Erotic Quote and Interpretation: Anaïs Nin on Sexual Power
Welcome back, Lexual people.
You know I love sharing erotic writing and quotes from you, all the better to educate you and reveal the inner workings of my perverted brain.
Here's one of my favorite quotes from Anaïs Nin...
"The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion." – Anaïs Nin, From The Diary of Anais Nin, 1939-1944
She's so right.
In my own words, here’s how I would expand on what Nin said:
Liberate and indulge your passionate self. Explore your boundless, inherently curious nature.
To harness your sexual power, you must first open your mind to all erotic possibilities.
A bit about Anaïs
To say that Nin had an intriguing life, having written a ton of journals, letters, novels, and short stories, to say nothing of the complexity of her love life, is a total understatement.
My admiration for her work and her expressiveness about eroticism and sexuality (when it was unpopular to do so), helped pave the way for erotic writers, especially female erotic writers like me.
Just for fun, here's a little history about Anaïs...
Her full name was Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell. What a mouthful!
She was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, to Cuban parents.
Nin wrote that she was inspired by Djuna Barnes, D. H. Lawrence, Marcel Proust, Andre Gidé, Jean Cocteau, Paul Valéry, and Arthur Rimbaud.
She details her two simultaneous marriages (to Hugh Parker Guiler and Rupert Pole) in her journals.
This is an interesting quote from biographer Deidre Blair:
"[Anaïs] would set up these elaborate façades in Los Angeles and in New York, but it became so complicated that she had to create something she called the lie box. She had this absolutely enormous purse and in the purse she had two sets of checkbooks. One said Anaïs Guiler for New York and another said Anaïs Pole for Los Angeles. She had prescription bottles from California doctors and New York doctors with the two different names. And she had a collection of file cards. And she said, "I tell so many lies I have to write them down and keep them in the lie box so I can keep them straight."
Nin also documented her numerous indiscretions, including affairs with Otto Rank (a psychoanalyst) and Henry Miller (yes, that Henry Miller, the writer).