The chapter which relates most strongly to Lorde and the erotic is ‘The Legacy of “Uses of the Erotic”’ (pp. 29-41).
Ferguson, R. A. (2013). Of sensual matters: On Audre Lorde’s “Poetry is Not a Luxury” and “Uses of the Erotic.” WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 40(3-4), 295–300. https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2013.0017
Ferguson analyses Lorde’s Poetry Is Not a Luxury and Uses of the Erotic and places them into the context of their time. For instance, they situate the texts within a historical moment of renewed attention to the self, the senses, and affect as tools for social transformation. Furthermore, they connect Uses of the Erotic to Cixous’ Laugh of the Medusa, seeing them both as part of an international conversation about (female) sexuality as a form of knowledge. Finally, they discuss revisions of Lorde’s distinction between the erotic and the pornographic.
Frank, C. (2019). Sister outsider and Audre Lorde in the Netherlands: On transnational queer feminisms and archival methodological practices. Feminist Review, 121(1), 9–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/0141778918818753
Frank explores the role of archives within transnational feminist research, from the starting point of the transnational feminist encounter that occurred between Audre Lorde and the Sister Outsider collective in the Netherlands, in the 1980s. They consider the ‘absences’ and ‘presences’ that are present in various archives and prose a new research method based on orientation, listening, and intervention.
Gill, L. K. (2018). Erotic islands: Art and activism in the queer caribbean. Duke University Press.
In Erotic Islands, Gill explores the history of queer presence in the Carribean context. They talk, for instance about calypso, Carnival and HIV in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is strongly tied to Lorde’s Uses of the Erotic, for the book centers around an extension of the erotic into the intertwined political-sensual-spiritual. Furthermore, Gill discusses queer artistry and activism.
Hopkins, P. D. (1994). Rethinking sadomasochism: Feminism, interpretation, and simulation. Hypatia, 9(1), 116–141. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1994.tb00112.x
Hopkins re-examines the debate between radical feminists and feminist sadomasochists, in which radical feminists are against sadomasochism, arguing it replicates problematic patriarchal hierarchies. In this paper, Hopkins sets up a distinction between simulating and replicating dominant/submissive hierarchies, arguing the radical feminist opposition to sadomasochism needs to be reconsidered.
Lorde, A. (2000). The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. W. W. Norton & Company.
This collection of poems by Audre Lorde brings together all of her main poetry publications, including The First Cities (1968), Cables to Rage (1970), From a Land Where Other People Live (1973), New York Head Shop and Museum (1974), Coal (1976), Between Our Selves (1976), The Black Unicorn (1978), Chosen Poems: Old and New (1982), Our Dead Behind Us (1986), and The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance (1993).
The poem I cite in the keyword chapter comes from New York Head Shop, but it was supposed to be in From a Land Where Other People Live. However, because of the poem’s explicit queerness, the publisher did not want to publish it.
Lorde, A. (with Clarke, C.). (2007). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches (N. K. Boreano, Ed.). Crossing Press. (Original work published 1984)
Sister Outsider is a collection of essays and other writings by Lorde, many of which were previously published through other outlets. From this collection I used Poetry Is Not a Luxury, The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, and Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.
Poetry Is Not a Luxury was first published in 1977 in Chrysalis: A Mag¬azine of Female Cultures as Poems Are Not Luxuries. In the essay Lorde talks about poetry as a means to express feeling, and access inner knowledge. She states it is a necessity for women, for it is the first step to putting our hopes and dreams into action.
Transforming Silence into Language and Action was delivered at the Modern Language Associationʼs “Lesbian and Literature Panel,” Chicago, Illinois, December 28, 1977, and it was first published in Sinister Wisdom 6 (1978) and The Cancer Journals (Spinsters, Ink, San Francisco, 1980). In it, Lorde talks about her experience with breast cancer, connecting across differences, and famously, that being silent will not protect us.
Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power was delivered on August 25, 1978, as part of the Fourth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women hosted by Mount Holyoke College in western Massachusetts. Furthermore, it was published as a pamphlet by Out & Out Books. This text is the one this keyword chapter sparks from, and in it Lorde discusses the erotic as a deep inner source of power, which can provide us with the energy we need to pursue genuine change in the world.
Lorde, A. (2018). Zami : A new spelling of my name. Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1982)
Zami is a biomythography, combining history, biography and myth. Therefore, the book is loosely based upon Lorde’s own life, starting at childhood and following her into adult life. A red thread is the women in Lorde’s life and how they have shaped her.
Lorde, A., & Rich, A. (1981). An interview with Audre Lorde. Signs, 6(4), 713–736. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173739
Lorde is interviewed by Adrienne Rich, fellow feminist writer and, at one point in time, romantic partner. The interview kicks off with the statement that Poetry Is Not a Luxury and Transforming Silence into Language and Action are progressions, part of something unfinished. Furthermore, they discuss Lorde’s childhood, her inclination to write poetry, rationality and intuition, and many more themes in Lorde’s writing. This interview was later also included in Sister Outsider (1984).
Lorde, A., & Star, S. L. (1982). Interview with Audre Lorde. In R. R. Linden, D. R. Pagano, D. E. H. Russel, & S. L. Star (Eds.), Against sadomasochism: A radical feminist analysis (pp. 66–71). Frog in the Well.
In this interview Lorde critiques sadomasochism for reproducing problematic dominant/submissive hierarchies. From her perspective, simulating a power dynamic can never be decoupled from the power dynamics that exist ‘in real life’, outside of the bedroom, for what happens inside the bedroom is part of real life. The book Against Sadomasochism in which the interview was printed is a collection of feminist critiques of sadomasochism, featuring famous thinkers such as Judith Butler and Alice Walker.
MacKinnon, C. A. (1987). Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law. Harvard University Press.
MacKinnon is a feminist legal scholar who focuses on the exploitation of women, including harassment, rape, sex-trafficking, and pornography. In the text I reference chapter fourteen: Francis Biddle’s Sister: Pornography, Civil Rights, and Speech, which was delivered on April 5, 1984, as a lecture at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, she discusses how pornography is a practice of sex discrimination. Furthermore, she critiques the First Amendment, and asks the question whose speech is meant when we say ‘free speech’ should be protected.
The Audre Lorde Project. (n.d.). About ALP. Retrieved May 29, 2023, from https://alp.org/about
The Audre Lorde Project (ALP) is a Community Organising Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color Communities. It was set up in 1994 by gay men of colour, who were advocating for HIV policies. Today, the project strives for social and economic justice and community wellness, using tacticts of education, mobilization and capacity-building. They are committed to connecting across differences, and value community reflection.
Young, N. (2013). “Uses of the erotic” for teaching queer studies. WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 40(3-4), 301–305. https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2013.0023
Young describes how she uses Lorde’s concepts in her queer theory tutorials. Like Lorde, she is transparent with her students about her own identity and encourages students to do the same. Through sharing personal experiences, the students learn from and with one another.
How is the erotic present in your personal life and the lives of the people around you? What have you realised through reading Uses of the Erotic? (How) has it changed you? And have you made any changes in your life because of it?
How does the erotic relate to gender? Is the erotic something only women have, or can men and non-binary people access it as well? And how does it relate to transness and gender fluidity?
Lorde said she writes poetry, not theory, yet many of her works are now used in a theoretical and academic way. Why would Lorde have said this? What is the connection between poetry and theory, when does one become the other and what is the connection to écriture feminine?
Lorde, MacKinnon and many other feminists have been critical of pornography for being misogynist. However, there have been attempts to create pornography specifically for women. Is that type of pornography feminist? Does feminist pornography exist at all? And could there be such a thing as erotic pornography?
Relating to Lorde’s critique of sadomasochism: What would sadomasochists themselves think about the question: Who is profiting from this?
How does the erotic relate to age? Is the erotic easier to access as you get older, or more difficult? And how do different generations experience the erotic? Do baby boomers, millennials and gen-Z’ers experience the erotic differently?