her white dress,"(37), "the prostitute [who] draggles her shawl"(37), the homosexual, the heterosexual, friends and lovers, all of these individuals, these opposite equals become one in the same as Whitman takes "of these one and all" and "weaves the song of [himself]"(38). Whitman furthers this democratic blending of these cultural dichotomies in section 24 of Song of Myself as he ascribes divinity to the scents of armpits and lifts up the station of copulation and movement of the bowels. He is pushing Emersonian individuality to its radical end, more or less saying that everything with in the self is to be known, enjoyed and praised, even the taboos. With a clear understanding of the self, he can clarify and transfigure "forbidden voices", "indecent voices", "voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd"(46). In this sense, Whitman challenges the sexual conventions of the literary times, not just those of homosexual sex, but sex in general. He is challenging the 19th century world of tea parties and tennis and bridge games in stuffy parlors, the overly proper and often prudish world in which he lived. But the taboo he addresses, he instantly vanquishes. The sex he creates is not essentially a physical sex or love, but a spiritual one. His sexual scenes are often presented in a discourse of physicality, but the subjects involved, the subjects copulating, are often the body and soul. He calls to the soul to "loafe with [him] in the grass, loose the stop from [his] throat,/ Not the music or rhyme [he] want[s], not custom or lecture, not even the best,/ Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice"(28). Here Whitman presents the "doubleness" that is consistent throughout his poetry, the physicality of a love that actually transcends the physical, which ultimately leads to the supreme knowledge of the self, what it means to be a complete individual. Ostriker had similar experiences with Whitman's poetry. She says that h...
