Aphrodite's Girdle

Aphrodite's Girdle, contributed by Mary Metzer to

The Museum of Fictional Literary Artifacts [1]

 

 

I. 

 

The girdle has a long, long history, reaching back into an ancient time that fashion historians term BP (Before Playtex). 

 

Perhaps the most famous girdle of all was one said to have been worn by Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love - although whether it was recognisably a girdle in the modern sense is debatable [2]. 

 

According to Homer, the girdle was imbued with the magical power to arouse desire in mortals and gods alike [3]. Thus, it can legitimately be regarded as an erotic accessory rather than merely a garment worn for practical reasons; Aphrodite, one assumes, didn't require any help maintaining her shape.  

The same might not be true of Hera, who had a fuller, more matronly figure and sometimes borrowed the girdle from Aphrodite when looking for a little extra something in order to capture the attentions of her husband (and brother) Zeus [4]. 

 

 

II. 

 

Interestingly, later authors claim that Aphrodite also lent her embroidered girdle to Helen, to ensure that Paris would succumb to her natural charms. 

 

But Aphrodite was always keen to have the item returned to her as soon as possible, however, and the 18th-century German poet and playwright Schiller explains why that is so in his long philosophical essay On Grace and Dignity (1793) [5]. 

According to Schiller, Aphrodite - or Venus as he prefers to call her in the Roman manner - can be stripped naked and still remain beautiful; but without her girdle she lacks grace - and without grace she is no longer so alluring. 

 

In other words, even a naturally beautful woman is desexualised the moment she is stripped naked; something that Roland Barthes picks up on in his essay on striptease in Mythologies. 

 

Ultimately, it's the clothes and jewellery and make-up - "in short the whole spectrum of adornment" [6] that give the living flesh its erotic fascination and places the body within the realm of luxurious objects.

   

 

Notes

 

[1] The Museum of Fictional Literary Artifacts is an amusing digital project created by students at Dakota State University. The aim is to establish an online archive of imaginary objects that might - had they been actual things - have been sought after by collectors. The MFLA houses a vast number of such artifacts found in all genres of literary work, from novels to comic books. For more details, please click here.  

 

[2] The Girdle of Aphrodite has variously been imagined as a strap, a belt, or a breast-band rather than a girdle as we might think of it today in a post-Playtex world of rubber. Whatever it was, Aphrodite's girdle has been a popular theme in the arts and literature of Europe, particularly during the Baroque and Neoclassical periods.  

 

[3] See Homer, Iliad 14: 159-221. Homer. An English translation of the full text by A.T. Murray can be found on the Perseus Digital Library: click here to read Book 14.

 

[4] Theirs was not what you might call a happy marriage; she may have found him agreeable at first - just as he found her sexually attractive - but their relationship is marked by infidelity, jealousy, and violence. 

 

[5] Über Anmut und Würde (1793) is an attempt to reconcile aesthetics and ethics based upon the philosophy of  Immanuel Kant. For Schiller, the trick is to synthesise the physical and spiritual nature of man and thus produce a beautiful soul. An English translation of this essay by George Gregory can be read as a pdf online via the Schiller Institute website: click here.

 

[6] Roland Barthes, 'Sriptease', in Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers, (The Noonday Press, 1991), p. 85.   

 

  

On Suzy Kendall, Tuesday Weld, and the Curious Sex Appeal of Dudley Moore

Dudley Moore, Suzy Kendall & Tuesday Weld

 

"Dudley possessed a pagan, almost Pan-like ability to attract women." 

                                                                               - Jonathan Miller

 

I. 

 

Other than the fact that he was funny and highly talented, the thing I admire about diminutive Oxford-educated Essex boy Dudley Moore [1] was that he had an excellent eye for the ladies - four of whom he even married, including two that I'd like to speak of here: Suzy Kendall and Tuesday Weld ... [2]

 

II.

 

Suzy Kendall is one of those beautiful blonde British actresses best known for her film and TV roles in the late 1960s and early 1970s [3]. 

 

I remember her fondly, for example, as Kay Hunter in an episode of The Persuaders! entitled 'The Man in the Middle' (dir. Leslie Norman, 1971), which also co-starred Terry-Thomas as Brett's cousin Archibald Sinclair Beachum: click here to watch her first scene alongside Roger Moore and Frank Maher. 

 

Born in Derbyshire in 1937, Kendall was an art student turned fabric designer turned photographic model, before finally becoming established as an actress - not just in the UK, but in Italy also, where she appeared in several giallo films [4]. 

 

Kendall married Dudley Moore in 1968 and although they divorced just four years later, she remained close friend's with Moore until his death in 2002; she even hosted his memorial service.    

 

Having retired from acting in 1977, Kendall made a return to the big screen in 2012 as a special guest screamer in the (giallo-inspired) psychological horror film Berberian Sound Studio, directed by Peter Strickland and set in a 1970s Italian horror film studio.

 

 

III.

 

Tuesday Weld is a beautiful blonde American actress, born 1943, who began acting as a young girl and progressed to adult roles in the 1950s. The name Tuesday - which she officially adopted in 1959 - was an extension of a childhood nickname (Tu-Tu) and doesn't reflect the fact she's full of grace.

 

Weld often played impulsive and reckless young women acting out sexually; at least that's how I remember her - as a bit of a rock 'n' roller, with curves and attitude [5]. Danny Kaye, who played her father in The Five Pennies (1959), described her as 'fifteen going on twenty-seven' and so she was perfectly cast the following year as Jody in the classic comedy Sex Kittens Go to College (1960) [6].

 

Interestingly, like Suzy Kendall, Weld once acted alongside Terry-Thomas [7]. But the main thing these two women had in common was that they both accepted a proposal of marriage from Dudley Moore; Weld tied the knot with the latter on 20 September, 1975, and they had a son the following year. Sadly, they divorced in 1980 (though Weld received a generous financial settlement, plus alimony and child support). 

 

Newly single, Weld enjoyed the attentions of some of Hollywood's leading male actors including Al Pacino, Omar Sharif, Richard Gere, and Ryan O'Neal, before eventually marrying husband number three, in 1985 (an Israeli violinist and conductor whom she divorced in 2001). 

 

Meanwhile, away from the romantic rollercoaster she seemed trapped upon, Weld's acting career continued to blossom and she won the critical acclaim of her peers throughtout the 1970s and 80s [8]. She retired from acting in 2001, having given over 45 years of her life to the profession (which is long enough to give to anything). 

 

IV.

So, returning to Dudley Moore ... What was it about him that women such as Suzy Kendall and Tuesday Weld found so attractive? 

For Moore was a man acutely aware of his own inferiority; the fact that he was only 5' 2" tall and had a club foot was something about which he remained self-conscious throughout his life. But he was still regarded as a sexually charismatic figure and perhaps this demonstrates that if you are intelligent and can make a woman laugh, then physical limitations don't matter ...?

 

Or perhaps it shows that if you combine confidence with a certain vulnerability - and then openly profess a desire and a need to be loved - you'll soon have women eating out of your hand ...?

 

But then again, it could simply be that having international movie stardom and millions of dollars in the bank pretty much enables you to fuck whoever you want ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Dudley Moore (1935-2002) was an English actor, comedian, musician and composer, who first came to prominence (alongside Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, and Peter Cook with whom he formed a hugely popular and influential double act) as a leading figure in the British satire boom of the 1960s. He later achieved big-screen success in Hollywood; including a role in one of my favourite Goldie Hawn pictures, Foul Play (dir. Colin Higgins, 1978), about which I have written here. 

 

[2] Moore was married (and divorced) four times: to actresses Suzy Kendall (1968-1972); Tuesday Weld (1975-1980); Brogan Lane (1988-1991); and Nicole Rothschild (1994-1998). In writing here of only the first two women, I mean no disrespect to Lane and Rothschild. 

 

[3] Other actresses who might be categorised in this manner include Susan George and Juliet Harmer - both of whom, like Kendall, appeared in an episode of The Persuaders!

 

[4] In Italian cinema parlance, giallo refers a genre of murder mystery movie combining elements of sex, horror, and psychological suspense in order to create a unique form of violent thriller. The genre developed in the mid-1960s and peaked in popularity during the 1970s. It was a predecessor to - and a significant influence upon - the later American genre of film known as the slasher movie.  

 

[5] Weld played alongside Elvis in Wild in the Country (dir. Philip Dunne, 1962) and had a brief off-screen romance with Presley.

 

[6] Click here to watch the official trailer. Stanley Kubrick was so impressed by her performance in Sex Kittens Go to College, that he selected Weld as his first choice for the role of Lolita in his 1962 film adaptation of Nobokov's notorious novel. Weld, however, turned the offer down, explaining that she was already living the part so didn't need to play it on screen.  

 

[7] Weld and Terry-Thomas star together in Bachelor Flat (dir. Frank Tashlin, 1962).

 

[8] Weld was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in the 1972 movie Play It as It Lays (dir. Frank Perry); for an Academy Award for her role in the 1977 movie Looking for Mr. Goodbar (dir. Richard Brooks); and, finally, for a BAFTA for her role in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America (1984). 

 

 

Notes on the Sex Appeal of Belly Dancing (With Reference to the Case of Johara)

Ekaterina Andreeva (aka Johara)
Seems like a nice girl ...

I have to admit that, unlike Flaubert, I'm not a great fan of Eastern dance - or, as it is commonly known, belly dancing [1]. It's too obscenely sensual for my tastes I'm afraid and always makes me think of that old expression about jelly and jam.

Having said that, I quite like the costumes that some of the young women wear [2] and have no objection to them wiggling, wriggling and jiggling across a dance floor in order to earn a living if that's what they want to do. It clearly requires skill and discipline and performers deserve to be recognised as professional artistes continuing a long tradition of shimmy and shake.       

Although this style of dancing is found across the Arab world, Egypt has a special claim to be the home of belly dancing and the modern form (and modern outfits) originated in the nightclubs of Cairo. Many of the performers, however, are non-native; despite concerns that foreign-born dancers lack authenticity and didn't fully appreciate the folk traditions associated with the dance.

Unfortunately, as a more conservative form of Islam has taken hold across the Middle East in the contemporary period, dancers - as well as other female performers, including singers and actresses - have increasingly been villified by the authorities on the grounds that their immodest displays of flesh are haram.

In Egypt, for example, there are strict laws in place governing what dancers can and cannot wear; can and cannot do. Whether they wear a traditional bedlah or a more modern dress design with mesh-filled cutouts, is up to them. But they must cover their lower bodies, breasts and stomachs and retain their modesty (including modesty of movement and gesture) at all times.

Many dancers in Cairo ignore these rules, however, and they are rarely enforced. Having said that, there are multiple instances of foreign dancers being arrested - which brings us to the case of Russian-born Ekaterina Andreeva, known by the stage name Johara, meaning Jewel, who has been sentenced to a year behind bars in an Egyptian jail after she was filmed giving a performance which, the authorities claim, incited debauchery.

Not only was she said to be working without a licence, but, worse, she was clearly dancing without underwear! The ruling follows a video clip of her performance - on a boat sailing along the Nile - going viral and gaining her a large global following on social media: click here.         

Obviously, she's expected to appeal the sentence. And obviously I hope Miss Andreeva's conviction will be quashed. Though, equally obvious, is the fact that her performance is sexually provocative - what would be the point of belly dancing if it were not erotically charged? 

Not that there's anything wrong with that ... Indeed, I'm tempted to remind readers of Lawrence's view that sex and beauty are essentially one and the same thing, like flame and fire: "If you hate sex you hate beauty. If you love living beauty, you have a reverence for sex." [3] 

The greatest disaster that can befall any civilisation is a morbid fear of the body, its forces, its flows, its mysterious openings, and its desires. For this causes the instinctive-intuitive life within us to slowly atrophy. What we call sex appeal is really just the communicating of a sense of beauty and it will always invoke an answer of some kind:    

"It may only kindle a sense of warmth and optimism. Then you say: I like that girl, she's a real good sort. It may kindle a glow, that makes the world look kindlier, and life feel better. Then you say: She's an attractive woman, by Jove, I like her. Or she may rouse a flame that lights up her own face first, before it lights up the universe. Then you say: She's a lovely woman. She looks lovely to me. Let's say no more."

I'll let readers decide for themselves what level of heat Miss Andreeva produces and whether the fire of sex that she rouses is pure and fine, or something of which we should be ashamed ... 

Notes

[1] The term, belly dance, is a translation of the French danse du ventre, coined by an art critic in response to a controversial painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme entitled La danse de l'almée (1863). The picture is a classic example of pervy Orientalism, depicting a woman dancing, accompanied by musicians, before an audience of soldiers sitting with their legs spread in a fantasy setting. Eventually, this term came to be used for all dances of Middle Eastern origin in which a woman displayed her charms. It first entered into English in 1889.

[2] The costume most commonly associated with belly dance is the bedlah, which typically includes a fitted top or bra, a hip belt, and a full-length skirt or harem pants. The bra and belt are often decorated with beads, sequins, crystals, or coins. The modern bedlah style which originated in the early twentieth-century, is an amusing example of (Arabic) life imitating (Western) art, in as much as it took inspiration from Hollywood. I suspect my own forndness for the harem-look is due to childhood memories of Barbara Eden in I dream of Jeannie. 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Sex Appeal', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), lines quoted are on pp. 145 and 147. 

It's important to note that Lawrence doesn't always approve of women exploiting their sex appeal: "There is, of course, the other side of sex appeal - it can be the destruction of the one appealed to. When a woman starts using her sex appeal for her own advantage, it is usually a bad moment for some poor devil." [148] Such thinking - clearly sexist in character - is unfortunate; as is his branding of these women as prostitutes and vamps.     

See also 'Pornography and Obscenity' in the above collection of essays and articles, where Lawrence develops his notion of sex appeal and admits "No matter how hard we may pretend otherwise, most of us rather like a moderate rousing of our sex. It warms us, stimulates us like sunshine on a grey day." [239] Those who deny this and are genuinely repelled by even the simplest and most natural stirring of sexual feeling, are, he says, perverts and puritans "who have fallen into hatred of their fellow men" [239]. That nicely sums up the theocratic morons who have brought the case against Miss Andreeva. 
 
To watch Johara doing her thing in another video on YouTube, click here.

This post is dedicated to my favourite Arab girl about town, Nahla Al-Ageli, creator and writer of the wonderful online journal Nahla Ink.

Notes on the Sexy, Secret, Stereotyped World of the Secretary

Select her carefully and she'll prove the loveliest 

and most valuable of all fringe benfits. - Helen Gurley Brown

I. 

As Derrida notes, the rise of the personal computer has made the figure of the secretary structurally redundant. Only those who wish to continue marking "the authority of their position" still insist on hiring a secretary, even when they could quite easily do the work themselves on their laptop. 

Why should that be? 

Well, partly, it's a sign of status to sit behind a machine-free desk and reconstitute the old-fashioned boss-secretary relationship, passing over hand-written notes to by typed, or dictating whilst some bright young thing practises her shorthand. As Derrida says, power in the workplace has to be mediated, if not delegated, in order to (be seen to) exist.

But, there's also something else going on; something to do with desire and the way in which it infiltrates and directly invests even the most formal and professional of workplaces as a kind of productive energy. 

The fact is, argue Deleuze and Guattari, sexuality is everywhere - not least in the offices and boardrooms of big business. It's in the way a bureaucrat fondles the files; an accountant analyses the financial data; and it's there in the relationship between a male boss and his female secretary ...          

Never shy of discussing sexual politics, D. H. Lawrence naturally had something to say about all this. In an article first published in the Sunday Dispatch in November 1928, Lawrence writes:    

"The business-man's pretty and devoted secretary is still chiefly valuable because of her sex appeal. Which does not imply 'immoral relations' in the slightest. Even today, a girl with a bit of generosity likes to feel she is helping a man, if the man will take her help. And this desire that he shall take her help is her sex appeal. It is the genuine fire, if of a very mediocre heat. Still, it serves to keep the world of 'business' alive. Probably, but for the introduction of the lady secretary into the business-man's office, the business-man would have collapsed entirely by now. She calls up the the sacred fire in her, and she communicates it to her boss. He feels an added flow of energy and optimism, and - business flourishes. That is perhaps the best result of sex appeal today - business flourishes."

I think that's a pretty astonishing passage for several reasons (not necessarily all the right reasons). For one thing, it anticipates Deleuze and Guattari's analysis in Anti-Oedipus - as it does Helen Gurley Brown's claim in Sex and the Single Girl that office romances have a positive effect on performance and productivity. For not only will a man up his game when trying to impress a woman, but a girl in love with her boss will exhaust herself 24/7 and still wish there was more she could do to help. 

 

II.

The term secretary is derived from the Latin secernere and has connotations of something private or confidential (the English word secret has the same etymological root). A secretarius was someone, therefore, who discreetly handled the personal (or business) affairs of a powerful individual. Over time, whilst the duties of the secretary have varied and expanded, essentially the role has remained the same.

In 1870, Sir Isaac Pitman founded his famous school for would-be secretaries. Originally, much like the profession itself, it only admitted male students. But with the invention of the typewriter more and more women began to train as secretaries and by 1919 the role was primarily associated with the fairer sex. 

The period between 1945 and 1980 can probably be regarded as the golden age of the secretary. After this date, new technology and new office politics increasingly saw the role decline or transform. Secretaries became office managers, or personal assistants, or, indeed, bosses themselves and the work place became a boring, sterile environment: no fags, no booze, no flirting, no fun. 

Obviously, no one wants to write in support of sexual discrimination or sexual harassment. But, I have to admit that I find the new puritanism and political correctness just as concerning. Over the last fifty years our attitude towards the erotics of the workplace has moved from bawdy delight and Benny Hill to stern disapproval and the Time's Up movement.

Glancing down blouses and upskirts, making risqué remarks and double entendres, is now strictly forbidden or even legislated against. Some companies, apparently, have even introduced solemn love contracts for employees to sign, outlining what is and is not appropriate behaviour and who they can and cannot date.

It's all a very long way from the world of Mad Men. And if, in many respects, that's a good thing, in some ways it's a bit of a pity, because, as indicated earlier, some men and women work better and with real joy when they feel themselves attractive and subject to the charged flow of desire. Lawrence writes:

"If only our civilisation had taught us how to let sex appeal flow properly and subtly, how to keep the fire of sex clear and alive, flickering or glowing or blazing in all its varying degrees of strength and communication, we migh all of us have lived [and worked] all our lives in love, which means kindled and full of zest, in all kinds of ways and for all kinds of things. Whereas what  a lot of dead ash there is to life now!"  

Notes 

Jacques Derrida, 'The Word Processor', Paper Machine,  trans. Rachel Bowlby, (Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 29-30. Click here to read online.

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, (University of Minnesota Press, 1983), p. 293.

Helen Gurley Brown, Sex and the Single Girl, (Bernard Geis Associates, 1962).

D. H. Lawrence, "Sex Appeal', Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 147-48.

See also: Julie Berebitsky, Sex and the Office: A History of Gender, Power, and Desire, (Yale University Press, 2012), which offers a more critical and in-depth analysis on this subject than I've been able to offer here. 

Click here to view George Costanza's (failed) attempt to do the right thing and stay out of trouble when hiring a secretary in the Season 6 episode of Seinfeld entitled 'The Secretary', dir. David Owen Trainor, written by Carol Leifer and Marjorie Gross (original air date 8 Dec 1994). 

And click here to view the trailer for the 2002 film Secretary, dir. Steven Shainberg, starring James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal, screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson based on the short story (of the same title) by Mary Gaitskill.

Gerontophilia: Notes on Beautiful Old Age

Carmen Dell'Orefice

Beautiful young women are freaks of nature; beautful old women are works of art.

Although I wouldn't identify as a gerontophile, I can certainly see the attraction of the older person - or even the much older person (especially if that older person happens to look like Carmen Dell'Orefice).   

D. H. Lawrence writes of men and women who have ripened like apples, "full of the peace that comes of experience / and wrinkled ripe fulfilment". That's the secret of their loveliness, he says.

However, I think we might challenge this vision of what constitutes the beauty of old age. For it's a vision that perpetuates myths of passivity and sexlessness: old people are soothing, says Lawrence, "and dim with the soft / stillness and satisfaction of autumn".

One only seeks out an elderly partner, he suggests, "when one is tired of love".

Lawrence seems to find it inconceivable that people of mature years may possibly want more and offer more than slippers and cocoa; that there are, in fact, many sexually active and sexually desirable individuals in their sixties, seventies and beyond.           

To be honest, it's a little surprising to find Lawrence peddling this line of thought. For not only was he himself married to an older woman with an insatiable libido, but in an article written around the same time as his poem 'Beautiful Old Age', Lawrence insists:

"We all have the fire of sex slumbering or burning inside us. If we live to be ninety, it is still there. [...] In youth it flickers and shines; in age it glows softer and still, but there it is."   

His position on this question - as on so many others - is therefore fluid and ambiguous.

My own position is that anything that counters our culture's marginalisation and infantalisation of senior citizens and not only protects but promotes and advances elder rights is a good thing.     

Notes

D. H. Lawrence, 'Beautiful Old Age', The Poems, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Vol. I, p. 437.

D. H. Lawrence, 'Sex Appeal', Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 143-48. 

I might have chosen to say more about gerontophilia, but, unfortunately, the reserach data is almost non-existent - even Kinsey can't help us here. I'm not sure why this is so, but perhaps it's related to the fact that unlike some other forms of paraphilia - such as paedophilia, for example - gerontophilia has never been regarded as a problematic mental disorder. Indeed, as one commentator points out, gerontophiles find themselves in a category of deviancy that usually lends itself to mockery rather than moral panic. See: Jesse Bering, Perv: The Sexual Deviant In All Of Us, (Scientific American / Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2013).

Those intrigued by this topic might be interested in the romantic comedy-drama Gerontophilia, (dir. Bruce LaBruce, 2013), which tells the story of a young man who takes a job in a nursing home and develops an attraction to an elderly resident in the facility. Click here, to watch the trailer. 

For a related post to this one on elder rights and ageivism, click here.

D. H. Lawrence and E. M. Cioran on Sex Appeal and the Beauty of Flames

Image: Desktop Nexus

I. Sex on Fire 

Just as for Lawrence sex and beauty are one and the same thing, so too is being something he always conceives in terms of fire, or what he calls the god-flame, burning in all things. Indeed, Lawrence ultimately conflates terms so that his erotico-aesthetic and ontological speculations form a unified metaphysics.

Thus it is, for example, that Mellors characterises his illicit relationship with Connie in terms of a little forked flame that they fucked into being.

And thus it is that Lawrence asserts in a late article that whilst he doesn't quite know what sex is, he's certain that it must be some sort of fire: "For it always communicates a sense of warmth, of glow. And when the glow becomes a pure shine, then we feel the sense of beauty."

This communicating of warmth and beauty is what Lawrence understands by the term sex appeal, something which he believes to be a universal human quality and not just something belonging to the young and conventionally attractive. In a typically Lawrentian passage, he writes:

"We all have the fire of sex slumbering or burning inside us. If we live to be ninety, it is still there. Or, if it dies, we become one of those ghastly living corpses which are unfortunately becoming more numerous in the world.

      Nothing is more ugly than a human being in whom the fire of sex had gone out. You get a nasty clayey creature whom everybody wants to avoid.

      But while we are fully alive, the fire of sex smoulders or burns in us. In youth it flickers and shines; in age it glows softer and stiller, but there it is." 

I quite like this (re)definition of a golem as a human being in whom the fire of sex has been extinguished and who communicates only a cold, ugly deadness (unfair and as meaningless as it may be). 

And I like the idea of fire calling to fire and of sex appeal kindling a sense of joyful warmth and optimism. Lawrence is right, the loveliness of a really lovely woman in whom the sex fire burns pure and fine not only lights up her whole being, but transforms the entire universe. Such a woman - extremely rare even in a world of numerous good-looking girls and cosmetic enhancement - is an experience.  

Lawrence concludes:

"If only our civilization had taught us how to let sex appeal flow properly and subtly, how to keep the fire of sex clear and alive, flickering or flowing or blazing in all its varying degrees of strength and communication, we might, all of us, have lived all our lives in love, which means we should be kindled and full of zest in all kinds of ways and for all kinds of things …

      Whereas, what a lot of dead ash there is in life now."

II. Light My Fire

I don't know if Romanian philosopher E. M. Cioran read Lawrence when young - his obsessions led him towards German and French thinkers, rather than English novelists - but there are certainly quasi-Lawrentian resonances in his early work for those of us familiar with the writings of Lawrence.

Thus, like Lawrence, Cioran was interested in love in all its forms, particularly the concrete and monogamous love between man and woman which he took to be the quintessential form; not only in its sexual aspect, but as a "rich network of affective states". Love, born not of suffering, but of sincere generosity, is what Cioran most cherishes.

And, like Lawrence, Cioran ties his idea of love to beauty, being, and to fire. Man's sensitivity to beauty, he writes, intensifies as he approaches the joy that love brings. And in beauty "all things find their justification, their raison d'être".

Further, beauty allows us to conceive of things as things and to accept existence as is: "To place the world under the sign of beauty is to assert that it is as it should be [...] even the negative aspects of existence do nothing but increase its glory and its charm." This, of course, is a profoundly Nietzschean as well as a Lawrentian idea.

Beauty, concludes Cioran, may not bring salvation, "but it will bring us closer to happiness" and to the point where we can make a total affirmation of life. And what is more beautiful than the nakedness of flames, dancing in darkness:

"Their diaphanous flare symbolizes at once grace and tragedy, innocence and despair, sadness and voluptuousness. [...] The beauty of flames creates the illusion of a pure, sublime death similar to the light of dawn."

It's not only moths, it appears, that are transfixed by candlelight and dream of a fiery climax to their lives ...

Notes

D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1983). See the famous letter from Mellors to Connie with which Lawrence closes the novel.

D. H. Lawrence, 'Sex Appeal', Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Often known as 'Sex Versus Loveliness', this article can be read online by clicking here. 

E. M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair, trans. Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston, (the University of Chicago Press, 1992). See: 'Enthusiasm as a Form of Love' (75), 'The Beauty of Flames' (88), and 'Beauty's Magic Tricks' (119). All lines quoted above from Cioran are taken from these three sections.

Readers interested in earlier posts that compare and contrast Lawrence's work with that of Cioran on questions to do with becoming-animal and becoming-ash, can click here and here.

Musical bonus #1: click here. Musical bonus #2: click here. I must admit that I don't much care for either of these (hugely overrated) songs, but readers of a more hippie-persuasion will doubtless enjoy listening to them once more.    

On the Joy of Flirting and the Experience of Beauty

 Ayaan Hirsi Ali

 

Flirting is one of the great joys of life, which, regardless of intent, is always an innocent form of sexual play at the level of language and gesture; by this, I mean it lacks the consciously cruel and manipulative aspects of teasing.  

People who do not know how to flirt are like those who do not know how to laugh; they lack that insouciance which is so lovely in wild animals and flowering plants and in men and women who intuitively understand the mystery of beauty.

 

For beauty, ultimately, is the key thing: when we flirt, we communicate the happiness that arises out of an experience of beauty. We find others sexy and appealing when we find them beautiful. But, as Lawrence rightly argues, living beauty is not a fixed pattern or a conventional look which comes ready-made or photoshopped. This is why even the most skilled cosmetic surgeons fail to produce a truly beautiful face, despite an almost perfect arrangement of features. And this is why there's nothing flirtatious about a sex doll.

Because beauty is something felt and something which can be shared with others, even the plainest person can be beautiful and flirt successfully. On the other hand, even the most attractive person in the room can seem ugly and undesirable when they lack the warm glow of beauty and don't know how to communicate joy. Only when the sex-glow is missing, writes Lawrence, do people move in ugly coldness like "one of those ghastly living corpses which are unfortunately becoming more numerous in the world ... and whom everybody wants to avoid".

Today, it takes a rare woman to genuinely rouse a sense of loveliness; and a rare man to have the courage to respond to her loveliness and to flirt in a spirit that is neither lewd nor crude, but generous and playfully tender, with perhaps just a touch of irony. Luckily, however, there is an example of such to be found on YouTube and involves a very touching and amusing public encounter between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Christopher Hitchens; he full of old school charm and she smiling and giggling in an almost coquettish manner.

Perhaps, as well as everything else, flirting is an important sign of freedom ...

Notes: 

Readers interested in viewing the encounter between Hitch and the very beautiful Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, on Feb 13 2007, should click here.

The line quoted from D. H. Lawrence can be found in the article 'Sex Appeal', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 146.