Lover as Liberator

A recent post by my good friend and fellow poet, Kat Good-Schiff, discussed a Mark Doty reading that she recently attended.

Mark Doty is my second-favorite poet (right behind Ai) and I've had the wonderful fortune to have heard him read his emotionally brutal and beautiful work in person (for more on the reading, check out Kat's post here.) I've also been gifted with the opportunity to take a writing workshop with him (one of the most inspiring and rich workshops I've yet to participate in).

In Doty's recent talk, he ended with the following line:

"His body was one of the doors through which I entered my actual life."

I find the idea of "lover as liberator" a fascinating one.

It intimates (if you'll pardon the pun) all sorts of interesting and compelling ideas on the nature of both the body and emotional intimacy. What happens when you share yourself with someone on a much more than surface level? How are you changed? Is the body of another able to liberate us in ways that we are unable to access on our own, in ways in which we're unable to liberate ourselves?

What is that power that we give another person (or persons) when we give them access to us, emotionally, physically, spiritually? What is its magic?