In Search of Pure Lust: A Memoir

by Lise Weil

When Lise Weil came out in 1976, she came out into a land that was all on fire. Lesbian desire was the pulsing center of an entire way of life, a culture, a movement. The air throbbed with possibility. At the center of In Search of Pure Lust is Weil’s immersion in this culture, this movement: the grand experiment of lesbian feminism of the ’70s and ’80s. She and the women around her lived in a state of heightened erotic intensity that was, she believed, the source of their most vital knowledge. Desire was their guiding light. But after fifteen years of torrid but ultimately failed relationships that tended to mirror the tumultuous political currents swirling around her, she had to admit that desire was also a conduit for childhood wounds. It reared its head when she was feeling wary, estranged— abused, even. It flagged when she was fondest and most trusting. And it tended to trump love, over and over again.

In the mid-’80s, when a friend asked Weil to accompany her on a Zen retreat, she was desperate enough to say yes. Her first day of sitting zazen was mostly hell—but smitten with the (female) roshi, she stuck with it, later returning for sesshin after sesshin. A period of difficult self-examination ensued and, over a period of years, she began to learn an altogether different approach to desire. Ultimately, what her search for pure lust uncovered is something that looks a lot like love.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

376 pages, Paperback

Published June 5, 2018

Reviews

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘My whole life I have loved women.’

Canadian author Lise Weil founded TRIVIA: A JOURNAL OF IDEAS, an award-winning radical feminist literary and political magazine, in 1982, which she edited for nine years. She was also editor of its online relaunch of this important periodical from 2004 to 2011. Lise founded the online journal Dark Matter: Women Witnessing in 2014. Weil’s short fiction, essays, reviews, literary nonfiction, and translations have been published widely in journals in both Canada and the US. Her collection of Mary Meigs’s writings on aging, BEYOND RECALL (2005), was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in biography in 2006. Weil teaches in the Individualized Master’s program in Goddard College’s Graduate Institute. She lives in Montreal.

Lise’s memoir is at once a richly journalistic history of the 1970s and 1980’s sexual revolution and a profoundly touching poetic homage to a period of time that allowed her to rise out of obscurity emotionally and become the extraordinary woman she is. One comes away from the experience of reading this book with a sense of joy and exhilaration that aspects of gender identification are finally becoming embraced by the public. Watch television, see films such as A FANTASTIC WOMAN, DISOBEDIENCE, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, A VERY ENGLISH SCANDAL etc, and note that at last we are able to restore personal rights of gender identity.

The superb synopsis of this book serve the content well – ‘When Lise Weil came out in 1976, she came out into a land that was all on fire. Lesbian desire was the pulsing center of an entire way of life, a culture, a movement. The air throbbed with possibility. At the center of In Search of Pure Lust is Weil’s immersion in this culture, this movement: the grand experiment of lesbian feminism of the ’70s and ’80s. She and the women around her lived in a state of heightened erotic intensity that was, she believed, the source of their most vital knowledge. Desire was their guiding light. But after fifteen years of torrid but ultimately failed relationships that tended to mirror the tumultuous political currents swirling around her, she had to admit that desire was also a conduit for childhood wounds. It reared its head when she was feeling wary, estranged― abused, even. It flagged when she was fondest and most trusting. And it tended to trump love, over and over again. In the mid-’80s, when a friend asked Weil to accompany her on a Zen retreat, she was desperate enough to say yes. Her first day of sitting zazen was mostly hell―but smitten with the (female) roshi, she stuck with it, later returning for sesshin after sesshin. A period of difficult self-examination ensued and, over a period of years, she began to learn an altogether different approach to desire. Ultimately, what her search for pure lust uncovered is something that looks a lot like love.’

But for the joy of celebration and education, read this wonderful book, share it with those you love, and read it again. This is a winner!

[Claire DeVore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Weil's book filled in memories - those crazy confusing years.
While it's true that these are memories of a privileged, and clearly White, Lesbian - located on the East Coast (New England and Canada) they teach us, and remind me, of what we were fighting for, celebrating and often arguing among ourselves about: pornography as violence or freedom; separatism as a healing device or a wall. And where to go to write and find yourself (as long as that includes bed hopping!)
We all reached for a different future and it was hard to make the time on top of working, raising children, caring for aging parents. We all wished for a room of our own, but one that now included all women, or so we thought. Of course now we know how clueless we were in not reaching out to women of color, trans women and marginalized women of every form. Except in rare instances of Pride Parades.
As the writer alludes to it was a crazy disco time! At least in the bars your privledge seemed unimportant but of course we can't avoid signaling with our choice of words and ability to grab a cab! LoL

I was moved by her description of inviting a lover and her son to uproot and come to Boston despite the vast differences in their employment, time commitment, education and social class. It was brave of her to realize the first day looking at apartments that it was hot, the son cranky and how that all was heading to tragedy. She let the lover get on with her life. These are tragic universals. We all wake up to our significant differences even while creating new Utopias of writing retreats and Zen.
What a lucky journey and one she shares at length. I'm sure we all wish her well in filling the hole in her heart and healing through the star signs of love.
Hope she writes another one! Evolving is a never-ending thing. We all learn from the past and I'm certain she'll have more stories to tell.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is both a romp through the personal relationships and vagaries of the author as she finds her way to a calmer and more fulfilling love life -- and a deep reminiscence of the ideas, personalities and trends that formed the lesbian feminist life in the last quarter of the 20th century. It is both intimate and intellectual, insightful and hilarious at times. Weil brings that time and community to life with excellent, vivid scenes. Even though she often moves through time and space freely, the reader is always oriented. She shows her own missteps in loving relationships with compassion and sometimes even humor. It's easy to see why and how she trips -- and when she eventually finds her way to meditation and some deep self reflection, the results are as transformative as one might wish for. Both as memoir and as a herstory of a certain time and place, this is an invaluable and enjoyable book.

[Nicolas Lontel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un mémoire très intéressant qui alterne entre un récit beaucoup plus personnel sur le désir lesbien, l'envie, l'amour et un récit plus politique sur les mouvements féministes et lesbiens dans lesquels elle a circulé, les critiques qu'ils ont accusé, les erreurs parfois et offre de nouveaux angles de lectures sur certains événements ou moment de polarisation ; les deux, le personnel et le politique, sont évidemment intimement liés.

J'ai été particulièrement conquis par l'histoire lesbienne et féministe qu'elle raconte, plein de petits moments à droite et à gauche qui ne sont pas racontés, mais dont l'histoire fini par se répéter sans qu'on ai appris des leçons du passé. Un de ces événements est les accusations de racisme dont Mary Daly a fait les frais avec notamment un groupe de femmes qui ont collés des étiquettes sur son livre Gyn/Ecology dénonçant, je résume grossièrement, l'absence des déesses noires dans l'essai, critique faite par Audre Lorde. C'est aussi Audre Lorde qu'on voit souvent dans ce livre, notamment dans un panel où elle est la seule invitée noire, entouré de blancs qui lui pose des questions parfois inutiles, seule à accuser les blanches de leurs échecs répétés à adresser le racisme dans le mouvement féministe. Plein de petites anecdotes, dont on revoit les échos encore aujourd'hui, mais oh combien importantes à savoir et à tirer des leçons.

C'est aussi un mémoire remplis de lectures: Wittig, Lorde, Christa Wolf, Woolf, Rich, Brossard, Daly (évidemment) et tant d'autres, des analyses de livres, des discussions autour de ces autrices dans une communauté lesbienne ayant lu et relu et dévoré ces autrices. L'autrice sait de quel perspective elle parle et adresse régulièrement ces interrogations, cette perspective, tout en effleurant d'autres réalité à travers ses lectures et les événements auxquels elle assiste.

J'ai décidé de lire le mémoire suite à ma lecture de deux excellents numéros de Trivia (sur le feminist bookfair à Montréal) qu'elle a cofondé et dirigé durant une dizaine de numéros. J'ai été content· d'en lire un petit peu plus sur cette revue, sur le scandale qu'elle a suscité un jour en décidant de publier un texte sur le sado-masochisme à un moment où le mouvement lesbien était particulièrement divisé sur la question (et les nombreuses lettres et refus qu'elle aura essayé à cause de cette publication malgré un mot au début de la revue et le besoin de montrer d'autres perspectives bien articulée malgré les propres malaises de l'autrices). C'était d'excellents compléments de lecture juste avant d'entendre à la librairie l'Euguélionne une table ronde sur le désir lesbien et queer qu'elle avait organisée. C'était en parfaite continuité avec le livre, avec de nombreuses perspectives et interventions qui se retrouverait probablement dans une "suite" de ce mémoire; la librairie lesbienne l'Essentielle (dont j'ai appris· l'origine du nom!!) jouant un rôle important dans sa vie, ça m'a rempli· de bonheur de voir que l'Euguélionne joue, au moins une partie, du rôle qu'elle avait dans les années '80 à Montréal.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

sort of a riveting history of 70s lesbianism and feminism. took me back to my undergrad days in a gender studies major and made me remember how much i miss studying gender full time. not that i’m ever not studying gender tbh, it’s just how i’m wired. the biggest point of contention is that the book attempts to address Black feminism and decolonial feminism but imo doesn’t engage with the theory behind those movements enough, and the writer didn’t spend time trying to build multiracial feminist and lesbian community. segregation within the feminist movement at that time (and still) is real, but i think she could have spent a little more time examining her own complacency in the face of very important questions and issues.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very companionable memoir that also reads very much as a love letter. To the lesbian feminist community, to the power of language, to self-reflection. To academia and not. To finding one’s way, again and again. Acknowledging the challenges of those heady times, Weil also shares the energetics of celebration and discovery, and very hard work. As she moves from dwelling at the edge of myth to dwelling, content, in light and warmth, Weil also composes a love song to an era, a herstory, a search, and ten thousand pieces and people who have journeyed with her. Most particularly, to Z.

[Alex Prong · Rating 2 out of 5]

- overuse of the term “lovemaking”

- cool to see the events I learned about in school unfold in real time through the narrator’s life (Audre Lorde & Adrienne Rich speaking at feminist events, Bhopal spill and Chernobyl)

- this memoir oozes privilege (and, at times, ignorance)

[Sharon English · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, thoughtful, profound, this book took me into unfamiliar territory with such compelling writing. A meditation on love, friendship and meaning that held my attention completely.

[Carolyn Lee Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captures 70s and 80s lesbian herstory perfectly
As someone who was part of the San Francisco Bay Area lesbian-feminist community in the 70’s and 80s, Lise Weil captures perfectly the heady hopes and dreams of young lesbians in New England and the Bay Area during the 70s and 80s, when we dared to imagine and create a new culture. She chronicles just as well the dashing of those dreams on the rocks of personalities, privileges, and old cultural forms that lived inside us.

Weil is not only open about the strengths, visions, and weaknesses of lesbian theory and practice; she is also transparent about the high hopes, crushing disappointments and ultimate resolutions of her own heart and psychological make-up within the larger lesbian cultural milieu. As the editor of the radical feminist literary and political magazine, Trivia: A Journal of Ideas, and as the housemate or friend of some of the most articulate lesbians of the time, Weil was at the heart of the creation of this new culture and is a sensitive and honest reporter.

Every lesbian feminist who lived through those years will recognize herself and/or her friends here, and anyone who wants to know about that time will find an exuberant celebration of the visions we had of a new cultural model, as well as lessons from the faltering as we tried to put that model into practice. When her lesbian community, home, and relationships started falling apart, Weil found her equilibrium in meditation, among other things, a thread nicely woven in here. Other lesbian and bisexual women, including myself, went on to find their own forms of balance between love, work, and community. Their stories are yet to be written, but in this book, Weil provides a well-crafted and illuminating frame on which to weave all of our stories.