Valentine de Saint-Point ends her Futurist Manifesto of Lust with “Lust is a force” in bold lettering.
This ending of
the manifesto really struck me, being raised in the church I grew up being told
that lust was a sin and any efforts considering lust was wrong. Saint-Point
begins her essay with ”when viewed without moral preconceptions and as an essential
part of life’s dynamism, lust is truly a powerful source of energy.” I agree
with this statement that Saint-Point claims, for us as physical living bodies we
experience mundane acts of lust daily and not always for “sexual or evil” desires.
It is quite hilarious to think about the aspect of lust in a notion through Christianity and how it is categorized as inappropriate or a desire that is inappropriately strong, therefore morally wrong; all the while the emotion of “passion” for proper purposes is maintained as something God-given and moral. “Lust is the quest of the flesh for the unknown, just as Celebration is the spirit’s quest for the unknown. Lust is the act of creating, it is Creation.” Saint-Point understands the power of the actions of lust and asserts them as forces of energy and creation. Lust is considered by Catholicism to be a disordered desire for "Sexual pleasure" where sexual pleasure is "sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes”. In most religions lust is looked upon as a vice, or forbidden, and even demonic and a “gateway to hell”. Yet in Judaism, lust is characterized by Yezter hara (the evil inclination) but this is not a demonic force, rather “mans misuse of things which the physical body needs to survive.” We can relate this to Saint-Points quote, “Christian morality alone, following on from pagan morality, was fatally drawn to consider lust as a weakness. Out of the healthy joy which is the flowering of the flesh in all its power it has made something shameful and to be hidden, a vice to be denied. It has covered it with hypocrisy, and this has made a sin of it."
It is quite hilarious to think about the aspect of lust in a notion through Christianity and how it is categorized as inappropriate or a desire that is inappropriately strong, therefore morally wrong; all the while the emotion of “passion” for proper purposes is maintained as something God-given and moral. “Lust is the quest of the flesh for the unknown, just as Celebration is the spirit’s quest for the unknown. Lust is the act of creating, it is Creation.” Saint-Point understands the power of the actions of lust and asserts them as forces of energy and creation. Lust is considered by Catholicism to be a disordered desire for "Sexual pleasure" where sexual pleasure is "sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes”. In most religions lust is looked upon as a vice, or forbidden, and even demonic and a “gateway to hell”. Yet in Judaism, lust is characterized by Yezter hara (the evil inclination) but this is not a demonic force, rather “mans misuse of things which the physical body needs to survive.” We can relate this to Saint-Points quote, “Christian morality alone, following on from pagan morality, was fatally drawn to consider lust as a weakness. Out of the healthy joy which is the flowering of the flesh in all its power it has made something shameful and to be hidden, a vice to be denied. It has covered it with hypocrisy, and this has made a sin of it."
1 comment:
As a queer who grew up Catholic I cannot help but appreciate the discussion in your second paragraph about the theological misreading of an injunction to care about human needs that eventually developed into a demonization of any sexual pleasure that is not reprosexual. I really liked your point of provisional agreement with Saint-Point, and especially the sharp way you phrased it: "as physical living bodies we experience mundane acts of lust daily and not always for 'sexual or evil' desires." Another way to make that point would be to insist on the erotics of those "mundane acts of lust" that arise from acts like eating, conversing, being taken up by the smooth function of everyday infrastructure, as well as the inertias and resistances of stress, fatigue, misunderstanding, abusive and dysfunctional norms and forms…
All that said, I wish there were a bit more here, because it feels as though there are quite a few details in the argument that are missing from your summary, including some that speak to the questions that most interest you. You use the terms lust and desire almost interchangeably in places, and there is a real question to me whether Saint-Point is doing the same or not, and whether this matters. Is desire a term more amenable to the power of those "mundane acts" and why (is your answer different from hers)? A similar distinction in the manifesto between that old chestnut mind and body is also one which the manifesto seems to want to smash while at once seeming to re-affirming it in several places.
You definitely begin on the right track by observing the detail of the final line and its bold typography, and following this by quoting the first line. Focusing on these details is the source of the power of a precis (and of those parts in a closer formal reading that are devoted to similar recapitulation of a text's claims or narrative). The first and last sentences of the text echo one another, the frame not only bolds the second appearance of "Lust is a force" but has eliminated a bunch of verbiage from the first. Is this lustier return of the phrase an enactment of the thesis in some form, a textual force smashing stale orthodoxies and sentimental deceptions?
Given the associations of futurism and fascism, I would have liked a mention of some of the biological and military images at the heart of this manifesto -- the point need not be to dismiss the piece in all its madness and provocation and sense, but to grapple with more of the puzzle pieces (or to provide some sign that you are restricting your focus, rather than simply neglecting things). The writing is clear and competent, no problem there, and even in this brief space there are lots of good ideas.
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