Sexuality, creative blocks and our identities

One of the advantages of writing for the recently closed NewsTime was that I was “required” to produce a column every week. This I did dutifully for nearly a year except for a break over Christmas. “Required” is in inverted commas because there was no payment and therefore no absolute obligation. The idea was that down the line we columnists may have looked at being paid and a sideline income appeals a lot to me.

Something happened to me after NewsTime folded. I quit writing for a short spell (I don’t just write columns or blogs). My weekly deadline had fallen away, and, other than the fact I have been on a somewhat boring holiday, I lost a lot of daily structure. I truly look forward to having a school timetable again in a few days time, adorable Chinese kids to teach again, and the inspiration that flows from that. It includes long walks of up to two hours along canals, where columns of willow fronds glimmer with quiet, to whatever new school I am placed in.

Wanting to write again, it was a shock to stare and stare at the blank page today. In desperation I turned to a list of notes (ideas for writing, images, or aha! moments) as a back up on my mobile which usually gives me some direction. Aaargghh, they were absolutely appalling.

However, as I look at this page I feel relieved now there are some (admittedly) journal-entry thoughts down in place on an important topic: creativity and identity. We have a fear of writer’s block, or any other block, which represents failure. This is because we are extremely identified with being a writer or whatever other role. In my case I am nurtured and guided by the crystallization of thoughts and feelings that come with writing. Afterwards, not dissimilar to sex, I feel a sense of openness, aliveness.

Creativity is essential to our happiness. Stagnation is a killer. The creativity need not be a great work of art. In fact, for me it was getting my arse out of bed this Saturday morning with the help of The Missus, who has some private classes to teach today (see, she has structure). Marion was hinting about as subtly as cow dung on the wedding table that there were various chores to be done around the home and it would be so nice, ahem, to come home to see them all done after her classes. I got a meaningful stare. I lay there in bed staring at this perfumed, freshly showered, chirpy apparition, who was essentially scolding me and concerned about my negative state. I did not particularly want to get up at half past nine on a Saturday morning, which is VERY late for me. Usually I am up at five, back in the Days of Structure.

But Marion was right. I confess I have felt rather miserable over the last few days. I sorely miss my structure, my teaching schedule, all the challenges that come with that, not to mention again the creativity which flows from those children-bright experiences of teaching. But for an hour I did something a lot more “humble”: the dishes, the bed, taking out the garbage (dealing with garbage in China is a subject for another blog), the laundry and so forth. I took delight in the cleaning up, knowing Marion would be pleased too. This, followed by a long, hot shower whistling favourite tunes and a much needed shave … well I am sure you all know the lekkerkry and improved attitude that comes with that little bit of inspiration around the home.

Except for a long break in my thirties (one reason being career), I have always written since high school. Other than the published books, this includes three unpublished novels. Boy I almost got them published once or twice but a miss is as good as a …. In my schooldays I took pride in getting distinctions for English essays and a glowing remark from an admired English teacher. I was shattered when I did not get an “A”. This was because of my over-identification with achievement and roles. To this day, searching for THAT image which strikes home like a bell calling the celebrants to prayer and meditation is obsessive and deeply meaningful, but it has its dangers. What am I if I cannot write?

When I wrote that blog, “First Sexual Encounters and Shame,” I came out of the confrontational, auto-biographical experience of writing it, and from reading various readers’ comments, with a greater sense of clarity about who and what I am, sexually and otherwise. Shame has left deep fingerprints on me, as it has on many people. Shame about having natural desires.

And as I grow older I realise more and more that our sexuality (which is far more than just sex) is deeply crucial to whom and what we are. Sexuality is deeply intertwined with an old-fashioned word that has accreted too many confusing and contradictory labels: our spirituality. Spirituality is a word which should collocate with creativity. All religions have creation myths. Sexuality and spirituality-creativity: I relate profoundly as a man to the children I teach. The boys often just wanna play it rough, even some of the girls. When I hug a child I affirm him or her in a way that is different to Marion’s. I am an uncle-daddy figure. She is profoundly a mommy figure, including the prominent bust and gentle, womanly fingers.

In my previous blog I got onto a subject I have ummed and aahed over for a bit. The role of erotica in creativity, particularly writing. It was my decision to drape the Lesbian sex scenes with censor strips as I did not have the confidence that a) Thought Leader would accept the article and b) I actually felt enormously exposed and diffident talking about our sweating, heaving bodies in “that” way (or rather, letting the reader know I had actually written about the human body in “that” way). I was going to say: talking about “our erogenous zones” or “our genitalia” but yuck, those are such clinical, frigid words.

What I did enormously appreciate was the responses I got to my previous piece on steamy sex scenes. Women in particular felt my erotica at times left them cold. I learned from this and wish to learn a lot more. In reading the comments I sensed again the enormous difference the two sexes have in relating to the world. Which makes me wonder why is it we so often still end up in the sack together, bed-boards jostling. We seem to live in two separate worlds as we shudder and pant. In my illustrious experience the enjoyment of the sex is, afterwards, not much talked about. Except, sometimes, for the excruciating, “did you enjoy it?” “Was that good for you too?”

Which tells me we have not entered through language into a fuller appreciation of understanding the other sex (I cannot speak from experience for same-sex lovemaking, an interesting topic those who have may wish to comment on). Which, in turn, says to me there is a dire need for written erotica. Or to express that better: there is an urgent need to appreciate erotica more so that we can fashion, more elegantly, and with celebration, the language and images of erotica, that bridge of more than just sighs between the sexes . There is so much bitterness in relationships, in talking about the abuse of sexuality. Take for example, here on Thought Leader, columns by Sarah Britten and Jennifer Thorpe, justifiably written. The language of erotica I am trying to talk about beats the men-only club of often denigrating women through an obviously shallow discourse. Men need to realise they are denigrating themselves as well when they do that.