From Book of Blue by Eric Francis. Note to readers: Book of Blue is currently a free subscription website – until Tuesday. This is the last call if you would like access to the site, without charge. The way you arrange that is to write me a personal letter at blue -at- bookofblue.com, introducing yourself and expressing your interest in the work. Hard to believe but Book of Blue, the diary, not just the photos, has been going three years as of around March; the photos go back to spring 2005. –efc
We need a sexual revolution. One of the paradigms we’ve reached the end of, as a culture, involves the way we conduct our sexual relationships, and it’s time for something new. We are the ones who are going to create whatever that new thing is.
Yet in practical terms, how do we go about this? Let’s say you’re at the point where you recognize that the old framework of relationships – Cinderella or the one night stand – isn’t working for you.
The chances are if you’ve arrived at this point, you’ve paid for it dearly. You’ve paid in loss, in pain, in having your hopes dried out on the rocks and bleached in the too-hot Sun of desire; and you’ve probably paid in longing and loneliness.
You may have given up, or you dearly need to. You may have decided that there is no way you can have relationships that follow society’s norms and rules. You may have decided that you have too many issues to relate to another person — and then you wonder why others with more issues seem to do better. Above all, you know you’ve reached a branch of the road, where you can no longer go forward; where you must make a choice and go one new way or another.
And then what? The first thing to recognize is that you’re in new territory. People have been here before, but the trails are all overgrown. Previous explorers took notes and some of them are available: there is more wisdom and consideration of sex in art and literature there is about many other topics, but as Adrienne Rich once wrote, there are methods but we don’t use them. The stories of what happens in this forest are enough to keep away all but those who are truly brave of heart, or whose souls yearn to express more of their human potential lest they die of inhumanity. The reason is they call on us to be honest with ourselves and with others — and this seems beyond what most people are capable of.