Six integral quotes that explore the full potential of the erotic — and how its power can transform the world

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) is an essential feminist thinker, and whenever I write about her, I prefer to introduce her in her own words: “Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet.” Her work — whether in speeches, essays, or poetry — cuts through the density of traditional philosophy with a clarity that feels both revolutionary and necessary. Lorde writes with purpose, and I constantly wish her presence in contemporary theory were more prominent.

One of her most widely cited interventions is The Master’s Tools Will Not Dismantle the Master’s House. But for this post, I want to focus on a different, and in my opinion equally powerful, piece: Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. Originally delivered at the Fourth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women at Mount Holyoke College on August 25, 1978, this paper lays out Lorde’s account of the erotic and its profound political significance.

Rather than doing a strict, line-by-line academic analysis — which the piece does not require — I will highlight six key quotes that capture the heart of the essay. Each quote uncovers a necessary part of Lorde’s argument, and the hope is that her work inspires a deeper understanding of the erotic.

1. The Erotic Is a Source of Power

The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling.

Lorde opens her essay by framing the erotic as a source of power, not a frivolous or purely sexual impulse. At no point does she treat the erotic as excess or indulgence. Instead, it is a form of deep feeling and intuition that exists within everyone but is often suppressed. This first quote establishes the ground for the entire essay: the erotic is an internal resource — an energy that can be drawn upon to see clearly, to feel fully, and ultimately to challenge the status quo.

2. Oppression Must Corrupt The Erotic

In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change.

While the erotic is liberatory, Lorde emphasizes that it is also relentlessly targeted by oppression. Precisely because the erotic contains revolutionary energy — it awakens clarity, connectedness, and empowerment — systems of power must corrupt it. These systems cast the erotic as dangerous, shameful, and trivial. Lorde’s argument is that oppression does not only operate externally; it works by distorting our power from within.

3. The Erotic Has Been Weaponized Against Marginalized Groups

The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women.

It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation.

Here, Lorde provides an example of how oppression distorts the erotic: hegemonic masculinity misnames it. By redefining the erotic through a patriarchal lens, men strip the erotic of its depth and power, reducing it to something trivial. Rather than recognizing the erotic as a mode of feeling and connection, society recasts it as spectacle or “plasticized sensation.”

In this framework, women are no longer subjects of erotic power; in turn, hegemonic masculinity frames intimacy not as shared feeling but as conquest. Lorde’s analysis highlights how the erotic within one’s self becomes corrupted and cast aside due to a purposeful misnaming.

4. Pornography Corrupts

Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.

Lorde draws a distinction between the erotic and pornography to show how modern culture misunderstands the erotic. Pornography is often defended as a liberating expression of sexuality, but Lorde’s critique targets the form of pornography as it exists under patriarchy: a mode of sexual representation centered on sensation and commodification.

When sensation replaces feeling, sexuality becomes transactional, clinical, and detached from feeling. For Lorde, pornography is an example of what happens when the erotic is stripped of feeling and connection. Pornography is a symptom or result of a society that disavows feeling and overemphasizes sensation and sexuality as conquest.

5. Feeling Sets a Standard for Living Fully

Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavours bring us closest to that fullness.

Lorde argues that the erotic gives us a standard for wholeness and living well. When we access the erotic, we begin to understand what genuine satisfaction feels like. The erotic is not reducible to sexual impulse. Sexuality can be part of the erotic, but it is not the whole of it. For Lorde, the erotic is the experience and empowerment that brings us into contact with our fullest selves. As she famously writes, there is no difference between “writing a good poem” and “moving into sunlight against the body of a woman I love.” Both are expressions of the same internal power — the same sense of completion and aliveness.

6. The Erotic Makes Real Change Possible

Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world, rather than merely settling for a shift of characters in the same weary drama.

Lorde ends by insisting that the erotic is not just personal: the erotic is politically revolutionary. People rarely think of the erotic as a galvanizing force, but for Lorde, that is precisely what it is. The erotic is an energy that lives within everyone, an inner resource that modern society consistently represses. When we reconnect with this power, we seek to bring about structural change. Thus, the erotic is a positive force that makes us active in our efforts to change the world.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Lorde stands as a crucial writer and theorist, and her account of the erotic is something we all need to grapple with. At a time when political discourse continues to drift toward hegemonic masculine norms, her insistence on the erotic as a site of power, feeling, and collective transformation offers an urgently needed political action. Returning to Lorde is a way of examining the depths of our own lives, and of imagining a different world.