FLIRTING AND ORGON – something to do with an old woman?

How to start? I have turned over our theme – flirting and life energy – by recalling my experiences from across the decades and then the link between them was evident. There was energy! There was connection to erotic! Flirting was a play that was nice to use and train. It was a play without deeper meanings or under its shadow a way to inquire into deeper meanings.

What about a flirting old woman? When I think of it, I’m lost. It seems, that it has gone light years since flirting. And if there have been possible moments for flirting, they have faded away right at the beginning. Have I to confess that I can’t play any more? Where has erotic vanished? Have I lost my life energy? Am I afraid of something? I will become fought off or ridiculous? A flirting old woman, is it something against nature?

You pondered in your earlier text energy as a prime mover and I think that Jouni’s interest comes close to it when he investigates Ahola-Valo’s life and work, as well as individual growth as he mentioned in an email. Maybe Ahola-Valo flirted with the world when he elaborated his original thoughts and possible worlds. But is it always necessary to turn energy on something? What if flirting is a verse of life energy meant to flow and its excessive enchainment and channelling only suffocate it.

What if flirt is the place of playing in the life of an old woman, too? On the street, in cafes, everywhere the opportunities open. Then, have I forgotten something? Lost something? How to find my way back?

I read yesterday a short story by Eeva Tikka titled Hidas intohimo (Organic passion) in hope that it would give me some inspiration. And in fact the story has something to do with flirting and age. In the story, flirting is a kind of internal pleasure of the mind, a play enjoying the intimacy of a person, but then loneliness, too.

In the story, the setting is an allotment with its cottages and potato patches. I don’t know how metaphorical the text is meant to be by the author but it captured me. Here comes a vague translation and the Finnish text under it:

“… It seems that they are this summer too beautiful to be potato tubers, almost poetical, but I don’t think that there is any prophetic. Peach-skinned or scabbed, potatoes the whole lot. And when the peel becomes thicker and the size grows, they don’t seem any more as vulnerable as now. I decide that I will give them to him/her not until the actual day of lifting in September. You have to sense the qualities of the matters and to act according to them.”

“… Tuntuu että ne ovat tänä kesänä liiankin kauniita perunoiksi, lähes runollisia, mutta ei kai siinä ole mitään enteellistä. Sileäposkinen tai rupinen, perunoita yhtä kaikki. Ja kun kuori vahvistuu ja kokoa tulee lisää, ne eivät enää näytä yhtä herkiltä kuin nyt. Päätän että vasta sitten annan niitä hänelle, syyskuussa varsinaisina perunannoston päivinä. On vaistottava asioiden ominaisuudet ja toimittava niiden mukaan.”

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Somehow the term flirt or the idea and activity behind it arouse contradictory feelings. Does it belong to my character and the way I will behave? And yet there is a memory – many memories about something that could be called with that word. Memories about the feeling of inspiring warmth in his nearness, the scent of a man, a sensuous touch, my shivering body eager to send some message with eyes, little movement… as an invitation to come nearer, to something I long for. To something light and vivid, full of hope for sensitive or sensuous meaningful encounter; not very serious, but instead, as you say, a place for playing. Could we say that flirting is mutual flowing energy between you and me, and also more widely, between everyone in the whole group (like us in Kaunas)? A sort of joking relationship with different kind of sexual or erotic hints, combined or even mainly, perhaps, with verbal interplay; anyway without any necessary purposes to sexual intimacy or intercourse.

Is it a question of real interaction between two (or more) people when we speak about flirt? Isn’t it finally something happening inside me, in my body (hormonal and chemical state of my body) and soul (feelings, ideas, images, dreams)? Here is one of those contradictory elements: Is flirting mainly a specific kind of invitation for a new sexual – or some other type relationship? Is it mainly a gesture to satisfy his or her - the other person’s - needs (even though I am not conscious about this – like a handmaid’s tale)? Or: is the deeper meaning of flirt finally really to strive for meaningful energy in oneself: the libidinal, orgontype energetic play, where we need the other person as our playmate?

My memories concerning at least erotic flirt come strongly from the time of being young (come they or have I started to reject flirting because of my age or stress or something else?). You also speak about this in your experiences. You also ask after the flirt of an old woman. Is it in its essence something really different from that we experienced as younger women? What about young or elderly men? Is there in our culture some serious suppression, when we think about the light and energy giving activity like flirt especially among old women? So serious, that even we, intelligent and sensitive women, can’t feel desire for flirting. What could be the consequences of this suppression, it we think about Reich’s thoughts about the connections between desire for violence in authoritarian culture and the forbidden or at least strictly controlled sexuality of people?

Maybe the only generally accepted objects for flirting to elderly women (what about men?) in that authoritarian culture are the grandchildren, work, some religious figure like God and Jesus Christ (a very sublimated idea of flirt in these cases) and then finally: the all the time nearer coming companion: Thanatos, the Death. Do we miss already the peaceful rest we can feel in the arms of this Lord? Are we too experienced knowing too well the consequences of flirting game that always – so it seems – comes to its end? Or are we culturally – although unconsciously – manipulated to believe that we are not anymore desired by any interesting man (human being)? Maybe we are afraid that we could also be seen as those old women – akka – pointed out in the quotation of Simone de Beauvoir Old Age, 1986 referring to Erasmus of Rotterdam The Praise of Folly/Moriae encomium 1509, the quotation taken from the Finnish translation):

“Yet it’s even more fun to see, the old women [before that ER has written about old men] who can scarcely carry their weight of years and look like corpses that seem to have risen from the dead. They still go around saying ‘life is good’, still on heat, ‘longing for a mate’, as the Greeks say, and seducing some young Phaon they’ve hired for large sums of money. They’re forever smearing their faces with make-up and taking tweezers to their pubic hairs, exposing their sagging, Withered breasts and trying to rouse failing desire with their quavery whining voices, while they drink, dance among the girls and scribble their little love-letters. All this raises a general laugh for what it is – absolute foolishness.” (The Prise of Folly)

“Mutta kerronpa jotain vielä hauskempaa. On myös rakastuneita akkoja, melkein käveleviä ruumiita, jotka tuntuvat vastikään astuneen esiin tuonelasta, mätänevältä lihalta lemuten. Ja kuitenkin myös he etsivät edelleenkin elämän nautintoja yhtä kiimaisina kuin keväiset narttukoirat tai kreikkalaisen taruston pukit. Maksoi mitä maksoi, heidän on saatava käsiinsä joku Faon. He tuhrivat alituiseen kasvonsa ties millä korealla värillä, he kurkistavat alinomaa peiliin, he ajelevat pois häpykarvansa ja näyttelevät kuihtuneita rintojaan, laulavat lemmenlauluja heikolla, narisevalla äänellään, yleensä tekevät kaikkensa pitääkseen sammuvan himonsa jatkuvasti vireänä, ryypiskelevät nuorukaisten kanssa ja tanssivat nuorten neitojen laumassa, jopa kirjoittavat rakkauskirjeitä. Koko maailma tietysti nauraa ja huutaa: Voi teitä narreja! Ja maailma on oikeassa.”

* * *

You talked about flirting as a message sent by eyes or a little movement, in any case as an invitation … I agree with this very much and I will take an example to undermine more its ‘energetic, sensuous and playful nature’ – however without any ‘deeper’ meanings.

I was sitting in a theatre – I can’t remember any more what was the play – and next to me there was a couple, the husband sitting at the left hand next to me. They could have been anyone; they were not specially handsome, well-dressed or known. There was nothing that could have drawn my attention to them. And as you know in small theatres the seats are not very large ones and it is sometimes difficult to find a comfortable place for your arms on the elbow rest of the chair because of closeness. And we Finns (?) avoid touching our unknown neighbours in such situations. However, our arms touched and then I unexpectedly – out of curiosity – decided not to withdraw my arm, and continued to talk with my friend as if I would not have noticed what happened. His arm held still, too. After a moment I moved my arm a bit to intensify / brace the touch, but all the time I was listening his body (arm) language to keep a possibility to withdraw decently from the situation to save my face. And what happened? The touch was burning, – under the clothes – like energy flowing through us; we both were very conscious about what was happening but we did nothing but sensed the touch. The only eye contact was after the play in the hall and it was a glance of leave-taking with full of wonder. – There was no expectations, no promises; it was pure play, no game! Or was it?

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Associations with a flirting old woman:

Hauskaa funny
Säälittävää pathetic
Ihailtavaa admirable
Hämmentävää confusing
Tyylikästä stylish / classy
Noloa embarrassing

Kypsyys maturity
Rohkeus boldness
Avoimuus openness
Seksi sex

Pelottava scary
Hauska joyful
Rivo obscene / vulgar
Mahdoton impossible
Taito art/craft

Toivottava desirable
Kotona at home
Paljas nude
Ehdoton absolute
Tuloksellinen successful /fruitful
Toistuva recurrent

Etäällä remote
Syvällä deep
Vahvasti powerfully
Ilolla with joy
Tarpeesta in need
Häpeä shame
Läski fat

Haisee vanhalta ämmältä smells like old woman
Haju smell
Permanentti permanent wave
Kaipaus longing
Hellyys tenderness
Läheisyys intimacy
Hävytön leikki obscene game
Kanferttitipat camphor drops

Aira Samulin physical
Kaarina Suonperä good manners
Kyllikki Virolainen mature woman
Sirkka-Liisa Anttila arrogant
Tarja Halonen erotic/power
Riitta Uosukainen flesh
Suomenkielen opettaja wired & gentle

MS & IS