Category Archives: female sexuality

Candace Bushnell @50

Candace Bushnell (born December 1 1958) is an American author and columnist based in New York City. She is best known for writing a sex column that was turned into a book, Sex and the City, which became the basis of the TV series, Sex and the City.

Set in New York City, the show’s focus is on four female characters, stereotypcally defined as Carrie the shopaholic, Miranda the cynic workaholic, Charlotte the hopeless romantic and Samantha the sexaholic. John Big, the male lead is the emotionally unavailable male afraid of commitment.

The show tackled socially relevant issues, often specifically dealing with well-to-do professional women in society in the late 1990s, and how changing roles and definitions for women affected the characters.

Well-to-do professional women constitute the trope of strong and independent women, connected to third-wave feminism. If one considers strong and independent women in history one arrives at Lilith, Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great, courtesans and George Sand. To encompass it all are women’s rights throughout history and in the 20th century: feminism. In the late 20th century there are Riot Grrrls and Girl Power.

On The Simpsons, Sex and the City was parodied as “Nookie in New York” with Marge’s sister saying “It’s a show about four straight women who act like gay men”.

Gratuitous nudity #14

My previous post provides me with an opportunity to provide you with a new instance of gratuitous nudity: a beautiful still from Africa Addio.

Africa Addio (1966) – Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi
Image sourced here. [Dec 2005]

Africa Addio is a 1966 Italian documentary film about the decolonization in Africa. It was shot over a period of three years, by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, two Italian filmmakers who had gained fame a few years earlier (with co-director Paolo Cavara) as the directors of Mondo Cane in 1962. The image was taken from the Captain Trash[1] site somewhere in 2005. This site is a treasure trove of “trash culture“. See its Google gallery here. See for example this image, of which I do not know the provenance.

Gratuitous nudity #12

Strip-tease en erotiek

Dutch translation cover

Huguette Delorme

French original cover

Yesterday, I went to Tuf Tuf, a not-so-reputed second hand book store on the South of Antwerp, my neighbourhood. It’s a real drag to hunt for books there: not enough space, books not arranged alphabetially, battered copies. But sometimes gems are to be found, I picked up a copy of Midnight Movies there once. Aside from this, they specialize in erotica. I spotted two Georges Pichard books yesterday priced at €86 each. I don’t think I’ve mentioned the canonical Pichard here before, his work is super-relevant today, as the good people at Kink.com have brought his ultra-pornographic vision to life.

Back to the subject at hand, me at Tuf Tuf yesterday. I bought Moderne Liefde, an anthology of short stories which previously appeared in Playboy Magazine (with a story by Borges, whose only hint at eroticism I’ve yet seen has been in his story Ulrica), Striptease en Erotiek[1] (a Dutch language translation of Strip-tease et érotisme[2]), De Leidraad (Le Lien) by Vanessa Duriès, and Erotiek by Francesco Alberoni.

Above, I’ve shown you the covers (above the translation I bought, below its original) of Strip-tease et érotisme, the actual object of this post.

Histoire et philosophie du strip-tease : Essai sur l’ érotisme au music-hall, as its full title reads,  was written by François des Aulnoyes, to my knowledge one of the very few books he’s written. The book deals with striptease, what makes it interesting is that it was published in 1957, strictly speaking a couple of years before the sexual revolution. The text is hogwash and very briefly invokes Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, Émile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto and Freud, these are the only sources mentioned. Its historic overview also mentions Janine Jan and Anne Bruneau as 19th century predecessors to French striptease.

What makes the book interesting are the photographs by Roland Carré, see the cover shot of Huguette Delorme above. Like I said, the pre-sexual revolution mode, with all reference for example to pubic hair airbrushed away (this was the pre-Photoshop-age).

Following models are featured: Melody Bubbles, Clara Saint-Honoré, Sheiba Scott (very sexy), Vera Bell, Japanese model Yoko Tani, Flora Balmoral, Ketty Rogers, Luce Aubertin, Rita Renoir, Tony Teaser, Lola Stromboli, Sidonie Patin, Dodo d’Hambourg, Dora Bell, Magda (of the Concert Mayol), Kitty Tam-Tam, and Rita Cadillac.

Who was Roland Carré?  The only person I know who can answer that question is Au carrefour étrange.

Icon of Erotic Art #33

Fischl Eric bad_boy by m_orfeo0111

Bad Boy (1981) by Eric Fischl

Today is Icon of Erotic Art #33 day. Remember this series is handmade, I’m not pulling this out of a list. So it was with great pleasure that I was reminded Eric Fischl‘s Bad Boy painting[1].

Bad Boy (1981) depicts a young boy looking at and older woman shown in a provocative masturbatory (a beaver shot to be precise) pose on a bed, while the subject is surreptitiously slipping his hand into the woman’s purse and presumedly stealing its contents.

The painting unites eroticism and crime, between the two is a very strong link first explored by Sade and verbally juxtaposed by Jules Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly in Happiness in Crime, a short story first published in the 1874 collection Les Diaboliques. I hope to explore this connection later.

Bad Boy is a painting which provokes the imagination, an equal amount of events seem to be in the painting as outside of it.

I imagine the neighborhood outside the room depicted suburbian. I imagine her husband (she is married and sexually neglected) watering the garden in a David Hockney painting manner. Maybe her husband is taking a A Bigger Splash[2] in their pool. Or the same husband is entertaining his gay lover in Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)[3].

Since all figurative painting involving the human figure is narrative painting a number of questions can be raised:

What is the relationship between the older woman and the boy? Is he her son? Or is she barren? Is he a neighborhood boy who entered her house without her knowing? Is the woman aware that she is being stolen from and spied upon at the same time? Is it a game they play regularly and is the boy rewarded the money afterwards? Who is to tell?

Gratuitous nudity #11 and Icon of Erotic Art #32

sophie dahl by modelvancouver

Sophie Dahl, i-D, 1997

Sophie Dahl first came to my attention with her Opium (perfume) ad[1].

Today, following a link that started[2] at Trevor Brown‘s blog, which celebrated Takashi Itsuki‘s acrotomophiliac eroticism, which backlinked[3] to the new magazine Coilhouse (amazing new magazine, started as a blog in Aug 2007), I arrived at the photography of Nick Knight. On his SHOWstudio.com site, one finds this image[4] (first published in i-D, 1997), which frankly, leaves me sick with desire. Just what is it that brings on this sickness? It’s the softness of her skin, the presumed quality of her fatty tissue, the pot belly and the pear-shaped breasts. And the nails. Amen.

This is a first for my series, where an image is both an instance of gratuitous nudity and an Icon of Erotic Art.

The “pin-up girl” of the French Surrealists

Augustine, Charcot's star patient at Salpêtrière by you.

Charcot‘s Louise Augustine, later dubbed the “pin-up girl” of the French Surrealists, attempted many escapes. The hospital’s last entry concerning Augustine, dated September 9, 1880, notes that she “escaped from the Salpetriere, disguised as a man.”  [2]

Surprisingly, Les démoniaques dans l’art – Charcot et Richer[3], a book I acquired over the summer, does not feature the photograph depicted above, nor others from this set[4].

British writer Helen Kitson has written a fictionalized account of the Charcot/Augustine history here[5].

An excerpt:

‘I have named her Augustine.’
‘Named a lunatic after a saint! Well, perhaps they are much the same. The idiot, the mystic…’
‘She is not an idiot.’
She listens at the door, biting her fingernails. She needs to know what they want from her so that she can perform when asked. She has to know how mad she’s supposed to be. Satisfied, she goes back to her room where she dreams of blood and fire. Faces hidden behind shrouds. Dead men.

Visual postscript:

illustration du livre Hystéro-épilepsie de Paul Richer 1881

Bra burning: the event was not televised, as it did not happen

I’ve praised the non-event before[1].

Bra burning by you.

Welcome to Miss America cattle auction.

Today’s non-event is of a different nature. It’s been exactly 40 years since the New York Radical Women did not burn their bras[2] at the 1968 Miss America contest in Atlantic City. A non-event (Someone suggested lighting a fire, but a permit could not be obtained, and so there was no burning, nor did anyone take off her bra) which went into history as a milestone of female protest against male oppression. I can’t help but wonder if the protesters had been male, would they have stopped their plan to burn the contents of their “Freedom Trash Can” for lack of a permit?

Also, in general, male oppressors would have been glad if beautiful women had stopped wearing bras; most women on the other hand thought and still think that not wearing bras is impractical.

The event was not televised, as it did not happen.

Bras bring memories.

Bras – short for brassieres – remind us of John Currin‘s 1997 painting The Bra Shop[3] and Cymande‘s song “Bra,”[4] from their 1973 debut album.

Cymande’s “Bra” (WMC#77) is not their signature song, they are better-known for tracks such as “Brother on the Slide[5], which is WMC #78; and the “The Message[6], WMC #79.

John Currin‘s 1997 painting The Bra Shop is IoEA #34.

Genre scenes, trompe-l’œils and occasional dashes of eroticism

Checkers-1803 by Louis-Léopold BoillyUne_loge by Louis-Léopold BoillyLa Toilette intime by Louis-Léopold Boilly

Passer_payez_detail1 by Louis-Léopold BoillySlurping_Oysters_1825 by Louis-Léopold BoillyL'effet_du_mélodrame by Louis-Léopold Boilly

Via Suzanna of Wurzeltod[1] comes the work of French painter Léopold Boilly, whose work ranges from genre scenes to trompe-l’œils and occasional dashes of eroticism.

Before production of the Sade biopic Quills[2] began, costume designer Jacqueline West gave Kate Winslet a copy of Boilly’s “Woman Ironing”[3] to give her a feel for the character, which Winslet said greatly influenced her performance.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYaiyvJJcWw&]

YouTube mashup of Quills (set to Nine Inch NailsCloser“)

The sadly defunct arts blog Lemateurdart has one more Boilly [5] and Jahsonic previously on Quills[6][7].

Quills is WCC #59. Toilette intime[4] is IoEA #33.

Why this curious and debased love?

Waloli detail by you.

From Waloli, our reporter in Tokyo

Waloli: Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first American over-the-counter publication of Russian-born author Nabokov‘s Lolita. When Nabokov’s “dirty book” hit the streets of the USA, it sold 100,000 copies in three weeks, an immediate success that would allow the 60-year-old scholar and novelist the freedom to resign from teaching.

Pretty much everything about that book has been said, but I think many of you have not seen this interview conducted by Pierre Berton and Lionel Trilling for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation now at YouTube[1][2].

The interview was filmed on November 26, 1958 at The Rockefeller Center studios in New York City. It was Nabokov’s first television interview. The subject was Lolita, covering some of the questions addressed in Nabokov’s 1958 afterword. Most answers were read from index cards.

Pierre Berton:

“Let´s get out the more specific point: Why did you choose this rather odd, and, something that has never been done before, this curious and debased love?

Nabokov:

“Well, on the whole, it flooded me all kinds of interesting possibilities I am not so much interested in the philosophy of the book, as I am in weaving the thing in a certain way, in those intergradation and interweavings of certain themes and subthemes, for instance the systematic line of Mr. Quilty, whom Humbert will kill, does kill …”

The Lolita or nymphet trope has since entered popular consciousness and never left it, especially in Japan, where it evolved into the Gothic Lolita. Most recently British art critic James Putnam curated “Viva Lolita” which featured work from Turkish artist Nazif Topçuoğlu [3]. Here[4] are three of Topçuoğlu’s photos at Wurzelstock[5].

The Lolita trope, in all its manifestations, from Balthus to Trevor Brown, is IoEA #32.

Thank you Waloli, back to the studio.

Daydreamt


Nothing Natural by Jenny Diski

[Amazon.com]
[FR] [DE] [UK]

While reading Jenny Diski‘s Nothing Natural (1986) I daydreamt of publishing my own version of this 1980s version of the classic novel Gordon by Edith Templeton.

The Jahsonic edition had a cover photograph by American photographer Roy Stuart. It depicted either the “La Bonne” (the maid) scene — one of the most erotic scenes in contemporary erotica — or “The Wall” scenario, which is very similar (although with a reversal of gender) to a dream scene in Breillat‘s masterpiece Romance X.

My edition is rewritten to provide for more intelligent discourse and snappier metaphors, and the perspective is changed from Rachel to Joshua. Joshua being the voice of a post-war Sade.