Sex in the Wasteland

            In the late morning, since the wi-fi signal from the donut shop beneath me was down, I made use of the time and rode down to Freshco to buy yogourt. Cherries were also on sale so a got a couple of bags and picked up a sirloin tip roast along with a few other things.

            When I got back the internet was still down, so cleaned up in the kitchen while listening to the chapter on Sidney, Australia from the audio book of David Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries. By the time I was done with that the wi-fi was back up. A few hours later it was down again, so I sat down and used stream of consciousness to throw down some ideas for my essay on The Wasteland and Howl.

            The topic I’ve chosen is to compare and contrast the representations of sexuality in The Wasteland and Howl. These are the ideas I’ve thrown down so far:

            The sexuality in T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” is far more subdued, cloaked in symbolism and limited by the inhibitions of the day than the raw, elemental sexuality of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”.  There is no foreplay in Howl. The poem takes place in a world where everything, whether sex, war or spirituality are all approaching climax. Sex in Howl is personal and overt. Women do not appear in Howl except for the icon of the vagina that is called “the snatch”. But the snatch is also the snatch of the sunrise or the crack of dawn and even that is sweetened by fucking. Sex is presented as a positive and healing force or as the thing that healed people do. Fucking sweetens and makes one scream with joy. To blow and be blown by sailors is indistinguishable from breathing. Sex is indistinguishable from love. Sex is the doorway to samadhi but also the rocket fuel that shoots the body and mind through. 

            In Howl, women’s genitalia are filled. It is the only part of a woman that appears. In The Wasteland women’s genitalia is not described. Women appear as characters that are symbols of age and men’s disappointment, with withered breasts and bad teeth.

            In Howl there is much that is negative, but sex is the cure for all of them, whereas in The Wasteland sex is presented as part of the problem. Sex is desired but uncomfortable. No one is satisfied in The Wasteland.

            The enemy in Howl is sexual repression. The enemy is defeated by free, exploding sexuality. The enemy is the wasteland of the American dream that has been ravaged by psychiatrists, soldiers and businessmen. Howl wants to seed a new, world dream in which insanity annexes all of the states of mind. In a sense, Eliot’s Wasteland is also a Howl, but a less joyful one. A howl of mourning.

            That night I watched the fall finale of Star Trek Discovery. The big landmark of the episode was that it featured the first Gay male kiss in 50 years of the Star Trek franchise. The first Gay female kiss happened decades ago. Lieutenant Stamets, the creator of the spore drive and the one who injects the tardigrade DNA in order to guide Discovery through the instantaneous jumps throughout the universe, is one of the main characters in this episode. The jumps are causing strange side effects in which he seems to start seeing past, present and future blended. He is being asked, for the sake of mapping an algorithm that will help Discovery detect Klingon cloaked ships, to guide Discovery through 133 jumps. While this is happening, Burnham and Tyler infiltrate the Klingon Ship of the Dead to plant special devices to help with their mission. They discover the admiral is still alive and imprisoned with her torturer, who was also Tyler’s torturer. Tyler goes into posttraumatic stress shock on seeing her. She had been apparently not only his torturer but at the same time his lover. Burnham deliberately reveals herself to the Klingon Leader and challenges him to a duel. The fight is unrealistic because Burnham is presented as trading blow for blow. It would have made more sense to show her holding her own by being quicker. When they are beamed off the Klingon ship the torturer hitches a ride by grabbing hold of Tyler. The mission is a success but because of all the jumps, Stamets goes into shock.