Frigidity is desire imagined by a woman who doesnt desire the man offering himself to her. Its the desire of a woman for a man who hasnt yet come to her, whom she doesnt yet know. Shes faithful to this stranger even before she belongs to him. Frigidity is the non-desire for whatever is not him.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that a woman's perceived lack of desire is often rooted in her longing for an idealized, unknown man rather than the actual man in front of her.
Marguerite Duras explores the complex nature of desire in this quote, positing that frigidity or emotional detachment may not stem from a genuine lack of desire but rather from a yearning for an unattainable or idealized figure. This longing for a man who remains unknown leads to a paradox where a woman may appear non-responsive or uninterested in a man who is physically present, as her heart and mind are still attached to the fantasy of someone else, suggesting that desire can often be more about the dream of someone rather than reality.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the complexities of romantic relationships.
Alcohol doesn't console, it doesn't fill up anyone's psychological gaps, all it replaces is the lack of God. It doesn't comfort man. On the contrary, it encourages him in his folly, it transports him to the supreme regions where he is master of his own destiny.
What she said was always strange. It had happened long ago. It seemed insignificant. And yet it was something you remembered forever. The words as well as the story. The voice as much as the words.
I'm still there, watching those possessed children, as far away from the mystery now as I was then. I've never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door.
Perhaps someone will have seen mine, the one I’m waiting for, just as I saw him, in a ditch when his hands were making their last appeal and his eyes no longer could see. Someone who will never know what that man was to me; someone whose name I’ll never know.
Stormy skies, says Ernesto. He grieved for them. Summer rain. Childhood.
A prolonged silence ensues. The reason for the silence is our growing interest one for the other. No one is aware of it, no one yet; no one? am I quite sure?
Then we should find some artificial inoculation against love, as with smallpox.
Love cannot remain by itself - it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service. Whatever form we are, able or disabled, rich or poor, it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing; a lifelong sharing of love with others.
If you want to be loved, be loveable.
Christ leads us to go out from ourselves more and more, to give ourselves and to serve others.
My lover asks me: “What is the difference between me and the sky?” The difference, my love, Is that when you laugh, I forget about the sky
I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?
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