By
Graig Uhlin
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Associate creative writing prof, daughter create intimate look at female sexuality
Discussing human sexuality with one's children can be an awkward experience.
Just ask Alison Deming, a UA associate professor of creative writing, who recently published a book about female desires and passion with her daughter, artist Lucinda Bliss.
"Anatomy of Desire, the Daughter/Mother Sessions" began as a collaborative art exhibition with visual and written pieces that was in Arizona Gallery in February.
"Once we got started doing the text (of the exhibit), we thought maybe it should be a book," Deming said. "It just became apparent to us that there was more there than we could fit on the wall (of the gallery). There was so much substance there that we wanted to explore."
The book of months-long dialogue between the mother and daughter is a discussion about the role desire plays in their lives as artists and women.
In particular, the book challenges women's expression of their sexuality, Deming said.
"I think that one of the things that many women are more able to do now is challenge the societal norms that want us to be sexual only within certain parameters of our lives," she said. "How do you claim desire as a positive force in your life when you are critical about how desire is generally emphasized very negatively in the culture?"
Deming and Bliss said they had to overcome their squeamishness while they wrote the book.
"There is a natural repulsion to thinking about your parents' bodies. It doesn't come naturally, I mean, the specifics," said Bliss, who lives in Maine. "If you get in to the sexual nitty gritty, no one wants to think about their parents in that way. It's gross, right?"
In order to let their artistic selves emerge, Deming and Bliss had to put aside their usual roles.
"Traditionally it is the mother's job to repress her kids. I mean, she has to or her kids can't function," Bliss said.
"I found myself wanting to censor her and couldn't do that because she wasn't a child anymore," Deming said. "We wanted to break down the inherent hierarchy in the family, where mom says what is OK and what isn't OK."
To accomplish this, the two set up a system for producing the text which could develop without mutual censorship.
For a month they would write separately on a subject heading, such as "The Erotic." Then they would get together and write more, drawing inspiration from the other's work.
"I think coming up with the formal system, that we needed that structure, and even though it gave us a tremendous amount of freedom, it gave us that the construct," Bliss said.
Both women said they think their book provides dialogue that needs to be explored further in society.
"I think mainly we opened the door to say that there are many conversations we can be having that can deepen and broaden our sense of where we are, that women can experience sexual desire as an empowering aspect of their lives," Deming said. "I think the mother/daughter relationship is a place where I think there should be more safety for women to convey to their daughters the meaning and power of their sexual desire and for mothers to learn from their daughters."
Deming and Bliss will hold a signing for "Anatomy of Desire, the Daughter/Mother Sessions" Sunday at 6 p.m. at the Hazmat Gallery, 197 E. Toole Ave.
