A deliberately private woman is much more of a threat to society today than what 200 years ago a deliberately childless woman was, but in the exact same way.
Thanks for writing this. Personal, private thoughts aside, I wanted to make a tiny theoretical comment on this sentence:
> It’s not a religious or patriarchal authority saying “Enjoy!” (although I see more and more religiously-branded “enjoy your marital sex life!” content too…) but the desire to be seen as someone who enjoys.
My question is whether "the desire to be seen as someone who enjoys" is the same as "the desire to believe that you are seen by others as someone who enjoys". In other words, is it a true identity desire in the sense that you might check in with others and confirm empirically? Or is it an epistemic desire attributed to some other subject that you believe knows something about you? (e.g. "I want to know that it knows that [others know that] I can enjoy" -- interesting how the superego here is still an "it", recalling Freud's original diagram where he draws the direct line between the two).
It's always been a mystery to me why Lacan describes the superego as a point of pure injunction, a subject who only issues a "no", but I feel that thinking about this distinction might have clarified it for me (viz. what question is it saying "no" to? Can others tell I'm enjoying this?).
i have thought about this for approximately two months and i do think that people are checking with others and confirming empirically, or at least attempting to, via likes, views, etc? but also that these are very comforting measures in the sense that they're numerical, "digital," less ambiguous than unmediated relationships? but i also dk if that's what you're getting at
Maybe I'm kind of dense here but I feel like the conclusion I'd draw from Kerner and sex bloggers of basically every flavor is that sex blogging -is- the fetish, flavored to each individual's preferences for plausible deniability, though I also instantly suspect that's -too- superficially obvious and lacking-in-nuance to be wholly correct. Also, speculating on erotic preferences I'm severely underqualified to comment on.
But like, we presume Kerner was totally self-unaware that she was writing a piece about discovering the value of privacy while exposing an aspect of herself that many would say should be the -most- private but I can't imagine her writing, reading back, and hitting send on it without noticing the contradiction and I -can- imagine the passing excitement of noticing that's what you're doing it and smashing the post button on it anyways.
based on absolutely nothing my vibe is that this is a consolation prize, grasping which prevents her from reaching for the, ah, gold medal & if like if a genie came & explicitly presented the choice of “satisfaction & secrecy” or “neither” she would, kinda sadly prolly, but she would pick the first
Thanks for writing this. Personal, private thoughts aside, I wanted to make a tiny theoretical comment on this sentence:
> It’s not a religious or patriarchal authority saying “Enjoy!” (although I see more and more religiously-branded “enjoy your marital sex life!” content too…) but the desire to be seen as someone who enjoys.
My question is whether "the desire to be seen as someone who enjoys" is the same as "the desire to believe that you are seen by others as someone who enjoys". In other words, is it a true identity desire in the sense that you might check in with others and confirm empirically? Or is it an epistemic desire attributed to some other subject that you believe knows something about you? (e.g. "I want to know that it knows that [others know that] I can enjoy" -- interesting how the superego here is still an "it", recalling Freud's original diagram where he draws the direct line between the two).
It's always been a mystery to me why Lacan describes the superego as a point of pure injunction, a subject who only issues a "no", but I feel that thinking about this distinction might have clarified it for me (viz. what question is it saying "no" to? Can others tell I'm enjoying this?).
i have thought about this for approximately two months and i do think that people are checking with others and confirming empirically, or at least attempting to, via likes, views, etc? but also that these are very comforting measures in the sense that they're numerical, "digital," less ambiguous than unmediated relationships? but i also dk if that's what you're getting at
The male equivalent of this is “Are you winning, son?”
Maybe I'm kind of dense here but I feel like the conclusion I'd draw from Kerner and sex bloggers of basically every flavor is that sex blogging -is- the fetish, flavored to each individual's preferences for plausible deniability, though I also instantly suspect that's -too- superficially obvious and lacking-in-nuance to be wholly correct. Also, speculating on erotic preferences I'm severely underqualified to comment on.
But like, we presume Kerner was totally self-unaware that she was writing a piece about discovering the value of privacy while exposing an aspect of herself that many would say should be the -most- private but I can't imagine her writing, reading back, and hitting send on it without noticing the contradiction and I -can- imagine the passing excitement of noticing that's what you're doing it and smashing the post button on it anyways.
based on absolutely nothing my vibe is that this is a consolation prize, grasping which prevents her from reaching for the, ah, gold medal & if like if a genie came & explicitly presented the choice of “satisfaction & secrecy” or “neither” she would, kinda sadly prolly, but she would pick the first
Ah yeah, okay, that makes (quite a bit more) sense too, might as well salvage the story out of it at least I suppose.
(also just went on to read the first paragraph of the next post and hell yeah congrats!)