David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method”

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Jul 132011
 

Speaking of Canadian’s with a kinky attitude towards sex, check out this trailer for director David Cronenberg’s next feature, a film about the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung and their masochistic female patient, featuring a fair bit of costume drama and kink.

Cronenberg’s had an interesting career trajectory. His early films, such as Shivers (aphrodisiac parasites spread through a Montreal apartment complex) and The Brood (people start externalizing their psychologies through literal bodily transformations), were far more experimental and visceral and political, in the best traditions of 1970s horror films.

Over the decades, he’s become a lot more respectable. He complains in interviews that he is still listed in IMDB as “Dave ‘Deprave’ Cronenberg”. While I still consider myself a Cronenberg fan, and I respect his career decisions, I also feel that his latest films just aren’t as gripping as his earlier works. If I wanted to sell people on the idea that Cronenberg is a great director, I’d show them Dead Ringers or Crash, not Spider or Eastern Promises.

You can see the same concerns in his latter works like Eastern Promises or A History of Violence as in his middle period The Fly: a man struggling against his transformation into a monster. I still maintain The Fly is the superior work.

My hope is that this story will allow Cronenberg to loosen up a little and not understate his themes.

John Glassco and “Harriet Marwood, Governess”

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Jul 122011
 

You could do an interesting anthology of major literary figures who wrote porn/erotica on the side: Voltaire, Diderot, Byron, Swinburne, Wilde, James, etc. (Sacher-Masoch is a different case, a writer who is remembered only for writing erotica, when he is remembered at all.)

Canada’s entry in this particular literary field is John Glassco, who was quite prolific under several pseudonyms.

From a review of a biography of Glassco, published in The Walrus:

Glassco was a prolific author of elegant, sadomasochistic pornography; his internationally bestselling whipping classic, Harriet Marwood, Governess, is stylistically superior to many revered creations of CanLit. Yet in contrast to the reception received by the work of Henry Miller or Charles Bukowski, Glassco’s naughty books never attracted an underground following in his own country. Even Memoirs of Montparnasse, praised everywhere, fell into neglect after accusations that it caught the spirit rather than the letter of the lost generation.

The author’s blog also discusses Glassco’s pornographic offerings in detail:

In his seventy-one years, John Glassco produced five books of verse, eight volumes of translation, and the prose masterpiece Memoirs of Montparnasse, but not one approached the sales he enjoyed with The English Governess and its sister book Harriet Marwood, Governess. Both stories of flagellantine romance between a boy, Richard Lovel, and his beautiful governess, Harriet Marwood, they’re easily confused and are often described as being one and the same. Harriet Marwood, Governess, though published second, is actually the older of the two. In 1959, it was offered to Maurice Girodias, but the publisher thought it too tame. Glassco then rewrote the novel – apparently with the help of his wife – slashing it by more than half and ramping up the sex. Made to order, as The English Governess it was quickly accepted and appeared within ninety days under Olympia’s Ophelia Press imprint.

Publication by Olympia put Glassco (or “Miles Underwood”) in august company, including Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Nabokov, Burroughs and Reage/Aury/Desclos.

There are also discussions of Glassco’s flagellant poem and literary hoax Squire Hardman, another pornographic hoax called The Temple of Pederastry, completing Aubrey Beardsley’s Under the Hill/Die Venusberg, and the rubber fetishist novel Fetish Girl (written as “Sylvia Bayer”)(Further discussion)

A discussion of different editions of The English Governess.

As a Canadian, it’s nice to know people of Canada are keeping the end up. More on that in another post.

Addendum: Busby as another blog dedicated to promoting his book and discussing Glassco.

Addendum: I think Glassco may have been the author of the mysterious excerpt from Beardsley’s Under the Hill printed in Gerald and Caroline Greene’s S-M: The Last Taboo.

Political bondage

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Jul 032011
 

I found the above image on a Facebook page for Americans Against The Tea Party, a contemporary example of virtue in distress/naked (implicitly) bound woman as part of political discourse.

The gallery of images on the Americans Against the Tea Party provide an insight into the less rational side of political discourse. Some of the images make arguments, while other rely on negative associations, and specifically refer to faces and bodies. Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are likened to apes. Two or three display morbidly obese women as typical “teabaggers”, linking body imagery and misogyny and classism. One pastes Beck’s face onto a slim man in a leatherboy outfit, linking political deviance and sexual deviance, plus likely the cliche of overcompensatory masculinity as a cover for homosexuality. There are also easy cheap shots of juxtaposing right wingers with Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan (two organizations who really knew how to use visual iconography).

These images were presumably created and distributed by left-wing individuals, and I have no doubt that there are comparable images being created and distributed by right-wing individuals. This is a particular level of political discourse, which is very much about the body, and particularly the female body. The image displayed above, separated from the contextualizing text, could be used in other political discourses. A right-winger could use the image of a nude, bound woman to suggest the idea of a woman’s body being confined and interfered with through abortion, decriminalization of prostitution, or other liberal ideas. The image is equally usable.

This image seems to come from a tumblr account, which has a series of lefty political mini-posters. Some of them simply urge the viewer to vote, and uses mild cheesecake (and some beefcake) images to get attention. Others use children-as-victims as motivating devices.

Another image shows a bound woman, though her expression indicates angry defiance, not victimization. The art style suggests the image was recycled from some earlier conflict, indicating the timelessness of this image.

One of the images explicitly shows a woman bound, with the caption, “There’s no safeword with the GOP”, which uses the idea of consensual BDSM as a contrast to what happens between women and the right wing social agenda. (It’s in an image display Flash app, so I can’t link to it.)

As we’ve discussed before, the sexual, and particularly female sexual victimization, has been used in all kinds of political discourse: for and against Atlantic slavery, the Greek rebellion, the German invasion of Belgium in WWII, the Stalag novels, PETA’s ad campaign, and on and on. What’s interesting is that these images linger on well after the conflict that inspired them becomes irrelevant, or at least less relevant. They become detached from political discourse and become solely sexual, part of pornographic discourse.

Addendum: by chance, I came across a book in the erotica section that had a variation of the same image on the cover, Playing by Melanie Abrams, Black Cat, 2008.

The Sheik: book, film and history

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Jul 012011
 

“Historicizing The Sheik: Comparisons of the British Novel and the American Film,” by Hsu-Ming Teo

Cecilia Tan pointed me at the Journal of Popular Romance Studies, which feature a fascinating article by Hsu-Ming Teo on the historical context of EM Hull’s novel The Sheik, which was turned into a famous hit film of the same name, starring Rudolph Valentino. If not the basis of the “woman ravished by noble savage” trope, The Sheik is certainly one of the better known examples of it.

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The function of queer pulp

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Jul 012011
 

I twigged something when I read Cecilia Tan’s blog notes about the IASPR romance conference.

Which leads me to wonder if I did an analysis of BDSM-based and queer-focused romance if I would find a greater emphasis on the value of the sex (and its place in validating personal identity) than on the more “traditional” romance ideals of true love tied to a diamond ring and landed estate/portfolio? Of course, there are the same-sex romances, for example, which take place in an alternate universe where there is no homophobia, and where everything is entirely the same as possible to a traditional romance except for the one key point that the two main characters are man and man or woman and woman. These would have to be counted separately, I suppose… or I’d have to posit a separate axis on which to divide the genres. Hmmm.

Validation of personal identity for those who are marginalized is perhaps a bigger prize than financial security or the attention and love of a powerful/high status mate. Does that change the rules of romance for queer-identified authors/protagonists/readers? Or does it merely establish the rules more firmly, it’s merely that the prize is different?

So, the old gay and lesbian pulps had the additional function of validating personal desires and types of relationships that mainstream society didn’t recognize. Even if the story isn’t a variation of the marriage plot, i.e. ending in Happily Ever After, just saying it is okay to desire a person of the same sex or something other than heterosexual coitus is important. That undermines the erotica/romance distinction, and/or gives erotica a higher purpose of exploring and experimenting with desire, rather than endlessly renegotiating monogamous domesticity.

The myth of ancient houses

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Jun 182011
 

“People don’t lie on the Internet!”
-Dept. Raineesha Williams, Reno 911!

I recntly read a Fetlife discussion of the old CastleRealm BDSM website and what was and wasn’t true about its operators, Lord Colm and slade jade (including whether jade actually existed). One of the posters linked to the preserved text of the CastleRealm site.

Thanks to the miracle that is the Wayback Machine, we can examine old websites, and trace the history of ideas and memes. This page (scraped from November 2000 but copyrighted 1998) presents the “ancient houses” idea with a completely straight face.

Houses: A common term for the families or small communities that have evolved from adhering to certain social activities, social values and morals associated with the Dominant/submissive lifestyle. Each “clan” developed their own special standards, style and customs and there are wide variations as to what is acceptable within a “house.” We find two distinctly different styles between the two main groups found within the term:

* The Oriental Society: The lifestyle developed in the Oriental countries, mainly Japan. This group of “houses” or “families” focuses mainly on the psychological and artistic aspects of Dominance and submission. Physical punishment and pain play little part in their world and great attention is given to the surrender and control of the mind and emotions. The beauty and artistic appeal of their method is easily seen in Japanese rope bondage.

* The European Council: Developed in Europe, mainly Germany, Belgium and France, this group is heavy into the more physical aspects of the lifestyle and incorporates the bulk of the BDSM practices we find today. The German houses gave birth to the PonyGirl/Boy and many of the other fetishes found in the power exchange. Within the European houses we find most of the Dominatrixes and male submissives, along with the practices associated with them, such as CBT.

…

Are these “houses” real or only a fantasy created by some fiction book?
These houses are very real as are the people who are involved in them. The history available dates their existence as far back as 2000 years and they most likely existed before then in a less structured manner. It is a common practice for people with similar ideals and interests to join together to share their experiences and needs, so the existence of these groups should not come as any great surprise to those who are aware of human behavioral sciences. You may not see a sign hanging over the doorway of the little white house on the corner of 3rd and Maple Street that says “Joe’s D/s House and Grill,” but they are there, hidden from view and doing very nicely in our everyday society.

One of the things that has undermined the existence of these houses is the current fad D/s is undergoing. It seems that every Tom, Dick and Harry has jumped on the band wagon and proclaimed themselves to be members of this or that house and boast of having their Masters degree in BDSM or D/s. The truth is that most of them are charlatans who have found a way to give credence to their misuse of power and pitiful knowledge. Their unfounded claims have planted more misunderstanding in this lifestyle than almost any other factor. Be wise and have doubts about anyone who solicits you for enrollment in a “house” especially on the Internet or at scene clubs. Most people who truly have roots in the old families are not about to proclaim it to the world.

…

Why are these houses so secretive?
Like any group that goes against the mainstream beliefs of the society within which it exits, there are carefully guarded standards about their establishment and being. Five hundred years ago, such things were only considered bizarre and extreme but not criminal. Today, with laws and concerns for human rights, such organizations fall into the jurisdiction of illegal activities or criminal acts. It doesn’t take an active imagination to consider the consequences for a group or individual discovered to be living a D/s lifestyle or to be practicing some of it’s activities. Remember that in many states it is still a crime to engage in oral or anal sex with your spouse. Just think of what a group who advocates the practices found in BDSM would be facing. Not a lovely thought, heh? Then is it any wonder that you don’t see billboards pointing out the way to “Joe’s D/s House and Grill?”

Laura Kipnis on the lack of female sex scandals

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Jun 132011
 

Laura Kipnis opines on the DSK scandal and the apparent lack of female sex scandals, drawing on Louise Kaplan’s Female Perversions:

In her influential 1991 book “Female Perversions” (later made into a movie starring Tilda Swinton), psychoanalyst Louise Kaplan writes that we tend to think of sexual perversions as a male province only because female perversions are more hidden. In fact, they’re hidden in plain sight. The point is applicable to sex scandals too, I believe. According to Kaplan, perversions aren’t primarily about illicit or deviant sexual behaviors, they’re actually pathologies of gender identity. “What makes a perversion a perversion is a mental strategy that uses one or another social stereotype of masculinity or femininity in a way that deceives the onlooker about the unconscious meanings of the behaviors she or he is observing.”

…

Women too, are capable of perverse behavior, and enlisting others in such stratagems, but this kind of thing generally doesn’t make the headlines. Very occasionally we see women getting themselves into scandals in ways we’d consider “masculine”—high school teachers sleeping with their students for instance—but it’s rare. More often, when we see a woman behaving in caricatured feminine ways, the response is, “Thanks for doing the laundry, baby.”

The stereotypical cliche of perverse sexuality, the CEO who pays a dominatrix thousands of dollars to dress in a French maid uniform and do her laundry, doesn’t seem to have a direct female analogue. When we look for female scandals with this perspective, things start to pop up, of female celebrities under tremendous pressure and acting out in bizarre ways. I think of Angelina Jolie’s (perhaps excessive) display of maternity in adopting African children, or Tammy Faye Bakker’s grotesque exaggeration of female makeup back in the days, or women who have multiple cosmetic surgeries. Still, these examples are something inward directed.

As women move into more positions of authority in the corporate and political realms, will they start to display more male-like sexual perversions, or will we have to create a new category of scandal for them? Tabloid journalism obsesses over the bodies of female celebrities (too fat? too thin? botched operation? pregnant? infertile?) but not their sexualities, not the objects of their desires.

Ann Coulter vs. Conversio Virium

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Jun 072011
 

After hearing about this 2006 incident on the Masocast, I dug up a transcript of Ann Coulter’s views on the Conversio Virium, the BDSM educational group at Columbia University:

Well, what’s sort of surprising about it, and which is why I really think you should get a picture of the members of these clubs and, you know, a picture of the young College Republicans and the Christians, because someone who needs to join a club at college to find a way to have sex, probably not your lookers.

I realize this was five years ago and documenting Coulter’s inanities at this point is akin to flogging a dead horse, but it bears repeating.

Coulter’s attack is based on unsupported assumption about the people in this club. Coulter doesn’t take the standard feminist tack of arguing that this legitimizes sexual coercion and violence against women. Instead, she makes social attacks on the people involved: they must be ugly or socially inept, coming from broken homes. Conversative Christians are implied to be the true sexual experts, and more physically attractive.

This is a different strain of outside criticism against BDSM, that kinky people are unattractive, damaged and deeply unhip.

Shortbus: Lonely at the Orgy

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Jun 072011
 

Shortbus 2006, written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. IMDB

I grew up with have fond memories of Sook-Yin Lee as a VJ on Canada’s MuchMusic (she memorably mooned the camera on her last broadcast day) and I still listen to her now and again on CBC’s Definitely Not The Opera podcast, where she hosts an NPR-like show about personal anecdotes. That’s why it was a slightly odd experience to see her having un-faked, penetrative intercourse in the first few minutes of this movie. (According to the DVD commentary, she was wearing a female condom.) It felt a little like I was seeing somebody I knew in person having sex.

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Django Unchained: Tarantino on slavery

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Jun 032011
 

Quentin Tarantino has turned in the script for his next film, Django Unchained.

According to one review of the script:

Django is a freed slave, who, under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter (played by Christopher Waltz the evil Nazi officer in Inglorious Basterds) becomes a bad-ass bounty hunter himself, and after assisting Waltz in taking down some bad guys for profit, is helped by Waltz in tracking down his slave wife and liberating her from an evil plantation owner. And that doesn’t even half begin to cover it! This film deals with racism as I’ve rarely seen it handled in a Hollywood film. While it’s 100 percent pure popcorn and revenge flick, it is pure genius in the way it takes on the evil slave owning south. Think of what he did with the Nazis in Inglorious and you’ll get a sense of what he’s doing with slave owners and slave overseers in this one.

As Tarantino himself said earlier:

I’d like to do a Western. But rather than set it in Texas, have it in slavery times. With that subject that everybody is afraid to deal with. Let’s shine that light on ourselves. You could do a ponderous history lesson of slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad. Or, you could make a movie that would be exciting. Do it as an adventure. A spaghetti Western that takes place during that time. And I would call it ‘A Southern.’

The reason I’m writing about this and other topics only loosely tied to BDSM is that it’s about the discourse of slavery. There are lots of ways to write and talk about slavery. You have Roots, which is the big budget, mainstream TV miniseries treatment, in the earnest melodrama mode. You have Goodbye Uncle Tom, which is the exploitation/enraged quasi-documentary/polemic mode. You can argue that one’s more politically progressive than the other, but you can’t completely discount the other. It is saying something about slavery, and we need to listen to it, at least.

Over on the DoubleX blog, Debra J Dickerson has misgivings:

But I do worry that Tarantino will over rely on stock incidents of slavery porn: whippings, auction blocks, rapes. Slavery and white supremacism were so much more complicated than that. Why does the master holding Django’s wife have to be cruel? He’d have left her there if she’d been working only under Union rules and spent her evenings sipping mint juleps on the veranda in complete equality with Massa? Slavery wasn’t evil because some masters were. Slavery was evil because, however humane its conditions, it is a crime against humanity. Making the wife’s owner a beast … it worries me.

Dickerson outlines a variety of scenarios of betrayal and emotional cruelty fostered by the institution of slavery: the children sold away from their parents, husbands from wives, the moment when you realize that person you grew up with owns you, and so on. These are emotional hurts, and arguably deeper than lash marks.

But they’re the core of a dramatic movie, not an action movie. And Tarantino wants to make an action movie.

However, for all it’s action-movie style and glamour, I think Kill Bill did have something to say about gender relations, emotional manipulation and abuse, sexuality and sexual violence. Note that, while Volume 1 ended with a giant battle and a duel, Volume 2 ends with a dramatic scene, of Bill and the Bride talking over a table. The actual fight is over in less than twenty seconds. Tarantino revels in the form of the action movie, but what’s ultimately driving the entire story is the interpersonal dynamic, the mutual betrayal, between the Bride and Bill.

Thus, I think that Tarantino will come up with an emotional drive for his story, and one that is more complex than a straightforward captivity/revenge/women-in-distress narrative. Or rather, he could. (I keep thinking of the scene in Pulp Fiction, when Tarantino inserts himself as a character, who drops multiple N-bombs in front of a black man who happens to be a professional killer, and gets away with it.)

Dickerson’s reference to “stock incidents of slavery porn: whippings, auction blocks, rapes” suggests just how easily writing about slavery can slide over into the exploitative or pornographic. Django Unchained could slip and fall into that. Or we could view it as just another way of writing about slavery.

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