“He's telling me, "Your agenda is …" and I'm saying, "My agenda? I don't have an agenda and I'm not sure who I am. Who am I?"”

—  Kathy Acker

Kathy Acker: Where does she get off?
Context: KA: I've been going to this rolfer. I don't know why I'm doing it. It's like: "You will get rid of all your childhood traumas if you only go through this pain." Fuck childhood. People always say you do all these things because of your childhood. I'm sorry, but what really gets me off is the idea that you can just travel, and traveling is just like having an endless orgasm. You just go and go and go.
RUS: In that state, you lose your individual identity — and therefore your childhood. But the rolfer is trying to drag you back into accepting your singular identity.
KA: Yeah. He's telling me, "Your agenda is..." and I'm saying, "My agenda? I don't have an agenda and I'm not sure who I am. Who am I?" He keeps on saying, "You know what you want." And I say, "I don't know what I want."
RUS: If he succeeds in dragging you into a singular "I," that's the death of Kathy Acker the writer.
KA: Yeah, it sure is. But I don't think he'll succeed. He doesn't have a fuckin' chance. I'm just trying to fuck him. If he won't fuck, we're not going anywhere. He can't make me into this singular "I." I told him, "You gotta consider the pleasure principle — namely my pleasure." He didn't like that.
RUS: I always say, divide the word "therapist" between the "e" and the "r."
KA: Yeah. The rapist. Because they're taking all your childhood wonderment and reducing it to childhood trauma. He gives me these long lectures about how he's not enlightened and he wants to be an animal. Can you imagine long lectures about wanting to be an animal? What a fuckin' bozo!
RUS: When I was in college, all of the poetry teachers worshipped Robert Bly, so I had my fill of that shit.
KA: I told him about my piercings and he said, "Oh, you're a wild woman." Then I asked him if he wanted to see my piercings. He wouldn't do it.

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Kathy Acker 38
American novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet 1947–1997

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