sea

Synonyms: seas

Preanalysis assumption: The “sea” symbol belongs with the great symbol system developed around the “water” concept. It includes the synonyms for “sea”, like “ocean” and also its differentiation into “inland seas” like the “Baltic”, the “Caspian”, the “Mediterranean”, etc. Other “watery symbols”, such as “rain”, “dew”, “sweat”, etc. also belong to it and should really be taken under joint consideration, and will be later on, when the primary analysis of all symbols has been completed, or at least very far advanced. I have not been very successful in arriving at definitions of this “sea” symbol, though tipping on vaginal moisture exudation from the beginning, there came so many instances when it seemed necessary to see it as a symbol for semen in contraceptive, that uncertainty and confusion was the outcome. Since then a vague awareness developed that “water” and “rain” may have male ejaculatory significance, while “sea” has intravaginal lubricating one. In using this term “lubricating” I want to admit at once that I borrowed it from the book: Human Sexual Response by William H. Masters M.D. and Virginia E. Johnson. Inasmuch as this book is likely to have a great influence on the direction of my future analysis of the symbolic meanings in ED’s secret language, I will note that I gave this book a cursory reading a few years ago, without being able to get much benefit from it. I was at that time not yet fully aware just how great a contribution Emily was making to sexology and how almost all the poems have the inner vagina for the stage of her communications, and for their actions any one or all aspects of intercourse. Therefore I was neither prepared for nor sufficiently interested in the contents of the book. Furthermore, it confronted me with another “secret language”: the highly involved latinized jargon of medical science. This was enough of an obstacle to prevent me from getting a truly thorough grasp on the tenets presented by the book. Since then I have penetrated deeply into the secrets of the Dickinson poems and was able, by my own slow efforts, to gradually come to an understanding of the nature of the activities she describes. And realising more and more that her presentations were of necessity subjective and not necessarily corresponding fully with the objective facts of the actual happenings of which she was sensorially aware, I felt a need to resort once more to the MasterJohnson book, as the most advanced of the few that deal with the mystery of, what they call, "the human sexual response“. I got it from the library yesterday. I may have to buy me a volume so as to have it for reference always, but probably will postpone the acquisition in order not to be distracted by it too much. I intend to borrow from their terminology, but not in the sense of plagiarising from them. No one can appreciate better the work they did in working out that terminology for themselves. If I should use their terms publicly ever, I would acknowledge my debt publicly also. And that, of course, shall go for any insights also to which they may help me. However, Emily and they go apart in fundamental outlook. Emily deals with sexual intercourse as with the highest pain and pleasure giving experience in human life, and in that her out look may be called hedonistic. Secondly, her sexual experience confronted her with several of the most commonly encountered maladjustments of men and women from their sexual intercourse. In overcoming these difficulties and describing the methods she evolved for overcoming them, her work has great therapeutic value (psychotherapeutic, I should say) for all women who must overcome frigidity and frustration in their sexual life. Masters Johnson wisely took refuge behind the sexual intercourse’s reproductional function to make their work acceptable and publishable. Emily is totally silent on that score. Moral and psychological considerations must, therefore, influence the presentation of my analyses far more, than the understanding of the underlying physiological basis of sexual intercourse, and it is in that direction mostly where I must develop a competent terminology.