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.
Isn’t the most sensitive point of this mourning the fact that I must lose a language — the amorous language? No more ‘I love you’s.
I kissed her, a long hard kiss. Because baby didn't know it, but baby was dead, and in a way I couldn't have loved her more.
True love is visible not to the eyes but to the heart, for eyes may be deceived.
One day you do meet a man who kisses you and you can’t breathe around it and you realize you don’t need air. Oxygen is trivial. Desire makes life happen. Makes it matter. Makes everything worth it. Desire is life. Hunger to see the next sunrise or sunset. To touch the one you love. To try again.
As we arise each morning, let us determine to respond with love and kindness to whatever might come our way.
To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.
Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.
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