Inviting Desire

I just finished reading Rowan Pelling’s review of Charlotte Roche’s Wetlands (via, appropriately), a German novel about a filthy-minded 18-year-old girl that’s been getting a lot of press, both positive and negative, for its verrrry frank discussions of sex and… personal hygiene.

Pelling rails against what she sees as a recent glut of “erotica for women by women” that correlates promiscuity with empowerment (she cites Kerry Cohen’s Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity as an example, which is patently absurd, but nevermind that). She takes issue with the idea that “having lots of one-night stands should be a feminist statement,” and dismisses most erotica as at best badly written, at worst dangerous in the pressure it puts on young women. “Nowadays every two-dime sexual adventuress feels they have an amazing story to tell,” she says. “And it’s often dressed up as new feminism.”

I don’t particularly agree with this article ideologically, but she’s right that many ultimately frivolous books and movies labor under the misapprehension that their forthrightness represents some great moment in feminism. (I think we differ in our attitudes toward frivolity.)

I mention the article because on Sunday, instead of watching the Superbowl, I attended a production of Inviting Desire, a collaboratively generated ensemble piece (no, keep reading!) about women’s sexual fantasies that at first glance would seem to suffer from the same self-importance that Pelling describes.

In a tiny, crowded performance space, ensemble members in their underthings take turns describing their fantasies, in graphic detail, with the explicit objective of turning the audience on. It’s supposed to be hot. And it is, mostly—but it’s also occasionally uncomfortable, funny, weird, and even boring. (I was not, personally, enthusiastic about the Minotaur rape fantasy, even though the actress performing it was a very fetching redhead.)

Though the show’s fundamental premise is the same principle that organizes many a collection of B-rate erotica, Inviting Desire is neither annoyingly empowered nor simplistically, panderingly sexy—it showcases a broad spectrum of female fantasies, some of which seem generically appealing to an average audience (blowjobs; group sex with a yoga class), and some of which might be confusing or off-putting (graphic S&M fantasies, that whole Minotaur thing). And that’s the point of the show, which I think is fairly novel: It doesn’t say, “These are my fantasies, aren’t they revolutionary? Isn’t this empowering?” It says, “These are my fantasies, aren’t they sexy? No? Oh. Well, I think so.”

It’s not a perfect show, but it is an interesting one. It runs tonight through Sunday, and you can buy tickets for it here, under the Inviting Desire tab. Buy online if you’re interested—it’s very likely to sell out—and I would suggest bringing a partner, ’cause going with a friend is kinda awkward (sorry, Grant).