Gifts for Your Growth: Audre Lorde schools us on the erotic.
This essay continues to blow my mind.
Gifts for Your Growth is a hodgepodge of multimedia finds, products, resources, practices and digital + IRL experiences to enrich your life. Posts are shared twice a month through the From Holley, With Love publication.
Back in December I sat down for what I thought would be some cute weekend reading with this critically acclaimed 1978 essay from Audre Lorde titled “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” TUH. Lemme tell y’all. I ended up sitting with it for about 3 weeks. My ritual became setting a 30 minute timer over breakfast, lunch, or dinner and reading, re-reading, blurting out things like “Gather me, Lorde!”, highlighting, writing in the margins, and looking up definitions of some of the words to better process the language. It’s one of the most provocative (in the best ways) and transformative pieces of prose that I’ve read in my adult life. The kind that sticks to your ribs and tugs at you to not only read but apply the text.
Through the essay Lorde spotlights the myriad ways that women have been stripped of their erotic power, why we must recognize it within our lives — especially “in the face of a racist, patriarchal, and anti-erotic society” — and what becomes possible and available when we do. Offering tangible examples along the way, she writes about the erotic as a resource (sensual, emotional, spiritual, and psychic) rooted within us that expands our capacity to experience uninhibited joy, guide our own destinies, deliver on the excellence we require of ourselves and live a profound existence from the inside out.
Since reading it I’ve been shouting about it from the rooftops and sharing it with anyone who’d listen; including my third grade teacher a few weeks ago (a story for another time 😂). That said, you know I had to share it with y’all, too! However you identify (woman or otherwise) across, within or beyond the limitations and restrictions of the gender binary, it’s absolutely worth the read because the erotic is a source we can all stand to tap into. Here’s the link to check it out for yourself.
Whether you’re familiar with the text and have read it before or you’re digging into it for the first time, I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions that surface from it. So if you feel compelled, share in the comments and let’s talk about it together!
Enjoy,
HMKM
Much Dank for the Audre Lorde Schooling and I meant to drop this last week but here is a little Playlist to add some Bops : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7f27GNa1QkIgSd17e34uqi?si=E9CUVolXTae5cV7fv3Z5Tg