MA SCULPTURE_2018

to fall
or
/
and
touch

a radical transformation of the intimate sphere

nora aurrekoetxea

( 11.007 w)
nora aurrekoetxea

ma sculpture
royal college of art

emily labarge

2018
 to
fall
or
/
and
touch

a radical transformation of the intimate sphere

0.intro

1.love as a political category

political potentials 7.000 m

2.the fall
to fall or/and falling 5.486 m

2.1. falling
in love 2.500 m

2.2. love
or/and violence 750 m

2.3. FOF
fear of falling 250 m

3. language 75 m

4.the encounter 3m

5.touch
me tender 0 mm

6.bibliography -50 m
0.intro

The present text is an attempt to analyse from a broad perspective the concept of FALLING
and its relationship to TOUCH.

A fall,
to fall,
falling in love,
the fear of falling,
love as a political category,
cultural construction of sexuality,
cultural and historical readings of love and relationships,
cultural approaches to the body, emotions and feelings, and their expression and development
within individuals,
language,
the language of love,
encounters,
and
touch

Falling in love
We don’t have that expression in the Basque language.
What happens if you add the concept of falling to the concept of love?
Does the use of language give a new meaning to love?

Starting from the concept of falling in love as a point of departure, the fall, as a word, will travel
through many different ways of experiencing the fall itself and, as a consequence of its
gravitational pull or attraction, touch and body contact.
Researching the concept of falling, from a wider perspective I would like to see how the fear of
falling affects contemporary relationships; encounters, language and touch. To do so, with our
life experience as the raw material of the research, I decided to interview people who are
somehow related to height and the fall; like skydivers and scaffolders, and see if there are any
kind of similarities in the experience of free fall; the fears and the emotions you confront while
you are free falling and falling in love. At the same time, I interviewed people related to the
experience of touch, after having led a touch-based workshop, to create a relationship
between the heights 7000 m and 0 mm.

This project takes relational, material and linguistic aspects as a starting point, to force
encounters and / or mismatches between the experiential and emotional (untouchable but not
imperceptible) and the physical and objectual (touchable and perceptible).
The research encompasses personal experience, emotions and thoughts combined with
sociological, philosophical, sexological and psychological theories. It is circumscribed in an
auto-ethnographic piece of writing, since it is based on autobiographical experiences as well
as on others’ individual experiences. But I would not say it is fully autobiographical or
confessional; it is part fact, part fiction, like life is. Therefore, it is a piece of qualitative research
that begins from a look towards the inner self in order to return to the social group and
understand these subjects within contemporary society.
The text is composed of materials coming from different sources such as personal writings,
(emails, letters or notebook writings), interviews with people related to the concept of falling
and touch, the script from a touch-based workshop I led as a part of the research,
transcriptions of the interviews with workshop participants and quotes taken from essays or
novels.
The text is divided into five chapters that are intertwined in space and time, that is, they do not
correspond to a linear temporal logic but rather overlap and intersect during the process of
writing by the different kinds of materials previously mentioned. However, the text begins from
5468 m, the greatest height that people usually jump from to achieve free fall, and finishes at 0
mm, the point where skin contact and touch takes place. Therefore, the distance and speed of
proximity will be the guide to the formal and ideological development of the present text.

The more theoretical chapter, ´love as a political category. political potentials´ is included at the
beginning of the text, something in between an introduction and a contextual framework,
which the rest of the experimental writing research relies on. Placing it at the highest level
(7000 m) is an attempt to materialise in a metaphorical way the structural and vertical power-
relationship that socio-political aspects generate in the construction of subjects, concepts and
experiences.

The research seeks to be a fluid and experimental piece of writing where language, its form
and the process of signification assumes a crucial importance within the whole text. It is an
attempt to engage with language, writing and conversations, not only through the semiotics or
meaning of words, but also through their form and display within the pages. The use of
ambiguity in some of the writings might be a form of misunderstood or ambiguous
conversations with myself, with the page or with others. I seek to produce aesthetic and
evocative thick descriptions of personal and interpersonal experience.

The aesthetics and form of the enunciated text is not random. Short, fragmented sentences
displayed within the pages guide the reader through the pages at different speeds, in an
attempt to materialise through reading, the fall itself.

Verticality

and

Movement

This fragmented writing, more poetic perhaps, is combined with theoretical extracts, analysis
and questions related to references of other authors. The theoretical extracts take a more
classic and rectangular shape, offering a space of rest and reflection.
1. love as a political category
political potentials

(7.000 m)

We must produce political transformation of the key concepts, that is of the concepts
1
which are strategic for us.

1
Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind and Other Essays, (United States, Beacon Press,1992)
 Is love a radical political category that needs to be reinvented in order to create new
relationships with each other and therefore with our surroundings?

I understand love as a political category, where erotic relationships are the base of the
construction of our society.

The atom
The symptom
The goal

love
as
a
political
category The perception of love, the experience of love and the narrative that we build around
relationships, emotions, care and feelings are not going to change without rethinking the
concept of love in political terms, collectively and as a society.

Srecko Horvat, the Croatian philosopher and political activist, draws on the question of what
2
love is and how it fits into revolution in the book ´The Radicality of Love´ . The philosopher
analyses this as his premise, tracing the relationship between love and revolution in several
well known historical periods, including the October Revolution and the Vietnam protests,
spanning from free love to restricted love, and the reconciliation of personal with revolutionary
aspirations. In essence, the author comes to the conclusion that love in itself is revolutionary
and can be used to spur revolution, and that should be of primary importance.

I believe that understanding the role of love during crucial moments of history, social
revolutions and social changes may help us to discover what the contemporary role of love in
3
our society when solid structures are no longer strong enough to endure in liquid times , as
Zygmund Bauman, the Polish sociologist and philosopher would say, or in times of
4
groundlessness as the German artist Hito Steyerl has mentioned in some of her essays .

2
Srecko Horvat, Eva Illouz. La Radicalidad del Amor. (Iruñea-Pamplona. Katakrak liburuak, D.L., 2016)
3
Zygmunt Bauman, Amor Líquido. Acerca de la fragilidad de los vínculos humanos. (Madrid, España, Fondo de cultura
económica, 2005)
4
Hito Steyerl; In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective, e-flux journal, #24-April 2011
Love, as an institution, is regulated by the state and operates to constantly shape relationships
in a certain way. The current system is based on the heterosexual family unit as an atom. The
heterosexual family unit, based on monogamy and exclusivity as a model to be followed, which
dictates the rules and the norms of erotic interactions.
5
According to Substantive Sexology , the current system is built on the idea of what is called
6 norm in Western Culture. These prophets of erotic-festive chaos, predicted that manhood is in
´The reproductive sexual order´ . This order is governed by two ´P´s, a system of Permissions
and Prohibitions that dictate with whom, where and when one can establish erotic
relationships.
This means regulating erotic relationships in terms of:
SEX
AGE
RACE
CLASS
That is how the state regulates what is called a ´private´ and intimate interaction, such that only
certain relationships have the status to be considered ´relationships´, or moreover, are
permitted to be.
7 Sexuality has exploded as a space for political vindication. Today it is understood that desire
The sexologist Efigenio Amezúa analyses how later in history a second ´R´, of Romantic, will
be added to the concept of ´The Reproductive Sexual Order´ to become ´The Romantic
8
Reproductive Sexual Order´ . This adds the idea of Romantic love as a connector to build the
sexual order.
According to Amezúa this implies that ´The Romantic Reproductive Sexual Order´ tends to
perpetuate the construction of heterosexual relationships based on the idea of romantic love,
which are legitimised mainly by the existence of an emotional passionate bond in erotic
interactions, commonly called sexual interactions. These are understood as such if they are
related to the genitalia and not necessarily with pleasure or other parts of the body. This means
that this order prioritises as a norm, and therefore as normal, actions, bodies, pleasures and
desires related to reproduction and excludes, prohibits and illegalises the ones that take place
outside this normativity: non-exclusive and polygamous relationships, non-binary couples,
non-normative bodies that are not based on the sex-gender system, non-reproductive bodies,
etc.
Through the system of ´P´s (Permissions and Prohibitions), the Order regulates by different
institutions like law, religion, medicine or psychiatry, which desires, pleasures and bodies are
allowed to be, to exist, and which are prohibited.
The paradox starts when bringing together Eros, desire, and the norm, a mandate.
Desire does not understand orders; it is framed into another paradigm.
5
Sexología sustantiva or Substantive Sexology is a type of Sexology that is studied in In.Ci.Sex, (scientific Institute of
Sexology) founded in 1973 in Madrid and directed by Efigenio Amezúa.
6
Efigenio Amezúa, Teoría de los sexos. La letra pequeña de la sexología, Revista Española de Sexología, nº 95-96, 1999.
7
Efigenio Amezúa is a Doctor in Sexology, is the Director of; the In.ci.sex Scientific Institute of Sexology, The Postgraduate
Studies in Sexology in Incisex - University of Alcalá de Henares, and the Master in Sexology: sexual education and
counselling. He is also founder and editor of the Spanish Journal of Sexology (1979).
8
Ibid
9
It was in 1977 when Pascal Bruckner and Alain Finkielkraut wrote ´The New Love Disorde´r ,
making a clear reference to the previously mentioned ´The Romantic Reproductive Sexual
Order´, changing the key words of reproductive for love, and order for disorder. If there is going
to be a new order it has to be disordered. Otherwise it is just changing one order for another.
In their book they predicted an advent of a new love order, the definitive death of
phallocentrism, the end of the monopoly of the virile body as representation and the erotic
its terminal phase and that women will stop being an object of pleasure to become a model of
pleasure.
This means that rethinking the way in which erotic relationships are built has the power to
restructure the entire current pyramid of relationships and therefore, society itself.
If we rethink as a society the concept of the couple in political terms, it would become a
powerful tool to reformulate and re-understand us collectively and in relation to each other.
The feminist formula of ´The personal is political´, also called ´The private is political´, is a
political argument used as a slogan within student movement and the second wave of
feminism. This phrase seeks to highlight the connections between personal experiences and
social and political structures. In the context of the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s,
it was a challenge to the values determining the construction of a nuclear family.
To understand that the personal is political is to put in the front line, in the political agenda,
emotions, feelings, caring, emotional labour and therefore, the concept of love and
relationships.
I believe that the feminist contribution is essential to rethink all the intimate spheres from a
political perspective, and therefore radically, and, as the etymological meaning of ´radical´
suggests, this process of rethinking must occur ´from the roots´.
cannot be reduced to a natural drive, but it is rather a social and cultural construction, as love
is. This idea guides diverse paths of subversion and emancipation that advance hand in hand
with activism, thought and art. Thinking about the politics of desire, then, means reflecting on
what we are allowed to desire and on our capacity to offer resistances and alternatives that
10
help us to constitute ourselves as free subjects. So it is important to consider desire as a
cultural construction. Marta Segarra, professor of French literature and gender studies at the
University of Barcelona, and co-founder and director of the Women and Literature Centre,
11
mentioned in a conference that took place in the CCCB in 2017 , that, as occurs with the
understanding of love, desire is not a natural instinct or phenomenon either, it is a concept that
is build according to certain cultural patterns and it is differently understood depending on the
historical period and the culture itself.
There is nothing more revolutionary than changing the way of loving, because if we do, the
whole construction of society would be rebuilt following new parameters.
Or at least changing the way we understand love.
9
Pascal Bruckner y Alain Finkielkraut. El nuevo desorden amoroso. (Barcelona, Editorial Anagrama, 1979). 1st edition Le
nouveau desordre amoreux.( Editions du Seuil Paris 1977)
10
http://www.cccb.org/es/marco/ficha/politicas-del-deseo/22561. April 2018
11
http://blogs.cccb.org/veus/debats/marta-segarra-volem-posseir-laltre-i-acabem-desposseint-nos-a-nosaltres-
mateixos/?lang=es. April 2018
 12
A radical re-understanding of bourgeois notions of sexuality and love.

12
Alexandra Kollontai. Red Love, (New York, Prims Key Press, 2011)
The French author and feminist theorist Monique Wittig states that the system is constantly What is reality if not the narrative that we create around it?
shaping concepts, laws, institutions, culture and history that affects our understanding and our
vision directly, and so, it is extremely necessary to re-examine these parameters including
13 Paying attention to dialectics, expressions, narratives and language related to love is the way
dialectics in order to be aware of them and shape them in another possible way.
of approaching this research and the understanding of some of the key concepts around it.
She was one of the first feminist theorists interrogating heterosexuality not only as part of
sexuality but also as a political regime. Defining herself as a radical lesbian, she posits I will take the concept of falling (in love) as the point of departure to analyse how the English
heterosexuality as a political regime that must be overthrown because it is where linguistics language constructs the perception of falling in love and what happens when the fall is added
to love.
has its base, and therefore shapes all the concepts around it. As she says, ´Gender is the
linguistic index of the political opposition between the sexes´.14

The
Love movement
in its self that
is revolutionary is
Because it has the power to reframe the way you experience
involved
yourself
in
the
and the context around
word
itself
you

The narrative you create about an experienced experience through

language
creates
a new As
reading
and understanding A New?
of your surroundings
and therefore it changes
Order?
if not the reality

at least

the perception of it.

Another

love

disorder
13
Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind and Other Essays, (United States, Beacon Press, 1992)
14
ibid
 15
As we know, love needs re-inventing

15
Arthur Rimbaud, A season in hell, Hallucinations1
2.the fall
to fall or/and falling

(5.486 m)

Free fall17
vs
Free love

90´´

16

A radical transformation of the intimate sphere.

17
16 …a free-falling object is an object that is falling under the sole influence of gravity. That is to say that any object that is
On average, you fall 200 feet per second during a sky dive. From 18,000 feet, (5486 m) it’s about 90 seconds.
moving and being acted upon only be the force of gravity is said to be ´in a state of free fall´.
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/1DKin/Lesson-6/Kinematic-Equations-and-Free-Fall.
We were walking nervously, it was very windy and the engine was too noisy.
They sat me on top of a stranger, they tied me up, I had no escape. I was the first, I noticed it in the room´s
atmosphere, I had the door in front.

They opened it

the air whipped my face, I was shaking with fear

the man behind me was getting closer and closer

to the edge ...

At the end we fell ...

and stopped breathing ...

and the fear became an …

and did not stop falling…

and the ground was getting closer…

and the panting was more intense

Suddenly the parachute opened,

heard the nothingness,
a nothing so extreme that it gave me instance of inner peace18

18
Amane Roldan. A description of a personal experience in free fall, skydiving. Email correspondence, January 2018.
 the
fall
to
fall
or
/
and
falling

a fact, an action or a process
a name, an infinitive and a gerund as a point of departure
Hito Steyerl, in the text ´In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective´,19 asks the
reader to imagine a situation where you are falling but there is no ground, as a way of
describing the current era characterised by the lack of ground (groundlessness), where there
are no strong foundations, and as a consequence, contemporary subjects experience a
constant free falling sensation without even being aware of it.

According to that text, a fall, as an action, is relational, not only because of the movement or
the transition that happens from one place to another, but also because this is the reason why
the subject in movement has the perception of the fall itself.
Jausi
Erori
Amildu

The Other

in front

3 different words that mean the same in the Basque language down
to fall
above

or
3 villages facing the sea,
/
Ondarru
Mutriku and
Deba
next to

15 km next to each other,

using 3 different words to refer to the same thing acts like a mirror.
3 words
1 meaning?

An action that stages two places, So we could assume that one has the perception of oneself because of the existence of the
you fall from one place to another, Other. Therefore, a fall takes place because of a force of attraction or gravitational traction. In
it is a movement this way, we could state that there is no fall, or at least experience/perception of falling, without
In which direction? the existence of at least two (objects or subjects) that are attracted to each other.
Is it vertical?
Horizontal?
Is it bidirectional?
Poly-directional?
From where to where?
For whom?
Into what?

19
Hito Steyerl; In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective, e-flux journal, #24-April 2011
Related

If we translate the following equation in relation to subjects…

why do we feel attraction to others?

why do we fall for someone else?

why does this falling,

this unpredictable action happen?

to experience a fall itself?

In The Banquet20, one of his most famous dialogues articulated in The Symposium, Plato tries
to articulate a reasonable response to the question: What is love?

He laid the foundations of what is known today as Erotic theory: for what, how, and above all,
why human beings are attracted to each other. He affirmed the fact that, among other forms of
relationship that occur, none is as attractive and profound as the one that happens amongst
/between the sexes, and no relationship is so full of longing and is so desired.
To formulate his theory, Plato used a mythological character or god known as Eros who was
the one who performed the functions of mediator or ambassador in charge of these feelings
and emotions known, therefore, as erotic feelings. These are in fact the ones that lead some
human beings towards others, because they are sectioned or separated. Hence the etymology
of the term sex, from the Latin sexus, comes from the verb sexare, which means sectioned,
different, a different section, CUT.21

This Erotic theory could be considered as one of the explanations for the search for the Other,
the (un)conscious search for the encounter, the attraction between the subjects, the
gravitational traction towards a body (or the ground).

However, some feminist theorists like Luce Irigaray have pointed out this theory of the round /
cut beings as the bases of romantic love, which perpetuate the roles of submission and
dependence towards the Other. She argues that having the belief of being a half, we are
insufficient beings in search of a ´half orange´ who completes us, and willing to surrender to
find, in that love, the reason for living. 22

Although, the reading of The Banquet proposed by the Substantive Sexology (Scientific
Institute of Sexology, In.Ci.Sex. Madrid)23 based on that mythological explanation to
understand the search and desire towards the Other, asserts that every relationship is based
on a relationship of interdependence, in the continuum of sexes, understanding intersexuality
as the norm, without interdependence being a negative. They affirm that every subject is
interdependent on other subjects, since we are all related, and also interdependent to their
own context, and so, this is also the case of the relational or erotic scenario. This does not
necessarily mean the need for another to be a complete being, but an inherent search for
another from an erotic perspective that departs from desire, which means departing from Eros.

Sexus and Eros are, then, two different concepts and, for that reason, it is appropriate to
differentiate them. Each one offers its own particularities. Even though they complement each
other, one is not synonymous with the other.

The figure of Cupid has become the commercialised and universalised figure of Eros, that
famous winged goddess who shoots arrows between one and the other to unite those who are
attracted to each other. In Greek mythology Eros was the son of Poros (abundance) and Penia
(penury or shortage), which together gave rise to that phenomenon that in current terms we
usually call desire.

´The arrows of Cupid´ is the Latin expression of that Greek Eros. It is in the cultural base of
Greco-Latin cultures. Hence, also ´the crush´, the expression used to indicate attraction and
falling in love. Eros is responsible for ´the crush´, for the the coup de foudre, for falling in love.

20
Oscar Martinez Garcia. Platón. EL banquete o sobre el amor. (Madrid, Escolar y mayoeditores S.L. 2014)
21
http://www.sexologiaenincisex.com/conceptos-de-sexologia-y-sexualidad/03-los-grandes-conceptos-la-erotica/ ,
February 2018
22
Heather Wright, Plato's erotic politics: A new feminist reading of the "Symposium´ (ETD Collection for Fordham
University. 2006)
23
In.Ci.Sex. Madrid.
1.1. falling
in love

(2.500m)

maitemindu25

1
/ tomber amoureux
5
´
to fall in love

24

24
According to Stephanie Ortigue, a co-author in a neurological review of research on love, this is the time it takes to fall in
love, during which a chemical reaction, a similar hit to the one provoked by drugs like cocaine, happens in our brain while
looking or thinking about that special person.
https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095(15)32763-6/fulltext.
26 May, 2018.

25
Means falling in love in the Basque language.
…in contrast with other languages English and French use the expression of ´falling´ related to
love.

Adding the concept of ´falling´ to love is adding a

specific meaning to the concept
through language

I am interested in the idea of ´falling´ that Sreko Horvat uses in his book ´The Radicality of
Love´26 where he analyses the role of love in different social revolutions during different stages
of history and affirmed that there is no love without ´the fall´.

The fall as the first stage where love, as a form of a relationship, can be built.
A process of transition
of movement.

Could we assume that there is no love without the fall?

Does the encounter between subjects happen because of the fall?

26
Srecko Horvat, Eva Ilouz, La Radicalidad del Amor. (Iruñea-Pamplona. Katakrak liburuak, D.L., 2016)
 there
is
no
love
without
the
fall
At the same time Slavoj Zizek has point out that the fall (or/and falling) is an Event in the sense
of something extraordinary taking place. In the case of the encounter of subjects he claims that
the experience of passionate love, which comes from Eros, is a metaphysical experience
where your daily life is changed, and the balance is lost, and that is what puts it in the category
of an Event. 27

To Fall as an Event dimension

Love is an encounter
The fall is the Event
The love Event

27
Slavoj Zizek, Event, A Philosophical Journey Through a Concept, (London, Penguin ,2014 ).
 … the lesson of radical imbalance:
the ultimate Event is the Fall itself,
i.e, things emerge when the
equilibrium is destroyed, when
28
something goes astray.

Understanding this process of falling as an

Event, like Zizek points out, offers us a
paradigm to understand it in its entirety.

The event as a substantial and radical

change where nothing remains inert.

falling in love is violent

And that radical change, emotionally violent after all,
that unexpected event, because of the inner change that it
that falling generates.
is a violent action

an impact
a change
lack of control
and
instability

That is why we are more and more afraid

about the Event and the encounter.

28
Slavoj Zizek, Event, A Philosophical Journey Through a
Concept, (London, Penguin, 2014 ). P55
 the
fall
as
a
violent
act

Love is an extremely violent act, love is not I love u all, I pick out something and is again an
to imbalance, it is a small detail; I say I love u more than anything else, in this formal sense love is
29
fall evil.
as
a
violent
action

I am repeating this like a mantra.

They work like slogans.

29
S.Zizek, Love is evil, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg7qdowoemo
2.2. love
or/and violence

(750 m)

Coming back to the term of falling in love in the Basque language, maitemindu, it is interesting
(maite) to love to see how this word is composed of two different words that mean to love and to get hurt.

and In this language,

falling is not part of the concept, but it is interesting to see how it also refers to something
(mindu) get hurt violent within it.

Does the fall hurt?

Is falling (in love) one of the most violent actions?

Falling (-ing) in love is the process in which we confront our fears, our vulnerability, being
fragile. There is a relationship between love and these violent emotions. It sounds paradoxical,
but we cannot understand one, the soft, the reassurance of love, without the other.

maitemindu
maitez mindu
maitasunez mindu

fall in love
get hurt loving
get hurt with love
 or/and lie.
love
or
/
and
violence

or/and

Either this or both.

The marginal, the continuum.

The place where I stand

It wouldn´t be new to analyse or to read these two words together; However, it is that wall/harness which does not allow love to have access to the desired
subject.

love
or
/ So if we assume that these symbolic elements of protection cannot be avoided, they should be
and mouldable enough to be able to receive love and affection.
violence

if we took it from a prism of power relationships, that is given systematically in a patriarchal

society, but what intrigues me, and that is one of the reasons why I feel attracted to the
concept of falling itself, is the understanding that within the action of falling is where this
disjunction or conjunction, love OR / AND violence, occurs. If falling is unpredictable
If there is no love without the fall
It is not secure If falling is a violent action
It may happen And
or not If there we have developed the fear of falling
It can be violent …
or not

or
/ Then maybe we should transform the key concepts,
and

and
Understanding the fall is like losing control, something that makes you feel vulnerable. But it is
only through that fragility and vulnerability where the encounter with the Other can actually as Alain Badiou suggests…
happen, become this encounter, this falling (in love), falling for someone, into something, one
of the most violent actions.

Vulnerability is an essential part of human relationships, the couple is the union of two fragile,
two vulnerable beings. The concept of vulnerability has acquired a negative connotation,
related to the idea of dependence, coming from law, medical and psychiatric definitions30.
…risk and adventure must be re-invented against safety and comfort…32
Contemporary societies are developing the fear of falling, in order not to be vulnerable, not to
be weak, not to be affected, in the belief that we can protect ourselves from risks, that we can
remain safe, that we can avoid experiencing the fall.

Every human being in the face of danger tends to draw an instinct for survival that drives them
to protection, to avoid pain, suffering, risks...
Fear is one of the basic feelings that must be expressed, otherwise, as the Transactional
Analysis in psychology points out, they become disguised emotions.
An unexpressed basic emotion becomes another in disguise.31

In the case of the fear of falling (in love), something paradoxical occurs.
If the fall itself is a violent action, instinctively the human being would tend to protect itself from
the consequences of falling, creating a ´wall´, buying a harness.

30
https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/vulnerability
31
Ian Stewart, Vann Joines. TA Today: A New Introduction to Transactional Analysis. (Ia, University of california,
Lifespace Pub, 1987)
32
Alain Badiou, In Praise of Love (New York, The new press, 2012)
.
FOF
2.3. FOF
the fear of falling

(250 m) How does the fear of falling affect erotic interactions experienced nowadays in
contemporary societies in the Western culture?
What characterises it?

Slavoj Žižek states that nowadays we are coming back to preromantic eras when dating apps
are offering us love without the fall, without falling in love, without that totally unpredictable
dramatic encounter.

Is that possible?

He would say that in our times we are seeking for

coffee without caffeine
The fear of falling (FOF), also referred to as basophobia (or basiphobia), is a natural fear beer without alcohol
and is typical of most humans and mammals, in varying degrees of extremity. It differs tobacco without nicotine
from acrophobia (the fear of heights), although the two fears are closely related. The love without falling
fear of falling encompasses the anxieties accompanying the sensation and the possibly without the fall
dangerous effects of falling, as opposed to the heights themselves.33 without risks.

Loving without taking risks.

Without a fatal attachment.
To protect you from falling.

33
Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_falling
 The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being
acted upon by forces outside our control.34
In a conversation about love held by Alain Badiou and Nicolas Troung in 2008, as an
introduction, Badiou starts stating that ´a philosopher must never forget the countless
situations in life when he is no different from anyone else´ and that he ´has to accept that the
realm of thought is never sealed off from the violent onslaughts of love.´37 When he refers to
safety campaigns that contemporary relationships are receiving from dating apps he suggests
that ´the aim is to avoid any immediate challenge, any deep and genuine experience of the
otherness from which love is woven.´ 38

When I was studying a postgraduate course in Sexology in 2011, I remember Marcos Sanz35,
an expert about the sociology of sexuality and professor of In.Ci.Sex. 36(Madrid), telling us
during one of his lectures the differences between being a traveller and a tourist when it come
to sexuality, but it could also easily be effectively applied to any aspect of life: Zero risks campaigns,
without suffering
against all risks,
A tourist knows when they are going and when they are coming from the trip, they have 0 commitment.
already perfectly organised every single detail and day of the vacation; what to visit, where to
have the best lunch, dinner or breakfast,
when to visit those hidden places every tourist must discover before leaving,
everything of course, according to a very well-known tourist guide.

Thinking about the contemporary phenomena created by online dating apps, on-line love,
A traveller, in contrast to the tourist, knows when the trip will start, but rarely ever knows when sexting etc. the idea of the traveller is erased from the equation. There is no falling by vetting
and where it will finish. They may have some recommendations but prefer to get lost walking ourselves, by vetting others. When you go out to meet people, there is a serendipity, there is
through the streets rather than going straight forward to visit the typical sights, the chance of meeting (or not), the chance of falling.
and if on the way,
by chance, If we are looking for the perfect profile to fall in love with, we are taking the least risks possible,
meets someone local who they can talk with for hours, they will do it without thinking twice. losing the excitement of the unpredictable, even though knowing that love is always a mixture
of the perfect and the imperfect.
The mystery of our imagined lover is lost- all is revealed too soon in our imagination- subjected
Therefore, the lost, to a tick list…However there is the thirty second love of sexting- or flirting- where we build an
the unpredictable, imaginary relationship but may never meet the person.
the risk Sherry Turkel mentioned in a talk that took place in 2012,39 that
is embraced by the traveller and rejected by the tourist. people can't get enough of each other, if and only, if they can have each other at a distance, in
amounts they can control.

Not too close,

not too far,
just right.
According to Marcos Sanz we are nowadays living a tourist’s sexuality,
a tourist’s encounters. Safe.

Dating apps offer a safety wall that doesn´t exist in real time, where you cannot control what
you are going to say. While these media (sexting, emailing, posting…) let us present the self as
we want to be - edited, deleted, retouched… the face, the voice, the flesh, the body…
avoiding risks,
the unexpected, Not too little,
the surprise, not too much,
the magic, just right.
In the name of security.

34
Bell Hooks, All about love: New visions. (United States, Harper, 2000)
35
Marcos Sanz is a sociologist, politician and professor at In.Ci.Sex. (Scientific Institute of Sexology, Madrid) 37
36 Alain Badiou, with Nicolas Truong, In Praise of Love. (New York, The New Press, 2012) p1-2
38
the In.ci.sex institute is a Scientific Institute of Sexology based on Madrid, where I was studied the Postgraduate Studies in Alain Badiou, with Nicolas Truong, In Praise of Love. (New York, The New Press, 2012) p8
39
Sexology in 2011. https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together
Like Hito Steyerl, Zygmunt Bauman also affirms, with the concept of liquid times and liquid
love,40 that the present moment is characterized by instability and constant changes, where
solid structures do not last enough to endure, so we are living in a constant leap to emptiness,
without land, without gravitational reference, without securities. The type of interpersonal
relationships that are developed in postmodernity are, according to the author, characterised
by a lack of solidity, warmth and a tendency to be increasingly fleeting, superficial, ethereal
and with less commitment. In the societies of late capitalism there are some tendencies that
affect how personal relationships are understood and constructed. The tendency to
individualism makes strong relationships seem like a danger to the values of personal
autonomy and freedom. To this is added the generalisation of the consumerist ideology that
causes the commodification and consumption of bodies.

Eva Illouz reveals that the idea of love is built on a social imaginary that is deeply embedded in
the experience of consumer capitalism, and that affects the rituals of dating, marriage and
lovemaking and the way we experience romance and attachment. 41

The statement that there is no love without ´the fall´ and that ´falling´ or falling in love is one of
the most violent actions, offers a new perspective to understand perhaps one of the essential
characteristics of contemporary relationships and where the fear of falling or the fear of feeling
may come from.

40
Zygmunt Bauman, Amor Líquido. Acerca de la fragilidad de los vínculos humanos. (Madrid, Fondo de cultura
económica, 2005)
41
Eva Illouz, Consuming the romantic utopia love and the cultural contradictions of capitalism. (Berkeley: University of
California Press 1997)
 Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked
up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being
brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk
even more.42

42
Erica Jong, Fear of Flying, re-printed(New York: Berkley.
2003)
Fear
of
falling

or
/
and

Fear
of
feeling
3.language

(500 m)

is your smile still alive?44

ondo gurotzut
vs
asko gurotzut43

quality
vs
quantity

43
I love you well vs I love you so much, in Basque language. 44
Personal correspondence of the author. 2018
 To know that one does not write for the other, to know that these things I am going to
write will never cause me to be loved by the one I love (the other), to know that writing
compensates for nothing, sublimates nothing, that it is precisely there where you are
not-this is the beginning of writing. 45

45
Roland Barthes, A lover´s Discourse: Fragments. (London, Vintage, 2002).
17 FEB 13:43

It was lovely to be with you yesterday,

I was missing it.

Or missing you.
Or both

Why do I miss spending time with you?

Does it happen to you too?
Can you explain it to me?46

46
Personal correspondence of the author, 2018
What does miss mean?
If you miss something that means that you had it and you don’t have it anymore.
Missing something that you had.
If not
Is not missing anymore.

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of
fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire. The
emotion derives from a double contact: on the one hand, a whole activity of discourse
Love is about possession discreetly, indirectly focuses upon a single signified, which is "I desire you," and
Desire is about consumption releases, nourishes, ramifies it to the point of explosion (language experiences orgasm
upon touching itself); on the other hand, I enwrap the other in my words, I caress, brush
If love is about possession against, talk up this contact, I extend myself to make the commentary to which I submit
It comes with the fear of loss the relation endure. 47

And a desire for the encounter.

47
Roland Barthes, A lover´s Discourse: Fragments.(London, Vintage, 2002) p 73
 I have been thinking about the meaning of words,
about the meaning that is given to (and taken from) some words
more than from others
depending on the stage they take place
depending also on the emotional relationship attached to them

a word can address a feeling,

an experience
…

I miss you

As you can´t know what it means for me I better ask you what means reading this
from me

to pronounce it, breaks the event

breaks the encounter.
creates a before and an after, to you.48

a rift.

the meaning is never shared.

even if you tried to define it in a common consensus as a point of departure
in order not to have any misunderstandings,
that hardly ever happens.

if we accept that it is an impossibility, and almost utopic action to remark a common and
shared meaning for some words, therefore we open the doors for the adventure of falling.

of losing control

in time and space

groundlessness

trying to avoid the misunderstandings bring us to a position of no risks, no adventures, is a

way of denying the power of language itself.
the risks are always there,
with or without a rope.
or/and
harness.

we have the risk of losing the element of surprise trying to control or to predict beforehand
what will come next.
exempt from harm
saved
safe

48
Personal correspondence of the author. 2018
 Does love, as an emotion to be expressed, need a common language? A common
understanding?

There is no form that contains what we meant to say. There is no possible shared meaning that
can be contained in these official forms/sounds to communicate,
called words.

That is what they are in essence:

Shapes

Forms
To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world—in order to set up a shadow world
of meanings. 49
Sounds

If we assume that there is no previous agreement in terms of the significance of certain words,
we are pushed, therefore, to exercise our own interpretation every time we communicate, and
even more when it is a language of emotions and feelings. This is not only because they are
vessels of subjective meaning/experience, but also because their understanding involves the
emotional intelligence50 of each subject, and the capacity to accurately express, interpret and
empathise with the Other.

´Yet this seeing which comes before words, and can never be quite covered by them´, states
John Berger in `Ways of Seeing´51. Moreover, when it comes to an affective, emotional or
amorous form, as the French theorist Roland Barthes suggests in ´A Lover´s Discourse´52, no
one can validate the meaning of the expressed words shared between the subjects speaking.
The author affirms that writing or speaking about love is itself a complication, because it
happens in a muddy terrain where language is rather excessive, because of emotional qualities
applied to the words, or scarce, because of the codes for which love itself feels, with nothing in
between.

50
Emotional intelligence is a concept that was first published in a text written by Michael Beldoch in 1964, however it was
popularized after Daniel Goleman published his book with the same title in 1995. Emotional intelligence is defined as the
ability to identify, control and express one´s own and other people’s emotions, also reflects abilities to join intelligence,
empathy, emotions and understanding of interpersonal dynamics.
https://www.learning-theories.com/emotional-intelligence-goleman.html
51
John Berger, Ways of Seeing, (London, Penguin, 2008).
49 52
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays, (New York, Farar, Straus and Giroux.1966). Roland Barthes, A Lover´s Discourse: Fragments, (London, Vintage, 2002) p5
if we would accept that the words in the amorous encounter are a failed attempt of then why is it so vital for love to be spoken?
communication…
 to pronounce it, breaks the event
breaks the encounter.
creates a before and an after,

a rift.

…Because the declaration is inscribed in the structure of the event itself … It is

something that Mallarme said: “Chance is at last curbed…” He says about poetry, not
about love. But his words can be quite usefully applied to love and the declaration of
love, with the terrible difficulties and varieties of anguish they bring. Besides, the
affinities between poems and declarations of love are well known. In both cases, huge
risks are involved that are dependent on the language itself. It is about uttering the
words the effects to which, in existence, can be almost infinite….
That is also the desire driving a poem. The simplest words become charged with an
intensity that is almost intolerable. To make a declaration of love is to move on from the
event-encounter to embark on a construction of truth.
…. That is the moment when chance is curbed, when you say to yourself: I must tell the
other person about what happened53

53
Alain Badiou, with Nicolas Truong, In Praise of Love. (New York, The New Press, 2012)
Falling in love as an event dimension
requires the expression of love
which also has en event dimension in its declaration

a declaration of love
a statement
a slogan
a demonstration

of

emotions
feelings
thoughts

inscribed into the event itself

the expression of an emotion

is a basic need

to be expressed
through

body or/and verbal

language
In TA theory54, communication is divided into parts called transactions, to make it easier to they are more than words, they are emotions.
analyse. A transaction consists of a stimulus (when I say… ´Good morning!´) and a response
(when you reply… ´Good morning!´). Even though emotions have been considered as natural body experiences gestated in the
unconscious and not in the will, it is known that each culture shapes these emotions, providing
This theory identifies certain communication transactions as ´strokes´ that operate as units of certain prototypes as Hochschild asserts in The Managed Heart.57
recognition. Therefore, emotions are in large part social and cultural, proposing what she calls ´feeling
When we communicate, we recognise one another; we transmit energy through words and rules´, which are deeply rooted in culture. Some emotions are permitted, others prohibited.
non-verbal language.
Some transactions provide less of these strokes. Judith Butler also agrees, asserting that the construction of emotions is open to constant
change and redefinition. This means taking the performativity as a pivot concept which is
(like ´Hello – Hello´) influenced by post-constructionist theories. 58

and some provide more These emotions are then expressed in any kind of form: body, verbal or written language. Even
though many expressions are universal, such as a smile indicating happiness or pleasure, or a
(like ´I love you – I love you too´). frown indicating sadness or displeasure, it is a fact that these codes are not always shared by
the same community.
People need strokes in their lives in the same way as they need food or water. This explains
why we structure our time so that we get the amount of strokes that we need, from isolation to
intimacy.
Cultural rules/codes play an important role in how we
What is the role of language in the construction of meanings and love narratives, and therefore
in the experiences of an individual´s feelings and emotions in the erotic or relational sphere?
Perceive
It is interesting to analyse how important the language and the narrative created around a express
specific event is in relation to the emotion attached to it. and
interpret
If you change the narrative,
the feeling changes
so do thoughts emotions
and the event itself,
the construction of the truth.

Shifting into the micro-scale, into micro-politics, into the most intimate and private sphere, the
subjects experience the need for sharing, expressing and understanding each other, trying to
find a common communication, from which the language of love is orphan.

Emotions have been studied and analysed though different disciplines and sciences during
history; philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, or even through popular culture.
Thus, there are a large number of theories, approaches and perspectives to the same topic.

The social psychology of emotions has shown that the processes, determinants, and
consequences of emotions depend on the language used. Thus, we will deal with the strict
relationship between emotions and language.55 Luis Mayor, psychologist and professor at
Universidad Computense de Madrid, argues that there is no commonly accepted definition of
emotion.56

Love, sadness, anger, fear…

54
Ian Stewart, Vann Joines. TA Today: A New Introduction to Transactional Analysis. (Ia, University of California,
Lifespace Pub, 1987)
55
https://www.tesisenred.net/bitstream/handle/10803/5473/sb1de1.pdf?sequence=1. 17 may, 2018.
57
Arlie Russel Hochschild. The Managed Heart. Commercialization of Human Feeling. 20th edition. (London, University
56
Luis Mayor. Psicología de la emoción. Teoría básica e investigaciones. (Valencia, Promolibro). of California Press, Ltd, 2003)
58
Judith Butler, Rethinking Vulnerability and Resistance, (Durham and London, Duke University Press, 2016).
























































 You said…
I have understood so many things about myself because of you You have a very sophisticated sense of smelling
Why and how do I feel things so strongly For better
Feelings And for worse
Emotion
Emotional OE Remember
59 63
Over excitability Maslows´s Pyramid of human needs:
Belongingness,
We talked on the phone yesterday about it love needs,
emotions and the need for affection.
Intimacy, trust, and acceptance,
You just have asked me to make the cover for the publication of your first book receiving and giving affection and love.

60 rd
Izena duena, da. Adimen Gaitasun Handikoak The 3 level,
psychological needs.
What it is named, exists. High capabilities.

Again, Feeling is inevitable,
addressing the importance of language in the perception of one’s identity. the question is what do we do
I was always sceptical about this idea of identifying and categorising things, behaviours, identity… with what we feel
I found it restrictive, dangerous.

It is not the same
to be what
or
to have and
saying… I am… or I have…
a disability for instance how
how you perceive the same fact is completely altered depending on the use of one verb or the other


I am…. Now I understand
in constant change,
in relationship with others, in comparison with others,
in a certain moment of history, in a concrete socio-political context... Accept yourself as
So how can I say what I am Peculiar
How can someone else tell me what I am? Special
Unique
You have been researching for years about emotional development in ´gifted ´kids and those with high
capabilities, and so, I have heard you talking many times about Howard Gardner and his theory of
61 62
´multiple intelligences´ , which includes emotional intelligence ; the ability to understand and respond Understand emotion as a need
to emotions in daily life, one´s own and those of others - perceiving, reasoning, understanding and
managing them.
64
Affect as a need
Intra and interpersonal intelligence. as something inevitable.
We are affected by others
It Is not easy perceiving your surroundings with such an intensity. we affect others.

You told me as an example that when I as a kid, every time we passed by Durango I cried uncontrollably.
There was a paper factory there.

59
http://sengifted.org/overexcitability-and-the-gifted/
60
Izaskun Etxebarria, Izena duena, da. Adimen Gaitasun Handikoak. (Donostia, Ultresque Vasconae 2018) 63
61 Abraham Maslow, A Theory on Human Motivation, Self Actualization. Hierarchy of Needs (CreateSpace Independent
Howard Garner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Basic Books (United States) 1993
62 Publishing Platform, 2013)
Concept popularized after publication of psychologist and New York Times science writer Daniel Goleman’s 64
Eve Kosofsky Sedwick; Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy Performativity. (Durham & London, Duke University
book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.
Press, 2003)
I miss you

As you can´t know what it means for me, I better ask you what it means reading this
from me

to you65

65
Author´s personal correspondence. 2018
























66
The ideal or the dream would be to arrive at a language that heals as much as it separates.






























66
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays, (New York, Farar, Straus and Giroux,1966).

4.the encounter

(3 m)

harremana Britain, along with much of Northern Europe and the Far East, is classed as a “non-
contact” culture, in which there’s very little physical contact in people’s daily
hartu (receive)
+ interactions. Even accidentally brushing someone’s arm is grounds for an apology. By
emana (to give) comparison, in the high-contact cultures of the Middle East, Latin America, and
southern Europe, physical touch is a big part of socialising. 67
relationship

67
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationadvice/10055769/International-body-language-a-language-with-
no-words.html. FEB 2018
 …

It was after Christmas when we met in that pub next to my place

You told me about the codes of emotional expression in British culture You
The (non)expression of affections Also told me about the
The rules of touch Meanings of x´s
Touching or not touching
Where 1x = correct, no sexual meaning at all
And 2xx = ambiguous
When 3xxx = expression of affection, desire
4xxx =?
´You would never figure it out who is coupled with who in a formal dinner, until they stand up and walk
home together´ you said.
I had already been sending more that 4 x´s to people by text message for the past 3 months
I laughed
...
Obviously this conversation started because I had had some misunderstandings regarding the language
barrier I think we crossed all the x´s
Both; and overanalysed the meanings
verbal and body That is why I can write this form
language

´Do not smile at strangers on the underground Nora, x

they may think that you are flirting´

Apparently there is a part in some of the ‘pink’ newspapers where people send messages to people they
have seen in the underground but whom they have never approached . as many times as I want
but actually I am not able to
I remember having been so shocked with all this information at once perform it.

…
 I can do everything with language, but not with my body. What I hide by my language,
my body utters. I can deliberately mold my message, but not my voice. By my voice,
whatever it says, the other will recognise "that something is wrong with me". I am a liar
(by pretention), not an actor. My body is a stubborn child, my language is a very
civilized adult... 68

68
Roland Barthes, A lover´s Discourse: Fragments,(London, Vintage ,2002 ) P 43-44
6.touch
me tender

(0 mm)

or I am my body.
/ I am nothing different from my body.
and I am the body that I am.
The body is also the place of pleasure or / and pain.
The body gives and receives.
It will have to be explored and uncovered, in order to appreciate and enjoy it
Everything takes place in the body.
In this body that I am.

This body that is a sexuated body.

This body in which sexuality is incarnated becomes flesh.

To meet the other is just the want to share

touch me not
And go to the meeting departing from the offer.

noli me tangire
Let´s go a little bit back in time...
The first thing doctors do with babies as soon as they are born, is to put them in contact, skin-
to- skin, with their mother. Apparently, the bond starts with that first skin contact.
Touch is the first of the senses to develop in the human infant, and it remains perhaps the
most emotionally central throughout our lives.
This primary physical contact is one of the ways in which we feel security, reinforcement,
support, care, love, affection...
It is a basic human need to be fulfilled in order to develop other aspects of our identity, as
pointed out by Maslow's pyramid.
However, even though touch is the way through which we start exploring and discovering the
world around us, it seems to be the most restricted of the five senses. As soon as we start
growing up, touch starts receiving other connotations and we integrate certain socio-cultural
rules of touch, such as: ´do not touch (this, him, her, me)´. These restrictions have a huge
impact on the way we build relationships and the way we express emotions and feelings.
Throughout Western history there have been several discourses that have not helped to
understand and experience physical contact as something natural and necessary, such as sin,
spread by the church: ´the sin of the flesh´ or cultural codes and restrictions that limit the
expression of desire and affection. I would even say that it has been, and still is, a discourse of
fear, without underestimating at all the importance and necessity of addressing these issues
around abuse and sexuality. I believe that this has also created a link between danger and
pleasure, that is impacting upon the way we experience our bodies.
Focusing on the physical aspect of touch, I ask myself what the boundaries are between
bodies - the bodies of different individuals. Where does exclusivity take place, where touching
or being touched takes on a new meaning. How are these related to the masses and how they
can rebuild the ´collective unconscious´ (Carl Jung) and the ´social imaginary´ (Edgar Morin)
through touch.
Bodies have been socially sectioned, imposing and assigning certain symbolic values to
certain parts of the body.
Some are socially accepted to be shared in public, others are restricted to intimacy or to a
romantic relationship.
private-public
Touch generates other questions related to psychological and physical well-being.
The Professor of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins, David J.Linden, has been reimaging the
hierarchy of the human body, and argues that touch is the sense which defines us as humans,
intrinsically linking with our emotions, and shaping our sense of self. 69
Several studies point out the importance of caresses in the construction of self-esteem, for
example in the humanistic psychology Transactional Analysis70. They do not refer to caresses
as something physical, but more like something symbolic where knowing how to ask, receive,
reject and to give caresses constructs one´s own self-esteem. These caresses can be verbal
(you are so pretty today), physical (touching someone tenderly) or symbolic actions and
gestures.
But touch is not only a self-need.
It is also a tool for socialising
to connect with people
to express.
It is a language.
In 2009, the psychologist Matthew Hertenstein demonstrated that we have an innate ability to
decode emotions via touch alone. The experiment was based on trying to identify the emotion
that the person touching was trying to express to the person touched.
´This is a touch-phobic society´, he says. ´We're not used to touching strangers, or even our
friends, necessarily´.71
If touch is one of the first senses we acquire, it could be understood as one of the first
languages that we learn.
The sense of touch is intrinsic to our behaviour,
binds us
together.
The more that is known about touch, the more we confirm how central it is in all aspects of our
lives- the cognitive, emotional, developmental, behavioural. From birth to old age. A single
touch may affect us in multiple, powerful ways.
Whether it's because of a need (psychological or physiological), whether it's for pleasure or
desire, I am interested in understanding and working with touch as a language to express
emotions, to connect with the other and to get rid of the rational through the body.
69
https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2015/mar/27/richard-iii-neuroscience-science-weekly-podcastodcast. 2 JUN,
2018.
70
Ian Stewart, Vann Joines. TA Today: A New Introduction to Transactional Analysis. (Ia, University of california, 1987)
Lifespace Pub.
71
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201303/the-power-touch
 Thank you all for coming,
I am very excited to share this workshop with all of you.
I really hope you enjoy it.

As you may know it is part of the project that I am starting now which is related to the idea of
falling (in love) and how this can be one of the most violent actions because it is unpredictable
and inevitable, and with it, your entire perception changes, and that is what makes it so violent.
Linked with this idea, to protect ourselves from this violence we have developed the fear of
falling, and therefore the fear of feeling. This fear mixed with different cultural codes and
traditions make us share our body, pleasure and desires in a particular way.

DEC 9. The tenderness workshop is an experiential laboratory for the exploration of one's own sexuality
2017 and personal growth around three axes: body, pleasure and communication.
This creates a space of trust and security, a space without judgments, where each person, at
their own pace and according to their biography, can carry out their own research.

With our bodies as the point of departure and through very simple exercises, like touching
hands with your eyes closed, the propose of the workshop is to experiment, to sense and to
play in a different context with the other. It is an invitation to discover that we are sexed beings,
that sexuality is a potential, of value and is the key to our well-being; that we are offering beings
and that the encounter with the other comes through tenderness.

After each exercise, we will have some time to put words to the emotions, feelings and
thoughts, and discuss afterwards the model we have inherited about love, sex, relationships…

I am aware that all of us come from different backgrounds, biographies, cultures, and
relationships and ideas about sexuality and the body, and that these will enrich the workshop.

I really want you to feel free to express and be respectful with others.
 Let´s begin72

72
Introduction to the Tenderness Workshop I held for 14 participants from different nationalities in the Sculpture building in
Battersea, at the Royal Collage of Art in London, December 9, 2017. The Tenderness Workshop was initiated by Aingeru
Mayor, Sexologist, founder of Emeki and director of Chrysalis (association of families of transsexual minors in The Basque
Country). I discovered this workshop during my postgraduate studies in Sexology in 2011.

After the tenderness workshop, I interviewed 12 of the 14 participants to collect their thoughts and emotions after the
workshop, not simply as part of the methodology for the research, but also, because I believe that it is essential to offer a
space-place to express and order ideas, especially when working from the body, since it does not follow rational logics, things
are usually moved and require time to digest and settle.
These interviews were recorded in audio, and later transcribed into text.

I have selected extracts from three interviewees depending on the topics they speak about, in some way, they reinforce the
ideas previously exposed in other chapters, such as, "the rules of touch", social restrictions on the approximation of bodies,
the need to feel and share emotions, vulnerability as a value, and the capacity of touch to strengthen relationships.
















emotions
intense
experience
physical
physical
relationship
physicality
touch
touched
romantic relationship
physicality
physicality
relationship
relationship
physicality
strange
predictable
intimacy
non physical
gestures
language
















´A´
28
British






I think,
my emotions afterwards…
I think to me.




it was a very intense,

kind of emotional experience in a lot of ways.



It made me think about how you meet people, like how you get to know people.
That's partly because it was very physical in a way that I don't think I'm usually physical with people, You get to know people in a very specific way, I think that's something that I thought about because of
unless I'm in a relationship with them. There was a form of physicality in it that was basically something the workshop. You realise how you get to know people, so I get to know you through talking to you
that I only do or have with a partner. So, I think that brought it closer to versions of sex than I occasionally…
experienced anything else. I see you around…
maybe chat…
whatever,
we talk a bit longer…
I didn't think there are other times when that happens really. the longer we talk about something a bit more personal….
Give like a massage to someone I'm not sleeping with… we talk about something a bit more in depth…
we talk about practice…


things escalate in a very, quite predictable way usually, and that's like a form of where getting to know
someone or some form of intimacy develops.

[laughs]

[chuckles] You don't get to know someone by usually……by saying like…´hi´
and then starting to touch each other, that's a very different way of getting to know someone


[chuckles]


I know a part of me was like
I don't touch, I'm not touched by people the same way as in that workshop unless it's in like a romantic
relationship. ´why is that? ´
I think that probably the thing that's stuck out for me the most about that physicality. What it is when
you have that physicality but you don't necessarily have that relationship because you usually have the ´why don't we get to know each other by like feeling each other?´
relationship and then comes the physicality.


Physicality with someone you don't really know is quite strange We get to know each other through kind of like non-physical, I guess like verbal and physical gestures and
cues and language, it doesn't involve bodies touching other bodies, there's a boundary of acquaintance.

that's very strange….



















when you touch the other person the other person touches you…

touch because I think that's where the most questions were asked because it's a very strange power dynamic
power where one person is subject and one person is the actor, not actor but the person who does the
touching touching.
strange One person does the touching, the other person is touched, but to me it felt like it was strange and
problematic maybe problematic balancing power in that situation and that's why it was quite very intense.
balance Doing the touching you make the decisions about where to touch, how to touch, knowing that you touch
power they touch you the same way or feel obliged to touch you the same way so you really have to ask
intense questions about yourself, what you're doing, what's okay to do,
touch what's acceptable, what's not acceptable.
touch
touch
touch
touch
acceptable
not acceptable For me that was very close to edge…
edge
edge …a difficult edge.

It's an important thing to think about

and talk about and …

because it's problematic that's probably why it becomes that question arises.















73

73
What A expresses in this extract of the interview relates to the socio- cultural rules of touch. He asks himself why we do not recognise
the Other through touch, why do we have these rules which dictate the order of the corporal approximation with the Other or even why
certain gestures or body contacts are only given within the institution of the couple.He continues reflecting on the limits, boundaries,
edges of touch... and the possible power dynamics that occur in contact with the Other, where what is acceptable or not acceptable is not
so clear. He also shows how there exists a fear of touch, or being touched because there is a belief that can easily transform into a violent
action.
´C´
In an intimate situation, ideally we would be able to dictate our own rules, and not follow other agendas. This would give us permission to 35
explore, play and make mistakes, without the fear of trespassing barriers or boundaries that we take for granted. Maybe these correspond
more to obligation, than to desire, they correspond more to reason, than to emotion.
British

apprehensive I was quite apprehensive before I started the day today, I didn't know what to expect.
touching The mirroring thing was interesting. When we were touching each other and then they mirror it.
touch I was waiting, because I was often the one touching, after the second or maybe by the time I got to the
appropriate third person, I was kind of like: I am only going to touch this people in an appropriate way, which was just
touch their hands, arms, shoulder... the top of their chest and their face and hair but I was most likely to touch
touch from their wrist to their shoulder... and I was kind of waiting to touch with someone...
touch
Maybe when I was the mirror, when I then became the mirror I was waiting, like I said before, a woman to
touched touch me here, so that I could touch her there and that would then I think that would open up...
open
apprehension I think my...
leader I think it was interesting ....
cross
boundaries that was the bit were the apprehension was as well in the leader, like I didn't want to cross someone's
boundaries and then the same thing to me.
 If you get brought up knowing what is acceptable, what is right and wrong in terms of the way you can touch
someone, and how, then this is probably the way around, you don't touch first and ask later, but this thing...

acceptable Pleasure society

right
wrong When I was touching I just much prefer touching a woman and I just feel much more comfortable. After the initial,
touch the very first exercise, when we were touching hands it was just kind of funny, somehow, just because it is not
something we would do.
touching
touching But it was totally fine and then as a consequence of that, when it came to touching the other guys in the mirroring
woman exercise that was completely fine as well, but I just prefer touching a woman, and being touched by a woman.
touching
touching
guys and actually that…
touching
woman ok, so that was interesting
touched
but I…
woman
society and as I said to you
society
bisexual I wonder if it wasn't in our society…

if we would all be...

am not sure of that…

There is a part of me that always wonders if it wasn't because of the society we would all be bisexual in someway.
74

74
The Tenderness Workshop, being within the concept of the workshop, unconsciously generates a safe space where participants allow
themselves to explore and play with others’ bodies without judging, touching and being touched by other people with whom they do not
necessarily have any emotional attachment or link. The experience was positive and the participants showed the desire to repeat the
workshop. Subsequently, by transferring the experience experienced through the body to the rational part and comparing it with the
interactions that occur in the quotidian, several interviewees reach the same conclusion. The analysis that ´A´ proposes and analyses well
about socio-cultural codes, is repeated in other interviews as can be seen with ´C´.

In the following extract, ´C´ rich the conclusion that having shared an intimate experience within a group makes him feel closer to the
people and enables him to express the affection trough touch and body contact, even though it feels ´strange´ to feel in that way, and feel
right,, he says.
 Today when I saw people…
kissing
seeing them was quite different today, I felt much more inclined to like do this and to be like... but also
hugging
like not.
tender
Sort of recognised way of saying hi either, so like, not this, or like kissing and hugging, but like more
touch
this…
fine
actually the right word is tender, I felt inclined to touch them in a different way and It felt totally fine and
good
good, which was really nice…
nice
experience
I think that was definitely like… when you get to know someone better, when you go through something
holiday
like that, when you have that shared experience, even if you go on holiday with someone you don't really
trip
know or like, when we go on a school trip and you get to know someone better when you come back
closer
you're closer.
different
this was like that but slightly different.
touch
I mean,
close
it is like that but I also felt towards those people more inclined to touch as a way of saying hi.
loved
comfortable
comfortable
you feel very close and very loved and very comfortable, like incredibly comfortable.
comfortable
that was interesting because that bit was incredibly comfortable but it was also sexual.
sexual
I really enjoyed that bit.
strange
Being tied up by two people was super nice but it was strange too because it was also incredibly
comfortable
comfortable.
 intimacy
confronted
physical
intimacy
sexual
uncomfortable
limited
sex
reductive
sex
intimacy
sex
relationships
potential
connected
potential
sex
complicated
weird

´H´
25
South Africa
 75

Then I think the way we saw our ideas of intimacy are so limited that the first I think about when
we got confronted with physical intimacy, at the moment, I was thinking about…
The sexual question comes into my head and I saw that….

Then it made me feel a bit uncomfortable and then I´ve realized how I could recognise that…

That was a limited thing

That is not about sex,

It´s really reductive to make it about sex

I think we´re so used to making that reduction from intimacy to sex that I think that messes with
our relationships with people, it messes with our potential to be connected to people and it
freaks people out, because as soon as this question of potential of sex is there, it makes people
relate very differently, which I think is really complicated and a very weird thing that we do that.

75
H discusses the importance of language with which we create the narrative about a specific event, and consequently how the feeling
about it changes. She talks about how the same touch, the same experience, can be felt in a completely different way depending on the
category or the concept attached to it.
Sexual or not.

She continuous reflecting about the need to feel vulnerable, understanding vulnerability as a value to bond with people, as the same time
she feels the risk and the need to feel some security in order to open up and let herself to show her vulnerability while feeling. She
considers British culture a non -physical or intimate culture, and addresses the need again to feel and embrace the feeling in order to be
truthful to one´s own emotions. This idea relates with the fear of falling or fear of feeling previously mentioned and the strategies that
each individual develops in order to protect themselves from risks and pain.
 need
vulnerable
desire I think we all need so much to be vulnerable, we desire that intimacy so much and I could feel
intimacy the apprehension and the desire at the same time to be open and vulnerable in those spaces
apprehension from all of us, from me, from the men who were there, from the women who were there. The
desire feelings are the same.
open
vulnerable I think…
feelings
feel I think for me, I need to feel secure, I need to feel if I'm going to be vulnerable, I need to know
secure that somebody else is looking after me basically, enough that I can go and be that.
need
vulnerable
need
 space
intimacy
desire
intimate
intimate
culture In the space of intimacy….
physically how I feel about other people….
intimate and the desire….
culture
body it was amazing touching people and being intimate.
body Because we're not in an intimate culture at all, a physically intimate culture.
feel People are very…. It's not a body to body place.
space
feel The whole thing made me feel-- it's like being in a space where I could really feel my feelings
feelings made me feel empowered in my feelings because I was like—
feel When you see what you're really feeling, you recognize the truth in them and you're like,
empowered "Okay, this is what I am. This is where I am. This is how I feel about things."
feelings Once you see something truthfully, then you feel strong.
feeling I think it was that of like being taken to a space and being reminded how important it is to be
truth truthful about your feelings.
feel I think that applies to everything because then you—
truthfully I've been feeling for somebody and then the strength of my feelings instead of being something
strong like a burden or something shameful like something that I'm fighting with. It's like,
space
truthful ´That's just how I feel´
strength
burden Then the strength of them doesn't-- it can stop being a weight if we can be honest about how
shameful we feel it, if we can allow ourselves and give ourselves spaces where we can feel properly.
strength
weight
spaces
 Berantza

Zertara noa
Noa

Nora

Zergaitik
Noraino
Zelan?
Bai zu

Zu

Zegaitik zu

abiadura

Arineketan
Geroz eta geiau

Zelan frenau?

Yes, i am going, i am coming, down, what i am looking for? I go. Where. Why. Until where. How. Yes you. You. Why
you? Speed. Running. More and more. How to stop it?

Bai
Banoa
Banator
I am falling

I am just falling and falling

Non- stop
I can´t stop the movement
the gravity
the attraction

I am falling
Towards you

I am falling
in

you

I feel the fear

the fear of falling

FOF

the fear of feeling

Sensing

Touching

or
/
and

being touched

by the ground
by You

where the encounter

takes place
soft
hard
sharp
sweet
smooth
rough
raw
solid
liquid
awkward
fun
cool
cold
confused
dense
deep
etched
extreme
harsh
pure
shiny

finally
I am
Here

On the ground

I feel in peace
It is warm
There is no one here

You are not

This is the end of the fall

I am exhausted
And the beginning of love
In a fruitful vacuum
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSkOnp7Lt-Y

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´A´, 2017, London.

-Author interview with Tenderness Workshop participant

´C´, 2017, London.

-Author interview with tenderness workshop participant

´H´, 2018, London.

-Author interview with Tenderness Workshop participant

´R´, 2018, London.

-Author interview with Tenderness Workshop participant

´N´, 2018, London.

-Author interview with Tenderness Workshop participant

´O´, 2018, London.

-Author interview with Tenderness Workshop participant

´Cl´, 2018, London.

-Author interview with Tenderness Workshop participant

´K´, 2018, London.

-Author interview with Tenderness Workshop participant

´P´, 2018, London.

https://soundcloud.com/nora-aurrekoetxea/the-fall-to-
fall-orand-falling_tenderness-workshop_interviews