love plots

from desire/love by lauren berlant

"the institutions and ideologies of romantic/familial love declare woman/women to be the arbiters, sources, managers, agents, and victims of intimacy: the love plots that saturate the public sphere are central vehicles for reproducing normative or 'generic' femininity."

"these dramas are always formed in relation to a fantasy that desire, in the form of love, will make life simpler, not crazier."

"love plots are marked by a longing for love to have the power to make the loved one transparent, and therefore a safe site on which to place one's own desire without fear of its usual unsettling effects."

"a love plot would, then, represent a desire for a life of unconflictedness, where the aggression inherent in intimacy is not lived as violence and submission to the discipline of institutional propriety  or as the disavowals of true love, but as something less congealed into an identity or a promise, perhaps a mix of curiosity, attachment, and passion. but as long as the normative narrative and institutionalized forms of sexual life organize identity for people, these longings mainly get lived as a desire for love to obliterate the wildness of the unconscious, confirm the futurity of a known self, and dissolve the enigmas that mark one's lovers."

"sharon thompson and others argue that there is effectively no difference between pornographic representations of sex and romance conventions. both of these are said to involve the overcoming of people by desires, and both fantasize scenes of sexuality using realist modes of representation. it has been suggested that women use romantic fantasy to experience the rush of these extremes the way men tend to use pornography, and that fantasizing about intensified feeling can be a way of imagining the thrill of sexual or political control or its loss, or, conversely, a way of overwhelming one's sexual ambivalence or insecurity with a frenzy of representation."

"advice columns, self-help pedagogy, didactic short stories, moral exhortations, autobiographies, and case studies have popularized psychoanalysis, muted its discussions of the pervasiveness of perversion, and sought to help people, especially women, adjust their desires and their self-relations to the norms and forms of everyday life. . . generally this ideology is addressed to women, who are deemed responsible for maintaining the emotional comfort of everyone in their sphere."

"what might it do to people to reveal to themselves and each other that their particular desires are unbearable in their contradictions, unknown in their potential contours, and yet demand reliable and confirming recognitions? . . . what does it mean that, unreliable in desire, we nonetheless demand the other to be perfectly attuned to what's out of tune?"

euphemisms and metaphors

excerpt from the summer book by tove jansson

'how are your legs?' verner asked.

'bad,' said grandmother heartily. 'but sometimes they seem to work all right.' and she asked him what he was doing these days.

'oh, a little of everything.' he was still offended. suddenly he burst out, 'and now backmansson is gone.'

'where did he go?'

'he is no longer among us,' verner explained angrily.

'oh, you mean he's dead,' said grandmother. she started thinking about all the euphemisms for death, all the anxious taboos that had always fascinated her. it was too bad you could never have an intelligent discussion on the subject. people were either too young or too old, or else they didn't have time.

now he was talking about someone else who was gone, and about the clerk at the store, who was so unfriendly. they were building such ugly houses everywhere, and people went ashore on other people's land without so much as a by-your-leave, but of course there had to be progress.

'oh, stuff and nonsense,' grandmother said. she stopped and turned to face him. 'just because more and more people do the same dumb things, that's nothing to make such a fuss about. progress is another thing entirely, you know that. changes. big changes.'

'my dear,' said verner quickly, 'i know what you're going to say. forgive me for interrupting, but you're about to ask me if i never read the papers.'

'not at all!' grandmother exclaimed, very much hurt. 'all i'm asking you is, don't you ever get curious? or upset? or simply terrified?'

'no, i really don't,' verner replied frankly. 'though i guess i've had my share of upset.' his eyes were troubled. 'you're so hard to please. why do you use such harsh words? i was only telling you the news.'

they walked by the potato patch and came down to the meadow by the shore. 'that's a real poplar,' said grandmother, to change the subject. 'it's taking root, look there. a friend of ours brought some genuine swan droppings from lapland, and it liked them.'

'taking root,' verner repeated. he was silent for a moment and then went on. 'it must be a great comfort to you to live with your granddaughter.'

'stop that,' grandmother said. 'stop talking in symbols, it's old-fashioned. i talk about taking root and right away you're into my grandchildren. why do you use so many euphemisms and metaphors? are you afraid?'

'my dear old friend,' said verner, greatly distressed.

'i'm sorry,' grandmother said. 'it's really a kind of politeness; i'm trying to show you i take you very seriously.'

'it is clearly an effort,' said verner gently. 'you should be a little more careful with your compliments.'

'you're right,' grandmother said.

they walked on toward the point in peaceful silence. finally, verner said, 'years ago you never talked about horsepower and fertilizer.'

'i didn't realize they were interesting. common-place things can be fascinating.'

'but yourself, personal things -- you don't talk about that,' verner observed.

'maybe not about the things that matter most,' grandmother said. she stopped to think. 'in any case, less than i used to. i suppose i've already said most of it by this time. and i realized that it wasn't worth it. or that i didn't have the right to say it.'