前言 | Foreword
译 ｜ 霍超
《性依赖的叙事曲》是我的一部可供他人阅读的日记。我的文字日记是私人的；它们形成了我的世界的封闭文件，并让我有足够的距离来分析它。我的视觉日记是公开的；它基于主观，并由他人的输入影响而扩展。这些照片可能是我世界发出的邀请，但拍摄它们是为了让我能看到其中的人。有时我不知道我对某人的感觉，直到我拍下他或她的照片。我不是为了拍照而选择人；我直接从我的生活中拍摄。
这些图片来自关系，而不是观察。
照片中的人说我的相机是与我的一部分，就像了解到的我的其他方面一样。我的手就像是一台照相机。如果可能的话，我希望在我和拍摄之间不存在任何需要有的机制。相机是我日常生活的一部分，就像说话、吃饭或做爱一样。拍摄的瞬间，对我来说是清晰和情感联系的时刻而不是创造距离。有一种流行的观点认为，摄影师天生就是一个偷窥狂，是最后一个被邀请参加聚会的人。但我没有被击碎；这是我的派对。这是我的家庭，我的历史。
我希望可以保存下人们生存的样貌，且赋予我作品的是我在他们身上所看见的勇气与美丽；我希冀人们在我的照片里头可以回顾他们的从前，我想要分毫不差地展现我的世界究竟是什么样的，没有美化也没有颂扬。这儿并不是荒凉的世界但置身其中的人却觉知着伤痛，某种近似于内省的况味。
我们大伙诉说的故事是历史的摹本─这摹本是可资回忆的、经过包装的、可传阅，与可靠的。这些照片触动了真实的回忆，是召唤色彩、味道、声音、呈现肉身存在与体味生命的意义与气味。回忆使我们的连结得以川流不息；故事可重写、回忆则不能；假使每张照片都是一则故事，那么这些张张积累而成的作品更趋近于回忆里所得到的体认，故事则不会结束。
我但愿能够经历所有，没有制约束缚。人们经常受制于严格自律认知着自身的过往；同时我既想放纵和克制，日记是我凌驾于生活之上的表现形式，使我得以妄执纪录每一个琐碎细节，赋予我记忆之能。
这是段重建家族史，这儿没有传统的既定角色。我像个小孩一样喜欢一本书，是Richard Hughes的《牙买加飓风》，故事里一群孩童被海盗们劫离自他们父母的身边，那些父母不断担心着自己的孩子，想知道小孩们有多想念他们，事实上这些孩子几乎没有想着自己的父母，他们迅速适应了他们新的环境，且着迷于他们所遭逢的历险。
在我身处的如家庭般的朋友关系里，有着如血亲般亲密的冀望，同时也渴求着某种开放性，这里角色没有明确的定义，然而是长远的关系；这儿人的离开与归来，这一切的分离并不会妨碍我们的亲密，我们共同缠缚依凭的并非是血缘抑或地域性，而是持守相同的精神价值，非得珍惜当下此刻竭尽地活，不妄想希望于未来，同样重视诚实、意欲冲破藩篱与共同的过往。我们没有思量的过着生活然而相互理解，我们之间拥有一种聆听与心有灵犀的能力，超越了一般定义下的友谊。
出现在我照片里的这些人物、事件场景是特定与特殊的，然而我认为我所处理的题材是普世的；许多人试着企图避重就轻的转移焦距：“我们看来一点都不像这些照片，这一切与我何干？”很肯定的前提却是通用于一般普遍的任何人，它所呈现的无非都是关系的本质。
我担忧着男人与女人对于彼此之间有着无以弥补的鸿沟，天生就无法相处，几乎就像他们分别来自不同的星球，纵使以上皆是，依旧不减合而为一的强烈渴望；即使，这关系具有毁灭性，仍缠缚于彼此，这便是生物化学的反作用力，它刺激你那脑中仅被爱、海洛因或者巧克力所能满足的区块，爱是陷溺，我极度渴望独立自主，另方面同时也极度渴望相互依赖，里头所衍生出的拉扯似乎是人类普遍的遭遇：在自主与依赖之间挣扎，《性依赖叙事曲》以此前提下作为开展和结束，首先以包含温莎公爵这对伴侣的系列为始─浪漫化典型的象征─逐渐随时间风化崩坏在科尼岛的蜡像馆，再到照片里化为虚无仍紧紧相拥的骸骨终于无你亦无我的永恒缠绕。陷入其中的我尝试着究竟到底是什么使得「结合」如此困难？
我已然目睹过罗曼史神话如何与伴侣的真实不相符合以及永恒化了爱的定义，制造了危险的期待。这神话里却并未考虑在任何长远的关系里本质存在的爱、恨感情并存的矛盾。在浪漫空想和关系中现实之间相抵触，引领走向疏离抑或是暴力。
假使男人与女人往往是水火不容，或许是因他们拥有各不相同的情感构造也操持着不同的情绪语言。有好多年我发现很难去理解男性的觉知系统，我并不认为他们是脆弱的，我把他们归咎于他们自身并不愿承认自己的恐惧及感触。男人承担着自身的包袱，天生就畏惧女人，,迫切的将女人给分门别类，举例来说：像是母亲、娼妓、处女或者蜘蛛女类型的女人。性别角色的陈述是个体进入一段关系里的主要问题之一。
当我们还是孩子之时，就被制式化了性别区分的框限：小男孩应该就像斗士，小女孩就该漂漂亮亮、可可爱爱的；但当我们越来越大，便会有股自觉明白性别如同抉择，和某个具有可塑性事物一样。你可以选择遵循传统─花俏的打扮，开车炫一下，故作一副很屌的模样─甚至来个不按牌理出牌，显露你的温和或者激进的一面去对抗因袭陈规。当我还是15岁时，完美的世界理应全是充满两性同体的地方，那里你根本搞不清楚人的性别，除非你和他(她)上床。自彼时起我便理解性别比形式更有深远意涵，不是接受性别的分际，重点是该去重新界定它，共同抵抗因袭陋规，可以有选择的活出自我，甚至是改变个人的性别，对于我来说这是达到高度自治的终极行为。
在”叙事曲”共同出现的女子展现了患难与共的情味，几乎有亚马逊族女战士般的气魄，以挚深的温柔，无设防的开放性感官共同维系着；独处的男子表露出他的柔软以及脆弱的性征；但当他们聚拢在一块时就变得具有侵略性，那儿充斥着竞争、情欲意味的玩乐场所，通过表现打架、喝酒证明他禁得起痛。
你非常清楚你所奢求的爱情与性是永不得平衡的杠杆。我常认为自己和女性比较合适，我和女性长期的友谊牢靠无比如同婚姻般的坚实，或姊妹般的亲密。然而，某部分的我又会被男性情感天性里的模糊地带给激起挑战的欲望，以及被天生存在于两性关系里的矛盾冲突所撩拨。
性本身仅是性依赖的一方面，欢娱是其动因，但真正的满足来自于浪漫爱。床第成了关系里平息抑或激化纷争的集会场。性无关乎展演，它是建立在信任、坦然与脆弱形式的交流，也无法以别的方式。强烈的性连结成了消耗与自我的永续永存，你变得依赖于满足里，性遂成了一段关系里的小宇宙，一个战场，某种驱魔仪式。
有些年，我和一个男人认真的交往，我们感情上很契合，关系于是变得彼此相互依赖，妒火总能点燃情热，他对于关系的概念植根于詹姆斯‧狄恩（James Dean）与洛伊‧欧比森（Roy Orbison）式的浪漫理想主义。我渴望依赖、崇拜、满足、安全感，然而有时我感觉自己患了幽闭恐惧症。我们陷溺在关系里爱所附带的一些便利。而我们是一对情人。
我们之间的情况开始步入衰颓，但是我们任何一方都无法说再见。欲望是头填不满也掏不尽的饕餮，却无法否认心中积累的不满。我们之间的锁链仅存沉瘾在彼此的性爱里。
某个晚上，他恶狠狠地对我拳脚相向，几乎让我失明；他把我的一些日记烧掉，我事后发现他早已读过那些日记了，面对我习以为常的矛盾情感却违背了他的信念里对于爱的绝对；于是，他的矛盾介乎在一方面渴望独立自主、同时又陷溺于感情的漩涡，逐渐成为不可承受的负荷。
沉潜了两年的愤怒与哀伤之后，自那晚之后这是第一次我和他首度面对面地在大街上，我们说了声：「你好！」我望向他的眼瞳，尔后我终于再一次能够记起原初我对于眼前的这男人的真实欲望也明了到维系于我们彼此间的依连是多么的强烈；尽管所有已然倾圮，我犹渴望那爱，但我必须面对这不能调和的逝落。
我姐姐自杀的时候我十一岁，当1965年青少年自杀还是个禁忌性议题之时。我和姐姐非常亲近明了到一些导致她选择自杀的动机，我知道是她的性别定位与其所带来的压抑导致了她的毁灭。因为当时正逢60年代之初，女性相当激昂，性的意识也起了狂狷的波澜，那些道德规范之外的行为开始失控。那时她十八岁，她想唯一能解脱的方式便是在华盛顿哥伦比亚特区外卧轨，这是一个极其笃定的意志行为。
丧姐哀恸的一星期后，我被一个年长的男性诱拐，这期间遭逢了极度的伤恸与逝落，同时又苏醒于强烈的性的欢娱，尽管我心怀内咎、却又为我的欲望所俘虏。
有关我性能力的自觉意识取决于这两个事件，探索与理解着这力量的转换触发了我的生活与创作。
我意识到有很多方面我像极了姐姐，我看见历史在重蹈自身，她的心理医师曾预言我将会步入姐姐的后尘，于是我活在会在十八岁那年死去的恐惧深渊，我知道离家对我而言是必须的，所以在十四岁时我离家了；离开遂使我产生了转变，重塑自我的同时亦无须失去自我。
我是十八岁时开始摄影。我变得善于交际，也是这时开始酗酒，希冀能够记下所有当下发生的琐碎细节。有若干年，我着迷于保存纪录下我日复一日的生活；但是，最近我意识到我的动力有更深邃的根源：我并不真的记得我姐姐，在离家重塑自我的那个过程里，我便失去了对于我姐姐的真实回忆，我记取的是我心目中的她，她说过的话，以及她之于我的意义；但我想不起来她到底是谁与作为什么样的存在那般确切观感，她的双眼看来像……？她说话的声音听起来……？
我不愿自己的过去轻易受他人的观感而窜改。
我再也不愿失去属于任何一个人的珍贵回忆。
谨以此摄影集之于我真实的回忆
献予我的姐姐Barbara Holly Goldin
THE BALLAD OF SEXUAL DEPENDENCY is the diary I let people read. My written diaries are private; they form a closed document of my world and allow me the distance to analyze it. My visual diary is public; it expands from its subjective basis with the input of other people. These pictures may be an invitation to my world, but they were taken so that I could see the people in them. I sometimes don't know how I feel about someone until I take his or her picture. I don't select people in order to photograph them; I photograph directly from my life.
These pictures come out of relationships, not observation.
People in the pictures say my camera is as much a part of being with me as any other aspect of knowing me. It's as if my hand were a camera. If it were possible, I'd want no mechanism between me and the moment of photographing. The camera is as much a part of my everyday life as talking or eating or sex. The instant of photographing, instead of creating distance, is a moment of clarity and emotional connection for me. There is a popular notion that the photographer is by nature a voyeur, the last one invited to the party. But I'm not crashing; this is my party. This is my family, my history.
My desire is to preserve the sense of peoples' lives, to endow them with the strength and beauty I see in them. I want the people in my pictures to stare back. I want to show exactly what my world looks like, without glamorization, without glorification. This is not a bleak world but one in which there is an awareness of pain, a quality of introspection.
We all tell stories which are versions of history-memorized, encapsulated, repeatable, and safe.
Real memory, which these pictures trigger, is an invocation of the color, smell, sound, and physical presence, the density and flavor of life. Memory allows an endless flow of connections. Stories can be rewritten, memory can't. If each picture is a story, then the accumulation of these pictures comes closer to the experience of memory, a story without end.
I want to be able to experience fully, without restraint. People who are obsessed with remembering their experiences usually impose strict self-disciplines. I want to be uncontrolled and controlled at the same time. The diary is my form of control over my life. It allows me to obsessively record every detail. It enables me to remember.
This is the history of a re-created family, without the traditional roles. My favorite book, as a child, was Richard Hughes's A High Wind in Jamaica, in which a group of children are separated from their parents and taken away by pirates. The parents are constantly worrying about the children, wondering how much the children are missing them. The children, in fact, hardly think about the parents. They adapt immediately to their new reality and are caught up in the adventure of their own experiences.
In my family of friends, there is a desire for the intimacy of the blood family, but also a desire for something more open-ended. Roles aren't so defined. These are long-term relationships. People leave, people come back, but these separations are without the breach of intimacy. We are bonded not by blood or place, but by a similar morality, the need to live fully and for the moment, a disbelief in the future, a similar respect for honesty, a need to push limits, and a common history. We live life without consideration, but with consideration. There is among us an ability to listen and to empathize that surpasses the normal definition of friendship.
The people and locales in my pictures are particular, specific, but I feel the concerns I'm dealing with are universal. Many people try to deflect this by saying, "we don't look like the subjects of these pictures; they're not about us." But the premise can be applied to everyone; it's about the nature of relationships.
I often fear that men and women are irrevocably strangers to each other, irreconcilably unsuited, almost as if they were from different planets. But there is an intense need for coupling in spite of it all. Even if relationships are destructive, people cling together. It's a biochemical reaction, it stimulates that part of your brain that is only satisfied by love, heroin, or chocolate; love can be an addic-tion. I have a strong desire to be independent, but at the same time a craving for the intensity that comes from interdependency. The tension this creates seems to be a universal problem: the struggle between autonomy and dependency. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency begins and ends with this premise, from the first series of couples including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor-the epitome of the Romantic ideal-crumbling in the Coney Island wax museum to the picture of the skeletons together in an eternal embrace after having been vaporized. In between I'm trying to figure out what makes coupling so difficult.
I've seen how the mythology of romance contradicts the reality of coupling and perpetuates a definition of love that creates dangerous expectations. This mythology doesn't allow for the ambivalence that's natural in any sustained relationship. The friction between the fantasies and the realities of relationships can lead to alienation or violence.
If men and women often seem unsuited to one another, maybe it's because they have different emotional realities and speak a different emotional language. For many years, I found it hard to understand the feeling systems of men; I didn't believe they were vulnerable and I empowered them in a way that didn't acknowledge their fears and feelings. Men carry their own baggage, a legacy based on a fear of women, a need to categorize them, for instance, as mothers, whores, virgins, or spiderwomen. The construction of gender roles is one of the major problems that individuals bring into a relationship.
As children, we're programmed into the limitations of gender distinction: little boys to be fighters, little girls to be pretty and nice. But as we grow older, there's a self-awareness that sees gender as a decision, as something malleable. You can play with the traditional options-dressing up, cruising in cars, the tough posturing or play against the roles, by displaying your tenderness or toughness to contradict stereotypes. When I was fifteen, the perfect world seemed a place of total androgyny, where you wouldn't know a person's gender until you were in bed with him or her. I've since realized that gender is much deeper than style. Rather than accept gender distinction, the point is to redefine it. Along with playing out the clichés, there is the decision to live out the alternatives, even to change one's sex, which to me is the ultimate act of autonomy.
The women shown together in the Ballad offer a sense of solidarity, almost Amazonian strength, united with deep tenderness, openly tactile without self-consciousness. The solitary male is shown with his tenderness and vulnerable sexuality, but when the men are together, they become tougher. There is a competitive, erotic, gaming situation displayed through fighting, drinking, proving their ability to withstand pain.
What you know emotionally and what you crave sexually can be wildly contradictory. I often feel that I am better suited to be with a woman; my long-term relationships with women are bonds that have the intensity of a marriage, or the closeness of sisters. But a part of me is challenged by the opacity of men's emotional makeup and is stimulated by the conflict inherent in relationships between men and women.
Sex itself is only one aspect of sexual dependency. Pleasure becomes the motivation, but the real satisfaction is romantic. Bed becomes a forum in which struggles in a relationship are defused or intensified. Sex isn't about performance; it's about a certain kind of communication founded on trust and exposure and vulnerability that can't be expressed any other way. Intense sexual bonds become consuming and self-perpetuating. You become dependent on the gratification. Sex becomes a microcosm of the relationship, the battleground, an exorcism.
For a number of years, I was deeply involved with a man. We were well suited emotionally and the relationship became very interdependent. Jealousy was used to inspire passion. His concept of relationships was rooted in the romantic idealism of James Dean and Roy Orbison. I craved the depen-dency, the adoration, the satisfaction, the security, but sometimes I felt claustrophobic. We were addicted to the amount of love the relationship supplied. We were a couple.
Things between us started to break down, but neither of us could make the break. The desire was constantly reinspired at the same time that the dissatisfaction became undeniable. Our sexual obsession remained one of the hooks.
One night, he battered me severely, almost blinding me. He burned a number of my diaries.
I found out later that he had read them. Confronting my normal ambivalence had betrayed his absolute notion of romance. His conflict between his desire for independence and his addiction to the relationship had become unbearable.
After two years of anger and mourning, I was face to face with him on the street for the first time since that night. We said hello. I looked into his eyes. Later I was able for the first time to remember my real desire for this man and I understood how intense that bond was. Despite all the destruction, I could still crave that love. I had to face the irreconcilable loss.
was eleven when my sister committed suicide. This was in 1965, when teenage suicide was a ta000 subject. I was very close to my sister and aware of some of the forces that led her to choose suicide.
I saw the role that her sexuality and its repression played in her destruction. Because of the times, the early sixties, women who were angry and sexual were frightening, outside the range of acceptable behavior, beyond control. By the time she was eighteen, she saw that her only way to get out was to lie down on the tracks of the commuter train outside of Washington, D.C. It was an act of immense will.
In the week of mourning that followed, I was seduced by an older man. During this period of greatest pain and loss, I was simultaneously awakened to intense sexual excitement. In spite of the guilt I suffered, I was obsessed by my desire.
My awareness of the power of sexuality was defined by these two events. Exploring and understanding the permutations of this power motivates my life and my work.
I realized that in many ways, I was like my sister. I saw history repeating itself. Her psychiatrist predicted that I would end up like her. I lived in fear that I would die at eighteen. I knew it was necessary for me to leave home, so at fourteen I ran away. Leaving enabled me to transform, to recreate myself without losing myself.
When I was eighteen I started to photograph. I became social and started drinking and wanted to remember the details of what happened. For years, I thought I was obsessed with the record-keeping of my day-to-day life. But recently, l've realized my motivation has deeper roots: I don't really remember my sister. In the process of leaving my family, in recreating myself, I lost the real memory of my sister. I remember my version of her, of the things she said, of the things she meant to me. But I don't remember the tangible sense of who she was, her presence, what her eyes looked like, what her voice sounded like.
I don't ever want to be susceptible to anyone else's version of my history.
I don't ever want to lose the real memory of anyone again.
This book is dedicated to the real memory of my sister, Barbara Holly Goldin.