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December 14, 2003
A question.
How does Bataille distinquish his conception of the erotic from the erotic whims and fancies of some famous sovereign personality who satisfies his/her exuberant desires without limits? Who satisfies their impulses of violence without limits by living out their fantasies of being rapacious conqueror of old. A person subject to no restraints at all; a master who falls on their victims with the devouring fury of a hungry wolf or lion?
In the sex blogs porn is defined as if erotic behaviour involves doing it for money and without the emotions. It's a business. And consent is the key to anything goes. No consent to unleashed frenzy means rape. If you consent to your body being devoured by a monster, then its okay to explore whatever fantasies excite you and intensify the pleasure.
In Eroticism Bataille argues that the Marquis de Sade insisted that his sovereignty was premised on the denial of the rights and feelings of others. His prison texts give us a person for whom other people did not count at all. Bataille is not fazed by this. He says:
"By definition, excess stands outside reason. Reason is bound up with work and the purposeful activity that incarnates its laws. But plasure mocks toil, and toil we have seen to be unfavourable to the pursuit of intense pleasure...the pursuit of pleasure even if reckoned as useful is essentially extravagant; the more so in that usually pleasure has no end product, is thought of as an end in itself and is desired for its very extravagance. This is where de Sade comes in. he does not formulate the above principles, but he implies them by asserting that pleasure is more acute if it is criminal and the more abhorrent the crime the greater the pleasure. One can see how the excesses of pleasure lead to the denial of the rights of other people."
de Sade is the starting point for Bataille. Erotic conduct is the opposite of normal conduct as spending is the opposite of getting. Sexual pleasure is so close to ruinous waste that we refer to the moment of climax as a little death. The path of sensuous disorder is also the path of destruction and betrayal. The sign posts are brutality, murder, prostitution and coarse language. These play their part in turning the erotic world of sensual pleasure into one of ruin and degradation. It is a world turned upside down and inside out.
de Sade stands for the ruinous form of eroticism; one where all the brakes are off. In de Sade's erotic world of unfettered freedom to admit the value of other people is to impose limits on oneself.
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Sade is undoubtedly the Master. He is THE magnate who must be brought out into the main arena and acknowledged for his great contribution to humanity.