On "Written On The Body"

Edmond H. Wollmann

San Diego State University: Women's Sexualities

Spring Semester, March 21, 2001

Philosophers from the classical era pondered the meaning of life. The philosophical meditation revolved around man's place in the cosmos. Man is the measure of all things. Women were automatically included in their version of reality, and excluded from commentary.(1)

In the 1970's a generation of "free love" touted sexual revolution and freedom. What would this freeing entail? What was lurking in the beliefs and schemata (2) of a culture? What was buried in the collective subconscious?; Attitudes and concepts that would surface to illuminate --for the following generations-- just how ingrained our notions of gender identity(3) and sexual expression had become. Conditioned by centuries of definitions of the roles males and females "should" play and how they should play it, the disruption of social mores simmered in the accepted and the most familiar assumptions of our relationships. Not being encouraged to choose other models --in fact being discouraged to examine them-- we assumed these attitudes handed down as a given, as natural. After Millennia of male dominance and dicta, these most commonly accepted beliefs about sexuality and the definitions of relationship would prove to be most conflict producing, and developmentally tense. The repression of the feminine perspective was beginning its freedom from "shoulds." But was this freedom the female's alone? The concept of gender definition and orientation would have to realign and reform. In "Written On The Body," a philosophical meditation through passion and romance by Jeanette Winterson, the perspective is redirected away from man's place in the cosmos to the expanded relationship to one another in it, and opens our world to the possibilities of the diversity of relationship. To some, there are fears that come with this.

"In the kitchen Louise gave me a drink and a chaste kiss on the cheek. It would have been chaste if she'd taken her lips away at once, but instead she offered the obligatory peck and moved her lips imperceptibly over the spot. It took about twice as long as it should have done, which was still no time at all. Unless it's your cheek. Unless you're already thinking that way too. She gave no sign. I gave no sign..."(4)

As we move through this passage in "Written On The Body" our narrator still has no identifying name or gender. We know only that Louise is a married woman with flaming red hair and that the narrator is consumed with love for her. How does one experience this passage if the one believes the narrator is male? How does one read into it if we believe the narrator is female? Would this tell us about the narrator's gender? Would we view the power within the relationship of the narrator differently depending upon physiological sex identification?

How does our sense of social power and status determine our level of uncomfortableness with these gender biased beliefs held, that alters the dynamics of relationship? In "To Be Real", Danzy Senna describes these dynamics while marching in a Gay Pride March in London with her black gay British friend David, how uncomfortable it became, and how that uncomfortableness increased as they moved through Brixton, London's black neighborhood:

There, a Jamaican bystander focused his vitriolic homophobia on David, calling him a "fucking sodomite" and various other names as he threatened him with violence. As we walked, many other black Brixtonian bystanders focused on David in their hatred, paying little attention to the white gay marchers around us. David's sameness as another black person made him more offensive to them, not less, and the white men who made up the majority of the march were protected in some strange way by their "alien-ness" to the community at large.(5)

The narrator in "Written On The Body" describes the experience of many past relationships--some male some female-- as he/she chronicles this specific love affair with Louise. Stripped of the identifying clichés or clear knowledge of the narrators biological sex, the reader is almost required to examine his or her own beliefs about these queues and nuance, and the meaning behind situations not owned by male or female, but experienced psychologically by both sexes.

In the 60s and 70s there were wide political demands, research involved, and social changes taking place in the feminist movement, now, with the wedding of celebrity and the sensationalism of the 90s (6) feminism has devolved into the silliness of Ally McBeal and evolved into the seriousness of women's championship soccer. But although the method by which these social changes come about has been altered, there still exists a gap between the education level and identification with feminism and gender bias. Would the age and education level of the narrator change our views in this way? Or would our level and age change our views of the narrator?

Jeanette Winterson moves past these problems in "Written On The Body" by creating imagery that transcends superficial associations and allows the body to be many things, all of them challenge our notions of just what aspects of romance, passion, or anguish belong to one sex or the other, or one type of relationship or another. She explores with reverence, the physical, emotional, and romantic, and ties them together with the sexual which evokes questions about the state of passion and where it can move and grow. How do we limit it by these definitions we hold? She evolves an anatomy of love, sex, and relationships and removes judgments from their expression. She confirms the positive explorations of the narrator's relationships and the inspiration of love and loyalty. In the past this meant male/female heterosexuality, revolving around the concept of marriage and the male's interests and needs. We are not told the narrator's biological sex. We see only the dynamics of love and relationship, positive and negative, physical and inspirational. The vision of love broadens--she assumes no convention, from "Our Bodies Ourselves":

CHOOSING TO BE SINGLE

"It would be nice to be in a relationship, but I don't really need that. My life is fine the way it is. And my life is full of love. In nine years of being single, I have never been lonely. Staying single can be a normal, healthy, wonderful way to live, as many women discover in spite of all the negative messages to the contrary. Depending on how we choose to define it for ourselves, "being single" may mean having one or many lovers, an occasional casual sexual encounter, a committed relationship without marriage, or no sexual or romantic relationships at all. Whether being single is a temporary interlude or a life choice, these times can be among the most satisfying we ever experience.(7)

What Winterson does allow us to know, is that the narrator has lovers of both sexes. On page 41 we are told of a dream of an ex-girlfriend who was heavily into paper mache' who has a dangerous letter-box at crotch level as the narrator approaches her house to ring the bell, and on page 92 we are told of a boyfriend called "Crazy Frank" who told the narrator to "never fall in love, although his words came to late because I had already fallen for him."

In the year 2001, issues of AIDS cannot be ignored when we think of sexuality-- period, but more so when we see bi-sexual and homosexual interactions. In Naomi Wolf's "Promiscuities" the "risk factor" is an issue that becomes a concern:

"After that night, there was no way I could pretend to myself that just because Marlon was strong and worked out and liked girls, it did not mean he was not, as some were beginning to say, "risky." His whole life environment was one extended risk factor. I did not even know where to begin to look for the evidence of risk, there were so many places to start. But, as Paul had instructed me to, I asked Marlon one day, "Were you ever with guys?" And "Were you ever with women who had been with gay or bisexual guys?" He bridled. I had hurt his somewhat homophobic pride. But I noted that his protests that I had offended him did not give me an answer. In spite of my fondness for him, I broke off seeing him soon afterward."(8)

Everything we believe is questionable. In this work Winterson challenges us to ask these questions and find the center of love, sex, our beliefs handed down to us, and ultimately our expanding cosmological place. Questioning is the pursuit of wisdom in any endeavor. We must question what is handed down to us. The uncritical acceptance of beliefs handed down to us, binds us. Society is handed down to us. Beliefs can be handed down to us from culture, family, and now in the modern era, a million ways via electronic media laden with spin. Wisdom requires questioning everything. Many of the beliefs handed down to us are quite simply, lies.

Winterson begins and ends by questioning why loss is the measure of love. Is this a lie? Wisdom cannot be handed down, and wisdom is born from experience and relationship. Understanding born from wisdom cannot be handed down, nor can the measure of love.

Footnotes

(1) In classical Greece, women were not included in these discussions or symposia (drinking parties) by men.

(2) "The Development of Children"; A mental structure that provides an organism with a model for action in similar or analogous circumstances.

(3) The feeling or conviction that one is male or female.

(4) "Written On The Body", page 30.

(5) "To Be Real", page 19.

(6) Time Magazine, It's All About Me, page 57.

(7) "Our Bodies, Ourselves", Working Toward Mutuality: Our Relationships With Men, Choosing to Be Single, page 187.

(8) Promiscuities, Chapter 18, A Virus, page 205.

References

Allgeier, Elizabeth and Albert. (1995). Sexual Interactions, fourth edition. Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company.

Bellafonte, Gina. (1998). Time Magazine, It's All About Me. Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY.

Boston Women's Health Book Collective. (1998) Our Bodies, Ourselves, New York: Touchstone, Simon & Schuster.

Cole, Sheila R., and Michael (1993). The Development of Children. Second edition.

New York: Scientific American Books.

Kaplan, J.D., (1951) Dialogues of Plato. New York: Pocket Books.

Walker, Rebecca. (1995). To Be Real. New York: Anchor Books.

Winterson, Jeanette (1992). Written On The Body. England: Vintage International

Wolf, Naomi. (1997). Promiscuities, The Secret Struggle For Womanhood. New York: Fawcette Columbine.

"Why is the measure of love loss?....
I am thinking of a certain September: Wood pigeon
Red Admiral Yellow Harvest Orange Night. You said,
'I love you.' Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we
can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear?
'I love you' is always a quotation. You did not say it first
and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it
we speak like savages who have found three words and
worship them....
Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay
silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no.
It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note
that smashes the glass and spills the liquid."
Jeanette Winterson, "Written on The Body"

© 2001 Altair Publications, SAN 299-5603