1989, I spent several months living with my grandfather Alfred Unger in Cologne of the Rhineland in Germany and discovered the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre’s fiction in his library. Having read the Trilogy “The Roads to Freedom” I continued with Sartre’s only collection of short stories, entitled “The Wall”, written before his confinement as a German prisoner of war for 9 months from 1940-44 - he had been drafted into the French army 1939. One of these short stories was entitled “Intimité” (Intimacy).

xxxxxxxxxxx“’Then we started talking; I wiped his lips with a towel and told him I was fed xxxxxxxxxxxup, I didn’t love him any more, and I was leaving. He started to cry and said xxxxxxxxxxxhe’d kill himself. But it won’t wash any more: you remember, Rirette, last xxxxxxxxxxxyear, during that business over the Rhineland1, he sang the same old tune xxxxxxxxxxxevery day; there’s going to be a war, Lulu, I’ll have to go, and I’ll get xxxxxxxxxxxkilled, and you’ll miss me, you’ll be sorry for all the pain you’ve caused me. xxxxxxxxxxx‘Don’t worry,’ I kept telling him, ‘you’re impotent, it’s grounds for exemption xxxxxxxxxxxfrom military service.’”2

xxxxxxxxxxx“’Intimacy’ continues to explore the ever-fascinating terrain of psychopathia xxxxxxxxxxxsexualis: husbands who can’t (or, as Sartre would presumably say, won’t) do it, xxxxxxxxxxxand lovers who can, but leave a mess on the sheets. The sickly sweet sensations xxxxxxxxxxxof a bare leg encountering a snail-like trail of semen have rarely been xxxxxxxxxxxdescribed more brilliantly – Sartre, yet again, masterful in his oozy xxxxxxxxxxxevocations of the slimier aspects of life. ‘Intimacy’, the story’s title, is a xxxxxxxxxxxnegative word for Sartre: it implies nasty secrets hidden away, festering in xxxxxxxxxxxbourgeois bedrooms or in the ark recesses of the psyche.”3

Just over 10 years later I ascertained that Hanif Kureishi (son of a non-practicing Muslim father from Karachi and an English mother4) had written a novella with the same title as Sartre’s short story. The features shared by Sartre and Kureishi’s “Intimacy”’s are marital breakdown and the flight into sexual compulsion. I have however, discovered nothing to suggest that Kureishi wrote his “Intimacy” as a tribute to Sartre’s original text.

xxxxxxxxxxx“This, then, could be our last evening as an innocent, complete, ideal family; xxxxxxxxxxxmy last night with a woman I have known for ten years, a woman I know almost xxxxxxxxxxxeverything about, and want no more of. Soon we will be like strangers. No, we xxxxxxxxxxxcan never be that. Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be xxxxxxxxxxxdangerous acquaintances with a history.”5

I was inspired to make a piece on intimacy and the sense of touch incorporating the writings of Sartre and Kureishi before being aware that these texts had been interpreted in film: 1994, Dominik Moll set Sartre’s “Intimité” to film in France; Kureishi’s “Intimacy” was filmed in London 2001 by Patrice Chereau (of the two films I have since only seen the latter).

xxxxxxxxxxxx“Kureishi’s (original) story, Intimacy, was controversial because of its xxxxxxxxxxxxfictionalizing of his real-life marital breakdown. The text was concerned, xxxxxxxxxxxxmore interestingly and productively (than the film - TU), with the mixture of xxxxxxxxxxxxcourage and cowardice needed to walk out on a marriage. There were xxxxxxxxxxxxunforgettable passages in it, such as the quandaries of middle-aged xxxxxxxxxxxxmasturbation: doing it without waking his sleeping wife, doing it in the xxxxxxxxxxxxbathroom while trying to ignore the sharp pain in his side from carrying the xxxxxxxxxxxxkids.”6

xxxxxxxxxxxx“Discussing his collaboration with French director Patrice Chéreau on the film xxxxxxxxxxxxIntimacy, Kureishi comments: If our age seems "unideological" compared to the xxxxxxxxxxxxperiod between the mid-sixties and mideighties; if Britain seems pleasantly xxxxxxxxxxxxhedonistic and politically torpid, it might be because politics has moved xxxxxxxxxxxxinside, into the body. The politics of personal relationships, of private xxxxxxxxxxxxneed, gender, marriage, sexuality, the place of children, have replaced that xxxxxxxxxxxxof society, which seems uncontrollable. ("The Two of Us")”7

Both “Intimacy”’s were written during different epochs, the pre war avant-garde, modernist; and the pre-millennium, post-modern era. The subject matter is the same but the approach is in each narrative typical of its time; these are written by men from the male perspective but a female voice is included though its meaning and implication has changed with time. Sartre chose to meditate on the issues of sexuality with “Intimacy” in 1939 from an absurdist perspective.

xxxxxxxxxxxx“The stories in Le Mur (The Wall) emphasize the arbitrary aspects of the xxxxxxxxxxxxsituations people find themselves in and the absurdity of their attempts to xxxxxxxxxxxxdeal rationally with them. A whole school of absurd literature subsequently xxxxxxxxxxxxdeveloped.8”

If Kureishi states that our age seems “unideological”, for Sartre the World War 2 years were spent together with his partner, the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, supporting a group organising resistance activities. “The Wall” was written 10 years before de Beauvoir was to publish the quintessential feminist treatise “The Second Sex” on women and female sexuality in a man’s world. At this time the contraceptive pill was first appearing on the market.

Although the 60’s brought with them a liberalisation of sexual attitudes, in the West at least, a backlash has been underway - the demands and consequences of desire are still disregarded by the church (the Roman Catholic Church in particular, urges youth to remain abstinent before marriage and abortion is outlawed). So it is particularly potent that Kureishi chooses to stage extramarital sex as the main subject of his book; after all, the fears surrounding expressed sexuality since the comparatively recent emergence of AIDs at the beginning of the 80’s, rage just below the surface of any man or woman’s skin, whatever age, colour, creed or gender grouping they may belong to.

In all of Kureishi’s writings he frequently pays homage to classic literature; in “Intimacy” Jay the key figure affirms:

xxxxxxxxxxxx“How utterly the past suffuses us. We live in all our days at once. The xxxxxxxxxxxxwriters Dad preferred are still my favourites, mostly nineteenth-century xxxxxxxxxxxxEuropeans, the Russians in particular. The characters, Goriot, Vronsky, Madame xxxxxxxxxxxxRanevskaya, Nana, Julien Sorel, feel part of me.”9

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx***

Play in Camera, Ô d’Oriane and Red Hot Pokers are all pieces of mine where lines from two different pieces written by diverse writers have been appropriated and put together to create a third text with a different but similar logic:

Play in Camera (a video installation) combines lines from Sartre’s “In Camera” (No Exit) and Samuel Beckett’s “Play”.

Ô d’Oriane (a photo and text series) combines lines from Primo Levi’s “The Mnemogogues” 1990 and Italo Calvino’s “The Name, The Nose” 1972.

Red Hot Pokers (a video documented performance) consists of freely read texts from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Remarks on Colour” 1950 and Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” 1924.

With most of these pieces I have employed English translations of the literary works. Red Hot Pokers has alternatively been performed in German or English.

Tanya Ury

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx***

The restrictive mores and taboos surrounding sexuality in many parts of our world make intimacy a subject that, beyond its natural appeal, is still important to engage with:

xxxxxxxxxxxx“South Africa may be the only country in the world to have enshrined lesbian xxxxxxxxxxxxand gay equality in its Constitution, but a rash of brutal murders of lesbians xxxxxxxxxxxxlast month has underscored how the country is undergoing an epidemic of hate xxxxxxxxxxxxcrimes against LGBT people, triggering protests from Cape Town to New York xxxxxxxxxxxxCity - including from an openly gay South African Supreme Court of Appeal xxxxxxxxxxxxJustice… Speaking this Tuesday at a meeting called by the student LGBT group xxxxxxxxxxxxRainbow at the University of Cape Town to protest widespread anti-gay xxxxxxxxxxxxviolence, openly gay and openly HIV-positive Supreme Court of Appeal Justice xxxxxxxxxxxxEdwin Cameron said that there is ‘rampant inequality and prejudice against xxxxxxxxxxxxgays and lesbians’ in South Africa, and added, ‘We need to reach a point where xxxxxxxxxxxxeveryone is protected in their lifestyles.’" Outrage at South African Lesbian xxxxxxxxxxxxMurders by: DOUG IRELAND
xxxxxxxxxxxx08/16/2007
xxxxxxxxxxxxwww.gaycitynews.com

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx***

xxxxxxxxxxxx“Pegah Emambakhsh is an Iranian woman who sought asylum in the UK in 2005. Her xxxxxxxxxxxxclaim failed. She was arrested in Sheffield and is being held in Yarl's Wood xxxxxxxxxxxxImmigration Removal Centre pending deportation on Tuesday 28 August 2007 at xxxxxxxxxxxx21.35 on British Airways flight BA6633 to Iran. If returned to Iran, Pegah xxxxxxxxxxxxfaces imprisonment and possibly stoning to death. Her crime in Iran is her xxxxxxxxxxxxsexual orientation - she was in a relationship with another woman. Pegah xxxxxxxxxxxxescaped from Iran, claiming asylum, after her partner was arrested, tortured xxxxxxxxxxxxand subsequently sentenced to death by stoning. Her father was also arrested xxxxxxxxxxxxand interrogated about her whereabouts. He was eventually released but not xxxxxxxxxxxxbefore he had been tortured himself. Pegah has a more than well founded fear xxxxxxxxxxxxof persecution if she is returned to Iran. She belongs to a group of people - xxxxxxxxxxxxgays and lesbians - who, it is well known, are severely persecuted in Iran. xxxxxxxxxxxxAccording to Iranian human rights campaigners, many lesbians and gay men have xxxxxxxxxxxxbeen executed since the Ayatollahs came to power in 1979. According to gay xxxxxxxxxxxxrights group Outrage 'The Islamic Republic of Iran is qualitatively more xxxxxxxxxxxxhomophobic than almost any other state on earth. Its government-promoted and xxxxxxxxxxxxreligious-sanctioned torture and execution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and xxxxxxxxxxxxtransgender people marks out Iran as a state acting in defiance of all agreed xxxxxxxxxxxxinternational human rights conventions.' A change of president at about the xxxxxxxxxxxxtime of Pegah's first refusal on Appeal in Autumn 2005 has since led to a more xxxxxxxxxxxxconservative and hard line regime in Iran. In 2006 a German court ruled that xxxxxxxxxxxxan Iranian lesbian could not be deported as she risked death because of her xxxxxxxxxxxxsexuality. The UK Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) have chosen not to xxxxxxxxxxxxbelieve that she is in danger if returned to Iran, even though the UK xxxxxxxxxxxxgovernment are well aware of the terrible situation that gay people face xxxxxxxxxxxxthere." www.indymedia.org

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx***

xxxxxxxxxxxx“A major component of Poland's homophobic witches' brew is misogyny. Abortion xxxxxxxxxxxxis banned, and there are a number of cultural and economic constraints on xxxxxxxxxxxxwomen and queers alike. Female artists who deal with sexuality have been hard xxxxxxxxxxxxhit by censorship. Some, like Dorota Nieznalska, have also been physically xxxxxxxxxxxxassaulted. Members of the League of Polish Families attacked Nieznalska xxxxxxxxxxxxverbally and physically at the Gdansk gallery where her ‘Passion’ installation xxxxxxxxxxxxwas being exhibited last year. The work, an exploration of masculinity and xxxxxxxxxxxxsuffering, shows a cross on which a photograph of a fragment of a naked male xxxxxxxxxxxxbody, including the genitalia, has been placed. The League also sued the xxxxxxxxxxxxartist. Last July, a court found her guilty of "offending religious feelings" xxxxxxxxxxxxand sentenced her to half a year of "restriction of freedom" (she was xxxxxxxxxxxxspecifically banned from leaving the country), and ordered her to do community xxxxxxxxxxxxwork and to pay all trial expenses. When the judge read the sentence, members xxxxxxxxxxxxof the League of Polish Families packing the courtroom applauded ecstatically. xxxxxxxxxxxxThe artist has been trying since to get the sentence overturned on freedom of xxxxxxxxxxxxspeech grounds. Dorota Nieznalska's conviction prompted more than 700 artists xxxxxxxxxxxxand intellectuals from Poland and abroad to sign a letter of protest that xxxxxxxxxxxxsaid: ‘The principle of freedom of expression has been totally violated. The xxxxxxxxxxxxartist is the victim of an ideological vision of a religious state, which the xxxxxxxxxxxxLeague of Polish Families is attempting to impose on Polish society. Civic xxxxxxxxxxxxfreedoms are not established in order that they may serve one ideology. We all xxxxxxxxxxxxhave the right to live and function in this country and to express our own xxxxxxxxxxxxviews freely.’" WARSAW, JAN. 12, 2004. The Gully online magazine, 01.9.2007 xxxxxxxxxxxxEurope, Hope for Love in Poland? Gay movement grows in Poland despite far-
xxxxxxxxxxxxright surge. By Tomek Kitlinski and Pawel Leszkowicz

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx***

xxxxxxxxxxxx“…Much of the anti-gay sentiment that is sweeping Russia has been whipped up xxxxxxxxxxxxby religious leaders. Threatening violence against Moscow Gay Pride, the chief xxxxxxxxxxxxmufti of Russia's Central Spiritual Governance for Muslims, Talgat Tajuddin, xxxxxxxxxxxxsaid: ‘Muslim protests can be even worse than these notorious rallies abroad xxxxxxxxxxxxover the scandalous cartoons.’ ‘The parade should not be allowed, and if they xxxxxxxxxxxxstill come out into the streets, then they should be bashed. Sexual minorities xxxxxxxxxxxxhave no rights, because they have crossed the line. Alternative sexuality is a xxxxxxxxxxxxcrime against God,’ he said, calling on members of the Russian Orthodox Church xxxxxxxxxxxxto join Muslims in mounting a violent response to Moscow Gay Pride. Russian xxxxxxxxxxxxOrthodox leaders responded by lobbying Mayor Luzhkov to ban the parade. A xxxxxxxxxxxxspokesperson declared that homosexuality is a ‘sin which destroys human beings xxxxxxxxxxxxand condemns them to a spiritual death’. Not to be left out, Russia's chief xxxxxxxxxxxxrabbi, Berl Lazar, said that if a Gay Pride parade was allowed to go ahead it xxxxxxxxxxxxwould be ‘a blow for morality’. He stopped short of calling for violence, but xxxxxxxxxxxxwarned that the Jewish community would not stand by silently. ‘Sexual xxxxxxxxxxxxperversions’, he said, did not have a right to exist. Lazar declared that Gay xxxxxxxxxxxxPride marches were ‘a provocation’ similar to the cartoon depictions of xxxxxxxxxxxxMohammed…” Peter Tatchell 24.5.07 Guardian comment is free -
xxxxxxxxxxxxhttp://commentisfree.guardian.co

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx***

xxxxxxxxxxxx“Rabbi Walter Rothschild (from Yorkshire) was sacked after he took out a xxxxxxxxxxxxcondom packet and offered this prop in the synagogue as an example of what xxxxxxxxxxxxJews should not be thinking about during the special days of Rosh Hashanah. xxxxxxxxxxxx'They didn't like my sense of humour' he said, a little wounded; but he's xxxxxxxxxxxxvowed to fight on and continue with his 'impossible job'”. Jewish Berlin rises xxxxxxxxxxxxagain - with Russian help Wednesday, 15 November, 2000, 20:20 GMT
xxxxxxxxxxxxhttp://news.bbc.co.uk

This piece has been developed to underscore similar themes in both texts of the same title, written in different eras. Sartre’s voices are those of women; Kureishi’s protagonist is a man. The Intimacy sequence commences with citations from Sartre’s short story “Intimité” from “The Wall” 1939, written prior to Kureishi’s novella “Intimacy”, 1998.

The central leitmotif of both narratives is the cruelty and betrayal that partners demonstrate towards each other when a marriage breaks down; sexual unfaithfulness is explicitly described, carried out at all costs in the endeavour to struggle free from the bonds of a partnership that has become stifling. Expressions of unsure regret ensue at times; family expectations are appealed to and ignored; the reactions of friends complicit in the organisation of the scenes of infidelity or active in trying to bring about a reunion, are told. And ultimately the yearning for intimacy in love and happiness, within or outside of marriage is expressed.

Mutual themes in the chosen sequence are:

Intimacy within the family – family bonds and friends
Experiments with desire between siblings or the physical closeness between a father and his young sons.

A parent’s concern for the adult child undergoing marital collapse.

A friend’s concern etc.

Reasons for leaving (of a sexual nature)
Unwished for advances or lack of desire.

Sexual jealousy.

Intimacy (of a sexual nature)
homosexual desire.

Objects of desire: “interesting underwear” etc.

Intimacy: the different kinds: dirtiness and/or tenderness.

The impersonal, purely physical: pain after sex or masturbation.
Other lovers and masturbation fantasies.

The painful decision to leave
Cowardice and impotence.

Questions thrown up surrounding happiness with someone else that makes the other sick.

Disgust
Memories of a love partnership where one patronised/dominated.

Disgust at the idea of older people with desires, or other races.

Disgust at the results of heterosexual love-making (sperm).

Sexual release
The greater impulse in life.

Intimacy
The fear of loss.

A yearning for happiness.

The titillation of women’s underwear and different places for a rendezvous with a lover.

In spite of it all, the belief in the possibilities of intimacy and love.

Goodbye letters