since 1984. She is the author of the best selling 1990 work of literary criticism Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, and four other books, including essay collections, a study of Alfred Hitchcock
's The Birds
, and Break, Blow, Burn on poetry.
Human life began in flight and fear. Religion rose from rituals of propitiation, spells to lull the punishing elements.
It was intended to please no one and to offend everyone. The entire process of the book was to discover the repressed elements of contemporary culture, whatever they are, and palpate them. One of the main premises was to demonstrate that pornography is everywhere in major art. Art history as written is completely sex-free, repressive and puritanical. I want precision and historical knowledge, but at the same time, I try to zap it with pornographic intensity.
The only antidote to the magic of images is the magic of words.
I have lesbian impulses, so I understand how a man looks at a woman.