Oh dear me. Hermann Nitsch‘s bloody/Dionysian/biblical/medical performance art rituals have haunted me since I first learned about them via my high school library’s unusually well-stocked art book section (thanks Mr. Allen !) so I’m amazed to finally see great quality footage of an aktion that I’d previously only seen hazy stills of. I think it’s the combination of the studious manner of the participants and observers and the all out bloody fucking (literally) insanity taking place that unsettles me the most. This stuff causes all sorts of conflicting emotions, and that’s probably the point. See for yourself but only if there’s no kids or really anybody with delicate sensibilities around, alright ?
It would be impossible for me to summarize research psychologist Dr. Jesse Bering’s sprawling essay, One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot, so I won’t even try. However, amongst the more interesting things discussed in the article—trust me, it’s a great read—is the fact that most men basically need to spill their seed, drain the vein, etc, at minimum, every 72 hours. Pair that notion with studies that found women’s bodies rejected sperm that had overstayed its welcome in the male testes (had not been flushed out) by 48 hours.
Masturbation a biological imperative? Looks that way. As Bering points out in the article, imagine if only our parents had known this! The male libido has been exonerated!
But as the article is, as I wrote above, difficult to summarize, here are the final paragraphs, going straight to the punch line, so to speak, where Bering ties together all that had come before quite nicely:
The Psychological Bulletin article on sexual fantasy is chockfull of interesting facts, and those with a more scholarly interest in this subject should read it themselves. [...] But Leitenberg and Henning’s piece was written over fifteen years ago, summarizing even older research. The reason this is important is because it was still long before the “mainstreaming” of today’s Internet pornography scene, where zero is left to the imagination.
And so I’m left wondering … in a world where sexual fantasy in the form of mental representation has become obsolete, where hallucinatory images of dancing genitalia, lusty lesbians and sadomasochistic strangers have been replaced by a veritable online smorgasbord of real people doing things our grandparents couldn’t have dreamt up even in their wettest of dreams, where randy teenagers no longer close their eyes and lose themselves to the oblivion and bliss but instead crack open their thousand-dollar laptops and conjure up a real live porn actress, what, in a general sense, are the consequences of liquidating our erotic mental representational skills for our species’ sexuality? Is the next generation going to be so intellectually lazy in their sexual fantasies that their creativity in other domains is also affected? Will their marriages be more likely to end because they lack the representational experience and masturbatory fantasy training to picture their husbands and wives during intercourse as the person or thing they really desire?
I’m not saying porn isn’t progress, but I do think that over the long run it could turn out to be a real evolutionary game-changer.
I read this story about a magazine called Lavender ‘outing’ an anti-gay Lutheran pastor by crashing his gay ‘chastity’ support group with interest and a chuckle this morning. Pastor Tom Brock, a local radio personality, had notoriously linked a tornado that struck a church and the Minneapolis Convention Center to gay marriage
But then a bunch of articles calling the reporter’s journalistic ethics to task for betraying the anonymity of a support group setting started to appear. Lavender Media’s head Stephen Rocheford confirmed that reporter John Townsend was sent into the program “undercover,” but insists—and I agree with him 100%—that Brock — who broadcasts on a Christian radio station called KKMS-AM nearly every day of the week— is a major “get” for the gay community of Minneapolis:
“I personally, and Lavender Magazine as a matter of policy, do not believe in outing anyone. People are allowed to be crazy and dysfunctional in their lives. There’s one exception: a public figure who says one thing and does another. This is not the first homosexual minister who denounces homosexuality in public and engages in it in private.”
Damn straight (ahem) and every time one of these twisted, self-loathing Christian closet cases is exposed as a hypocrite, displays of public homophobia will become rarer and rarer and this is a very, very good thing. Brock should look at this new chapter in his life as a good thing, too, because he’ll no longer be able to live a lie and hurt the very people he might otherwise (if he is to be honest with himself) be the most appropriate pastor for. Go with God, Pastor Brock, go with God, mi’ fren…
Anti-gay Lutheran pastor protest too much (Lavender)
Lavender ‘outs’ Lutheran pastor—by crashing confidential support group (Minneapolis Post)
Lutheran Pastor Tom Brock Blamed ELCA’s Tornado on Homosexuality. Which, Uh, He Suffers From (Queerty)
Even if you’re a soccer layman who knows the name Pele, you’ve likely also heard the name Diego Maradona. The legendary 49-year-old Argentine player and coach, who captained his national team to win the 1986 World Cup is known as much for his off-field controversies (like his 20-year cocaine habit) as for those on-field, including his “Hand of God” goal.
“Perversion for Profit links pornography to the Communist conspiracy and the decline of Western civilization.” The producer, Citizens for Decent Literature, Inc. was the organization of crooked banker Charles “Mr. Clean” Keating, one of the central figures in the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s. Clearly Keating and his cohorts seemed to know an awful lot about the pornography available at the time.
Amusingly the Japanese press is now “debunking” this article’s claims, which appeared in the Korea Times. Not that she didn’t say this, and not that she’s not having sex with the Chinese students. It’s just that Anri Suzuki apparently has no PhD!
Japanese AV star with a doctorate, Anri Suzuki, 24, is having sex with Chinese students for free in Japan to apologize for her country’s invasion of China.
Suzuki won her doctors degree in history at one of the prestigious universities in her home country. Unlike other graduates, she focused on the Japanese invasion of China; writing the paper “The History of the Japanese Invasion into China.”
“We have to respect history and cannot obliterate it. I want to cure the wounds of Chinese with my body, and I am practicing this by having sex with Chinese students in Japan,” she said. “I think it is psychological compensation to them. Actually, Chinese students treat me more friendly and comfortably than Japanese.”
Eight days after the West End premiere of the play based on his autobiography, Dandy in the Underworld, top-hatted London-based extreme artist and lifestylist Sebastian Horsley was found dead this morning at age 47 of an apparent heroin overdose.
Born to wealthy alcoholics, Horsley is best known for traveling to the Philippines to be crucified as part of his research for a set of paintings dealing with the topic. But besides his arcane fashion sense, penchant for whoring, and ability to make the scene—running with the likes of Nick Cave, Current 93, Coil and others—Horsley was an accomplished painter and writer, and a guy with a drawling accent who could hold court in a red velvet chair with the best of them.
The Soho Theatre cancelled tonight’s performance of Dandy…, but will continue on tomorrow. Our own Richard Metzger put it best when told the news: “How sad that the world has one less total pervert.”
Today marks the half-century anniversary of the premiere of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, which—along with Fellini’s La Dolce Vita opening earlier the same year—used the artform of cinema to hold up the cracked mirror of compulsive desire to Western civilization.
Movies, of course, would never be the same. Who better to drive the point home than our friendly neighborhood Lacanian critical theorist from Slovenia, Slavoj Žižek, from his excellent 2006 documentary, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema?
