a different kind of intimacy

Again: I guess I'll never be able to solve that relationship of fascination-distaste I have with Karen Finley's work. Yet (or thus?) I find myself returning to her writings over and over again, discovering beautiful, moving moments that redeem it all and reinforce what I have written here apropos another artist I deeply admire.

Indeed, even though I usually dislike putting people & things into little boxes or categories, there is for me a clear-cut distinction between porn - or occasional, no-strings-attached sex between strangers, for that matter - and the sense of an actual lived and shared experience, with all the intense emotional and sexual bonds created within it.

The body does know the difference between that which inhabits it, however fleetingly, however precariously, in the dark, or in the half-light, and that which is just inconsequential, self-gratifying froth.


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The lights are out, but we make our way with touch, something velvet and maroon, like bedroom slippers. I take your arm and glide your skin against my thigh. I light the candle of lemon magnolia, and we pass the cedar closet where the towels are kept. Outside is a lake. Our eyes are used to the darkness and a faint new moon, we only met yesterday and still managed to get here. We find the bathroom, it is a room with only a tub, and the hot water still works. You are behind me and you hold my gingham skirt. I left my white cotton panties at the beach. I turn on the water and let the rust wash out and make the water as hot as possible. I pull your linen shirt off of you and your pants down and I run my hands across your chest. In a bottle are sage green salts and I put them in the water. In my skirt are petals of summer roses and orange peel, which I add to your bath. I help you into the water and let you sit and I get on my knees and use the lavender soap. I lather and massage your back and skin. I make a lather and wash your thighs and feet and toes and neck and fingers. I come down to your cock and I massage and let it grow. I keep doing it as I kiss you all wet, as you lay back, and I have your balls in my other hand, holding tight and firm, and the smoothness of your skin - I want to eat you. I push firmly on your cock so it is straight up against your firm belly. I need to touch you now like no other time and I hold the top of your cock and move fast and then slow, so very slow, so very slow, I keep doing it, for you don't want me to stop, and I never will.

Karen Finley, A Different Kind of Intimacy: The Collected Writings of Karen Finley (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2000), p. 331.