POSSESSION/ The Virtual Trap

Kofi Fosu Forson

Possession was a novel by A. S. Byatt.

Candidly the refrain from love as a form of possession has always been a sense of undue power over some one.

Much of this is established in sexually political exclusivity in what makes an individual lover. Society establishes an ideology as far as what is expected of both male and female, basically the commercialization of love.

Puritanically speaking nuclear families function basically in uniformity making the family unit circular.

This notion was broken by 60's spiritualism which drove the individual to outer cities in search of love, sex and art or independence perhaps the source of what became "The Rebel," a free spirited demon made celluloid in the movie Easy Rider.

Hitchhikers are known for their renegade sexual behavior. Their sense of caution and safety is thrown to the wind. Sexually they are exhibitionists. Danger attracts them. Pathology as it is involved borders rape or violence.

A man may make eye contact with a woman. Means of attraction takes a second or half second. Intimately signifiers present here are elements of lust and hunger. Much like rapist the male libido is at a high willing to fornicate at will.

Possession is an act be it physical, intellectual or sexual.

Literarily speaking Nabokov's Lolita and Masoch's Venus in Furs achieved all of this with a book.

Text can be pleasurable based on its language.

A reader then draws from its theme, prose and style. The literary dance between the writer and reader expresses an attraction particular to any two intimate personalities found among dancers or two strangers in conversation at party.

Possession in the modern day is virtual. Human connectivity has been replaced by adventures on line. Participation between persons in the communal sense is now found on threads on facebook.

Link therefore is not so much the recognition of skin or comfort in the eyes. One's persona activates a sensation that attracts people to each other.

Photographs, profile pictures, posts and status statements are means of possession, trapping each other into a faux psychological and conscientious world.

Guru David Shade speaks of how when people are making love the entranced and enlightened act as possessiveness is something shared with the world in nature and its people, animals and every living breathing thing.

The lovemaking act is a celebration of life, two or more people channeling spirits, energy, lust, libido.

Orgiastically speaking tantra was commercially introduced to communities around the world. Couples were taught how to achieve enlightenment through sex. It was at a point when gender politics and emergence of the internet and its sexual spam and porno websites crept into our culture.

Virtual voyeurism is the new means of inter connectivity where people on the web even neighbors in households are possessed by each other curious as to personal and private activities beyond the guarded walls.

Possession is now less animal void of flesh. A woman still wants security emotional and physical shelter. She attracts her own kind her human kind.

Intellectually people dont mate. They pretend, cavort among each other as artists but very few represent what is art.

Love is fleeting. I seek it in the moment. Others find it meaninglessly.

People are less of sex. The act has lost its potential for many.

Survival is not sexual or intellectual. It is pragmatic.

In the end virtual reality is possession.

Not money. Not fame.