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Honestly, I will be the first person to immediately roll my eyes at sensational sexual readings of texts in my courses--but this but abt Virginia Woolf has me thinking about whether I just don& #39;t find them sensual bc they have all been male authors& #39; understanding of The Sensual?
Additionally, I think I& #39;m ten times more likely to read texts as sexual if it& #39;s an interaction between women--I don& #39;t have the same primer for heterosexual undercurrents, and indeed, I do think there& #39;s a difference in how/ through what--sensuality is rendered?
So, in general, perhaps it& #39;s quite interesting that I& #39;m constantly rolling my eyes at people& #39;s obsession with sexual readings. I think, also, that I& #39;m annoyed by the understanding of them as like? repressed and secretive and DISPLACED?
At least to me, so much of VW& #39;s sensual passages are specifically THROUGH the physical sensations & mental experiences of sudden shifts in mood, or of contentment, of TIME, of the ocean or the wind or anything that moves--that pushes & pulls--but particularly emotions themselves?
& to me, it isn& #39;t really abt displacement & repression (which, imo, is where some of the sensationality comes from), but that those mental & physical experiences are literally sensual to her in some way? & that she deeply associates them in her mind/ her experience of the world.
