As women, we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and non-rational knowledge. But that strength is illusory, for it is fashioned within the context of male models of power. It is a short step from there to the false belief that only by the suppression of the erotic within our lives and consciousness can women be truly strong.

On the one hand, the superficially erotic has been encouraged as a sign of female inferiority on the other hand, women have been made to suffer and to feel both contemptible and suspect by virtue of its existence. We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused, and devalued within western society. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. THERE ARE MANY kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. Here here are some of my favorite excerpts. In The Erotic as Power, published in 1978, Audre offers a detailed analysis of female power and why it is so often limited, constrained, labeled, put in a box, left to gather dust. The thing is, a quote from her is simply no match for her essays. And if you've read any of her quotes, you know that she's a master at crafting evocative poetry and prose that gets straight to the heart of the matter. As an empowered self-loving woman, you've probably already heard about feminist, womanist, activist and writer Audre Lorde and her work Uses of the Erotic.

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