Friday, February 14, 2020
(Victoria’s Secrete is that) LUST isn’t bodily but it IS VALUABLE
...in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.
- Genesis 3: 16
I grew up with Victoria’s Secret lingerie catalogues on bookracks in the downstairs half bath. And, they weren’t my Dad’s. Who do you think was the one who put them there? Who wanted to look at them, and why? Well, I ended up looking at them, and I’m learning that they profoundly shaped my desires. My desire isn't just a biological urge but is shaped by the cultural construct of value: what we value, how we value it, and the system around which the value is generated.
The New York Times recently published an article called, “Angels in Hell: The Culture of Misogyny Inside Victoria’s Secret” (LINK HERE). That sounds terrible, right? There’s a clear and easy to name villain there. In the story, his name is Ed Razek. Figuratively, he’s the patriarchal head of Victoria’s Secret whose abusive behavior helped create a culture of control and power where beauty and joy are intended to flourish. My main takeaway when I read it, however, was that I identify with Razek’s desires. So, although I don't see myself verbally abusing women the way Razek does, the story hit me pretty hard.
Where models saw obvious signs of abuse of power, his hopes were in fantasies of real intimacy and mutual desire with them. He’s a handsome dude, too. There are stories of private emails in which he promises vacations on his island and financial care and support while also expressing desire for personal affection and intimacy. Meanwhile, the angels tended to be polite and courteous with him for the sake of their careers.
I have only recently begun to awaken to how I grew up in a culture where abuse of power tended to mask a desire for intimacy, affection, and connection. In other words, in a culture like that of Victoria’s Secret. I’ve learned that the trauma of such an environment inhabituated me to a practice of dissociation from my body in moments of utter paralysis. The formation of my sexual desires was ordered around glamorous images in shiny lingerie catalogues while, paradoxically, I was simultaneously trained into disconnection from the real desires and language of my body in all its earthen textures.
Our common experience of this is somewhat comedically explored by Woody Allen in a memorable scene of his film, "Annie Hall." The most relevant part of the video starts at about 1:55. Man: "Is something wrong...I dunno, it's like, you're removed...you seem sorta distant." Woman: "Let's just do it, alright?" Man: "Is it just my imagination, or are you just going through the motions?...See, THAT'S what I call REMOVED!" Woman: "Awe. You have my body." Man: "Yeah, but that's not, that's, I want the whole thing!" Woman: "Well *sigh* I need grass. It helps me relax."
It didn’t help that I was both implicitly and explicitly taught in my culture of Christianized Gnosticism that lust is identified with and equal to the body (which is why I recently wrote “Lust Isn’t Bodily” - LINK HERE). Purity meant association with the spiritual realm to which we will finally and ultimately escape when we die. This disconnect from the humanity of Christ led to a default, patriarchal authoritarianism that I simply accepted with the same smile as the one on the face of the friendly Senior Pastor who ran the institution. See, I grew up in the heyday of the Purity Culture, whose rotten seeds have been reaped in news stories like those of Joshua Harris.
Some people walk away from the faith they grew up with and don’t believe it anymore. I walked away from the teachings on sexuality and don’t believe them anymore. But now what? As I’ve begun to learn that my entire framework for interpreting the world was informed by the practice of dissociation born of trauma, I’ve at the same time - through communal training in a Gravity Leadership cohort (LINK HERE) - been able to begin to name and own my various desires, including for intimacy, affection, and faithfulness.
Unstated in the NYT piece was the way Ed Razek’s power was generated by desire for the models in the first place. And not just his own. Not only the very existence of their modeling careers forged in a rather competitive market but – presumably, to some degree or another - their reason for choosing said career in the first place is the value of their being desired. As David Fitch said (HERE): “We can sexualize anything for money and still think this does not pollute the personal ethics of the people running the company/profiting from it.” Victoria’s Secret sets up a particular version of an entire system of transaction of desires in which it participates: follow for follow, like for like, sex for money, pleasure for pleasure, or tips for visual stimulation, all in an environment of market competition. “There are other fish in the sea,” we often hear.
The UNDERSIDE of this microcosmic transactional and competitive system is when Razek blocks a staff member's path to seconds at a company-provided buffet and:
A gorgeous Aphrodite recently said to me, “Baby, you make me feel so good.” “Baby, I love the way you talk to me.” I was basically engaged with her in valuable transactions of pleasure while - I later found out - she was trying to get featured on various lingerie modeling websites. Those sites generate significant amounts of money. She says she has a new mindset. What new mindset, I ask? “To find love,” she says! One of her last texts to me was, “I just don’t open up.” Victoria’s Secret is a microcosm.
I asked a different gorgeous Helen - who had been showing signs of interest in me - why she doesn’t model. Like, for a living. She said because she didn’t want to deal with the travel and stuff. Meanwhile, her lack of desire (ultimately) for me seemed to be my lack of VALUE – like, monetarily. I drive merely a Mitsubishi Mirage. She says her desire is to get her PhD to practice psychology and retire at thirty-five. But, she keeps going on trips to faraway tropical locations, paid for by rich men. And she’s still not back in school to get another degree. But, she knows a lot about what cars are on the market at what values.
Sarah, on the other hand, had something right, I think. “I’m an expensive hooker. I cost lifelong commitment. LOL!”
Which is the greater dignity? The way of Helen and Aphrodite, or that of Sarah? It may sound as though I’m asking that question with rhetorical confidence. But, you see, when I said I identified with Ed Razek’s desires, that included the way they are formed by distant, ephemeral images presented before us of Helen and Aphrodite, glamorously erotic speculations that have a certain elite value in the world in which we live. If you look at the stage sets of their fashion shows, they don’t actually hold very many people. Witnessing angels in person is only for an elect few. The rest long erotically from a distance on their televisions. And, yet, the show doesn’t last very long. Why am I so drawn to it?
So, that erotic elitism generates great value. It is activated as we gaze up at the capital of the democratic column that is our social body. And, I mean “value” very actually here. Victoria’s Secret runs off of it. It IS “Victoria’s Secret.” Even the man who presides in the office of the capital of the culture of Victoria’s Secret can’t get a full grasp around her.
Capitalism means a lot of things, but at least one of them is the reduction of all good to externals that can be bought, sold, and traded at agreed upon VALUES established through market competition. You would think, then, that the secret wouldn’t be so inscrutable. After all, we’re talking about well crafted and produced images purposely ordered towards being displayed out in the open. Here, though, there is no good internal to the embodied practice of affection, intimacy, and fidelity in the ordered relationship between man and woman. There is only a secret depersonalization of that which can only be most essentially personal. While putting her "external goods" on open display for many to see, Aphrodite said, “I just don’t open up." Victoria’s Secret is a microcosm.
I may have turned from the sexual teachings of the evangelicalism of my youth, but that doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. The Secret isn’t actually easy to discern. No one in my home SAID why those catalogues were in that downstairs half bath growing up.
Victoria’s Secret presents an image of being known, of stardom, and of a certain freedom in the liberating power of female beauty. It’s the American Way! Hence the obvious theme in one of their fashion shows, depicted above. Their default way of functioning, however, is by a hidden, darker power who rules over the whole enterprise. In Genesis 3: 16, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you is not a prescription for how marriage is to function moving forward. The voice of God is, instead, telling us the result and characterization of what is named or known in the story as “sin.”
My default way of functioning is to seek after or peruse the “external good” I want by preying on a woman’s desire to be desired, in order to get half of what I actually want. In our world that is the macrocosm to which Victoria’s Secret is the micro, that desire amounts to fulfillment in being VALUED. We think of Victoria’s Secret as more “adult” than the innocence of Disney stories, but I am having a hard time seeing much of a difference right now. Either way, in a social world characterized by what we have given the name “patriarchy,” who is it who establishes what values?
I don’t participate in this with the “external goods” of TV’s on Black Friday. My way is a much more shocking affront to human dignity. I (at times) do it with the image of Woman. And, it’s a POWER that I am using! A dark and by necessity hidden one. That’s why it’s called Victoria’s SECRET.
And, being hidden, my power to get half of what I want, paradoxically, always leaves me empty handed. Somehow, the transactions of desire and value at the Secret heart of Victoria’s external display always break down. My power must remain hidden, because it’s ineffective if exposed. "How [much money] did you pay as a fair price for the image of God?" - Gregory of Nyssa (c.335 – c.395 AD), Fourth Homily on Ecclesiastes (via Mako Nakawawa HERE).
My guess is that while Ed Razek was driven by fantasies of intimacy and affection, the models probably tried to give him the benefit of the doubt that, while furthering their careers, he wasn't or wouldn't be a dickhead to them. When the expectations of that transaction broke down for either side, then so did the pleasure of the relationship. Ed Razek gets reported to Human Resources for murderous verbal abuse or for vain sexual offerings to unwilling angels. Suddenly, that angel is no longer in the catalogue or fashion show. She is devalued. I am learning that these dynamics are not confined to the walls of Victoria's Secret. They’ve somehow found their way into my life (and my death).
The transactionalized and depersonlaized market competition of sexuality, in the value system and the transactions surrounding it, of our American Capitalism, I am also learning, doesn’t lend itself very well to that for which my sexuality is really meant. I am here beginning to discern the contours of differences between value and dignity, transaction and fidelity. I am learning to name and own that part of myself that wants the goods internal to the embodied practice of affection, intimacy, and fidelity in the ordered relationship between man and woman. I thank God He’s beginning to teach me a way other than the paradigmatic evangelical one from which I turned, and I pray for help trusting that He is mercifully guiding and teaching me as I continue to learn to discern our open Secrets.
yet your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.
- Genesis 3: 16
The New York Times recently published an article called, “Angels in Hell: The Culture of Misogyny Inside Victoria’s Secret” (LINK HERE). That sounds terrible, right? There’s a clear and easy to name villain there. In the story, his name is Ed Razek. Figuratively, he’s the patriarchal head of Victoria’s Secret whose abusive behavior helped create a culture of control and power where beauty and joy are intended to flourish. My main takeaway when I read it, however, was that I identify with Razek’s desires. So, although I don't see myself verbally abusing women the way Razek does, the story hit me pretty hard.
Where models saw obvious signs of abuse of power, his hopes were in fantasies of real intimacy and mutual desire with them. He’s a handsome dude, too. There are stories of private emails in which he promises vacations on his island and financial care and support while also expressing desire for personal affection and intimacy. Meanwhile, the angels tended to be polite and courteous with him for the sake of their careers.
I have only recently begun to awaken to how I grew up in a culture where abuse of power tended to mask a desire for intimacy, affection, and connection. In other words, in a culture like that of Victoria’s Secret. I’ve learned that the trauma of such an environment inhabituated me to a practice of dissociation from my body in moments of utter paralysis. The formation of my sexual desires was ordered around glamorous images in shiny lingerie catalogues while, paradoxically, I was simultaneously trained into disconnection from the real desires and language of my body in all its earthen textures.
Our common experience of this is somewhat comedically explored by Woody Allen in a memorable scene of his film, "Annie Hall." The most relevant part of the video starts at about 1:55. Man: "Is something wrong...I dunno, it's like, you're removed...you seem sorta distant." Woman: "Let's just do it, alright?" Man: "Is it just my imagination, or are you just going through the motions?...See, THAT'S what I call REMOVED!" Woman: "Awe. You have my body." Man: "Yeah, but that's not, that's, I want the whole thing!" Woman: "Well *sigh* I need grass. It helps me relax."
It didn’t help that I was both implicitly and explicitly taught in my culture of Christianized Gnosticism that lust is identified with and equal to the body (which is why I recently wrote “Lust Isn’t Bodily” - LINK HERE). Purity meant association with the spiritual realm to which we will finally and ultimately escape when we die. This disconnect from the humanity of Christ led to a default, patriarchal authoritarianism that I simply accepted with the same smile as the one on the face of the friendly Senior Pastor who ran the institution. See, I grew up in the heyday of the Purity Culture, whose rotten seeds have been reaped in news stories like those of Joshua Harris.
Some people walk away from the faith they grew up with and don’t believe it anymore. I walked away from the teachings on sexuality and don’t believe them anymore. But now what? As I’ve begun to learn that my entire framework for interpreting the world was informed by the practice of dissociation born of trauma, I’ve at the same time - through communal training in a Gravity Leadership cohort (LINK HERE) - been able to begin to name and own my various desires, including for intimacy, affection, and faithfulness.
Unstated in the NYT piece was the way Ed Razek’s power was generated by desire for the models in the first place. And not just his own. Not only the very existence of their modeling careers forged in a rather competitive market but – presumably, to some degree or another - their reason for choosing said career in the first place is the value of their being desired. As David Fitch said (HERE): “We can sexualize anything for money and still think this does not pollute the personal ethics of the people running the company/profiting from it.” Victoria’s Secret sets up a particular version of an entire system of transaction of desires in which it participates: follow for follow, like for like, sex for money, pleasure for pleasure, or tips for visual stimulation, all in an environment of market competition. “There are other fish in the sea,” we often hear.
The UNDERSIDE of this microcosmic transactional and competitive system is when Razek blocks a staff member's path to seconds at a company-provided buffet and:
"with dozens of people watching and Ms. Crowe Taylor holding her empty plate, he tore into her, berating her about her weight and telling her to lay off the pasta and bread. Ms. Crowe Taylor, who was 5-foot-10 and 140 pounds, fled to a bathroom and burst into tears."So, the models' desires to be desired are legitimate, in the sense that they are REAL. The Victoria’s Secret catalogues in my home growing up weren’t my Dad’s. Who do you think put them there? Who wanted to look at them? And why? The alternative to not fulfilling the Secret promise of Victoria’s Angels is Ms. Taylor’s sobbing. It’s a DEVALUING.
A gorgeous Aphrodite recently said to me, “Baby, you make me feel so good.” “Baby, I love the way you talk to me.” I was basically engaged with her in valuable transactions of pleasure while - I later found out - she was trying to get featured on various lingerie modeling websites. Those sites generate significant amounts of money. She says she has a new mindset. What new mindset, I ask? “To find love,” she says! One of her last texts to me was, “I just don’t open up.” Victoria’s Secret is a microcosm.
I asked a different gorgeous Helen - who had been showing signs of interest in me - why she doesn’t model. Like, for a living. She said because she didn’t want to deal with the travel and stuff. Meanwhile, her lack of desire (ultimately) for me seemed to be my lack of VALUE – like, monetarily. I drive merely a Mitsubishi Mirage. She says her desire is to get her PhD to practice psychology and retire at thirty-five. But, she keeps going on trips to faraway tropical locations, paid for by rich men. And she’s still not back in school to get another degree. But, she knows a lot about what cars are on the market at what values.
Sarah, on the other hand, had something right, I think. “I’m an expensive hooker. I cost lifelong commitment. LOL!”
Which is the greater dignity? The way of Helen and Aphrodite, or that of Sarah? It may sound as though I’m asking that question with rhetorical confidence. But, you see, when I said I identified with Ed Razek’s desires, that included the way they are formed by distant, ephemeral images presented before us of Helen and Aphrodite, glamorously erotic speculations that have a certain elite value in the world in which we live. If you look at the stage sets of their fashion shows, they don’t actually hold very many people. Witnessing angels in person is only for an elect few. The rest long erotically from a distance on their televisions. And, yet, the show doesn’t last very long. Why am I so drawn to it?
So, that erotic elitism generates great value. It is activated as we gaze up at the capital of the democratic column that is our social body. And, I mean “value” very actually here. Victoria’s Secret runs off of it. It IS “Victoria’s Secret.” Even the man who presides in the office of the capital of the culture of Victoria’s Secret can’t get a full grasp around her.
Capitalism means a lot of things, but at least one of them is the reduction of all good to externals that can be bought, sold, and traded at agreed upon VALUES established through market competition. You would think, then, that the secret wouldn’t be so inscrutable. After all, we’re talking about well crafted and produced images purposely ordered towards being displayed out in the open. Here, though, there is no good internal to the embodied practice of affection, intimacy, and fidelity in the ordered relationship between man and woman. There is only a secret depersonalization of that which can only be most essentially personal. While putting her "external goods" on open display for many to see, Aphrodite said, “I just don’t open up." Victoria’s Secret is a microcosm.
I may have turned from the sexual teachings of the evangelicalism of my youth, but that doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. The Secret isn’t actually easy to discern. No one in my home SAID why those catalogues were in that downstairs half bath growing up.
Victoria’s Secret presents an image of being known, of stardom, and of a certain freedom in the liberating power of female beauty. It’s the American Way! Hence the obvious theme in one of their fashion shows, depicted above. Their default way of functioning, however, is by a hidden, darker power who rules over the whole enterprise. In Genesis 3: 16, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you is not a prescription for how marriage is to function moving forward. The voice of God is, instead, telling us the result and characterization of what is named or known in the story as “sin.”
My default way of functioning is to seek after or peruse the “external good” I want by preying on a woman’s desire to be desired, in order to get half of what I actually want. In our world that is the macrocosm to which Victoria’s Secret is the micro, that desire amounts to fulfillment in being VALUED. We think of Victoria’s Secret as more “adult” than the innocence of Disney stories, but I am having a hard time seeing much of a difference right now. Either way, in a social world characterized by what we have given the name “patriarchy,” who is it who establishes what values?
I don’t participate in this with the “external goods” of TV’s on Black Friday. My way is a much more shocking affront to human dignity. I (at times) do it with the image of Woman. And, it’s a POWER that I am using! A dark and by necessity hidden one. That’s why it’s called Victoria’s SECRET.
And, being hidden, my power to get half of what I want, paradoxically, always leaves me empty handed. Somehow, the transactions of desire and value at the Secret heart of Victoria’s external display always break down. My power must remain hidden, because it’s ineffective if exposed. "How [much money] did you pay as a fair price for the image of God?" - Gregory of Nyssa (c.335 – c.395 AD), Fourth Homily on Ecclesiastes (via Mako Nakawawa HERE).
My guess is that while Ed Razek was driven by fantasies of intimacy and affection, the models probably tried to give him the benefit of the doubt that, while furthering their careers, he wasn't or wouldn't be a dickhead to them. When the expectations of that transaction broke down for either side, then so did the pleasure of the relationship. Ed Razek gets reported to Human Resources for murderous verbal abuse or for vain sexual offerings to unwilling angels. Suddenly, that angel is no longer in the catalogue or fashion show. She is devalued. I am learning that these dynamics are not confined to the walls of Victoria's Secret. They’ve somehow found their way into my life (and my death).
The transactionalized and depersonlaized market competition of sexuality, in the value system and the transactions surrounding it, of our American Capitalism, I am also learning, doesn’t lend itself very well to that for which my sexuality is really meant. I am here beginning to discern the contours of differences between value and dignity, transaction and fidelity. I am learning to name and own that part of myself that wants the goods internal to the embodied practice of affection, intimacy, and fidelity in the ordered relationship between man and woman. I thank God He’s beginning to teach me a way other than the paradigmatic evangelical one from which I turned, and I pray for help trusting that He is mercifully guiding and teaching me as I continue to learn to discern our open Secrets.
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