"We want these erotic poems to be read by everyone, men too"

Barcelona"I have a craving, oh, relentless, / for the knight who has served me," wrote the Countess of Dia in the late 12th century. "I am the bad whore, all dirty, a creature responsible for desire," writes Paula S. Piedad in the 21st century. Between one and the other, nine centuries. The path, however, has been very slow. "Female desire has been systematically demonized or misinterpreted," assure Raquel Casas and Lídia Gàzquez, professors, researchers, and creators of the podcasts geMMinades and LiteraCura't, who publish Foc al cos (Proa). It is an anthology that traces erotic poetry written by women in Catalan, from the medieval trobairitz to the youngest voices of today.

For the two authors, this anthology was absolutely necessary to be able to hear the voices of women who speak about their own bodies and sexuality. "There are anthologies of erotic poetry or feminist poetry, but that dealt with this topic with a historical perspective, from its origins to the present day, we couldn't find any," says Gàzquez.

For the two researchers, the book is an act of literary justice. "I believe there are no first and second-class topics. Eroticism, desire, and sensuality are as important as memory, the passage of time, love, or death," defends Gàzquez. The anthology highlights a paradigm shift over the centuries. For a long time, eroticism was perceived as a threat to the established order and popular imagination has been prolific in creating sinners, witches, devourers, and possessed women. "It is still revolutionary that women are the ones who speak, who manifest, and who are the subject of desire, not the object," reflects Casas.

There are still prejudices

Despite the social advances achieved, Casas warns that prejudice continues to be very much alive in everyday relationships: "We still have to believe in our place a little and we have to lose a certain fear, get rid of labels. If you write erotic poetry or literature, the label they give you can be "fresh". On the other hand, men have always done it. Vicent Andrés Estellés is one of my favorites since forever; for them it is totally legitimate to express their desire".

This social asymmetry is directly transferred to the pages of books. "Everything that is social is also literary; what happens in society is reflected in literature, and erotic poetry is no exception," summarizes Casas. Both authors point out that Catalan female writers have had to face a double struggle: that of being women and that of writing in a mistreated language.

The anthology shows a great historical gap: between the trobairitz of the 12th century and Dolors Monserdà (1845-1919) there is only an anonymous poem from the 17th century. Gàzquez argues that this gap directly responds to the difficulties women have had: "The trobairitz were ladies with economic power and a social level that allowed them to access and produce culture. Afterwards, depending on the historical moment, women have been dedicated to having children, confined to the home or working outside the home, without education, nor time, nor even knowing how to write". This absence of explicit erotic texts during the Modern Age is also explained because desire had to be channeled through other paths, such as mystical poetry, a genre where carnal impulse disguised itself as devotion. "We are very clear about it: mystical poetry is erotic poetry," states Gàzquez.

Mystical or erotic poetry?

"When I teach mysticism, especially St. John of the Cross or St. Teresa, I give them a poem without saying who it's by and the students immediately say it's erotic. Calling it 'encountering God' was a way to break the rules through mysticism," adds Gàzquez. This poetry, however, has often been left out of anthologies because most female authors opted to write in Spanish, did not have poetic output, or it has not been preserved. Isabel de Villena (1430-1490), for example, cultivated great mystical eroticism in the Vita Christi, but from a narrative perspective. Of Hipòlita de Roís de Liori (1479-1546), only part of an epistolary is preserved. Maria Àngela Astorc (1592-1665) was a nun of great mystical intensity, but she wrote in Spanish, and very little of Hipòlita de Jesús's (1603-1674) work has been preserved.

It is not until the arrival of figures like Maria-Mercè Marçal (1952-1998) that an authentic "explosion of the expression of desire, especially desire between women," occurs, the authors state. The anthology brings together many voices from the 20th and 21st centuries: from Víctor Català and Mercè Rodoreda to Dolors Miquel, Eva Baltasar, Carla Fajardo and Irene Solà, as well as Olga Xirinacs and Josefa Contijoch. The anthology makes it clear that there is no lack of erotic vocabulary and that it is not necessary to resort to Spanish to express oneself. "Why can't I say "}cony" and have to say "}sex" in general like this? People fuck, they don't always "}make love; it is not reality. Genres such as The dangers of porn on the internet

As teachers, both Casas and Gàzquez closely observe the new generations of young people born in this century. "The youngest female authors are much more daring, direct in their language, and committed. They use poetry as a social tool for denunciation, verbalizing abuses." However, they coexist daily in classrooms with the overwhelming success of the genre known as dark romance, which tend to be novels of dark and toxic relationships. Both believe that part of the appeal of these books is that they give adolescents what they want: drama. "If you ban a book from an adolescent, they will dive headfirst into it. They are at an age when their feelings are very intense and they connect very well with these dramas, with sex, love, and death." Casas, for her part, focuses on a much deeper educational problem: early and unfiltered access to digital pornography.

"Adolescence and childhood learn about relationships and desire many times, unfortunately, through hegemonic porn, where women are almost always the passive object who receives blows, spit, and hair pulling. Talking to adolescents, they have told me that if this component of violence is not present, they sometimes don't get aroused, because they have learned to relate thinking that what they see on their phones is a normal sexual relationship," says Casas. To combat this distortion, both professors advocate for equipping young people with critical tools, the support of professionals in high school libraries, and quality alternative role models. "With porn, we have to make it clear to them that it is science fiction, like Star Wars; it is not reality. Genres like dark romance should not be banned, but they should be given criteria," they propose. For both authors, their book is above all a source of knowledge for all audiences. "We don't want it to be labeled as women's literature or feminist literature, as if it couldn't interest anyone other than women reading women. We want these erotic poems to be read by everyone, men too; poetry, art, is also knowledge and interpellation," they conclude.