Understanding Sensuality

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It’s a shame what’s happened to some good old words. Tragic used to point to a noble struggle between human beings and the forces of fate; today it means “really, really sad.” Irony stood for the recognition that human knowledge of the universe is profoundly limited—before it morphed into that smirky feeling of superiority we get when we watch The Brady Bunch. 

And sensuousness—a warm receptiveness to the gifts that our eyes, ears, noses, mouths, and skin can bestow upon us—well, baby, we’ve turned that over to Barry White. It’s a 12-letter word for SEX. Our senses—which, if they were nourished as they should be, would triple the joy and juiciness of everything we do, from napping to mailing a letter to mountain climbing—are allowed free rein only in the boudoirs of our imagination.

Sex has been a pretty weird custodian of sensuousness in America. Which of our leading symbols of sexuality have actually affirmed the languorous joys of the receptive body? Hugh Hefner’s airbrushed, jiggly girls next door? The massively endowed power-pumps of gay male erotica? The labia-pierced insurrectional sexuality of the riot grrrl underground? No, these manufactured turn-ons are little more than fantasies that mask deeper fears that sex is just one more arena in which we must perform with unerring precision. The eternal, slow, simple, complex pleasures of the wide-awake body opening itself to sweet sensation get lost in the shuffle of silk sheets.

So how do sensuous-seeking Americans do outside of the bedroom? At vacation time we line up to visit places of certified relaxation: the beach, the trout stream, the mountaintop. We’re there to unwind, recharge, or play. The prospects for surrendering to our senses couldn’t be better: The warmth of the sun. The shoosh of the surf. The tang of a hot pepper. And then something—one of any number of big things or noodgy little things—insinuates itself into the space between our senses and their naked, happy communion with the world. Oh yeah, a voice in our head reminds us, we’re at a cabin in the woods to catch up on our reading; we’re hiking in the desert to conquer that steep peak; we’re on a Caribbean island to get drunk, play beach volleyball, and score.

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