Monthly Archives: February 2010

Ashley’s transformation and mine

When I was perhaps twenty I had a fantasy of a beautiful woman turning, at least quasi-voluntarily, into a statue.  It was satisfying to have, but at the same time I thought, “This is too weird.  Surely almost no one else thinks like this.”

I was wrong about that.  But productively wrong.  Because not only could I write Ashley Madder into a version of that fantasy into The Apsinthion Protocol, but I also had an opportunity to find out that there seem to be a lot of people — some of them rather talented — out there on the Internet thinking along the same lines.

The general school is called “A.S.F.R.,” initial taken from an old Usenet newsgroup called “alt.sex.fetish.robot,” and perhaps more specifically “pygmalionists” or “agalmatophiles.”  And for them, the idea of transformation into a statue sounds deep erotic notes.  If you are interested in such things, a good place to start looking would be the The Technosexuality FAQ. Large galleries of fan-art for this kink can be found at The Medusa Realm.

Some specific artists who merit mention:  there is Naga at Naga’s Den, creator (I believe) of the cute and thematically apropos animated gif to the right (it appears originally on the Technosexuality FAQ) and another creator who works under the name of Drake, and puts out vis own self-published web comic (lots and lots and lots of scenarios and illustrations, in which almost all the characters are female) called Medusarrific. An example of vis work:

From Medusarrific #42, p. 17

,

Not quite the same as the Ashley Madder experience hedonically, even if it similar thematically.

If you like stories rather than pictures, I can point you to at least one exquisite one, “Sara’s Self-Portrait,” by RM, although you can find many others at the Medusa Realm’s story index page.

And what was my own transformation?  It was that, in finding so many other people who were into the same strange fantasy I once had, that I realized that in the age of the Internet, no one is ever really alone.

Ashley’s little obsesssion, and mine

I’ve blogged before over at ErosBlog about how magnificent I find the figure of Irma Vep from Louis Feuillade‘s 1915 silent serial Les Vampires.  She’s one of the first great cinematic bad girls, a character as daring as they come.

And Ashley Madder, perhaps frustrated with a world that sees her as a kind of  Sarah Palin in training, seems to find her magnificent, too.  The poster of kohl-eyed Irma Vep which The Apsinthion Protocol’s script locates on the wall of her dormitory room is taken right from the silent serial:

(I have never actually seen an attempt at reproducing this poster in the real world, but would buy one in a minute for the right price if one were available.  Hint, hint.)

In passing, I should note that Les Vampires is not just great for having a great bad girl at its center, but fine source material for thaumatophiles as well, because the Vampires, the criminal gang of which Irma Vep is a part, are among the most dedicated users of science (or pseudoscience) that I can think of in the early cinema.  Poisons, paralytics, trick weapons, hypnotic mind control, and any number of clever technological tricks play key roles in the serial.  We even get a laboratory scene or two, such as this one, in which heavily masked Irma Vep assists Vénénos, a chemist and criminal mastermind, who is then head of the Vampires.

Ashely will emulate her screen idol even to the extent of emulating the slinky maillot de soie in which Irma Vep commits some of her criminal acts.  Also in this case, Ashley might perhaps more be emulating Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung, playing the part of Irma Vep in a movie about an ill-starred attempt to re-make Les Vampires.

More maillot de cuir than maillot de soie, perhaps, but works for me either way.

Moira in the library

Moira’s trip to the dark and forbidden parts of the Gnosis College library holds a certain special place in my heart, even if it isn’t a sex scene.  It brings back fond memories of a conceit of my youth.

Part of the genius of the fictional universe created by H.P. Lovecraft was to imagine the existence of certain forbidden, powerful books, of which the Necronomicon was the most often invoked,  hidden away either in the hands of private collectors or the locked stacks of major university libraries.    The idea of books that contain hidden knowledge that is the gateway to power and pleaure, or perhaps self-destruction. is a splendid topos well designed to appeal to the sort of bookish people who, well, read a lot of books.

It certainly appealed a great deal to me, and as a fantasy seemed all the more convincing when, as a more advanced student I got access to the major research libraries of certain large, old, and rich universities.  It is hard to escape the feeling on the C and D levels of Widener Library, that you’re delving into dark things.

Interestingly there actually are real-world collections of forbidden books.  The British Museum had a “Private Case” and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France had an “Enfer” collection.

And in a peculiar example of life anticipating art, at least some of the books in these collections weren’t just smut, but had real power.  Or perhaps one might say, they had a certain power exactly because they were smut.  As the historian Robert Darnton has document in the The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, erotic materials circulating in eighteenth-century Europe were often not just books meant to be read “with one hand.”  The were vehicles for the dissemination of radical and political ideas.  Arguably, they contributed to the delegitimation of the very political order which tried to suppress them.

Frontispiece to Thérèse philosophe, a forbidden best-seller in pre-revolutionary France

So Moira really is seeking power and pleasure via the library stacks.  A nerd’s fantasy perhaps, but hey, it’s me that’s writing this stuff.

The inevitable tentacle sex post

Sensitive readers of The Apsinthion Protocol will probably have thought it more or less inevitable that once Moira Weir saw this picture in one of Professor Corwin’s publications

she would soon be in for a very wild ride.

There’s a certain element of controversy about tentacle sex.  Most people associate it, if they associate it with anything, with Japanese animation that many people find nasty.  This isn’t an entirely wrong association:  there are some good reasons why tentacle sex is so prominent in anime, which go beyond the fact of an artistic tradition of which artists like Hokusai were a part.  Helen McCarthy and Jonathan Clements, in The Erotic Anime Movie Guide, write as follows:

The visual grammar permitted by the tentacle is extremely useful to the pornographer.  With no restriction on length, it permits penetration without blocking the view.  It can be used as a form of restraint, permitting multiple penetration, sexualized bondage, and ease of camera access.  Best of all for the tentacle as a pornographic device, while it may often look suspiciously like a penis, to the extent of possessing a foreskin or glans, or even ejaculating upon climax, it is not a sexual organ by definition.  The Japanese film-maker can  thus show as many as he likes, doing whatever he wishes, without falling foul of the usual censorship restrictions.  The only problem with the tentacle is that the film-maker must find an excuse for its appearance.  This is best accomplished by making monsters a feature of the storyline, be they demons, invading aliens, or creatures from the id.  And since such creatures are evil by nature, it is a logical step in such porn to accentuate the incidences of rape and sexualized violence.

And that’s certainly a possibility, one that seems to fit into the conception that most people have of tentacle sex.   If you’re so inclined you can go out and find whole blogs devoted to anime tentacle sex, a lot of which doesn’t look all that consensual, with names like tentaclehettaisex.com (enjoy if that’s what you’re into, disdain if that’s what you think tentacle sex necessarily is).

There are, naturally, alternatives, some of which have been explored by my blogging mentor Bacchus over at ErosBlog.  A while back he posted on this image

Youren by Toshio Saeki

Which suggests a very different idea of tentacle sex than the idea most people have.  (More of Bacchus’s interesting blogging on the subject can be found here and here.)

Looking at these images makes one wonder (it certainly made me wonder) whether there couldn’t be tentacle seduction or, for that matter why the id of which the tentacles are supposedly the projection need necessarily be the male id.  Why not the female id?

Amanda Gannon, in a post at Tor.com entitled “Sucker Love:  Celebrating the Naughty Tentacle,” advances a congruent point.

There’s a particular detail in The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife that convinces me that hers is a dream of such ecstasy. As the enormous octopus sprawls between her thighs, she has reached down and wrapped her hands tight around two of its embracing arms. She is drawing it toward her, not pushing it away. I don’t hesitate to say that gesture is familiar to me.

That passion is the same fantasy of every person who has ever dreamed of being carried off by pirates and ravished into a state of perpetual ecstasy, the same passion of the vampire’s orgasmic embrace, the werewolf’s bestial lusts, and so many more. The tentacles may be exotic, but the theme is familiar.

Think about that enough, and scenes like Moira’s encounter just sort of write themselves.

Ooh look! My first clueless marketing email!

My blogfather Bacchus over at ErosBlog has a long and distinguished tradition of using his blog to make fun of clueless and otherwise problematical marketing emails he receives in his role of master of ErosBlog.  So it gives me particular pleasure to be the recipient, just today, of one of the same.

Now I must confess that this one wasn’t particularly awful, at least by the hilariously-awful standards of some that Bacchus has written about, but still it left me wondering “do you folks ever look, for like five or ten seconds maybe, at the sites you’re sending mail to?”

After an introduction to “Dear EMS,” our intrepid publicity person — let’s call her Casting Lady — explains that she is the casting assistant for a new television series (guess that’s my punishment for putting up screenplays) and inquires:

Wondering if you might be able to help further broadcast our current casting search to your fans and subscriber base?



Well, I’m certainly not anti-commerce or anti-entertainment, and given how hard it is to get a break in acting, I suppose that if I knew of anyone in the EroticMadScience universe who I could help hook up with a job, I would certainly want to help out, but reading on I find out that



We’re looking for women who are struggling with an intimacy addiction and are trying to maintain their “perfect image” on a daily basis.

I’m sure you have a ton of questions

A few maybe, such as

  • When it comes to intimacy issues, are you interested only in women who are into intimacy only with other human beings, or do passionate relationships with with alien tentacle beasts count as well? and;
  • What about women who effortlessly maintain their “perfect images” on a really permanent basis?

Unfortunately the website to which the Casting Lady directed me (sorry, I won’t link because I don’t believe in encouraging marketing cluelessness) wasn’t terribly enlightening.  There I was cheekily asked

Do you have a secret addiction or obsession that’s forcing you to live a double life? We want to know your stories.

Wow!  Do I ever have a manifesto for you guys to read!  Oh, wait…guess you couldn’t be bothered the first time.

Imagine living your picture-perfect life. By day, you are a beautiful, talented and ambitious 20-something. But at night, everything changes— you give in to temptation, to the dark side of yourself. You keep your secret from co-workers, family and friends. You enjoy the duality and the excitement that accompanies your obsession but you do know, it’s a dangerous game.

From context I think they mean beautiful, talented, etc. 20-something women, although perhaps I’m wrong about this.  I don’t think so, though, because that’s all that seems to be depicted in the pictures on their page.

Well ladies and gentlemen,  I think you can pretty well infer than I’m not a 20-something woman.  Intelligent and sensitive people in command of all the relevant facts can disagree in good faith about how beautiful, talented, and ambitious I am.  (That I am obsessive we can all agree, yes?)  But unless Vinnie Tesla manages to get that ol’ Ontological Engine all cranked up, I don’t have much prospect of becoming a 20-something Ultra Babe with a Dark Secret, not that that might not be fun.

Seriously, marketers.  Have a look at the damn site before you email.  Or I really will have to mock you openly…

A note on gender-neutral pronouns

There will come times on this site where it will be convenient to be able to refer to something with a third-person singular pronoun that doesn’t reference a person’s gender.  For example, in science fiction, including the fiction found on this site, there are sometimes persons to whom the notion of gender doesn’t apply: they’re neither male nor female but have no gender or are both genders or no gender or some third gender or nth gender.  And on the Internet, there are real people who pose the same issue.  Sometimes they’re writing under pseudonyms that don’t reveal gender, and sometimes they are people who don’t identify with the traditional categories of male or female.

It’s a shame that English has such a problem with this.  Languages like Chinese (the spoken version of Standard Modern Chinese, anyway) make do with a single pronoun (tā) that does full duty for “he,” she”, and “it” with no noticeable loss in ability to communicate.  Sometimes in English we can substitute “they” in constructions to make something gender-neutral.  But in science fiction it often doesn’t make sene to do so.

After mulling the matter over for a while, I have decided that in instances where I really need a gender-neutral pronoun for a single individual, I am going to use the pronoun ve , introduced by the New Zealand writer Keri Hulme and adopted by the Australian hard sci-fi writer Greg Egan for characters (like those in the spectacular novel featured to the left) who don’t fit into conventional notions of gender.  The pronoun has the following grammatical structure:

Nominative:  ve (“Ve has a blog”)

Accusative: ver (“I called ver.  I like to blog about ver.”)

Possessive determinative: vis (“This is vis blog.”)

Possessive: vis (“That is vis.”)

Reflexive: verself (“Ve blogs about verself too much.”)

This won’t be necessary too often, but it will be sometimes.

Go green

Where does the name “apsinthion protocol” come from?

Well, from ἀψίνθιον (apsinthion) of course.  It’s the Greek word for wormwood, Artemisia absinthium. which among other things, is the key ingredient in the spirit known as absinthe.  Professor Joseph Corwin, though nominally some kind of psychologist, is also a bit of a Hellenist >manqué who knows that sort of thing.  So it’s not surprising that he should apply the name to his process for reducing a girl into “the most precious of liquors.”

Now it’s hardly surprising that a mad scientist should focus on absinthe as the spirit of choice.  Wine and beer are probably both older than recorded human history itself.  Whiskey and brandy are probably of medieval origin, while gin is an early modern, most likely seventeenth-century product.  But absinthe is a product of the early industrial age, probably first produced in 1792 by a physician.  It’s creation is thus closely contemporary with the work of Alessandro Volta on “animal electricity” and thus with Mary Shelley’s inspiration for Frankenstein. Only connect…

But beyond that association, there’s a close connection between absinthe and both erotic and poetic inspiration, and that perhaps represents my own point of view more than Corwin’s.   To an extent I have not seen for any other spirit, absinthe was personified as la fée verte, the Green Fairy.  She was a potent (if dangerous) spirit:

with no small appeal.

Pleasure à l’outrance, even at the risk of self-destruction.  An appropriate name in erotic mad science indeed!

The Green Fairy was banned for a long time, even in the countries was distilled.  The wormwood used to make her allegedly contained a dangerous narcotic, but more likely the ban (at least in France) was a form of industrial protectionism for French winemakers.  (That’s the way it so often is, isn’t it?  “For our own good” is a way of lining others’ pockets.) The ban itself at least was an occasion for some interesting art lampooning authoritarian politics, as in the example to the right, commemorating the ban in Switzerland, which followed that in France.  Here the Green Fairy is burned at the stake (her French sister awaits her in heaven).

But there’s a happy ending here, which is that the Green Fairy is now legal again in most juristictions, even the United States.  So I’ll note in passing a favorite brand, “La Capricieuse,” distilled by Claude-Alain Bugnon at Artemisia Distillerie Artisanale, which combines not only wicked potency but one of the most beautiful labels in the spirits world.

Not available (yet?) in the United States, although her milder (but still sexy) sister La Clandestine is.  Santé!

Professor Corwin’s lectures

I should like to note that the references in Professor Corwin’s lectures are not just things made up for fictional purposes.  He is teaching a bona fide course on consciousness and hedonics.   In his first lecture, he discusses the work of Daniel Dennett, in particular Consciousness Explained and also Susan Blackmore, in particular Consciousness:  An Introduction.  Corwin also alludes to some rather more speculative work, citing the Nick Bostrom of Oxford University‘s Future of Humanity Institute, and in particular Bostrom’s famous Simulation Argument (an argument that we are either going extinct soon, or that a posthuman civilization is very unlikely to run large-scale history simulations, or that it is highly likely that we are in fact living in a simulation).

In his second lecture, Corwin goes even further into the speculative by citing perhaps the most challenging thinker in his course, the negative utilitarian David Pearce, who believes in the moral imperative to use technology to transcend the human condition and end all suffering.

Deep and controversial stuff.  Small wonder Professor Corwin is so popular with undergraduates, and so unpopular with conservative moralists.