I just finished reading Dagmar Herzog's article "Pleasure, Sex and Politics Belong Together: Post-Holocaust Memory and the Sexual Revolution in West Germany," (Critical Inquiry, Vol. 24, No. 2, Intimacy (Winter 1998), 393-444.)
I'm swimming in the impression it has left behind--so much so that I don’t want to do my other reading for class. I fear that this one will lose its position of mental and emotional primacy, and I’m not ready to let go of it just yet.
I have to ask myself why this article has struck me in such a peculiar way. I'd venture to guess it’s because "sex" in general and my own sex life in particular have occupied an overwhelming portion of my thoughts as of late. I'm steeped in self-analysis, and besieged by obsessive musings on Narc, on the Stallion, on my failed relationship with B, on my intermittent promiscuity and on my hopes for a successful relationship in the future. And as I fall further into the tangled recesses of my brain, I realize that it’s not with whom I'm having sex that rankles me, but rather it's the nature of those sexual encounters that I find disquieting. I observe myself frequently engaged in sexual relationships that are harmful to me either emotionally or physically. Far from removing myself from these situations, I've come to embrace them with a strange sort of satisfaction--one that I desperately wish would dissipate.
You've probably noticed by now (either through this blog, or through knowing me in person) that I have a bit of a penchant for pain. However, it’s not one that I wholeheartedly embrace. As a "modern" woman and a "feminist," my masochism in relationships has always been a source of personal shame and guilt. But it's a strange sort of guilt—not one that stems from a moral transgression per say, but rather, it's more of a "political guilt." The closest thing I can liken it to is the sort of "leftist-bourgeois guilt" one feels at delighting in unnecessary materialistic indulgences while remaining painfully aware of the social injustices at the root of those privileges. In any event, the misogyny and "self-punishment" with which I orient towards personal relationships has burdened me with an intellectual-emotional tension that I have never been able to reconcile. I wouldn't call myself a "masochist" in the classic sense of the term, as in "one who gets pleasure from physical pain;" rather, I find myself to be an emotional misogynist and a political feminist. The self that I embrace in the private sphere diametrically opposes that which I believe in and enact in the public sphere.
As such, I’ve developed compartmentalized selves--a psychological course which requires a vast amount of mental energy to maintain. To make matters worse, compartmentalization forces each part of the divided self into isolation--and any behavior when practiced in isolation is susceptible to extreme manifestations. (Hence, the non-stop self-destructive drama in my life, coupled with non-stop self-advancing achievements).
Now, to return to the essay that I just finished reading—its focus is on the relationship between sex and politics in West Germany, concentrating on the generation of '68ers. Herzog discusses the tension between militant feminism in the 1970s and the Schwanszficken (penetration-fucking) orientation of the male New Left. She demonstrates that while in conflict with each other, members on both sides of the sexual debates drew on the memory of fascism in general and the Holocaust in particular to further their arguments.
But all that is background context, and for my purposes is beside the point.
I'm swimming in the impression it has left behind--so much so that I don’t want to do my other reading for class. I fear that this one will lose its position of mental and emotional primacy, and I’m not ready to let go of it just yet.
I have to ask myself why this article has struck me in such a peculiar way. I'd venture to guess it’s because "sex" in general and my own sex life in particular have occupied an overwhelming portion of my thoughts as of late. I'm steeped in self-analysis, and besieged by obsessive musings on Narc, on the Stallion, on my failed relationship with B, on my intermittent promiscuity and on my hopes for a successful relationship in the future. And as I fall further into the tangled recesses of my brain, I realize that it’s not with whom I'm having sex that rankles me, but rather it's the nature of those sexual encounters that I find disquieting. I observe myself frequently engaged in sexual relationships that are harmful to me either emotionally or physically. Far from removing myself from these situations, I've come to embrace them with a strange sort of satisfaction--one that I desperately wish would dissipate.
You've probably noticed by now (either through this blog, or through knowing me in person) that I have a bit of a penchant for pain. However, it’s not one that I wholeheartedly embrace. As a "modern" woman and a "feminist," my masochism in relationships has always been a source of personal shame and guilt. But it's a strange sort of guilt—not one that stems from a moral transgression per say, but rather, it's more of a "political guilt." The closest thing I can liken it to is the sort of "leftist-bourgeois guilt" one feels at delighting in unnecessary materialistic indulgences while remaining painfully aware of the social injustices at the root of those privileges. In any event, the misogyny and "self-punishment" with which I orient towards personal relationships has burdened me with an intellectual-emotional tension that I have never been able to reconcile. I wouldn't call myself a "masochist" in the classic sense of the term, as in "one who gets pleasure from physical pain;" rather, I find myself to be an emotional misogynist and a political feminist. The self that I embrace in the private sphere diametrically opposes that which I believe in and enact in the public sphere.
As such, I’ve developed compartmentalized selves--a psychological course which requires a vast amount of mental energy to maintain. To make matters worse, compartmentalization forces each part of the divided self into isolation--and any behavior when practiced in isolation is susceptible to extreme manifestations. (Hence, the non-stop self-destructive drama in my life, coupled with non-stop self-advancing achievements).
Now, to return to the essay that I just finished reading—its focus is on the relationship between sex and politics in West Germany, concentrating on the generation of '68ers. Herzog discusses the tension between militant feminism in the 1970s and the Schwanszficken (penetration-fucking) orientation of the male New Left. She demonstrates that while in conflict with each other, members on both sides of the sexual debates drew on the memory of fascism in general and the Holocaust in particular to further their arguments.
But all that is background context, and for my purposes is beside the point.
What stood out to me as relevant to my personal dilemma was one passage in particular--one that I've reproduced below. (I've added the bold lettering).
"One left man, calling himself 'a dinosaur,' 'a relic from the so-called Softie-era,' generated consternation in the Frankfurt scene by confessing in 1977 that 'despite my best efforts I can no longer find the unbroken red thread. My most beautiful screw ever was on the morning when the news came over the radio of the death in Stammheim. [announcing that three of the imprisoned left terrorists from the Red Army Faction had committed suicide.] We were both for a long time completely numb. Then we fucked pretty brutally; then we were totally empty.' Responding to the outrage of the editors that he was getting off on other people's suffering and thereby disengaging sex from politics in the most offensive way, the 'dinosaur' tried to sort through his feelings once more. First he complained that the editors should not have accompanied their statement of disgust about him with such a hurtful caricature--as though the 'dinosaur' spent his time masturbating while thinking of the suicides. The 'dinosaur' accused the editors of imitating the Sturmer (the influential Nazi magazine filled with racist images of not only big-nosed but also hyper-sexualized Jews). And the 'dinosaur' also reflected further in self-critical anguish on his own and everyone else's confusions:
"The suicides in Stammheim did not make me horny. They made me feel rage, sadness, helplessness. In this situation I could--and that is first of all my brokenness, maybe--screw, specifically in this rage and mourning. I could screw AGAINST ALL THAT and was simultaneously driven by something outside myself, was a victim, okay, maybe I also turned the woman with whom I was having sex into a victim. In any case I was empty, and my body could speak, against the speechlessness, that we, I guess, all felt. Or didn’t you feel it? With you apparently it's not like that. Sex must be integrated into a political reality, you say. That seems to work seamlessly for you. Not for me. Sex and relationships and politics, with me, that’s sometimes separate, sometimes opposed." (Herzog, 430).
By the time I finished my passage, I felt somewhat forgiven. I realized that the personal doesn't have to be political, that I don't have to resolve that tension. Perhaps the tension never should have existed at all. I don't know why I needed somebody else to tell me that, but it somehow made sense to see it in print. (The authority of the printed word certainly works wonders!)
Maybe if I can let go of that tension and end this self-berating, I will be able to free myself of the burden of unsatisfying relationships.
"One left man, calling himself 'a dinosaur,' 'a relic from the so-called Softie-era,' generated consternation in the Frankfurt scene by confessing in 1977 that 'despite my best efforts I can no longer find the unbroken red thread. My most beautiful screw ever was on the morning when the news came over the radio of the death in Stammheim. [announcing that three of the imprisoned left terrorists from the Red Army Faction had committed suicide.] We were both for a long time completely numb. Then we fucked pretty brutally; then we were totally empty.' Responding to the outrage of the editors that he was getting off on other people's suffering and thereby disengaging sex from politics in the most offensive way, the 'dinosaur' tried to sort through his feelings once more. First he complained that the editors should not have accompanied their statement of disgust about him with such a hurtful caricature--as though the 'dinosaur' spent his time masturbating while thinking of the suicides. The 'dinosaur' accused the editors of imitating the Sturmer (the influential Nazi magazine filled with racist images of not only big-nosed but also hyper-sexualized Jews). And the 'dinosaur' also reflected further in self-critical anguish on his own and everyone else's confusions:
"The suicides in Stammheim did not make me horny. They made me feel rage, sadness, helplessness. In this situation I could--and that is first of all my brokenness, maybe--screw, specifically in this rage and mourning. I could screw AGAINST ALL THAT and was simultaneously driven by something outside myself, was a victim, okay, maybe I also turned the woman with whom I was having sex into a victim. In any case I was empty, and my body could speak, against the speechlessness, that we, I guess, all felt. Or didn’t you feel it? With you apparently it's not like that. Sex must be integrated into a political reality, you say. That seems to work seamlessly for you. Not for me. Sex and relationships and politics, with me, that’s sometimes separate, sometimes opposed." (Herzog, 430).
By the time I finished my passage, I felt somewhat forgiven. I realized that the personal doesn't have to be political, that I don't have to resolve that tension. Perhaps the tension never should have existed at all. I don't know why I needed somebody else to tell me that, but it somehow made sense to see it in print. (The authority of the printed word certainly works wonders!)
Maybe if I can let go of that tension and end this self-berating, I will be able to free myself of the burden of unsatisfying relationships.
Only by accepting oneself, can one ever hope to find satisfaction and fulfillment.
Wouldn't you agree?
Wouldn't you agree?
1 comment:
Hyde-is,
You should blog on your reading more often! I love your random musings. It's funny how we both read the same article and were struck by totally different things. I was into the part about Christian repression in the 50s. (Go figure!)
Love, Hammer
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