I would like to say a few words about transgression and the intimate meaning that seems too often to escape it. First of all, etymologically, “transgress” means “to go beyond” or “to cross a pre-prepared boundary,” so one does not transgress by stripping naked inside a brothel or going in a suit and tie to a wedding.
So far, I think everything is self-explanatory and linear. But does it still make sense to talk about transgression when we repeatedly refer to sex, for example? Where is the al-there in this case? More importantly, is there an al-there? I think the answer is self-evident: that limit has never existed, for when the whole of humanity unites in sexual acts, it is only ridiculous to think that their concealment is something necessary. With its pervasiveness, along with the classical media, the Net brought to everyone’s table what everyone already knew (and those who did not would soon know).
Was Bukowski transgressive? I don’t think so. He led a dissolute life, was very accessible, and lacked the order that most people choose. Still, unlike most people, he wrote down every thought and recounted his hardships, his nausea, hangovers, sex, and everything else. Transgressed? For a puritan with several layers of bologna over his eyes, perhaps yes, but for a person with sense, no. He was much more verist than the “historical” verists, much more raw than those realists who photograph vomit to frame it and bring it to museums.
Kafka was transgressive. He bared the word in its useless power, showed the al-there in the form of absurdity permeating everything. In “The Trial,” “The Castle,” and “America,” as well as “Metamorphosis,” Kafka violently transgressed. Revealing reality down fully manifested is indeed the most heinous of transgressions. Sex removes itself from view and protects itself, and so the process of unveiling is only a recognition, a due act, in short. But if I were to tell you about what the cloudy sky looks like, how much useless stupidity there is in those suspended droplets we call “clouds,” I would be decidedly transgressive. I would hurt common sense, where most rest their uncertain feet. Frightening.
In politics, transgression is at home. He is transgressive and targets the obvious as if he wants to discover a new boson. See the case of “feminicide” (the feminine declension of the familiar “murder”) or “homophobia” (which implies a fear, a phobia, and thus, anything but a violent condition)—two bastions of those with no elements to be able to do real politics. When I was in school, a girl committed suicide by hanging herself in the bathroom because she had failed, and I can assure you, she was not a lesbian, just as the American serial killer Aileen Wuornos killed several men, her clients, since she happened to be a prostitute.
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