the gruntometer and the voice abject

Music: The Cure: Seventeen Seconds Last year I came up with the "voice abject" as a concept that gets at the Real betokened by the grain of the voice. It's a notion that cobbles together the Lacanian understanding of the "love object" (usually the objet a, that which is desired but cannot be captured and for which other objects are usually mistaken substitutes) and Kristeva's notion of "the abject," material traces, tokens, or (bodily) objects of death. The voice abject is perhaps best captured by the notion of "the cry": an infant speaks of its abjection, its proximity to death, in the shrieks of hunger. But there are elements of the voice abject in the grief-stricken who groan uncontrollably, and the lovers gasping and moaning in that momentary loss of self, la petite morte. Perhaps it's the strange conjunction of the unconscious memory of our own infantile cries and the older recognition of the primal scene--particularly, the sounds of one's parents dying, that lends abjection over to sex.

Today the news broke stateside that a British tabloid's "gruntometer" had recorded tennis star Maria Sharapova grunting on court at 101.2 decibels (about as loud as a police siren). Apparently tennis grunting is quite controversial in the UK, inviting censure and offending proper Brit tennis fans (especially women). It's not a big deal in the states; as I recall the Williams sisters grunt quite a bit, and nothing is made of it. Nevertheless, some have theorized that the grunting is part of a deliberate strategy to startle opponents, which is starting to draw counter-grunts. Sharapova has denied any grunting strategery, insisting it is the natural consequence of energy exploding as the ball is whacked with a lot of force.

Of course, I find the controversy and the "gruntometer" amusing, to say the least. But it is also very interesting because the "grunt" has been given a kind of agency, and the issue orbits control: Are these players in control of their grunting, as cynics suggest, or are they involuntary? I would seem to be the case that people are much more comfortable with the idea that the grunts are strategic, or perhaps, that they for some reason assist the player in hitting the ball harder. What disturbs the Brits is the possibility that Sharapova is right, that the grunt has an agency of its own, and perhaps, the game of tennis itself is governed not so much by skill but . . . well, death. "Release," whether on the dance floor, or in the bedroom, or at the end of life, is surrender—"giving it up" (the theme, of course, of the famous Postal Service album which is so catchy).

The voice abject is a curious thing, funny and disturbing (indeed, it's the topic of the next book). I think I need to let myself grunt more:uuuugggggghhhhhheherrrrrraaaaahhhhh.