Fatal Attraction
Act 2 from “SEX LULLABY- The Ethereal to be a Daily Chore”
Fatal attraction. I see you, I desire you. There is no filter or barrier. The attraction is fatal, a tug-of-war between the untouchable pleasure and the natural instinct. Empowerment. Discovery and inspiration. The idyllic situation for the humankind: the suspended dream. Rapprochement to the fleshly love. There’s a dream, control and pleasure. An even more ideal situation for humankind is breaking this suspended icy moment. The pro and the drawback together is the loss of control. But that’s where we learn to breathe.
“Bitches and Witches” - Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo
Scene 1 – Fear
Shame and perversion: two wicked daughters of a different father. They come from a silenced mother who lives in a basement that we all have access to but prefer not to tell anyone. Our little and loving common secret.
The absurdity of shame lies in the retrograde concept of women being instruments for sexual conversation instead of participants. Young women are socially educated according to the realization of the pleasure of the other body instead of their own.
I feel like I needed to fix my distorted gear, educate myself and normalize what was already normal for young men while growing up. I built knowledge for myself by myself with anger inside of me combined with gratitude for my own mind and body. Trying to exit my illusionary comfort zone, drawn by society for young women. Reaching for my true comfort zone. Feeling good about myself, confident and conscious of what I like. Young boys are fairly educated to autoerotism while my self-pleasure remains a taboo. Some of my female peers and women have never touched themselves, because they feel “weird” about it, all the while having regular sexual relationships. Society mutinies the feminine instinct.
This causes disparity in the conversation. Sex is a language. However, entrusting the other with your own pleasure becomes wrong and unfair. A conversation where only one person is equipped with the necessary weapons is a conversation you cannot enjoy. It just contributes to the archaic vision of women being means for sex and not subjects of it. A conversation cannot be beneficial for both people in it, if one is an “expert on the topic” and the other has a hazy idea of its bare definition. Having sex without having ever discovered personal pleasure is a lack of power, following the other without questioning, never enjoying it fully. The patriarchal ignorance about women falling in love too easily comes exactly from this. Discovering yourself exclusively through another person naturally leads to emotional dependence and social pressure. It is not at all about experience. It is about consciousness through personal experiences.
A fun fact is that in my previous metaphor, I voluntarily used the words “expert on the topic” when most times we do not have sex with “experts”, but heirs of misleading misinformation that we are supposed to achieve. What should be a beautiful path of discovery and sensibilization with the other ends up being a silly game between people faking to know more than the other. This only creates more disinformation and less joy.
Another possible and tangible consequence of society's mirror on women is reflected in the way some of us are only able to sexually communicate by oversexualizing our bodies. Imagine your pleasure being reliant solely on being itemized as sexual goddesses, without even enjoying yourself or your true sexuality. Notice the obvious power disadvantage. It’s like breathing with asthma.
Humans are intimidated by other humans who have experienced more in their lives. Sex is experience. Is it fair for someone to desire or demand that the person they love has experienced less? Our life does not lose value with the increase of versions of ourselves we decide to live. It is unnatural to think that the more we love the less we are valued.
Humans too often would like the ethereal to be a daily chore.
By wanting to make it real, we lose the magic. We sell off the alchemy. This is the real sin.
The importance of untangling sexualization from objectification.
Sexualizing yourself is almost spiritual from my point of view. Sexualization is healthy and natural. Humanizing a vivid desire: I enjoy sexualizing myself; I love sexualizing the other. Objectification takes away the subject, its autonomy and power. Dehumanizing: my body is not a main character anymore, it’s a privatized essence. Historically, we effectively eliminate a disparity by being leaders of a temporary prevarication.
We crave to be Lilith(s).
Or, at least, for sure I did.
“Fatal Attraction” - Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo
Scene 2 - Undying love
Lullaby comes from Lilith: a demon goddess who ate children
Discovering yourself is natural but reaching knowledge while experiencing it at a young age in the context of stereotypes is hard. Undying love, to be loved by a woman. This concept is sweet, but its idealization - dangerous. Lulling. An undying lullaby. What bothers me is the association of love with a specific gender. Even if it is beautiful or partially real as a reflection of the social context. Partial reality is centered on the design of undying love by women vs men.
Undying love by women: wide and forgiving. We forgive because our love is wide. We are meant to endure because we love.
Undying love by men: dependent, possessive and obsessive. Men are meant to go insane because of the intensity of their love.
This has nothing to do with nature: this is a historical affair.
“To me, love has no gender. To me love is soft” said a Lilith.
To be loved by becomes “to be loved by a woman”. Although gorgeous in the sense of widely loving, I deeply believe that men can widely love too, as we do. Without anger, with softness. In my discovery path, I was so focused on destroying the concept of women being so “notoriously lovely”, that I initially failed at learning that my love is soft too. I initially denied it and I partially still am. The gender association is never said as a compliment to a woman. It is a partial praise implying a limitation, our love is mocked. Combined with certain life experiences, this gradually led me to emotional unavailability. Can you believe it? An emotionally unavailable woman?
I do not wave it like a handkerchief of victory. It surely allowed me to build my independent self and freely live out my sexual experiences. Centering them on the discovery of my body rather than the infatuation, even though I have always alchemically observed. However, I sometimes feel that that same handkerchief has been the thief of experiencing deeper sensations.
Society imposes emotional unavailability as a cool trend, especially for young boys. What should really be understood is that it is a natural defense response of our body and brain. We need to process it and fully live it until something eventually changes. It should neither be praised nor condemned. It should be lived with an open dialogue, respectful to us and the other. Unfortunately, this relies on our self-consciousness and acceptance.
I now know I am both a hungry Lilith and the personification of softness.
“Fatal Attraction” - Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo
Scene 3 – Belonging
And then there is the continued connection between bodies. A conversation that becomes a rendezvous with pleasure, and perhaps not just that. A sense of serenity within one's own body when feeling it breathe alongside another. Something constant and gradual, something that would have terrified me months ago.
My ethereal vision of the meeting between bodies seemed endangered, not by curiosity but by an unsearched-for tenderness, found accidentally between a layer of skin and a yawn. That tenderness I sought out gradually, with the same gradual fear, and the same gradual serenity and spontaneity.
Deepening the knowledge of the same body, breathing with the same body repeatedly. It neither adds to the value of the act, nor trivializes it, nor manifests as less significant than the meeting between strangers I had so much idealized before.
One is simply more involved because the body while breathing, yearns to mimic the breath of the other; the subconscious is engaged not just when your body breathes. We may seem incapable of forming long-term relationships, but how beautiful it is when, timidly, we begin by simply breathing together, aligning our breath with another's, effortlessly.
My love is soft.
All this fear, anxiety, shame and stigma, is just love that hasn’t grown up yet.
Undeveloped knowledge of sex is love unable to properly grow.
Fear, undying love, and belonging produce softness.
My softness.
“Fatal Attraction” - Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo