I don’t normally comment too directly on politics here at EroticMadScience, but I should note one thing about Colonel Madder: his use of a terrorist incident to advance his program shows that he has taken to heart a lesson from a source that would seem improbable given Madder’s strongly-held though hardly-unusual politico-cultural views, to wit Randolph Bourne…
Lovis Corinth (1858-1925), "The Weapons of Mars"
…who taught us that “War is the Health of the State.”
Tanya Yip‘s fantasy of tranforming herself into a cello and then being masterfully played has an obvious visual inspiration: Man Ray’s famous image Violon d’Ingres:
An erotic inspiration indeed, especially since the model who posed for the picture was the stunning Kiki de Montparnasse (Alice Prin), who posed for any number of other striking things, such as this 1920 photograph (thus taken when Kiki would have been 18 or 19) Mädchen mit Vase by Julian Mandel.
I felt well-moved writing Tanya’s fantasy — the analogy between a master musician and a skilled lover seems to me very close. (And the analogy also works the other way: cf Honoré de Balzac: “The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin.”) I suppose there’s a rather radical bondage element as well as a transformation fantasy element. After all, if you’re a cello, you can’t move and you’re at the mercy of whoever holds you…
There is an additional detached-heads visual tradition, and it appears to be Japanese. Three images are all via Janitor of Lunacy, but I don’t know much more about their specific provenance. (If anyone could offer any in comments I would be appreciative.) The first has the look of a traditional ukiyo-e.
The next is much more in an anime style. It’s the most thaumatophile of the bunch, what with all those wires and a pretty Rotwang-like figure in the background. Since the main character is a robot, it’s perhaps not surprising that she can be insouciant about the fact that she’s carrying her own head.
And the last falls into the category of “I really am at something of a loss to explain what’s going on here.” But I include it because (among other reasons) the visual look of the rings which divide head from body here is the closest image I’ve found to the hyperspatial cinctures in Where Am I?
Like I wrote, if anyone could contribute any understanding here…
It’s no surprise that after her unusual music lesson, Tanya Yip starts developing and acting on a rich inner erotic life. And it’s probably also no surprise that, stumbling on the view of Tanya’s activity, Tom and Dick get a little distracted…
Rojan colored drawing, circa 1930
Seeing another masturbate can quite the experience for the seer, especially if things are going well for the seen. It can even be quite the experience reflexively: Susie Bright, dispensing auctorial wisdom for writers of erotica in How to Write a Dirty Story, recommends filming your own face at the moment of orgasm and watching that.
Happily in this day and age you can also readily see the faces of others as well: there’s even a (subscription) site called ifeelmyself.com dedicated to erotica of exactly this kind — click through on the left to see their (free) promotional trailer. I promise that you’ll get a little distracted…
Given the technical challenges in what Tanya Yip is trying to sing, it’s perhaps not too surprising that she needs a little extra help.
(Natalie Dessay show us how it’s done here in case your sight reading is a little rusty.)
The rather unusual and improving singing lesson that Tanya gets has its own rather unusual and special inspiration: a famous (or notorious) painting by Balthasar Kłossowski de Rola, or Balthus (1908-2001) as he was more commonly known. The painting is The Guitar Lesson (1934), and I’ll bet it’s scandalous even today (note that the image is from Wikipedia; I am reproducing it in-line for reader convenience):
Controversial, but unquestionably high art created by one of the twentieth century’s greatest painters. It is even used by Richard Posner in his magisterial 1992 book Sex and Reason (pp. 376-7) as an example of how it can be nigh impossible to draw a clean distinction between “art” and “pornography.”
Judge Posner helpfully notes also that the girl in the painting whose guitar lesson has turned into a very different kind of lesson is in the same position as Christ in Enguerrand Quarton‘s fifteenth century La Pietà de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon.
Ah, so it’s blasphemy as well as art! Good, good…
Rob’s dream-self in the first Gnosis dreamscape is so desperate for the love of Michiko Maeda’s dream-self oriental princess that he resorts to the rather dangerous assistance of a sorceress.
And I enjoyed writing that, because I have something of a weakness for sorceresses. Goes along with being a thaumatophile, I guess. Every time I have the chance to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I try to stop by and gaze at this painting, which was probably my initial visual inspiration for the sorceress scene.
Domenico Guidobono (1668–1746), "Allegory"
That’s good. Woman. Book. Assorted supernatural stuff that I can’t decode. But perhaps a little better from my perspective is this image (possibly of Circe) by the English Pre-Raphaelite John William Waterhouse.
John William Waterhouse (1849 - 1917), "Sorceress"
Woman. Book. And still better for the mad science lover, some sort of flask or beaker right in front of her. A good image if you think that the sexist organ a woman has is her brain.
But of course Rob’s dream is an oriental fantasy, so we need an image from orientalist art to really make the visual image work. Fortunately, I have one.
Friedrich von Amerling (1803 - 1887), "The Oriental" (click through for larger image)
Woman. Book. Play of light in an oriental setting. Works for me for the sorceress!
Right after the super-patriotic, brave, helpful, clean, young Special Forces Lieutenant John Samson provides a demonstration of his enhanced manliness for Colonel Madder, the Colonel gives us a little theology lesson, about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden:
Albert von Keller (1844 - 1920), "Adam und Eva" (1900). What do you suppose Eve is looking at in this picture?
Colonel Madder tells us that in Eden, Adam was able to achieve an erection by wholly voluntary means, and experienced no lust, and that now Lieutenant Samson, thanks to government mad science, is in the same position. And the Colonel attributes this peculiar view to St. Augustine.
Fictional license on Dr. Faustus’s part? Ha! The fact is that Augustine devotes chapter upon chapter of De civitate dei, his most important single work, staging an amazing festival of sex-negativity, in which he ponders at length such important matters as “Of Shame which Attends all Sexual Intercourse.” And we find, in Book XIV, Chapter 24 of this theological magnum opus, the following clever bit of argument.
| Seminaret igitur prolem uir, susciperet femina genitalibus membris, quando id opus esset et quantum opus esset, uoluntate motis, non libidine concitatis. Neque enim ea sola membra mouemus ad nutum, quae conpactis articulata sunt ossibus, sicut manus et pedes et digitos, uerum etiam illa, quae mollibus remissa sunt neruis, cum uolumus, mouemus agitando et porrigendo producimug et torquendo flectimus et constringendo duramus, sicut ea sunt, quae in ore ac facie, quantum potest, uoluntas mouet. Pulmones denique ipsi omnium, nisi medullarum, mollissimi uiscerum et ob hoc antro pectoris communiti, ad spiritum ducendum ac remittendum uocemque emittendam seu modificandam, sicut folles fabrorum uel organorum, flantis, respirantis, loquentis, clamantis, cantantis seruiunt uoluntati. Omitto quod animalibus quibusdam naturaliter inditum est, ut tegmen, quo corpus omne uestitur, si quid in quocumque loco eius senserint abigendum, ibi tantum moueant, ubi sentiunt, nec solum insidentes muscas, uerum etiam haerentes hastas cutis tremore discutiant. Numquid quia id non potest homo, ideo Creator quibus uoluit animantibus donare non potuit? Sic ergo et ipse homo potuit oboedientiam etiam inferiorum habere membrorum, quam sua inoboedientia perdidit. Neque enim Deo difficile fuit sic illum condere, ut in eius carne etiam illud non nisi eius uoluntate moueretur, quod nunc nisi libidine non mouetur. | The man, then, would have sown the seed, and the woman received it, as need required, the generative organs being moved by the will, not excited by lust. For we move at will not only those members which are furnished with joints of solid bone, as the hands, feet, and fingers, but we move also atwill those which are composed of slack and soft nerves: we can put them in motion, or stretch them out, or bend and twist them, or contract and stiffen them, as we do with the muscles of the mouth and face. The lungs, which are the very tenderest of the viscera except the brain, and are therefore carefully sheltered in the cavity of the chest, yet for all purposes of inhaling and exhaling the breath, and of uttering and modulating the voice, are obedient to the will when we breathe, exhale, speak, shout, or sing, just as the bellows obey the smith or the organist. I will not press the fact that some animals have a natural power to move a single spot of the skin with which their whole body is covered, if they have felt on it anything they wish to drive off—a power so great, that by this shivering tremor of the skin they can not only shake off flies that have settled on them, but even spears that have fixed in their flesh. Man, it is true, has not this power; but is this any reason for supposing that God could not give it to such creatures as He wished to possess it? And therefore man himself also might very well have enjoyed absolute power over his members had he not forfeited it by his disobedience; for it was not difficult for God to form him so that what is now moved in his body only by lust should have been moved only at will. |
Colonel Madder’s point exactly. You can find the relevant Latin text of Book XIV here, and an English translation here. I can make lots of strange shit up, but not this.
Just to recap here: St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Doctor of the Church, and the most important Christian writer in the thirteen-century span between St. Paul and St. Thomas Aquinas, went on for sentence after sentence in his most important work speculating about the exact psychological mechanism through which Adam got his pecker up before the fall.
I wonder what the pious “family values” types would have to say about this, if they knew. Which I’m pretty sure they don’t.
The rather exciting, aphrodisiaic-driven Sigma formal that Maureen gets such a close view of of course has its own long pedigree: another dream of a morality-free zone, a melting world of pleasures taken and given. The idea of the orgy appears over and over in the world’s erotic art, so it behooves me to give a few examples. Take, for instance, this exquisite carved-ivory reel from Japan.
In a very different cultural context, consider the temple sculptures at Khajuraho:
One thing you’re supposed to learn about in a modern college education, of course, is other cultures. The Sigmas and their dates are putting this precept into practice.
Of course, I wouldn’t be a a sex blogger worthy of the name if I at least once post one other very famous orgy scene, this one drawn by the great Wally Wood for Paul Krassner‘s The Realist.
(Click on image for larger version.)
Popular culture is a common area of study in contemporary higher education, too.
Maureen takes advantage of her ability to be invisible to find an unusual scene, and an unusual gratification.
A story from Dr. Faustus’s life lies behind this scene (sadly, one less interesting than I’m sure many of you readers promptly thought of). Here is the background: I spent adolescence surrounded by nice, well brought-up Christian girls whose attitude toward erotic materials was “Porn! Icky poo! Baby Jesus cries!” And then I went off to college and found myself amongst outstanding, well-educated college women whose attitude toward erotica was “Porn! Icky poo! Degrades women!”
And then at about 21 or so I found myself in the company of a lady companion who told me — perhaps a little bashfully — about who incredibly horny she found herself watching a gay male porn movie.
It was a revelatory moment. And Maureen’s invisible girl voyeurism is a tribute to that revelation.
In retrospect it should not have been so surprising. The athlete is one form of extraordinary human perfection, and thereby loaded with erotic interest. The Greeks, in their Olympic games, understood this fact perfectly well.
And significantly, the modern Olympics have always been freighted with both heteroerotic and homoerotic interest. There is a goofy fun pre-code Hollywood movie about which I have blogged before called The Search for Beauty (1934), which pus beauty on display in (among many other ways) the form of Buster Crabbe in the shower.
Naturally, the whole fun them will find its way to Japan, where it will be exploited in anime.
(Note: what an awesome era we live in! You google image search on “gay hentai locker room” and you get “gay hentai locker room.” 187,000 results in 0.07 seconds, when I tried it.)
With the beautiful boys going at it in the locker room, there’s a thought that stands out for me, which I might attribute to my lady companion of all those years ago, or to Maureen for that matter.
Quite.
Tricia knew what she was doing, attempting her seduction of the by-mad-science-enhanced Aloysius by showing up fresh from a shower, clad only in a towel. It’s a very sexy way to come on, as Pierre Bonnard clearly understood.
Pierre Bonnard (1867 - 1947), "In the Bathroom" (1907)
(Fine Wet Canvas forum discussion on Bonnard here.) Needless to say the theme continues right down to the present day, and what better excuse than this scene to throw in a picture of an anime goddess, wrapped in a towel.
Click on the image to see more of the same.
What Aloysius is about to discover, rather to his sorrow, is that even if you go through a thaumaturgic transformation like Den, you are not automatically transferred to a sword-and-sorcery realm of abundant sexual gratification. In fact, a surprising number of your life-problems stay with you…