i agree with Leslie, the Stein interest in scat does seem a bit out there.
It seems far more suiting or perhaps acceptable to believe that she is
referring to time apart.
Lifting belly is of course a metaphor for sex I imagine it would come
from the lift of the belly while thrusting.
>From: "Leslie, Christopher" <CLeslie@gc.cuny.edu>
>Reply-To: stein-l@ucdavis.edu
>To: "'stein-l@ucdavis.edu'" <stein-l@ucdavis.edu>
>Subject: RE: Cow=bowel movement
>Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 13:49:31 -0500
>
>I was much amused by Turner's introduction, since much has been written to
>the effect that "having a cow" was an orgasm. "A Wife Has a Cow: A Love
>Story" thus was read with the idea that a wife was finally able to achieve
>orgasm. What a shock this book has yet to cause, since it suggests a very
>different reading of cow. It does certainly show the danger of trying to
>"decode" Stein. Her writing seems to be about the multiplicity of meaning,
>so that trying to fix anything with one specific meaning can be disastrous.
>
>But, I thought Turner was a little off when she suggested that Stein was
>interested in scat. Actually reading the letters, they seem to be about
>separation. People in love who spend a lot of time together sometimes make
>jokes about "don't leave me"--even for short periods like using the
>bathroom. I felt that with these letters Stein was occupying her time
>during
>Toklas's absence.
>
>Time in the bathroom, after all, is one time that many couples spend apart.
>A couple that is very intimate still does have awkward moments of privacy,
>such as when using the bathroom. Urging Toklas to have a cow might well be
>the urging of Stein to hurry up and get back to her, not necessarily an
>eagerness for feces. I wonder at why Turner suggested that Stein enjoyed
>scat. It seems that if they were actually engaged in scat, Stein would not
>have been writing notes.
>
>Stein also wrote letters Toklas late at night, when Toklas was sleeping and
>Stein was working. These seemed to me to be very doting. I would like to
>read the cow letters as doting as well.
>
>As for "lifting belly," I always thought that in a sense a woman would have
>to lift her belly while masturbating.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Brueckl100@aol.com <mailto:Brueckl100@aol.com>
>[mailto:Brueckl100@aol.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 10:40 PM
>To: stein-l@ucdavis.edu
>Subject: Cow=bowel movement
>
>
>A 1999 book called Baby Precious Always Shines: the Selected Love Notes
>between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, edited by Kay Turner, makes it
>clear that having a "cow" refers to Toklas having a bowel movement.
>Evidently viewing this up close was a sexually exciting turn-on for
>Gertrude. To each his own: I would expect nothing less from a genius.
>
>"More than a third of the notes demonstrate unequivocally that "cows" are
>Toklas's feces or stools...p. 25
>
>"In the 1970's, writers on Stein and Toklas such as Richard Bridgman and
>Linda Simon veered toward this understanding, yet they pulled back--out of
>a
>sense of propriety, disbelief, or repulsion--from claiming that the loving
>command for a "cow" from Alice is the command for a bowel movement...pp.
>25-6
>
>"Orgasms are not "smelly," nor do they go "splash" or "plop." They are not
>shaped like a "banana." It is the anus that yields the "cow." p. 27
>
>"Stein's attention to Toklas's bowel movements exemplifies, in a profound
>sense, the hallmark of married intimacy: one body entrusted to another,
>singularly known, cared for, loved, and desired in all its intricacies, all
>its successes--and all its failings. p. 29
>
>"Alice's "movements" seem to fulfill a deeply primal and erotic need in
>Gertrude. p. 30
>
>"Still, psychology and pleasure do not fully unlock the importance of the
>"cows." At the deepest level, Stein's scatological interests were
>artistically and ontologically motivated. The notes ask us to take further
>account--to take what might best be called a phenomenological account--of
>the fact that Stein's delight in the prospect and evidence of Alice's
>"cows"
>was excessive, even obsessive. pp. 31-32
>
>Quotes from Kay Turner's 37 page introductory essay to Baby Precious Always
>Shines, published by St. Martin's Press, New York.
>
>
>
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