eroticism

eroticism is a curious word — there even seems to be some confusion over whether it should be ‘eroticism’ or ‘erotism’. The earliest example given for the related term ‘eroticise’ — defined as to make erotic or to stimulate erotically — dates from as late as 1914, citing Geddes and Thomson's handbook Sex, which deals with the ‘eroticization of the brain’ that takes place during adolescence. The term as used conflates various rather different meanings, and this indeterminacy may be indicative of both the haziness of the concept and of a particular elusive quality characteristic of eroticism.

There is a specific psychoanalytic meaning for ‘eroticism’, which is seen as an inherent quality not originally attached to the genitals at all. Freud, in Three Essays on Sexuality (1905) outlined his theory of infantile sexuality and the development of various manifestations of eroticism around different erotogenic zones of the body. The key phenomenon for him was thumb-sucking: this was sensual, characterized by rhythmicity; it bore no relation to the primary purpose of obtaining nourishment (though was initially associated with this need for self-preservation), and involved a complete absorption in the process, leading to sleep or even to something resembling orgasm. Freud noted that the early erotic manifestations he delineated were additionally characterized by being auto-erotic; directed towards the attainment of satisfaction from the individual's own body rather than being directed towards other people.

He generalized from this instance to define certain common features in zones which became imbued with erotic interest. They were mucous membranes, or parts of the skin, which evoked feelings of pleasure of a particular quality when stimulated in a certain way. A rhythmic character seemed to be an important component of why these stimuli were significant (Freud found the analogy of tickling ‘forced’ upon him). But any part of the body might become an erotogenic zone. However, there were certain areas which were particularly liable to do so, and for Freud the oral eroticism of sucking was the model. The development of erotic attachment to anal activity, and the stimulating effects of the faecal mass on a sensitive portion of mucous membrane, was a later manifestation. Genital stimulation was a still later development: Freud concluded that it was not ‘the vehicle of the oldest sexual impulses’. Its earliest arousal was often brought about in connection with urination, but general hygienic activities (such as washing) or accidental stimulation (e.g. by threadworm infestation) could direct the child's attention towards this area.

This concept of eroticism relates to the wider meanings and connotations of the term, in that it clearly situates eroticism as a form of pleasure drawing on sexual sources but detached not only from the primary reproductive purpose of sex but from its more socialized functions such as creating relationships. Eroticism implies a conscious and deliberate concern with the subsidiary aspects of the sexual drive, and thus it is strongly associated with ideas of taboo and the transgressive. The French theoretician of eroticism, Georges Bataille, in L'érotisme (1957: UK publication 1962) argued that it performs a function of dissolving boundaries. It is something disruptive and disorderly.

Eroticism should be distinguished from sensuality. The latter tends to denote a certain wallowing in pleasures of the senses: eroticism, however, is concerned to heighten these pleasures. The means of doing so are various, but often involve strategies by which final gratification is delayed, and which intensify the period of yearning desire. This ties in with the counter-natural quality of eroticism; it is not about proceeding to satisfaction by the most direct route possible, but about finding means of making the satisfaction greater and even transcendental when it is attained.

marriage is often seen as the deathbed of eroticism, since it is a public and institutionalized relationship forming the basis of societal ties. Moreover, the husband and wife have largely unrestricted sexual access to one another (the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity, as George Bernard Shaw put it), which is something antipathetic to the idea of eroticism, for which barriers impeding the consummation which is striven towards are a necessity. Sexual intercourse within marriage tends to become habitual and routine. This problem exercised early-twentieth-century writers who were endeavouring to import an erotic quality into marriage, in order to cancel out the threats to national and individual health posed by forbidden pleasures, by integrating these into the licit and conjugal. Authors such as Havelock Ellis and Marie Stopes put the case for periodic abstinence within marriage to make the pleasures of union sweeter. All writers of sex advice warned couples, and particularly the husband, to avoid falling into a banal routine of marital relations and to make each union a unique experience, a point of view which had already been advanced by the French novelist Honoré de Balzac in his work The Physiology of Marriage (1826).

How far eroticism, as an experience both transcendental and transgressive, can be incorporated into an approved state such as marriage is problematic. However hard a couple may try to import eroticism into the marriage, particularly in these days of sexual liberation, there is very little which can be done by two consenting adults which has the frisson of the forbidden. This may lead us to re-evaluate the erotic potential of the marriages of earlier epochs, such as the Victorian, when so much was (at least in public rhetoric) forbidden or disapproved of, that a sense of the transgressive might be readily achieved by quite small matters, such as mutual nakedness, or slight alterations of coital position such as placing the woman on top. The doctrine of conjugal continence also placed restrictions upon the frequency of marital intercourse and thus may have made the occasions when it did occur much more intense. Changes in sexual morality during the 1960s and 70s may provide part of the explanation for the rise of ‘swinging’ or partner-swapping parties during the 1970s: not so much an expression of sexual liberation as a reaction to the idea that ‘anything goes’ by finding some form of sexual activity that could still generate a sense of the transgressive. The recommendations in The Joy of Sex (1974) for the use of bondage to heighten the sexual experience may also be seen as a way to achieve an erotic transcendance which cheerful, guiltfree, ‘straight’ sexual romps could not provide.

Anything can become eroticized. Different parts of the body signify the erotic in different cultures: the example usually cited is that of the bound foot which exercised such a strong influence over the erotic preferences of the Chinese for many centuries. Fashion both follows and creates new areas of erotic interest. Clothes or habits which were associated with prostitution became themselves erotic signifiers — for example, make-up, bright lipstick. The actual allusion to sexual activity may be exceedingly distantly displaced. There is no obvious reason, apart from social coding, why an earring in one ear or the other should advertise particular sexual preferences, and in fact there is some doubt as to whether (outside limited circles) it does this rather than being merely a choice in individual decoration. Ankle-chains worn by women may make some distant reference to bondage.

Because of its mutable, unstable, and floating quality, eroticism often turns up in places where it might be assumed to have been completely eradicated. It has often been pointed out how close a connection exists between eroticism and religion, though this is seldom so explicit as in the famous erotic temple carvings of India, or the rituals of Tantric Buddhism. The metaphors of yearning, of desire, of satisfaction withheld and then overwhelmingly achieved, which have obvious erotic connotations constantly crop up in religious contexts. The lush and poetic eroticism of the Song of Songs in the Old Testament has been read as an allegory of the union between God and his people. St Theresa of Avila's writings of her mystical ecstasies seem to the modern reader unmistakably sexual, and this eroticism is made quite explicit in the famous statue of her by Bernini, swooning in ecstasy when pierced by an angel with a sword. Hymns can express a desire for a passionate consummation.

Given Freud's derivation of eroticism from a primary oral source, it may be suggested that all eroticism, with its promise of an exquisite culmination, hearkens back to the infant sucking on its mother's breast. He himself noted that the blissful satiation of the flushed baby after feeding was the ‘prototype of the expression of sexual satisfaction in later life’. This may explain why, although enacted through sexuality, eroticism has the persistent quality of being contrary to, even detached from, the usual ends of sexual activity, both personal and social.

Lesley A. Hall