Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 248

Psychoanalysis As Poetry

The psychotherapist and writer Adam Phillips reveals why he thinks of it that way:

For me, Freud made sense then not in terms of the history of science or the history of neurology, but in terms of the history of literature. I had been lucky enough to read Tristram Shandy before I read psychoanalysis. One advantage of thinking about psychoanalysis as an art, instead of a science, is that you don’t have to believe in progress. The tradition I was educated in was very committed to psychoanalysis as a science, as something that was making progress in its understanding of people. As if psychoanalysis was a kind of technique that we were improving all the time. This seemed to me at odds with at least one of Freud’s presuppositions, which was that conflict was eternal, and that there was to be no kind of Enlightenment convergence on a consensual truth.

The discipline was practiced, though, as if we were going to make more and more discoveries about human nature, as though psychoanalysis was going to become more and more efficient, rather than the idea—which seemed to me to be more interesting—that psychoanalysis starts from the position that there is no cure, but that we need different ways of living with ourselves and different descriptions of these so-called selves.

For more on the theme, check out Phillips’ book, Promises, Promises: Essays on Psychoanalysis and Literature.

A Poem For Sunday

Another selection from Patrizia Cavalli translated, from the Italian, by Moira Egan and Damiano Abeni:

I cannot love what you are, no,

what you are is indeed a mistake.

But there is in you a grace that surpasses

what you obstinately are.

Something that’s yours and doesn’t belong to you,

in you from the start but separate from you,

that draws towards you cautiously, afraid

of its own uncontainable splendor.

(From My Poems Won’t Change the World: Selected Poems of Patrizia Cavalli, edited by Gina Alhadeff. Translation © 2013 by Moira Egan and Damiano Abeni. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved. Photo by Joel Olives)

Contemplating Confession

Twenty years after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, Morgan Meis reviews If I Did It, the bizarre hypothetical recounting of the incidents O.J. Simpson published in 2007. Rather than dwelling on the salacious details of this “extremely confusing book written by an extremely confused man,” Meis connects the confessor’s impulse to the Western canon, comparing Socratic and Augustinian approaches to guilt:

There’s a long tradition in Western culture of responding to accusations with an affirmation of the self. Think of it as the Socratic impulse. It is the need to give an apology — not in the sense of saying “I’m sorry,” but in the sense of the Greek word apologia. An apologia is not an admission of guilt or an expression of regret. It is, literally, a “talking back.” It is a response to an accusation in which the accused tells his side of the story. That’s what Socrates does in his apology. He tells his side of the story. He affirms who he is and what he is about. Let’s not forget that Socrates was guilty of his crimes. Just read I. F. Stone’s The Trial of Socrates. Socrates was, in fact, corrupting the youth of Athens. Socrates’ students and admirers — men like Alcibiades — were, in fact, being taught by Socrates to have contempt for the structures of Athenian democracy. Some of Socrates’ students did, in fact, overthrow and abolish Athenian democracy. So Socrates, in his apology, is not protesting his innocence so much as asserting himself, affirming his own point of view. “This is who I really am,” says Socrates, “this is what I am about.”

O. J. was grasping at something similar when he said, “I did what all accused men do at the moment of truth: I proclaimed my innocence.” Defending the truth or falsity of the accusations against him didn’t matter as much to O. J. The important thing to defend when you stand alone, accused, is your self. This is when you have a chance to say, “Here’s who I am, here’s my story and I will not surrender this story.” But there is another side to O. J.

This side does want to confess, wants to be able to discuss and come to terms with the actual murders. This side of O. J. wants to be released from the burden of self that he affirms in the Socratic impulse. In his confessional mode, O. J. doesn’t want to be responsible for his story. He wants to be able to give his story away. This desire to confess is the Augustinian impulse and it is fundamentally incompatible with the Socratic impulse.

Augustine’s Confessions are the writings of a man unburdening himself. Augustine wants to find himself by throwing himself away. He wants to loosen the bonds of self. He wants to find relief from his own story by giving it away to God. “For behold,” Augustine writes, “Thou lovest the truth, and he that doth it, cometh to the light. This would I do in my heart before Thee in confession: and in my writing, before many witnesses.” That is, more or less, what O. J. tries to do by embedding a confession in the sixth chapter of his strange book. Except that he cannot do it completely. He does it by way of a hypothetical, and then toggles back into Socratic mode for the rest of the book, in an attempt to reclaim his “self” once more.

Could Hitler End Up In Heaven?

Drawing on the 4th-century Christian theologian Gregory of Nyssa, Damon Linker explains how it could happen:

Gregory maintained that hell resembles something like what Catholics have traditionally called purgatory: A place of sometimes excruciatingly painful purgation of sins in preparation for heaven. The pain is not externally inflicted as punishment, but follows directly from the process of purification as the soul progresses toward a perhaps never fully realized union with divine perfection. Gregory describes this process as a “constant progression” or “stretching forth” (epektasis) of oneself toward an ever greater embrace of and merger with God in the fullness of eternity — a transmutation of what is sinful, fallen, and finite into the transcendent beauty of the infinite.

Hell, in this view, would be the state of agonizing struggle to break free from sin, to renounce our moral mistakes, to habituate ourselves to the good, to become ever more like God. Eastern Orthodox theologians (and, interestingly, Mormons, who hold similar views) call it a process of divination or sanctification (theosis) that follows directly from the doctrine of God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ. It is a formula found in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, and other ancient theologians: God became a human being so that human beings might become like God.

All human beings.

One imagines that this would be a long, painful process — rendered longer and more painful for those who have fallen furthest from God during their lives. They are the ones for whom the afterlife is truly hellish — like a climb up a peak far, far higher than Mount Everest with little prior preparation or training, no expensive gear, and no Sherpas to help carry the load. But there would eventually be progress toward God, even for the climber who starts out in the worst possible shape, and from the lowest possible point in the valley below.

(Image: The 12th century Ladder of Divine Ascent icon showing monks, lead by John Climacus, ascending the ladder to Jesus, at the top right, via Wikimedia Commons)

Mental Health Break

A beautiful timelapse of ice in motion:

Quote For The Day II

“I understood that faith is not merely ‘the evidence of things not seen’, etc., and is not a revelation (that defines only one of the indications of faith, is not the relation of man to God (one has first to define faith and then God, and not define faith through God)); it is not only agreement with what has been told one (as faith is most usually supposed to be), but faith is a knowledge of the meaning of human life in consequence of which man does not destroy himself but lives. Faith is the strength of life. If a man lives he believes in something. If he did not believe that one must live for something, he would not live. If he does not see and recognize the illusory nature of the finite, he believes in the finite; if he understands the illusory nature of the finite, he must believe in the infinite. Without faith he cannot live…

For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite,” – Leo Tolstoy, A Confession.

(Hat tip: Maria Popova)

Face Of The Day

Photographer Chloe Aftel photographs agender youth:

In the wake of a horrific incident in which Sasha Fleischman, an 18 year old “agender” youth, was set on fire after falling asleep on a bus in the Bay Area, San Francisco Magazine commissioned photographer Chloe Aftel to capture a series of portraits of young people (including Fleischman) who defy the male/female gender binary.

Aftel’s “Agender” series seeks to raise awareness of an overlooked and misunderstood community of gender fluid people who face oppression and harassment simply for not conforming.

See more of Aftel’s work here.

 

Seedy Cinemas

Photographer Michael Max McLeod captures remaining public porn cinemas:

I’m surprised they still exist. The internet has been mainstream since, what, 1993 maybe? That’s over 20 years. Porn and anonymous hookups are a click away now – anywhere, any time. Most of the locations I go to are completely empty or have only 1 or 2 patrons. Thats great, because it gives me a lot of freedom to photograph. But I imagine they can’t stay in business much longer.

As for the locations that actually get traffic, I’m surprised to discover how they each have a specific culture. Truck stop locations are busy and have a very fast turnover. A location off the highway is going to be busiest at 3pm on a Friday. The neighborhood porn shop might serve as a friendly, social hangout for retired men. Certain locations might attract black and latino men and their admirers. Other locations attract prostitutes, straight couples or a lunchtime businessman crowd. I could go on. Each location has its own unique rituals.

See more of his work here.

Too Soon?

A reader replies to this thread on faking orgasms:

Your reader wrote: “You really want to get people talking? Start a thread about people who come too fast instead of not at all.”

I’m one of those guys, sometimes. My wife likes to sneak off to the bathroom at work and send me naughty snaps when she’s wanting to have some naked fun time that night. She keeps me primed all day to the point that, when we finally get down to it, I’m so hot I pop in sometimes less than a minute.

This was a big problem for me for a long time, assuming that my wife wasn’t getting satisfaction from our sex life. I always went down on her before the actual sex, so I comforted myself knowing she was at least having an orgasm. Finally, I asked her about it just to clear the air, and I was the only one with an issue. She loved that I came so fast, when it happened. Knowing that SHE got me that hot, that it was HER that I was so excited about, it made it even better for her even when it was short. She did confess that, occasionally, she would be disappointed with the brevity, but not often enough for it to be an issue. Still, now that we’ve talked about it, if it happens, we just wait awhile for the batteries to recharge (with lots of cuddling and continuing foreplay) and go at it again. “Problem” solved.

Another can relate:

I am apparently a rare creature  – a woman who often comes “too early.”

I’m also one-and-done on orgasms, which my husband knows. So if it happens too soon, I fake that I’m not having an orgasm; I hide it. Definitely being a woman is an advantage here. I have sometimes then faked a later orgasm, but usually I just show enthusiasm up until my husband finishes, at which point he often asks if I came, and I assure him yes, because I did. Not a lie! He does not ask for details on timing. I justify this act on the basis that I do not want him to feel rushed. I’ve tried to adjust him to my speed, and I’ve tried to get him on board with moves that slow me down, but neither of those worked, so the act continues.

Another female reader ventures into new territory:

I am so happy to see other women writing in to say they are not able to have orgasms during normal sexual intercourse. I’m not happy for them but I’m happy to hear it is not just me. I spent most of my 20′s believing something was seriously wrong with me. I can get myself there, but no one else was able to. I don’t think it’s psychological for me. I don’t get all up in my head when I’m having sex. I can usually let go and enjoy it pretty well. I just never orgasm unless I take matters into my own hands, so to speak.

In my late 20′s I met a man who is now my husband. After many months of being intimate I agreed to let him try anal sex with me. I had tried it before, but it was painful and not anything I wanted to try again. We started slow but eventually got there. I orgasm every time. Every single time. But only during anal sex. I can’t get my vagina to operate normally (at least that is how it feels in my head), but at least my butt is on board. It’s something. I often wonder if there are other women out there that can’t hit the big “O” vaginally but can with anal penetration.

In Brief

With an exhibition on the history of lingerie opening in New York this week, Raquel Laneri considers how unmentionables became a turn-on:

The idea that underthings can serve any other purpose besides a purely functional one, of course, is relatively new. For centuries, men and women wore plain T-shaped linen tunics under their clothes, most likely for warmth and, as FIT Museum Director Valerie Steele writes in the catalog’s forward, to protect more decorative outer garments from “the dirt and sweat associated with the (seldom washed) body.” (Eww.) Undergarments did enjoy a brief moment of exposure in the 18th century, with the ruling class indulging in decorative corsets. (Think Marie Antoinette and her semi-public dressing rituals.) Yet by the early 19th century, the rise of the middle class – and a certain “bourgeois modesty” – sent these undergarments back into hiding, with women relegated to simple, white stays and petticoats that served to enhance their virtue rather than their allure.

That all changed in the late 19th century. The Impressionists had shaken up Paris with frank portraits of their mistresses and friends wearing blue silk unmentionables. Department stores opened to cater to an increasingly powerful middle class that no longer felt shy about displaying its wealth. And, most importantly, women began to see themselves not just as housewives and mothers but also as sexual beings. Silhouettes – the hourglass, the “S” (achieved by wearing a corset and a rear-enhancing bustle) – became more extreme, and underwear more luxurious.

(Image: Ad for Stardust Miracle-Lift Bra, published in the March 1953 issue of Woman’s Day, via Flickr user Classic Film)