Narratophilia

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Hearing a sexy narrative and being aroused by the story is Narratophilia. Still, the enjoyment of hearing a voice, which could be due to sexual content, but it can be anything really, is Auralism. Some time ago, I was having dinner with a female friend, and out of nowhere, she started to tell me this story of herself in a very sexual context. It wasn’t told (but now, I have second doubts) to seduce me, but in a manner of sharing something secret or personal, and she was comfortable sharing this private information with me. I didn’t ask her to do so; it is something she brought up as we waited for our first round of drinks.

She told me a series of narratives that put her in a new light for me. Before this dinner, I would have never imagined her in those situations. It wasn’t only that, but her causal method of telling the tale without shame or shyness. The famous part of Marcel Proust's book Swann’s Way is where the narrator writes about his memory by mixing a specific cookie with his tea. The context that we were next to other parties in this crowded restaurant and hearing such intimate details between her and various other men made it even more startling. As she talked, I could also listen to another couple at the table next to us talk about politics, and then they went into a deep conversation about baseball. The odd thing to me is here I was, sitting with a woman talking about her sexual experiences, and the other table was not paying any attention to us. I then realized I was in a world within a world.

There is a feeling of intimacy that I never felt, nor have I ever experienced with this woman. As I sat there for a few hours, I think she told me at least four sexual narrations and all of them were pleasing to hear, but I also felt uncomfortable sitting there hearing all of this. But my displeasure became pleasure as she went on with her tales. I started asking her questions because I was curious about the place and where these incidents took place, and I found that equally enticing and fascinating. As she kept talking, there was a nagging thought in my head that she was making all of this up, except for her skills in keeping the narration lively and with as much detail possible; it was believable. The thing that wasn’t believable for me (at first) was that she would ever do things like that. I thought she was approaching taboo behavior by telling me with great innocence and openness. She was comfortable conversing with me about her sensual secrets.

There is an extended scene in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, based on Arthur Schnitzler’s novella Dream Story (1926), where the character Tom Cruise is playing is hearing his wife tell him intimate secrets about herself and another man. He is shocked, but that character is also intrigued to listen to this story, and in fact, it is the juice or battery that made him go out that night for his nighttime journey into a sexualized world in New York City. The vital aspect of all of this, including talking to my friend, is the imagination at work. My friend lighted up feelings within me that I hadn’t exposed myself to, and therefore, as she talked, I imagined visually what was happening. She is giving me the foundation, and I’m the one who is adding imaginary imagery and what I think are images from her stories.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the erotic book/film Emmanuelle and how that crept into my inner world through a friend, who, come to think of it, too is a girl/woman, and being introduced to Eros through the eyes and ears of a woman is seductive. When I finally read the book Emmanuelle, I was interested in the fact that it was a woman telling these sexual tales, but at the time, I also realized that her husband had written the book. Still, the story is told through the wife, and these are incidents that she experienced or witnessed, which is extra sexy to me. If this is not porn, is it something else?

The stories affect one’s imagination, sensuality, and feelings about other people. Hardcore porn is a very straight-ahead narrative and usually repeats itself over and over again. But being told something intimate by a woman sitting across from you or reading a book by a female writing about her sexual activity is something extra.

Some years ago, I read Catherine Millet’s The Sexual Life of Catherine M., and I didn’t know what to think. While reading the book, I thought this could not possibly be true. Then, I realized I could accept what she was writing as the truth or a manufactured fantasy for her readers. I want it to be true as a reader, so my imagination took me to where I accepted her narration as a diary journal. One of these days, I may wake up reading that she didn’t exist, and perhaps a male wrote the whole book, which would depress me. But as far as I know, her book is her book and is a remarkable document of an exciting life. She gets double digits because she is also an art historian. I read her art criticism in a French art magazine at the time of her publication. So, I knew of her only as an art historian or a writer in the visual art world. I had no idea that she was so into sexual encounters, so putting her name on this memoir was an extra charge of awareness of, for me, excitement.

Storytelling is a powerful communication tool in all its forms and systems. Since Eros is the basis of our lives, one has to presume that an erotic story is a fully-charged battery that will take us to another landscape or, within our world, a new but livable stage in life that has opened boundaries without border cops.