Performance of Desire after COVID-19

By Sadegh Attari

The image of lovers separated by a material object like a window or a wall, symbolising a barrier against their consummation of desire—be it physical, emotional, or moral—has been a common trope in performing arts as well as cinema and television. It is also referred to as “window love” or “separated by the wall.” A classic example of this trope is the image of lovers’ touch, kiss, gaze, or any other representation of intimate desire mediated by a pane of glass. They see each other, they touch one another, they even share kisses, but it is not deemed as a legitimate/genuine act of intimacy because of the mediating object. Intimacy, at first glance, seems to be defined by a total absence of such mediations, resulting in a direct, barrier-less, collision of desire of all parties involved. In our current struggle with COVID-19, are we about to introduce several similar barriers into our lives and our experience of desire? Will wearing face masks and social distancing assume the role of the glass pane? One might argue that our experience and performance of desire has been compromised, undermined, or even alienated by the pandemic. We cannot see one another up close, and touch and feel one another as easily as we used to. But how accurate is that observation, really? Has desire been barricaded, or has it managed to find other ways to express itself? I aim to offer a possible narrative for the pandemic’s modification of our process of intimacy.

We need to first consider the role of the aforementioned barriers in the performance of desire. Firstly, if mediation is the key factor, is it possible to find new barriers without even considering the pandemic (as there are infinite points between every two given poles): is the computer screen another barrier? What about make-up? Fragrance? Clothes? The scent of toothpaste? Thus, is it possible to experience and desire without mediation at all? I would say that it is not, but the question is perhaps as old as philosophy itself. Nevertheless, we can focus on how mediation functions in the performance and constitution of desire.

What does the barrier represent? In Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Eclisse (1962), it is the moral transgression in having an affair (though the barrier is eventually overcome); but depending on the story, it can represent all sorts of conflicts and all sorts of emotions. For instance, in A Separation (2011), Hodjat (played by Shahab Hosseini), after being taken outside for aggressive behaviour, beckons Nader (Peyman Moaadi) through the hospital’s glass door to step outside the building so that he could “talk” to him, which, in the film’s context, is codeword for physical confrontation. Here, without going into too much detail, the barrier signifies the government of space and individual behaviour: what one can and cannot do in the hospital. Going back to more intimate forms of emotion, the barrier can signify the management of the individual’s body within the prison system—for instance in Midnight Express (1978), in which the barrier represents Billy’s (Brad Davis) status as a criminal. Other types of such barriers include divisions of class, emotional divorce, identity conflicts (if it is a mirror) or even a disease and the risk of infection. In Contagion (2011), a film which has seen a resurgence of interest since the coronavirus pandemic, Mitch Emhoff (played by Matt Damon) prohibits his daughter from seeing her boyfriend, and we are treated to a similar scene in which the teenagers’ looks are mediated by the window. Similar scenes occur throughout the film. Additionally, the face mask and the hazmat suit become other representations of such barriers which stand not just against romantic desire, but also against compassion and sympathy.

On the other hand, this barrier acts as an enabler at the same time as it acts as a deterrent. One can argue that in all of these instances, desire penetrates through the barrier, overcoming the hurdles, yet I think it would be reductive to view the barrier as a monolithic entity, for it seems that the barrier has also a participatory function in these acts. Thus, perhaps it would be better to conceive of the barrier as a surface or an interface. As the term “interface” implies, there is also an interaction here: the interface maintains the desire and the connection between both parties, becomes part of the intimacy, and modifies it. In our examples, kissing and touching the glass or banging on it instead of the other person denotes the participation of the interface in the consummation or performance of desire. Thus, moral transgression as well as politics of space and the body are enmeshed in the fabric of desire and in the very intimate acts people commit. The key question is: would they have been able to perform those actions without the barrier or the interface? If the two characters in L’Eclisse had engaged in an affair without any reservation, would we still have been able to identify with them and understand their decisions? If the altercation in A Separation had not been interrupted by the people inside the hospital, and the two had not been separated by the glass door, would we have understood the moral ambiguity the characters are mired in or their conflicting emotions? If the lovers had been permitted to meet face to face, would we have understood the gravity of Billy’s predicament? If Mitch had allowed his daughter’s boyfriend to enter their house, would it have seemed as rational behaviour in a deadly pandemic? The interface functions as an acknowledgment of the moral structure which is dominant in their world and ours, not as something stopping it. That is how we understand their motives and identify with them. The interface is the common language between us and the characters. In other words, the interface is not the barrier, and if there is one at all, it is the discursive structure governing the universe in which those people (and we) live in; the interface just makes interaction possible.

My focus here is on the more intimate side of such emotional attachments. Thus, the question becomes: what new barriers, surfaces, or interfaces have been introduced to our experience of intimacy and desire in the wake of (or more accurately, in the middle of) the coronavirus pandemic? How do they shape our experiences? What potential do they have in changing how we become intimate? Let us begin with the most obvious barrier/interface, the computer screen or the cell-phone display. Although long-distance relationships, dating apps, and video calls are not new phenomena, Zoom-dating—the practice of going out virtually via the video calling apps not for the purpose of keeping in touch, but in order to establish new connections—became more and more common during lockdown. For many, including myself, it certainly appears like a barrier; despite not being a gregarious individual, I would find online (over the phone or the internet) interaction even more awkward and emotionally draining, perhaps because there are lots of missing factors in an online call which need to be “read” and assessed during a given interaction. To name a few: body language, eye contact (we look at one another’s slightly lagged, low definition image on the screen, while the camera capturing our image is located slightly above that point), and movement (which is much more limited than in face-to-face interaction). On the other hand, as expressed in this piece in the Cosmopolitan, there are some, especially women, who have found the experience quite liberating. From being able to communicate without the danger of contracting or transmitting a disease, to being “[oneself] without worrying about people judging [one] for [one’s] appearance,” to feeling more relieved because of the abated danger of harassment—“[with] Zoom dating, there are more clear boundaries and consent, whereas [in real life], things can be a little bit more coercive”—the interface of the computer/phone screen has made safe communication possible. Furthermore, after acknowledging the oppressive discursive order of intimate interaction, the interface offers a space to practice intimacy without being harmed by the power of the discursive order.

The face mask, the other already familiar barrier, has manifested its impact in pictures of couples kissing through masks. At first, the mask seems like a barrier, but would they have been able to share a kiss without the mask at all without either putting themselves in danger, or violating the applicable regulations in the country, community, or the interpersonal contract between the partners (i.e. their standards of hygiene or health measures)? It may not be so, for even though many people do not consider face masks essential, those who do may see it as crucial when meeting new people or when mixing with people of separate households. If wearing masks had not been necessary, they would not have worn it; thus, wearing them has actually made their union possible. As wearing face covering in closed public spaces is becoming a regularity all over the world, would the experience of affection and attraction be impacted by it? Would a mask-wearer and an unmasked person go out and show affection and intimacy towards one another? If a new mode of distinguishing people were to be born out of this, what would happen to the allure of one’s lips, the pleasure of seeing another’s smile? Would our gazes compensate for this new veil and be infused with even more significance? Would we derive greater pleasure from somebody’s voice now that we cannot see their mouth? Or would the mask become another orifice of attraction, something which has already begun to happen with the design and sale of fashionable masks (even bands have begun to sell face masks as part of their merchandise)? One particularly insightful area about this is pornography, where coronavirus-themed material have been made since the early days of the pandemic. My fellow pandemic scholar, David Christie, pointed out to me that the phenomenon is not novel in itself: the gas mask became part of the culture of eroticism since the thirties, a prominent example of which is Horace Roye’s “Tomorrow’s Crucifixion,” which appeared on the cover of the North London Recorder in 1938 and eerily captures the sense of foreboding in a world on the precipice of another war. These are developments the signs of which we have already begun to witness, and it would be interesting to see where they will lead to, but it appears that rather than blocking desire, they merely offer new modes of expression and performance.

Scent is another interface, and in our world, an additional aroma might be about to enter our desire’s grid: the smell of the sanitising gel. I do not suppose we have yet been calibrated to detect the smell on individuals, apparatuses, or surfaces, but it might be about to find its way to our sensors. Think of this as a hypothetical example: you are about to start your meal in a restaurant, and before using the cutlery, your companion applies some sanitising gel onto their hands. This action, if you favour using the gel yourself, may give that person a more positive aura, and an association might be made in one’s mind between approval and the smell of the gel. It is quite similar to the habit of washing one’s hands and the fragrance of hand washing soap, except, more crucially, it enables the continuation of the relationship between the parties by ensuring their safety. In other words, the hand sanitiser has the potential to become a requirement for performing intimacy.

A more contorted interface is the sense of touch. A preoccupation with surfaces could be underway in our daily experience: the novel coronavirus can survive for various lengths of time on surfaces depending on the material, and advice has been given on leaving stuff which cannot be disinfected untouched until the virus expires. Once again, the potential for affecting our experience is substantial. Of course, when it comes to intimacy and desire, the most obvious surface of all is the skin. How can one ensure that an intimate encounter with another person is not infectious? Having a clean surface can take additional significance and meaning (not just clean, but virus-free) by its connection with enabling intimacy. Furthermore, the sense of touch in experiences such as caressing could be mediated and/or authorised by the sanitising gel once again.

As we have seen, these new interfaces have opened new paths for the flow of desire (using the term with a nod to Deleuze and Guattari) and have begun—or have the potential—to reconstitute our modes of sensation and performance of desire. Seen from a different angle, there is another side to the reshaping of experience and desire by COVID-19 in the long-term effects of the disease. Media outlets have begun to report on the survivors of the disease who still carry symptoms or effects months after recovering from the disease. Most of these effects are indeed worrying, and disrupt/distort/reshape the daily experience of individuals, which may result in a sense of alienation and/or detachment from what they used to feel as normal, increasing the risk of declining mental health and suicide among COVID-19 survivors. One of these effects, nevertheless, is the persistent loss or hypersensitivity of the sense of smell. This is where one of the interfaces we have discussed is taken out of action, and one might ask how would desire be recalibrated? Much like wearing a face mask, it may be possible to compensate for it by focussing on other interfaces, but this becomes even more challenging when those other interfaces are in the process of modification themselves (for instance, blurred vision). As if the predicament of contracting the disease was not enough, the COVID-19 survivor needs the greatest recalibration of desire among others, which could render recovery relentlessly gruelling.

Thus, our performance of desire is being reshaped in multiple forms (depending on whether one is a COVID-19 survivor or just cautious about contracting the virus); moreover, rather than obstructing desire, the virus acts as a mediator/catalyst/authorising agent in producing new modes of performance. We may wonder how long-lasting the impact of this form of non-human agency could be, and how different would we be if the virus were to persist for some years. Only time will tell.