Thursday, March 29, 2001

Desire, seduction and consent: Writing, reading and the blurring of boundaries.

I have been staring at this title for an hour now, and that might be a hint that I ought to change it. But there are still a lot of reasons why I'll keep it, and I keep listing more and more of them as I stare.

Desire: Something makes people want to play, there is something about playing which Huizinga recognises as desire.. What does desire do to the games? Where's the limit to compulsion?

Seduction: how do they seduce? What is the secret which holds people in the thrall of the games? Can there be something about the computer mediated communication which in itself is playful and seductive, making more than the limited area of the game into a playground?

Consent: Consent is important to all play, simply because "play is freedom" (Huizinga).

Looks simple. I guess I just have to start writing to see if it is.

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