The Great Men fetishized the hysteric, they channeled hysteria, both in style (automatic writing), as well as in their writing of these female characters, yet in their material lives these men were not objects, but authors, subjects. I see this as a slumming. They fetishized the actresshysteric, the spastic flapper-girl, the witty mystic, the lovely mental patient, they sucked her bone-dry. An alchemy: burning down the raw material. A possession narrative, dictated by the male authority figure. He possessed, she possession. They can channel the feminine, her emotional and bodily excesses, they
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