"The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.

Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy. In the way my body stretches to music and opens into response, hearkening to its deepest rhythms, so every level upon which I sense also opens to the erotically satisfying experience, whether it is dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, examining an idea."

--Audre Lorde, writing in an essary entitled The Erotic As Power, published in Whole Earth Review, 1989.

Susan sez: I am drawn to the phrase "open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy" and am going back and re reading this essay right now...for one written more than 15 years ago, the ideas are amazingly fresh.