Not coincidentally, this entire emotional history plays itself out in the physicality of sex. The body is the purest, most primal tool we have for communicating. As Roland Barthes wrote, “What language conceals is said through my body. My body is a stubborn child; my language is a very civilized adult.” The body is our mother tongue—our mediator with the world long before we speak our first words. From the moment we come into being, love flows from adult to child sensuously—and I dare say erotically as well.
Not coincidentally, this entire emotional history plays itself out in the physicality of sex. The body is the purest, most primal tool we have for communicating. As Roland Barthes wrote, “What language conceals is said through my body. My body is a stubborn child; my language is a very civilized adult.” The body is our mother tongue—our mediator with the world long before we speak our first words. From the moment we come into being, love flows from adult to child sensuously—and I dare say erotically as well.
We move to tell each other what’s in our souls, to say what words can’t. We are touching each other in an attempt to listen.
Taylor Jenkins Reid • One True Loves
Where the body leads, language can follow.
Becky Thompson • Teaching With Tenderness
But just make someone who has fallen in love listen to his stomach rumble, and the unity of body and soul, that lyrical illusion of the age of science, instantly fades away.
Milan Kundera • The Unbearable Lightness of Being
coins and canes and flowers, there was a private language, in which we held an endless, delicate exchange of which the crowd knew nothing. This was a language not of the tongue but of the body,
Sarah Waters • Tipping the Velvet: A Novel
For them sexual communion is far from dirty, but rather a sacred melding that puts us in touch with the divine. Erotic intimacy is the revelation of our memories, wishes, fears, expectations, and struggles within a sexual relationship.