Love Me Tender

Constance Debre

Chapters (4)

This edition © Semiotext(e) 2022

This work received support from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States through their publishing assistance program.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Semiotext(e)

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Special thanks to Kim Calder, Juliana Halpert, and Alice Tassel.

Cover photograph: Casper Sejersen

Cover design: Lauren Mackler

Layout: Hedi El Kholti

ISBN: 978-1-63590-174-0

Distributed by the MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, and London, England.

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“There can be a father without a mother”

— Aeschylus, Oresteia

I don't see why the love between a mother and son should be any different from other kinds of love. Why we shouldn't be allowed to stop loving each other. Why we shouldn't be allowed to break up. I don't see why we shouldn't stop giving a shit, once and for all, about love, or so-called love, love in all its forms, even that one. I don't see why we absolutely have to love each other, in families or elsewhere, and why we have to go on about it the whole time, to ourselves, to each other. I wonder whose idea it was, when it came about, whether it's a trend, a form of neurosis, compulsion, madness. I wonder what the economic interests are, the political motives. I wonder what they're hiding from us, what they're trying to get out of us with all this talk about love. I look around me and all I see are lies, all I see is madness. When are we going to stop? Why shouldn't we? I need to know. I've been asking myself the question.