doting, part the second

just in case i haven't convinced you to read mark doty's firebird yet, here's another quote that blew me away on the shuttle this morning.

on sexual (specifically gay) desire:

"the origins of sexual feeling don't interest me much; they seem permanently shrouded anyway, as resistant to explanation as any form of desire: why, exactly, do you like strawberries? from whence springs your affection for the cello, your attraction to blue? i don't mean to be facetious; it's merely that by the time desire manifests itself it is there, a fact of the self, one of our wellsprings. genetics, hypothalamus, environment, chance, some inscription encoded in the dna or the soul: your choice. or no choice; doesn't the need to understand the origins of desire arise from the impetus to control it?

a far more productive field of inquiry is the way in which sexual feeling makes itself known, and how we negotiate with our sense of desire, and with the dawning awareness of difference."