Description

Manuscripts of the ninth session of the ‘Enquiry into Sexuality’, 24 November 1930.

Ninth session of the ‘Enquiry into Sexuality’, with a larger number of speakers, including a certain ‘Madame Léna’, who one wonders might not be the madame of a bordello, given the statistics she lists. The issues addressed are the same as in previous sessions, with little new, apart from Éluard  being found to be an erotomaniac. Masturbation, phantasmatic representations, considerations of homosexuality, and the experience of abstinence were the main themes of the session. The subjects were addressed with a lot of statistics and figures, and some of the accounts, it has to be said, differed quite markedly from those given by the same people in the same context (see in particular the first few times, where we are clearly dealing with the ostentation denounced by Artaud in a previous session). [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Handwritten texts, 24 November 1930.

- 9th meeting: 19 folio pages in-4°, handwritten in black and blue ink. Bauer, Pierre Blum, André Breton, Paul Éluard, Humm, Madame Léna, Victor Mayer, Raymond Michelet, Schnitzler, Schwartz, André Thirion, Katia Thirion, Pierre Unik, Albert Valentin and Simone Vion took part in this, the 9th session:

“Thirion. - How many times have you made love - the maximum - without leaving the bedroom?

Humm. - Four times

Breton. - I would like additional information about age.

Humm. – Twenty-seven (I'm twenty-eight). The woman was twenty-six or twenty-seven.

…

Éluard. - I would add that after my first experience of impotence, I dreaded the idea that it would happen again – which made it happen again with other women.”

Erasures and corrections. [Auction Catalogue, 2003]

Bibliography

- José Pierre,  (présenté et annoté par), Archives du surréalisme publiées sous l'égide d'Actual, tome 4, Recherches sur la sexualité, janvier 1928 - août 1932, Paris, Gallimard, 1990, pages 161 à 174.

Creation date	24/11/1930
Bibliographical material	19 pages in-4° - MS - black ink on green paper
Languages	French
Reference	143000
Breton Auction, 2003	Lot 2144
Keywords	Investigations et Questionnaires, Group meetings, Sexuality
Categories	Archives
Set	[Inquiries] Enquête sur la sexualité
Permanent link	https://www.andrebreton.fr/en/work/56600100634200