“Speak slow when you speak of love.”

This is an invitation that whispers a promise of deep, penetrating feeling if only I agree to let my heart dance. My “yes” should be obvious, automatic, and yet I’ve observed myself, in disgruntled audience, refuse the pleasurable language of love.

Is it discipline or denial?

Audre Lorde, in her sermon “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” critiques the ascetic—the prince of piety—for his renunciation of the erotic since it is not a disciplined position but an abnegant one. We are not holier for our refusal of the yes within.

Did you know that nuns are more likely to develop breast cancer? Apparently this is because of their punishing principle of self sacrifice and somatic suppression, or demotically, no sex. I learned this from a film I watched today titled, “A Snake *of June.” In my favorite scene, she strips herself naked in the rain while she poses for the voyeurist as he immortalizes her with a flash + negatives. She had breast cancer.