Is not the most erotic part of the body wherever the clothing affords a glimpse?
Interpretation
The quote suggests that desire and attraction are heightened by the anticipation or suggestion of intimacy, rather than just the physical act itself.
Roland Barthes' quote highlights the idea that eroticism is often rooted in what is forbidden or concealed. The allure of glimpsing a hidden part of the body can evoke a powerful response, suggesting that desire thrives on the tantalizing possibilities that clothing or modesty can create. This notion speaks to the psychological aspects of attraction where the imagination plays a key role in enhancing the experience of intimacy.
In practice
This quote can be a talking point in a discussion about the nature of attraction.
If I acknowledge my dependency, I do so because for me it is a means of signifying my demand: in the realm of love, futility is not a "weakness" or an "absurdity": it is a strong sign: the more futile, the more it signifies and the more it asserts itself as strength.)
The gesture of the amorous embrace seems to fulfill, for a time, the subject's dream of total union with the loved being: The longing for consummation with the other.
The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.
I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.
All those young photographers who are at work in the world, determined upon the capture of actuality, do not know that they are agents of Death.
Isnβt the most sensitive point of this mourning the fact that I must lose a language β the amorous language? No more βI love youβs.
Well, here he was. They could save each other, the way the poets promised lovers should. He was mystery, he was darkness, he was all she had dreamed of. And if she would only free him he would service her - oh yes - until her pleasure reached that threshold that, like all thresholds, was a place where the strong grew stronger, and the weak perished. Pleasure was pain there, and vice versa. And he knew it well enough to call it home.
Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and knowledge of the beloved person, love deteriorates into domination and possessiveness.
The greatest romance is with the Infinite.
When the bride is one with her lover, who cares about the wedding party?
I don't care who anybody sleeps with. If a couple has been together all that time - and there are gay relationships that are more solid than some heterosexual ones - I think it's fine if they want to get married. I don't know how people can get so anti-something.
Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.
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