Alina Reyes is the best-selling author of The Butcher (1988), which was an immediate success in her native France, selling 500,000 copies. Her first book, it was unusual for its time in being both a piece of erotica and being written by a woman. She followed it with Lucie's Long Voyage and Behind Closed Doors, as well as contributing to collections of erotic fiction. Her latest novel is a fictionalised account of the life of Milena Jesenska, Kafka's literary companion, which unfortunately has not yet been translated into English.
She was in Prague, Czech Republic last month for the International Bookfair, where she gave readings from her latest work, and participated in a discussion panel with other women writers from around the world. She also gave an address at the French Institute on the theme of Repression and Regression, following which she gave an interview for Freezerbox.
When did you begin writing erotica?
For my first novel. It was mere chance, because I was living in Bordeaux, and there was a literary contest of erotic texts. I had eight days and my children were on holiday, I was alone. I took my pen and I wrote this novel. There were only four entries and I won! Before this I had not considered writing erotica--I was writing poems and sometimes they were erotic poems, but not only.
Was it difficult, to begin writing prose in this genre?
It was not difficult at all, to write this text. It was like a magic thing. I had a headache, and I was banging my head against the wall, and suddenly! It comes! I had an idea, and I began to write and it was very pleasant.
Did you see your writing then as erotic or pornographic?
I thought I was writing a novel, literature. I didn't realise it was erotic or pornographic. I believe that when you write, you can write everything, that nothing is forbidden--you are free, totally free, so I thought it was just literature like any other. And then when the book was published, everybody said, "wow!" I didn't understand, I was so surprised.
Why do you think people reacted in this way?
In France it was the first erotic novel written by a woman. Yes, there was Pauline Réage, but she was an exception, and nobody knew who she was--she had to hide. Anais Nin couldn't give her real name. I was a young woman at this time and I was published by an editor who is very serious and even Catholic, so it was a sort of shock for the journalists, and I did it with a certain candeur, innocence. I had not read erotic literature before, so maybe it was fresh because of that.
When discussing what differentiates erotica from porn, Alina Reyes uses words like 'divinity' and 'transcendence'. But she says the line between porn and erotica is difficult to draw, it's "so subjective". I ask her to do what we know is impossible--to then identify this divine or transcendent quality that erotica has, which porn does not. She replies with, 'art'...
If you feel something artistic in this object, maybe you can say it's erotic, but everybody has his own definition...
It seems that we're chasing one definition with another. What is artistic?
Maybe something not industrial, but something made by one person, who tries to make something authentic. The same question of transcendence: so subjective it's difficult to traduce, translate, really--but it's a question of sensibilité, sensitivity.
Isn't the word 'eros' in Greek related to the concept of play?
In the sense that love can be play. In paganism there were a lot of rites, rituals, festivals, where you could play different roles. Everything was... you could do everything that was forbidden. We are not in a pagan civilisation, so we have a God and He says, "you are sinners!" Even if we don't have it now, I think we still have a sense of guilt.
You mentioned puritanism in your talk...
Yes, the United States is very puritanical, and they are very religious, there are churches everywhere in the United States, so even if we have less religion in European culture than in the past, there is a guilt attached to the flesh. I think eroticism is a pagan notion. In Christianity the flesh is the incarnation of evil, it links flesh with sin, except in the Song of Songs--a long erotic and love poem, part of the Old Testament, very beautiful, but it's an exception.
So do you see yourself as a pagan?
Yes! My parents were atheist, they were communist, so I had no religion in my childhood, and when I arrived at school--I was thirteen--I learned Latin and Greek, and I discovered all this universe of ancient gods who were very human. They had a lot of love stories with everybody! And I made it my religion in some way.
Is love essential to erotica?
Erotica has this question--in the porn industry you don't have time for this question. Love is not so simple; love will never be a simple thing. There will always exist behind love an anxiety about fundamental things--what's life, what's death, what's a human being? Love questions all that.
In your talk you mentioned PC. What is its role in this debate?
It's often a certain type of puritanism. I think there is no PC in sex. Sex is politically incorrect, by definition. All the interest of sex is to be incorrect, because it's one of the only spaces where you are alone with somebody else, not part of society--you are going your own way. I think there are good aspects to PC, like anti-racism, good intentions, but it's an ideology, so it's dangerous like all other ideologies. Human beings are not perfect and human life is not so clean. You shouldn't try to control all your impulses--it's not human.
Is puritanism and PC a product of the Anglo-Saxon mentality, seperate from the Latin mentality of much of the rest of Europe?
It's a product of the Anglo-Saxon mentality and it goes everywhere, because it's a very wealthy culture. So we conform to the films we see and there is a problem of acculturation.
Is English being the international language part of the problem?
Yes, it is a consequence--when you have just one model, one language, you are pushing totalitarianism. The contrary of totalitarianism is difference--we have to maintain different cultures in the world to preserve our freedom. When there is just one culture, one language, there is no way to escape.
When you wrote 'The Butcher' you saw no difference between porn and erotica, yet now you do. What changed between then and now?
A lot of things. It was thirteen years ago, and it was the first novel like that. During the next years there were a lot of erotic novels, especially written by women, and now it's a normal thing, so nobody is surprised now to read an erotic novel written by a woman. And it became a business for the editors and for the media, who like to sell their newspapers talking about this sort of literature. And we have the development of an erotic industry, with very pornographic films--they are on TV, and everybody can see that at home, so pornography is everywhere now.
Is this positive or not?
It's positive in the sense that there is no more censorship, and also for literature: women are able to say what they want, and the public can read that and they can write about their own fantasies, their sexuality. And that's a good thing because during the last centuries we had only erotic literature written by men, from the point of view of men. But it loses value, importance and impact because there is so much pornographic literature coming out--it becomes anodyne, it loses weight. On the other hand, with the development of pornographic cinema--the possibility for people to watch pornographic films at home--it can seem like a good thing since it enables people to take their pleasure whenever they like, at home. The problem is that these films are always the same, and the situations, the actors are always the same, so they are like a model for people, and a model especially for young people. They begin to see those films at 13 or 14, maybe younger even, and they think "that's love, that's a model of sexuality". They think they have to do that, all that they see, nothing else , but all that they see is very brutal. There is no imagination, and their own imagination is dead because they have too many images.
The people who work for the porn industry--do you see them as collaborators; as people who are exploited; as people who are exploiting the industry; or who are exploiting the needs of others?
There are two sorts of people working in this industry. Some exploiters--producers. And others, especially the girls, who are exploited. Just published in France is a book by an ex-porno star, a girl, and she says how it was awful to work in this industry. When she was working, she said, "oh yes, I love that", but then... it's like in Africa at the time of slavery.
In the USA and in Germany, where prostitutes are more organised, where they have collectives, I have heard that some women say, "this work is better than being a secretary because I work fewer hours, I get more money, and I can decide where and who I work for".
That's not exactly the same problem, because those prostitutes, they are organised, they have no industry above them. They control their conditions--it's not the same problem.
So, to use pornography you need only be a passive consumer? To interact with erotica you have to use your own imagination, there has to be an active dialogue? Do you think the reason for the popularity of porn is because people are lazy?
Maybe, but... in France, we had a law that restricted porno films in cinemas... there was a law that gave an X certificate to porn films. Before that, pornographic films were produced, and I saw some of them--these were real films with a story, and real porno and all that you can see in the films today. But there was a story, and they were filmed with a film camera, not video. You had stories which were pornographic, but not industrial--it was a real story, even if it wasn't very artistic. We could see that and have pleasure from it, but not only the pleasure from seeing the sexual act. There wasn't only the representation of sex, but also characters like a real film. I think people were happy with that. Today, if producers were to produce porn films with a real story, with a kind of artistic effort, then probably people would be very glad, but there is no such chance.
So why have things changed?
It's an economic reason because of this law which classifies films into an X certificate--it's very difficult to make money with a real film of this type, and producers prefer to shoot films with home videos in three days.
Is this a development you see in other spheres of life?
We have the example with food. For example mass production in agriculture--the quality of meat for instance--it's not because people prefer bad meat, it's just economic logic.
Do you see a mirror between what is happening in the sexual world and what is happening in the rest of society--this deterioration of the private, this expansion of the public sphere?
Sure. Sexuality is always a mirror of society. What are our values? Money. What's the dream of people? It's to earn more money, to own things, to buy things. I think it's the same thing in their sexuality--it's as if we have to make love as much as possible. We consider love as something you own, and a right. In this context, the individual is an object, people are objects, who have intercourse like exchange, commercial exchange.
Is the Market responsible for the separation of psyche and flesh, public and private? Are things this way because we want them so, or because people want to sell us this state of affairs?
It's first because of those who sell us this. Selling of images creates need.
What about fetishism, sado-masochism--do these not provide the imagination that you think is missing?
In the past there was a sort of mystery to this practice, and this also was the pleasure of this practice, it was something a little mysterious, it was something people did in secret. And now we always have images of that in fashion, and people are invited on TV to talk about their behaviour, and so there is a normalisation. But I think human beings need this element of the private. If you deprive people of their inner secret life, their intimacy, then there will be a need for something else, something will have to be invented, something new. In every human being, there is the social being and the private being, and you need to have a private part in your personality. If nothing is private, if everything is exposed, in the media and so on, you have a lot of frustrations, because you need a secret part.
So, the Market expands into private areas of the psyche, and the individual finds new areas of privacy. Do you see this as a search for balance or as a war?
A logic of going forward without stopping.
A chain reaction?
Yes--it's dangerous because the only way of stopping that is a radical way. I think of young men in France, young rappers for example, who love the porn industry and are very machiste, macho, and when they are tired of that, suddenly they say, "I want to marry and I believe in God and I am a good Muslim!"
The title of your talk at the Institute was, ‘Repression and Regression'. Does one lead to the other?
Both are in the same movement. Repression is to say that something that was permitted before, is finished now. When you read some old books, like the Memoirs of Casanova, he tells the stories of all the love afairs during all his life, and when you read that today, it's incredible! Such freedom in his mind and in the mind of his contemporaries. Today a lot of things he did would be impossible because for everything there is a law. For example if he had a love affair with a young girl, maybe sixteen, now it's...!
Were people more free in his time?
In a certain way, they had not the same consciousness of their body. The body was not so precious as today. Today in the United States, some men don't want to take the elevator with a woman, because maybe the woman says, "he looked at me!" We are very paranoid about everything to do with our bodies. In Casanova's century, there was a certain freedom, especially mental freedom. In the nineteenth century there was a certain return of the puritans with Victorianism. It's a special type of repression today. At the begining of the twentieth century there was a lot of censorship, so you knew what was censored and what was wrong before the law. But now it is different, you can publish anything, there is no censorship, but there is a different form of censorship--it's the fact that if you don't appear in the media, you have no chance to sell your book, and if the media don't want to give you a place, it's a form of censorship. That's a form of repression you can't control.
Your new book is about Milena Jesenska--what interests you about her?
I was interested by Kafka and by Milena seperately. By Milena because she wrote some articles, she was a good journalist, and she wrote in a way I appreciate, very authentic, about social problems and historical problems with the war. She was a woman I can admire because of her courage, and her freedom. And Franz Kafka--I am in love with him! I feel as if I met him, really! I read him and I dreamed about him, so he is very close to me, and he describes the same situation we are living in today--a sort of dehumanisation of the human being. And his univerise is a totalitarian universe and he says very important things about the world, not only for his period, but for now.
They seemed to be very different personalities.
Yes, very different. Milena was very concrete. She talked about what she saw all around her, and Kafka was a sort of visionary. We never see Prague for example in his books--we see his vision of the world, where everybody can recognise himself and the world in which he lives.
What are you writing now?
I'm trying to write a strange story I read in a newspaper about two American people, a wife and husband, who have a sexual doll. You can buy on the internet some dolls that are made from silicon. They are called, 'Real Doll', they look perfectly real. I saw them on the internet, and this couple have adopted a Real Doll. They sleep with her all night, and the woman during the day, she takes tea with the doll. The doll sits in the chair by her, it's like a real person, it's amazing! And they sleep with this doll, it's like a new Golem, and I'm trying to make a story about that.
Is the internet something you use a lot?
No, because my computer is too old! I bought a computer fifteen years ago--it was one of the first, but now it's always the same. But my two first sons who are 25 and 21, work in information technology and so sometimes they show me on their computers what you can find on the internet.
What do they think about their mother being notorious?
Oh, they are cool--but they know what literature is, so they understand.
Do you see yourself as a crusader for the erotic, the playful, a return of the private against Repression and the Market?
I would like to say in my books that you have to distrust the models that society gives you, and find yourself, your own way of life. I would like to say, don't follow society's lead.
How can we do this?
Writing and reading is a good way to have your own life, because when you read you can have a lot of points-vues, points of view on life, you understand? And so when we read we become more open and free, rather than letting yourself become enclosed. Society proposes schemes that have very reduced patterns, whereas you really do have a whole panel of choices--of first of all, points of view.
Do you see yourself as a subversive?
I think a good writer is always a subversive, but I don't know if I am a good writer.
In this battle to defend the private, the playful, the ritual--can you win?
Yes, because I am not the only one! I think people realise the danger of commercial production and want to have more quality.
Is there a danger that by demanding a better quality, (smaller) market, the Market as a whole simply gets bigger--by adding these new small pieces, you are feeding the monster, and making the monster stronger?
No--it implies smaller structures. There is a tendency to try to support small producers in the field of agriculture, not dominated by big firms. There is this new tendency in France of film-makers, and it's mostly women, who introduce pornography inside creative films. Which can make problems because of this law of X classification, so there is a lot of debate about whether such and such a film is an X film or not. Catherine Bréart, a woman film-maker, has just asked a porn star to perform in a film.
Are you a feminist?
Not too much. I am feminist but I am not militant. I think that women have to be feminist, because the work to free women is not yet finished. We have a lot of rights to conquer still. But I don't want to be in a movement, I stay alone.
What do you think of the anti-globalisation movement that expressed itself in Prague last year and more recently in Quebec?
Yes, I think it's a good thing, but I want to write with all of my freedom and not for an idea. I think the more theories that exist, the better it is; the more people can say what they want, what they think, different things, the better.
