Desire Leads to Hate

The Professor of Desire by Phillip Roth: a Personal Review

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Way back in my first year of University, I learned that some people think the notion of romantic love didn’t actually exist until medieval times, and that the story of Lancelot and Guinevere is actually the first love story. Previous to that it was all about sexual attraction and desire.

When Wilma left, and I had a new apartment, I decided to indulge my desire. This mostly took the form of an all out porn binge. I also toyed with the idea of some one night stands, even posted a profile on the “intimate encounters” part of Lava Life, but nothing really came of it except an introduction to a woman I wasn’t attracted to in anyway.

After a while, the porn got a little, well, repetitive. There are only so many times you can watch strip tease, followed by blow job followed by cunnalingus followed by missionary followed by various positions including doggy style and anal and finally a cumshot. All done by porn stars who either overact or look incredibly bored.

But I still wasn’t ready to go out and have random sexual experiences with people, admittedly, because I was too scared (if I had been braver, I might have, and might have regretted it too…) So I looked for other methods to stimulate myself.

I was introduced to a wonderful website during a training session at the Library where I work: allreaders.com. If you do a “detailed book search”, select “style” as your search parameter, and check the box that says “Sex in book?” it presents you with the option of finding literature that includes “vague references,” “descript. of female anat. (the big B's),” “descript. of female anat. (the big V),” “descript. of nude males (the big P),” “actual description of hetero sex,” “use of artificial tools,” “male homosexuals doing their thing,” and more!

Delightful, I thought. Now I can pique my desires AND feel smart at the same time. I set about making a list of deliciously erotic literature. At the top of my list was The Professor of Desire.

It did not disappoint. Lots of graphic descriptions of swinging breasts, shoving members into mouths, threesomes, tying down women as the writhe in pleasure, and even a facial.

By that isn’t the point of the novel.

Professor David Kapesh is composing a lecture for his introduction to literature class. The focus of the literature he has selected is desire, specifically, sexual desire. So he decides he will chronicle his own experience of this desire. And while it is titillating at first, when he is in London in a torrid three-way affair with two luscious Swedish women who dream up all sorts of sexual adventures, it soon turns into a painful cycle that Kapesh endures.

He desires a woman, peruses her, becomes obsessed with her, particularly having sex with her, finally has sex with her, and starts to develop a relationship with her. And just as he thinks he is finally satisfied his desire, he begins to feel cold and dead inside. He misses the desire itself. He becomes mean, belligerent, and neglectful, eventually driving the woman away. He tells himself his desire is dead, and now he must go through his life without desire, a drudgery, he tells himself. And then, low and behold, his desire is aroused once again by another woman…

By the third time he enters this cycle, having two ex-wives already, it is almost unendurable. He tries for pages upon pages to see the positive benefits of his relationship: this latest woman adores him, but is able to converse with him; she gives herself to him completely during sex, without giving up her own pleasure; she is beautiful (especially her swinging breasts above him while they have intercourse… I think that particular line left an impression on me…) and so on. All the while, readers know what is coming. Knows he is trying in vain. Knows he will eventually drive her away.

The novel ends there. He decides he cannot continue the third long term relationship, and is just on the verge of realizing that he is caught in a cycle. What stands in his way is his indecision about what his predicament means. Is it simply his nature to desire? Is his ultimate desire is desire itself, a desire which will leave him perpetually unsatisfied? Or does he simply needs to find a way to accept a life in which desires come and go and do not need to be followed?

An appropriately unsatisfying ending.

Kapesh is not a slimy asshole who takes advantage of women, he is a drama queen who over thinks everything and makes bizarre conclusions and decisions based on his desires and restlessness. Perhaps that is just an asshole of a different sort…

So while I may have been titillated by a few scenes here and there, I still returned to the redundant, repetitive porn as the staple for my arousal.

C'est L'Amour

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Last weekend I went to Canada’s Wonderland in Toronto. I went on a handful of roller coasters and stood in lots of lines. And in terms of that thrill, that rush, that feeling as if all your internal organs are melting and going to explode out of your chest, it is the most intense feeling I have ever had. Better than the pathetic roller coasters at Upper Clemens Park, better than the time I pushed my car to 180 kmph on the highway and better than the time I told a girl I loved her for the first time.

I spent a week working up to it. I told her, over the phone, that I had something to tell her. And for every night the rest of the week, I sat petrified, unable to get it out of my mouth. I tried a few times, and instead of saying it, I was silent for a long time, and then the moment passed.

When I finally did, it was a big weight off of my shoulders. Like when the roller coaster finally comes out of one of those loops, or starts to level out after a big drop.

But she didn’t say it back, which brought on an altogether different kind of drop.

I seem to have bad luck with relationships. My relationship with Minnie, the girl, was a private one. We talked for hours and hours on the phone where I fell in love with her, but when we were in public together, she gave me the cold shoulder. It was awful and heart breaking, but I kept calling and coming back for more.

On a positive note, that was probably the worst “I love you” experience I have had. I have told five girls that I loved them. In at least three cases, and probably four, I felt that roller coast rush before saying it the first time. I didn’t suddenly understand what love, in a romantic context, was, but I felt like something was inside ready to explode and I had to say something to indicate it was there, and love seemed to be the best word to communicate it.

Ironically, the only time the feeling wasn’t there the first time out was with Wilma. She had just come up to Waterloo to meet me and travel back to Halifax with me. I decided, already, that I would wait until a few months before saying it. Our relationship had been mostly over the phone, except for some pretty hot make out sessions over the Christmas Holidays. I wanted to make sure.

But in a drunken stupor, after vomiting up all the food in my belly, and laying down beside her in my bed, it just came out.

That’s not to say I didn’t feel it other times with Wilma. There were times when she was working in the living room on one of her thousand projects, or curling up beside me in bed, and I was overwhelmed with that feeling. It was that way with four of the five actually (the one left out was a crazy short lived thing). That was often when I said “I love you.”

It wasn’t the only time I said it though. There were times when it was a reassurance (we just had a fight, and I said it to confirm that the fight hadn’t destroyed my feelings/commitment/whatever for her), a casual reminder (on the way out the door or something) or a response to her “I love you” (to let her know it’s a mutual expression of whatever it is). Probably more times than that too.

But it feels like there is a little something extra in saying those words when you have that feeling. It may not always be as intense as the Drop Zone or Top Gun, but it lasts longer, has more benefits, and has no lineup.

Moving On...

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I had the good fortune of seeing Rockzilla last week. It's been a little while. Rock is transient, moves from place to place, from job to job and from phone number to phone number. Very hard person to get a hold of to make plans with. The only time I see him recently is when his heavy metal tribute band is playing and I see it advertized.

This show wasn't that great. Not his fault though. He had make up and a wig and a great singing voice. He even came out of a coffin to start things off. Unfortunately, it wasn't the right crowd for his band, and the bar staff cut his set short at the end of the night.

I met Rockzilla at a church, of all places. Odd place to find a prince of darkness mimic. He was a worship leader back then. Husband and father of two. I got to know him in a different church, where again, he was a worship leader. This time though, his marriage and his faith were crumbling.

We started to hang out more when things had fallen apart, just before I was married. His marriage was pretty much over by that point, and he didn't go anywhere for church. We met for beer and got drunk while we talked about God and spiritual experience and our relationships. It was a pretty regular thing for a while. He found his rebound relationship and I lost track of him for a little while. He resurfaced when that ended, just in time for the end of my marriage.

I remember meeting him in Chapters, him explaining his wild nights with the rebound and how it ended, me with the story of my marriage. No beer this time because neither of us could afford it. Chapters closed and we still weren't done, so we went outside and walked around the parking lot while we flipped between God and women.

I was (and still am really) trying to figure out my life after Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism. We were talking about that while we sat on a picnic tabl, watched the stars and the suspicious couple who drove up in separate cars.

I told him I wasn't sure I believed in God anymore, and I wasn't sure how to figure out what to do or how to think about things if God didn't exist. When I had God, and religion, I had a list of priorities and goals, or at least, a way of determining those things. Without God, I felt like I had none.

He asked me how God's existence would change the situation we are in on earth. Based on our previous conversation, I clearly didn't believe in divine punishments or plans, so what was the difference. Either way, wasn't the point just to try and love other people (the Corinthians way)?

He immediately said he wasn't sure what Love really meant anyway, but that somehow when he did what he thought was supposed to be love, then somehow it made him feel better and other people feel better. It helped both people. And without God, it makes our lives more endurable, maybe even enjoyable. And with God, isn't that what He would want anyway?

It seemed simple. It was like the first step out of the mire of chaos for me. I tried to stop obsessing over what I should believe or do, and tried to relax and treat people as fellow human-beings. I decided that was more important than beliefs anyway.

Love is a Verb

I was taught lots of things about love while I was going to church. Most of them were not helpful.

For example: God is Love.

This might have been beneficial if I had a clear understanding of Love or God, but since neither were very clear to me, it didn’t help define anything. It was like saying Nothingness is Infinite. Two concepts that are extremely difficult to understand used to describe each other. Not helpful.

Another one was Love is a verb, as so eloquently described [HERE], by DC Talk.

(For the record, I have never owned a DC Talk record, or enjoyed listening to DC Talk. In fact, my only exposure to DC Talk was through Optimus Prime, who routinely put together a group of boys in the youth group to sing acapella a la boy band during youth conventions and camps and such. Of course, all the girls swooned and I was, as always, jealous).

While “Love is a verb” is trite and essentially meaningless, it is based on something slightly more helpful: I Corinthians 13

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

That was read at my wedding…

I believe that this describes the way people should treat other people. And that essentially means I believe we should love everybody.

Now before you go around passing out flowers to everybody you see and singing the Beatles, the KJV has a different translation of the word “love” in that passage. There it reads “charity”. Someone who knows about biblical translation will have to help me out, but I think there are all kinds of different words for love in the Greek language, and this is just one of them.

So how do I describe the difference in my relationship to my family, or a woman I really like (aw, shucks)?

My dad’s favourite cliché is that Love is a choice. When you love someone, you simply choose to treat them the way the Bible describes in Corinthians, and the difference, I suppose, is how hard you try and the commitment you have to each person.

A very firm, very clear definition. When I am kind to someone, I love them. The more I love them, the more I am kind to them, and the more commitment to being kind to that person I can express. And so on.

But that all seems too cold, too cut and dry as a definition for Love.

To me, Love seems like a mysterious thing that seems to overwhelm you without completely revealing itself, leaving you wondering if it even actually exists.