In her article ‘Poder i desig’ (Fragmenta Editorial) published this year, Anna Pazos poses a moral dilemma regarding an eternal question: tension between body and soul. He does this with a passage that is as suggestive as it is disturbing. The context is a bus trip to Athens, surrounded by locals who want to reproduce classical polytheism in a religious retreat. The conflict begins when a child sitting next to him puts his hand on his thigh and whispers into his ear: “We are all half-animal, half-god.”
This completely inappropriate action causes the hero to experience the typical tension of the gray area. “Will I experience the situation as a subject or as an object, perpetrator or victim? Will I fully embrace the urge to transgress that drives me hesitantly to move my hips closer to his, or will I retreat to a safe space? Where I will be able to condemn the arrogance of the boy in the tunic and enlist the support and solidarity of my peers Into the near future?”
The text suggests Desire has its own codes and occupies a turbulent place in feminist discourses. He wreaks havoc because he doesn’t follow a straight path or always act ethically. Elena Martín also dares to ask herself uncomfortable questions about sexual impulses and their contradictions in the film ‘Creatura’. “Desire always finds ways to assert itself,” she recalled in this diary a few months ago. “As girls and boys, we are taught as children that desire is something that can be uncomfortable, even punishable. and therefore it must be suppressed. Blocking is used as if it were a form of protection. “This causes very strange internal sensations because sexual desire is a vital impulse.”
Including the Catalan director A generation of creators who claim that women are desiring beings. Female desire and her pleasure areas have been one of the most important topics of recent months. We see this a lot in literature and cinema. Isabel Coixet also explicitly addresses the ambiguity of impulses in her adaptation of Sara Mesa’s book ‘Un amor’ (Anagrama). A few weeks ago the writer and director admitted that they couldn’t figure out what desire was. Along the same lines, Martín also emphasized its incomprehensible nature in various interviews: “Take the test, ask a person about his relationship with desire, and you will see that he does not know how to answer you.”
This is not a new issue. Hanif Kureishi had already asked this question in 1999 in his book ‘Intimacy’ (Anagrama), one of the most controversial books written about infidelity: “How disturbing desire is! He is naughty and does not fit our ideals. This is a demon that neither sleeps nor rests“Desire is certainly the most vivid and visceral indicator of the presence of a disturbing animality that never completely leaves us. Unless we fully understand it and therefore cannot conquer it, it is part of the dark zone. Or rather, it is part of a gray zone. In the unconscious it is always An area that is often unstable. It disarms and unnerves us because it confirms hidden contradictions.
Another writer, Annie Ernaux, who explored the quicksand nature of desire, also pointed out: The rift between morality and instincts. “Writing must address the impression evoked by the scene of the sexual act, that pain and stupor, that suspension of moral judgment.” One of the last people to address the disorders of female sexuality was the director Yorgos LantimosRevolutionizing the last Venice Festival twisted ‘Poor Creatures’ and protagonist Emma Stone.
Confusion, anarchist marriages and ‘Eyes Wide Shut’
Desire acts as a double agent: it prompts infatuation and initial attachments, but it conspires against certainties. and keeps the mystery alive. Begoña Méndez also discusses the difficulties of rising above instincts in her book ‘Anarchist Marriage’ (Hurtado and Ortega), which is about the correspondence between a couple: “I have told you many times before that the important thing is to think about what to do. Let’s deal with desire when it arises and presents itself to us.” . As is often the case with big questions, rather than offering us solutions, words help us come to terms with our contradictions and hopefully feel an illusory sense of control.
in the movie ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, Nicole Kidman’s character, under the influence of a joint, rocks her marriage with a terrifying sentence: “And I thought if he wanted me, he was willing to give up everything, even if it was just for one night.” And when she says it all, she means her husband and children. Because it’s a scene that disarms us shake our mental framework and a set of values on which we build relationships. This tension between the desire for control (“demigods”) and instinct (“demi-animals”) always accompanies us.
As Eva Baltasar points out, This is an energy that “can be shaped but never persuaded or exported.”. This phrase appears in his book Boulder (Random House), which forms a trilogy along with ‘Permafrost’ and ‘Mammoth’. It offended some women because of the way female desire was represented.
Baltasar adopts an instinctive language and codes to represent, often linked to the masculine universe. women who desire other women. Some saw it as a form of rebellion, others as a way to perpetuate a testosterone-based idea of sexuality. Positions that broaden the debate without definitive answers. Instincts remain an area as elusive as emotions.