The Triumph of Anora: Eroticism, and the Children of Dionysus

This year eroticism erupted from the collective unconscious, and  Anora won the Oscar for Best Picture of the year. Mickey Madison won the best actress award. In her acceptance speech she acknowledged, and honored the community of sex workers that inspired her role. Eroticism was honored as art. It’s faithful practitioners were honored as artists. Dionysus rejoiced.

The ancient Greek God Dionysus is a symbol that lives in our unconscious. A symbol of the forces of ecstasy, intoxication, madness, and art. This force is expressed in its purest, and noblest form by the erotic dancer, the adult film star, and the sex worker. They embody it’s raw, chaotic beauty. They are artists, compelled by a creative force demanding expression. Like the painter, the poet, the architect, the musician, and yes, me, the depth psychologist

You see, ancient myths describe psychological forces. Forces that live in our collective unconscious—a deep part of our minds that we share with the whole human race. That mysterious place inside us is the home of heroes and monsters. The good, the forbidden, the moral and the taboo. It’s the site where the yearning for domestic monotony, and the lust for the chaos of erotic creation go to war. Dionysus leads the forces of erotic creation.

His energy is the force that dissolves boundaries, seeks ecstasy, and sanctifies the sacred union of beauty and desire. This force drives those with the Dionysian soul to destroy convention, repression, and hypocritical morality. And, they pay the price. 

They become scapegoats for a society desperate to suppress its own desires, clinging to illusions of purity and control. They are secretly worshipped and publicly condemned. They live the ancient myth that drives them, and like Dionysus they are adored, feared, torn apart, and reborn. Always reborn. Reborn in a song, in a book, in a painting, in a building, an adult video, in a lap dance, in my office, and, in the night of the Academy Awards, in a film.

So, I celebrate Anora's triumph. Not as a victory of a film. I celebrate it as the triumph of a truth erupting from beneath the surface. It proves that in spite of the heard's moralism, repression, and cultural contradictions, the erotic cannot be silenced. The Dionysian soul cannot be silenced.