Lit poetry: Porn vs. the erotic

[CharleyH]

I was referred to this poem by a poster on the GB who had read my stuff and thought I'd like it
Ha!!

sex and death have been intertwined , if you will, forever.
the climax as the "petit mort' the small death
the japanese feel it is a joining with the gods
( they say I'm going, not , I'm coming)
etc etc

it's a natural combination for me for some reason
i think the music of The Doors was the first time i put it together and since then I've seen it everywhere
but perhaps that's just a trained eye
: )

sex is surrender, as is death
sex, in it's purest form, transcends the ego and melds us with one another
you" become" something other than yourself, hence the death of ego
blah blah blah

who you are dies each time you give yourself over to someone completely
you come back changed.


ya know
shit like that

I 'love' shit like that. How appropriate the kinks play on the radio as I post this after posting previously. (an aside)

Do you know much more of her than that?

Petit Mort I always associate with the "little orgasm/death" and that of a woman. Is there something for men, by chance? Something cultural that pinpoints something like "this" relation between orgasm and death? I sure as hell know its not cumming, exploding, etc. which is power related.

I wonder, and I don't expect anyone to know the answer, but I wonder ... is there a word in any language that links the male orgasm and death, as petit mort, does for woman, or is cumming for men always power based?

 

[Tathagata]

I 'love' shit like that. How appropriate the kinks play on the radio as I post this after posting previously. (an aside)

Do you know much more of her than that?

Petit Mort I always associate with the "little orgasm/death" and that of a woman. Is there something for men, by chance? Something cultural that pinpoints something like "this" relation between orgasm and death? I sure as hell know its not cumming, exploding, etc. which is power related.

I wonder, and I don't expect anyone to know the answer, but I wonder ... is there a word in any language that links the male orgasm and death, as petit mort, does for woman, or is cumming for men always power based?

it is the male,dear, that is giving up the life force
the seed
the giver of life if you will
i always thought that the petit mort referred to the male more than the female

i don't think the male orgasm is power
i see it as an act of submission
he is giving himself to the woman and is at his most vulnerable
at that moment
how many times has the female ' devoured' or killed the male after copulation??



i know nothing else of this poet
i do think she nailed it though

 

[CharleyH]

it is the male,dear, that is giving up the life force
the seed
the giver of life if you will
i always thought that the petit mort referred to the male more than the female

i don't think the male orgasm is power
i see it as an act of submission
he is giving himself to the woman and is at his most vulnerable
at that moment
how many times has the female ' devoured' or killed the male after copulation??



i know nothing else of this poet
i do think she nailed it though

You tweak my mind tonight, Tath, thank you, and I will go off a bit, I am sure, only because my mind is completely stimulated with thought from your post.

Petit mort, I think (might be wrong) is a masculine form french phrase, but I have never heard it "applied" to the male orgasm (not that it can't be), since the male orgasm is traditionally, or conventionally associated with power. (I am waiting for other ords that describe the male orgasm in erotica and porn - that are wider used in culture).

I suppose one must think of where the power lies - is sex nature or culture based? Camille Paglia, who I aspire to (what a mind) believes, if I recall in reading "Sexual Personae" that ALL sex is power based. I don't disagree.

To say 'small death' to an orgasm, actually makes the orgasm 'seconded' if you will, belittled at least, if you take western culture into consideration, and rarely, except in S/m relationships are female orgasms considered 'powerful'. In this context, petit mort suits the women/ nature theory with death since culture can't tame nature, and death is the most powerful hold on life.

I do not believe that men have this same access to petit mort... unless ... they are masochistic.

 

[Tathagata]

You tweak my mind tonight, Tath, thank you, and I will go off a bit, I am sure, only because my mind is completely stimulated with thought from your post.

Petit mort, I think (might be wrong) is a masculine form french phrase, but I have never heard it "applied" to the male orgasm (not that it can't be), since the male orgasm is traditionally, or conventionally associated with power. (I am waiting for other ords that describe the male orgasm in erotica and porn - that are wider used in culture).

I suppose one must think of where the power lies - is sex nature or culture based? Camille Paglia, who I aspire to (what a mind) believes, if I recall in reading "Sexual Personae" that ALL sex is power based. I don't disagree.

To say 'small death' to an orgasm, actually makes the orgasm 'seconded' if you will, belittled at least, if you take western culture into consideration, and rarely, except in S/m relationships are female orgasms considered 'powerful'. In this context, petit mort suits the women/ nature theory with death since culture can't tame nature, and death is the most powerful hold on life.

I do not believe that men have this same access to petit mort... unless ... they are masochistic.

you are assuming that there is a " power struggle' in sex when, in fact, when sex is a spiritual union all things are equal.

the climax is a transcendental experience for both
where both parties go beyond the self
hopefully together
physically you can make the argument that it is the male who initiates the orgasm...but both parties have to be willing to abandon " this" reality, inhibitions etc and " join" in the act to achieve bliss.

to use a cliché' it is yin and yang combining to create the whole
the "whole" being the state of orgasm ie: the small death
where there is no male and female only the joined experience of togetherness , bliss, completeness etc etc.

as for s/m that is a whole different ball of wax where one person is completed by serving another
much like the priesthood or joining a monastery one surrenders ones self to another and in this submission once again abandons the self in order to be complete.

the samurai were bound to think nothing of giving up their life for the good of the master.
and there is the death theme again.
what greater gift can someone give than their life?
whether it be literal or symbolic, to give up ones self, ones desire for another is the ultimate intimacy.

so if the male lets himself be taken in by the female
joined and vulnerable
this is, no matter what, an act of acquiescence
and the female who takes this man in and opens to him
this also is an act of exposure
of vulnerability.

when its done right
no one has power

even in the s/m relationship
the submissive and the dom have equal power
the submissive must please the master
and the master must know what the submissive needs to be fulfilled

its been reduced to whips and chains and spankings
but in reality it is a delicate balance to keep all things equal
to maintain harmony
again
the yin and yang

 

[Tzara]

Can we, as authors of erotic poetry appreciate a poem that is not exactly something we like when the theme goes against our boundaries? Can we truly appreciate and respect other people's kinks when it appears explicitly or even implicitly, in a poem?

A number of years ago, I tried to read The Tides of Lust by Samuel R. Delany, who is a writer I have often admired. I had to quit. As I recall, the book was so brutal in its sexuality that I not only couldn't relate to it, I found it physically unpleasant to read.

That was a novel, but I expect the same would be true of poetry.

 

[Tzara]

Petit mort, I think (might be wrong) is a masculine form french phrase, but I have never heard it "applied" to the male orgasm (not that it can't be), since the male orgasm is traditionally, or conventionally associated with power. (I am waiting for other ords that describe the male orgasm in erotica and porn - that are wider used in culture).

I always thought that le petit mort was describing the male orgasm, because of the detumescence that occurs following orgasm, but a quick check on Google suggests that Charley is right (http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/2136.html) in that it usually is (or was) applied to women. This reference suggests that the connection was more literal--describing loss of consciousness--than metaphorical.

 

[CharleyH]

you are assuming that there is a " power struggle' in sex when, in fact, when sex is a spiritual union all things are equal.

the climax is a transcendental experience for both
where both parties go beyond the self
hopefully together
physically you can make the argument that it is the male who initiates the orgasm...but both parties have to be willing to abandon " this" reality, inhibitions etc and " join" in the act to achieve bliss.

to use a cliché' it is yin and yang combining to create the whole
the "whole" being the state of orgasm ie: the small death
where there is no male and female only the joined experience of togetherness , bliss, completeness etc etc.

as for s/m that is a whole different ball of wax where one person is completed by serving another
much like the priesthood or joining a monastery one surrenders ones self to another and in this submission once again abandons the self in order to be complete.

the samurai were bound to think nothing of giving up their life for the good of the master.
and there is the death theme again.
what greater gift can someone give than their life?
whether it be literal or symbolic, to give up ones self, ones desire for another is the ultimate intimacy.

so if the male lets himself be taken in by the female
joined and vulnerable
this is, no matter what, an act of acquiescence
and the female who takes this man in and opens to him
this also is an act of exposure
of vulnerability.

when its done right
no one has power

even in the s/m relationship
the submissive and the dom have equal power
the submissive must please the master
and the master must know what the submissive needs to be fulfilled

its been reduced to whips and chains and spankings
but in reality it is a delicate balance to keep all things equal
to maintain harmony
again
the yin and yang

I will get back to you at length tommorrow, so I can read your post thoroughly. I do believe that sex is a power dynamic though. There is always a top and a bottom, and sorry - I think of SM in a different way than others (I know you dont know that about me, and I did not define it, and haphazardly used S/m). I really want to say much more right now off the top of my head, but you have taken your time to post, and you deserve a best response. Thank you.

See you in the arena tomorrow, baby!

 

[Tathagata]

"Le Petit Mort" refers to the timeless moment of orgasm: a brief release from life, mind, and ego. For an instant the world falls away, and as the mind is silenced one is open to an ecstatic union as self glimpses Self. The ego is momentarily displaced: the little death.

The art of turning sex into meditation is known generally in the West as Tantra, but a specific name for the practice in the Indic tradition is Sattvic sex. Sat means Truth, Truth being the one true Consciousness behind it all. So as the 'goal' of meditation is to realize the Self, applying the same attention to sex has the power to expand the ecstasy of the little death. Ecstasy means 'to stand outside': outside the ego of self. But where the ego may die, awareness continues. This awareness is Self, and so in the 'little death' of sexual ecstasy can be found an ecstatic union in the Divine.

This state is called Dyhana in many practices. Dhyana can be the practice of attention, and also the state of Union witnessed when practicing attention. By attention I mean contemplation or meditation without object: simply watching.

On the way into Dhyana it can be understood that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. For in the Union of the now and eternity, your whole life is laid out in a fractal kaleidoscope. There is only one moment, the Eternal Now, and in it we are simultaneously dying and being born. When I first experienced this, my whole life impossibly splayed before me at once, I thought that I must have had a heart attack and died while in contemplation. At the center of the kaleidoscope vision I lay in shivasana (corpse) pose with a blissful smile. I thought that, well if Peter is dead, at least he died with a smile on his face!

Here the Shamanic tradition guides strongly. For to continue one must shed the fear of death, an undertaking found most explicitly on the path of the Shaman. There are as many ways as cultures that the prospective Shaman faces their fear of death: a mortal illness or accident, a guided psychedelic trip, or guided dream trip are some examples. Death and resurrection is an essential initiatory ritual in almost all esoteric schools, from Zen and Tibetan Buddhism to the Western Occult practices of Aleistar Crowley or Terrence McKenna. For to breach the separation from God, the ego must die.

Beyond the ego, in the ecstasy of Dhyana, the fundamentally paradoxical nature of Self strikes one with wonder. For to experience the Wholeness of everything is to witness the Union of opposites: of the many and the one, now and eternity, and terror and ecstasy. One is simultaneously Alone and Everyone together; Everything and Nothing. It is a paradox at the edge of Being: A panorama of impossibility that is the world, and the Self.

The word 'Zen' comes from 'Dhyana' and is derived through the tortuous route the practice followed from India, through China, and on to Japan. Zen is perhaps the most elegant expression of the practice of liberation: Vedantic philosophy reduced to Taoist simplicity expressed in a Buddhist practice. The beauty of Zen is how it infuses the esoteric truth of the Paradox that is Reality into everyday reality through the contradictory riddles that are at it's heart. The whole point is that there is no answer. The world is the Play of a riddle with no answer. It cannot be grasped or believed, so one should simply stop the mind from grasping and believing: and beyond belief is Self.

The practice of Dhyana, or Zen, is an immediate experience, and that is an expression of the Paradox. People are always trying to figure out what to do, or how to understand enlightenment or liberation. But the point is not to try to do anything! When the mind is at rest and the ego passes You see that you already are enlightened, or liberated…and so is everyone else, for there is only one Self. There is nothing to be achieved in meditation, enlightenment is already part of You. There is no separation: of the sacred from the profane, of self from Self, or of enlightened from un-enlightened.

To give up control of the ego is to gain liberation. The death of the ego is the birth of the Divine: For the ego is the illusion of separation. And liberation is not separate. It is here and now.

previous page...

 

[Tathagata]

sorry heres the link


http://www.speakeasy.org/~logos/paradox2.htm

 

[CharleyH]

A number of years ago, I tried to read The Tides of Lust by Samuel R. Delany, who is a writer I have often admired. I had to quit. As I recall, the book was so brutal in its sexuality that I not only couldn't relate to it, I found it physically unpleasant to read.

That was a novel, but I expect the same would be true of poetry.

May I ask what was so offensive? You don't have to answer.

PS: After that post Tath, I definately need time to respond!!! Love it!

 

[Tathagata]

I will get back to you at length tommorrow, so I can read your post thoroughly. I do believe that sex is a power dynamic though. There is always a top and a bottom, and sorry - I think of SM in a different way than others (I know you dont know that about me, and I did not define it, and haphazardly used S/m). I really want to say much more right now off the top of my head, but you have taken your time to post, and you deserve a best response. Thank you.

See you in the arena tomorrow, baby!

no no no baby
no top and bottom
if you agree to play those roles yes
otherwise
you, me = one
you ever made love and looked in your lovers eyes
all the way to orgasm??
theres no top and bottom there
you both reach together


sleep well
; )

 

[Tathagata]

May I ask what was so offensive? You don't have to answer.

PS: After that post Tath, I definately need time to respond!!! Love it!

i'm into some heavy shit i just hide it well

 

[Angeline]

"Le Petit Mort" refers to the timeless moment of orgasm: a brief release from life, mind, and ego. For an instant the world falls away, and as the mind is silenced one is open to an ecstatic union as self glimpses Self. The ego is momentarily displaced: the little death.

The art of turning sex into meditation is known generally in the West as Tantra, but a specific name for the practice in the Indic tradition is Sattvic sex. Sat means Truth, Truth being the one true Consciousness behind it all. So as the 'goal' of meditation is to realize the Self, applying the same attention to sex has the power to expand the ecstasy of the little death. Ecstasy means 'to stand outside': outside the ego of self. But where the ego may die, awareness continues. This awareness is Self, and so in the 'little death' of sexual ecstasy can be found an ecstatic union in the Divine.

This state is called Dyhana in many practices. Dhyana can be the practice of attention, and also the state of Union witnessed when practicing attention. By attention I mean contemplation or meditation without object: simply watching.

On the way into Dhyana it can be understood that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. For in the Union of the now and eternity, your whole life is laid out in a fractal kaleidoscope. There is only one moment, the Eternal Now, and in it we are simultaneously dying and being born. When I first experienced this, my whole life impossibly splayed before me at once, I thought that I must have had a heart attack and died while in contemplation. At the center of the kaleidoscope vision I lay in shivasana (corpse) pose with a blissful smile. I thought that, well if Peter is dead, at least he died with a smile on his face!

Here the Shamanic tradition guides strongly. For to continue one must shed the fear of death, an undertaking found most explicitly on the path of the Shaman. There are as many ways as cultures that the prospective Shaman faces their fear of death: a mortal illness or accident, a guided psychedelic trip, or guided dream trip are some examples. Death and resurrection is an essential initiatory ritual in almost all esoteric schools, from Zen and Tibetan Buddhism to the Western Occult practices of Aleistar Crowley or Terrence McKenna. For to breach the separation from God, the ego must die.

Beyond the ego, in the ecstasy of Dhyana, the fundamentally paradoxical nature of Self strikes one with wonder. For to experience the Wholeness of everything is to witness the Union of opposites: of the many and the one, now and eternity, and terror and ecstasy. One is simultaneously Alone and Everyone together; Everything and Nothing. It is a paradox at the edge of Being: A panorama of impossibility that is the world, and the Self.

The word 'Zen' comes from 'Dhyana' and is derived through the tortuous route the practice followed from India, through China, and on to Japan. Zen is perhaps the most elegant expression of the practice of liberation: Vedantic philosophy reduced to Taoist simplicity expressed in a Buddhist practice. The beauty of Zen is how it infuses the esoteric truth of the Paradox that is Reality into everyday reality through the contradictory riddles that are at it's heart. The whole point is that there is no answer. The world is the Play of a riddle with no answer. It cannot be grasped or believed, so one should simply stop the mind from grasping and believing: and beyond belief is Self.

The practice of Dhyana, or Zen, is an immediate experience, and that is an expression of the Paradox. People are always trying to figure out what to do, or how to understand enlightenment or liberation. But the point is not to try to do anything! When the mind is at rest and the ego passes You see that you already are enlightened, or liberated…and so is everyone else, for there is only one Self. There is nothing to be achieved in meditation, enlightenment is already part of You. There is no separation: of the sacred from the profane, of self from Self, or of enlightened from un-enlightened.

To give up control of the ego is to gain liberation. The death of the ego is the birth of the Divine: For the ego is the illusion of separation. And liberation is not separate. It is here and now.

previous page...

My life flashed before my eyes reading your post.

 

[Tzara]

May I ask what was so offensive? You don't have to answer.

I really don't remember the details. What impression I still have is that it was emotionless and cruel acts forced upon "innocents" (though what character can actually be an innocent in a porn novel?). But there must have been something more to it than that, because de Sade doesn't offend me--I just find him boring.

And I wouldn't say that Delany's book exactly offended me, I just found it unpleasant to read (as one might find, say, a book that graphically described someone suffering from a disease).

 

[Tathagata]

My life flashed before my eyes reading your post.

a dream within a dream.........

 

[Tathagata]

I really don't remember the details. What impression I still have is that it was emotionless and cruel acts forced upon "innocents" (though what character can actually be an innocent in a porn novel?). But there must have been something more to it than that, because de Sade doesn't offend me--I just find him boring.

And I wouldn't say that Delany's book exactly offended me, I just found it unpleasant to read (as one might find, say, a book that graphically described someone suffering from a disease).

I felt the same way about parts of Anne Rice's " beauty" series

Most of it was lush and sensual
but certain parts were harsh and almost seemed as if it were written to desensitize the reader
confusing to say the least.

I don't like seeing/ reading about anyone in pain.
there are movies that I can't watch (" The sixth sense" where the mother is shown poisoning the daughter)
and books that have the same effect
with sado however if they are both willing participants and the submissive is being ' stretched' mentally and physically i can usually get through it

 

[Angeline]

I felt the same way about parts of Anne Rice's " beauty" series

Most of it was lush and sensual
but certain parts were harsh and almost seemed as if it were written to desensitize the reader
confusing to say the least.

I don't like seeing/ reading about anyone in pain.
there are movies that I can't watch (" The sixth sense" where the mother is shown poisoning the daughter)
and books that have the same effect
with sado however if they are both willing participants and the submissive is being ' stretched' mentally and physically i can usually get through it

Write a sestina and take a lap. That'll stretch ya. lol.

I don't why I'm following you around giving you a hard time. I think it's cause i like you.

 

[Tathagata]

Write a sestina and take a lap. That'll stretch ya. lol.

I don't why I'm following you around giving you a hard time. I think it's cause i like you.

oh my sestina
we can make it together


tony orlando remember?


i can talk erotic i cant write it


i should be a phone sex guy
except my burps and the baseball game on in the background might dampen my clients ardor


you just like me because i've seen you in a skeleton costume
woo hoo

 

[Angeline]

oh my sestina
we can make it together


tony orlando remember?


i can talk erotic i cant write it


i should be a phone sex guy
except my burps and the baseball game on in the background might dampen my clients ardor


you just like me because i've seen you in a skeleton costume
woo hoo

I don't show my bare bones to just anyone you know.

I think a phone sex guy who burps and has baseball on in the background would only be good for a woman whose fantasy is talking to her spouse.

and are we writing a sestina about tony orlando? did i miss something? was I drunk when I agreed to this? I think a sonnet about disco zombies is as far into surreal as I'm willing to go as a poet.

 

[Tzara]

I felt the same way about parts of Anne Rice's " beauty" series

Most of it was lush and sensual
but certain parts were harsh and almost seemed as if it were written to desensitize the reader
confusing to say the least.

I don't like seeing/ reading about anyone in pain.
there are movies that I can't watch (" The sixth sense" where the mother is shown poisoning the daughter)
and books that have the same effect
with sado however if they are both willing participants and the submissive is being ' stretched' mentally and physically i can usually get through it

I quite liked Story of O, for example, so it isn't reading about dominance. Rape scenes--even realistic rape scenes, not the fantasy ones you find in the non-consent area here--don't usually bother me, perhaps because real rape isn't about sex. But cruelty as sex, the kind of thing that makes for serial killers, no. Cruelty presented for the purpose of arousal--can't read that.

Delany's book struck me as being that kind of sex. It might not now, if I tried to read it again. But it kind of had its shot at my attention and I'm not interested enough to revisit it.

 

[Tathagata]

I quite liked Story of O, for example, so it isn't reading about dominance. Rape scenes--even realistic rape scenes, not the fantasy ones you find in the non-consent area here--don't usually bother me, perhaps because real rape isn't about sex. But cruelty as sex, the kind of thing that makes for serial killers, no. Cruelty presented for the purpose of arousal--can't read that.

Delany's book struck me as being that kind of sex. It might not now, if I tried to read it again. But it kind of had its shot at my attention and I'm not interested enough to revisit it.

I see what you mean
and I agree
if it is cruelty where only one person is enjoying it....it's not sex it's torture

 

[Tathagata]

I don't show my bare bones to just anyone you know.

I think a phone sex guy who burps and has baseball on in the background would only be good for a woman whose fantasy is talking to her spouse.

and are we writing a sestina about tony orlando? did i miss something? was I drunk when I agreed to this? I think a sonnet about disco zombies is as far into surreal as I'm willing to go as a poet.

hehehe
i was a punk zombie
i dated a few disco zombies


sestina
pastina
wheatina
farina
in betweener
i need a beaner


errrrrrr
i'm out

 

[CharleyH]

because de Sade doesn't offend me--I just find him boring.

ROFL I read two books. I can't believ I got through them. He was arrested for what? Putting the powers to be asleep? LOL

Thanks for your answer, love.

 

[CharleyH]

I don't show my bare bones to just anyone you know.

I think a phone sex guy who burps and has baseball on in the background would only be good for a woman whose fantasy is talking to her spouse.

and are we writing a sestina about tony orlando? did i miss something? was I drunk when I agreed to this? I think a sonnet about disco zombies is as far into surreal as I'm willing to go as a poet.

Ahhh, here is Angeline, and armed with good Ellis- like analogies

PS: If we write a Sestina about Tony Orlando, which should not be hard, do we include both Dawns? :|

 

[CharleyH]

I am familar with that arguement, am a little surprised as to what people have considered shocking, not discounting argument, only pointing out what seems to survive (or take in the mainstream) must have deep roots in the past.
As an example: Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" took, Bartok's twelve-tone compostions did not.
Both Eliot and Pound did a lot of heavy mining of the past, I guess they will be around, I suspect what I know of "performance poetry" (not much!) will not.

Sorry for missing this 1201, because it's interesting. I have been in a majorly work-related busy period, and I know I have not responded to Tath either, but I will get there, eventually.

Well, I think we both agree that shock and awe neither means George Bush's tactics, nor excrement on a canvass, but what are your thoughts with words that maybe shocked people once, and yet did not survive?

(Not counting the Bay City Rollers)