Virginity (18)

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scribbles
Posted by scribbles on Tue 9 Feb 10, 2:38 PM

I just read the following in Allan Bennett's book "Writing Home" [he's writing about a trip to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt]:

What are these jaded tourists looking for? Some flicker of wonder, some sensation or reminder of a sensation they once had, perhaps as children when they first gazed on the world? [He suggests tours should be very specialised, concentrating on odd details] One would pick up more because incidental. It's Forster's "Only what is seen sideways sinks deep."

This reminded me of all sorts of thread on here recently. In this post The Princess mentions subspace in non-kinky situations and I thought of the way the same feeling can link widely separate times.

Bennett's lines are about re-experiencing the new, finding wonder again. Maybe by definition that's impossible. But when you start a new relationship, or a new play session, isn't that what you want - to have all the thrill of the novelty you so well remember? Not to know what's coming, to put trust in something untested.

In this thread The Void suggests incorporating a smell into play. I'm a total bloodhound so I love this idea but I wonder whether it doesn't have to be done "sideways" to work - doesn't have to be met at random. Then again maybe all play is trying to set up again by artifice the feelings we remember. Or not: maybe they begin in imagination, and then get made real.

Novelty is on my mind a lot just now. It's much disparaged. But novelty is just the beginning: everything is ephemeral.

It's used to be said, cynically perhaps, that a man wants to be a woman's first love, and a woman his last. That way he'd get her virginity and she his money. Nowadays we reckon that virginity is over-rated and enduring love is worth more than any money, but that doesn't stop us looking for more virginities to lose.

Edited Tue 9 Feb 10, 3:29 PM by scribbles

Replies

9 Feb 10, 2:42 PM
stormywaters
UK(NR), 2 yrs

Scribbles wrote:
...doesn't stop us looking for more virginity's to lose.
Oh yes, that's what I call the real professional touch. Like one of those Andy Murray strokes.
ETA: The soft deceptive ones that leave the opponent thinking 'fuck, how did that happen?' Virginity is such an oft used metaphor and you give it a whole new life here, which kind of wrong foots the reader and takes him by surprise and so is all the more meaningful. That is your writer's instinct at work.
My object all sublime...
Edited 9 Feb 10, 3:16 PM by stormywaters

9 Feb 10, 2:45 PM
stormywaters
UK(NR), 2 yrs
Oh you bugger, you've edited it! It is much better without the winning. I think you are talking about the depth and mystery of the concept of losing virginity, which is worlds away from the simple macho concept of scoring.
You are talking about recieving, feeling, letting go, becoming vulnerable in yourself to the world and how that can recur throughout life.
Artists experience this whenever they are exploring their creativity anew.
*************************************************** *******
Meanwhile, back at the ranch. The link adult sexuality has back to childhood seems to have a lot to do with this. Everything feels new in childhood and quite a lot in a day, say, is new in childhood. The newest new we ever experience is the mother: her touch, smell, sounds, rhythms, voices and above all, maybe, breast. No wonder we want another go for the rest of our lives.
The sideways business I think of as about getting self and ego and above all intellect, out of the way. That we call that state of being 'sideways' shows how fucked up our cultural values are.
It is probably not a million miles from the idea of meditation, or even your Bhuddist 'nothingness'. We all start from a kind of blank sheet with very little in the way of self and intellect and a kind of temporary emergency ego (which is remarkably hard to jetison long after it has outlived its usefulness) which is a sort of nothingness.
My object all sublime...
Edited 9 Feb 10, 3:01 PM by stormywaters

9 Feb 10, 2:51 PM
scribbles
UK(RH), 2 yrs
Well I had to fix the typo, and then couldn't resist tinkering. I think the first version probably does fit the rest of the blog better....

9 Feb 10, 2:53 PM
scribbles
UK(RH), 2 yrs
I aspire to Federer blogs though
Oh and PS: apologies to all those who thought this would be about the de-flowering of some sultry Egyptian maid. Ha - gotcha!
Edited 9 Feb 10, 3:02 PM by scribbles

9 Feb 10, 3:05 PM
stormywaters
UK(NR), 2 yrs
Nah, there's more thought and depth and agony in Murray.
I doubt even Egyptian maids manage 'sultry' while they are being deflowered.
Not that I speak from experience.
My object all sublime...
Edited 9 Feb 10, 3:07 PM by stormywaters

9 Feb 10, 3:06 PM
scribbles
UK(RH), 2 yrs

stormywaters wrote:
[... lots of interesting stuff and then:] It is probably not a million miles from the idea of meditation, or even your Bhuddist 'nothingness'. We all start from a kind of blank sheet with very little in the way of self and intellect and a kind of temporary emergency ego (which is remarkably hard to jetison long after it has outlived its usefulness) which is a sort of nothingness.
Ooh I don't know about starting with no self. No self-consciousness, maybe, but that's different. I think moving away from the self is quite sophisticated and comes much later. I think you have to go through the whole self-obsession of adolescence first.

9 Feb 10, 3:19 PM
DancesWithPussycats
UK(TW), 5 yrs

I've just been to my dental hygienist, and I think that I sort of subspace while she's treating me. I sometimes get a similar feeling at the barbers. I suppose its because I have to be passive/compliant and let them do things to me.
International man of mystery

9 Feb 10, 3:41 PM
stormywaters
UK(NR), 2 yrs

Scribbles wrote:
Ooh I don't know about starting with no self. No self-consciousness, maybe, but that's different. I think moving away from the self is quite sophisticated and comes much later. I think you have to go through the whole self-obsession of adolescence first.
Well what is the distinction between having a self and being self conscious? That sounds very like an academic philosophy question to me but I suspect the answer is 'none'.
When we are born we do not know that we have a body. We discover that we do when we grasp our toes and experience the sensory feedback that is absent when we grasp other bits of the universe.
Grasping our selves is a much deeper and more mysterious process, and is arguably our life's work. That early sense of self is very dependent, not on the sensory feedback that discovery of our bodies requires, but on emotional feedback when for example we experience our mother's smile as appertaining to 'us' in a way the sound of the wind in the trees does not. So self is inseperable from relationship from the start.
So far so good, but relationships get trickier the older we get, not least our relationship with our selves*. Maybe we experience most clearly and purely when the agenda of self and relationship is out of the way.
Maybe paradoxically that is why we like to have a travelling companion. A good travelling companion helps validate our experiences on the journey by sharing them. But those experiences are in no way about, let alone dependent on, our companion. It is interesting, (well it is to me anyway, be quiet) that 'travelling companion' is such a well recognised form of relationship.
Ok brain overheating, need tea.
*Ah wondered which of you would spot that. That is one of those Captain Mainwaring bloops that I will pretend I was aware of all along. It is a funny idea isn't it, having a relationship with yourself? Who is it who is having this relationship with you?
Definitely need tea.
My object all sublime...
Edited 9 Feb 10, 3:50 PM by stormywaters

9 Feb 10, 4:11 PM
scribbles
UK(RH), 2 yrs

stormywaters wrote:
It is a funny idea isn't it, having a relationship with yourself? Who is it who is having this relationship with you?

"Be what you are, I tell myself, and my self tells me we can't be anybody else" (Deep Purple, "Don't Let Go", Bananas, 2003)

9 Feb 10, 4:19 PM
stormywaters
UK(NR), 2 yrs

Scribbles wrote:
"Be what you are, I tell myself, and my self tells me we can't be anybody else" (Deep Purple, "Don't Let Go", Bananas, 2003)
Ah, if only that were true. I think we are more like lost souls in a huge emporium of selves, each saying 'buy me, buy me, I suit you perfectly' but none of them do. That is perhaps part of the appeal of the Cinderella story: it is a metaphor for our search for ourselves, the self who fits the glass slipper.
Perhaps that is what Bennett's jaded tourists are lookung for, so far from home, vestiges of their lost selves.
My object all sublime...
Edited 9 Feb 10, 4:21 PM by stormywaters

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