Pimpin' ain't easy...Fetlife Contest

Pimpin' ain't easy...

I don't usually pimp internet contests and assorted other memes. But Fetlife is running a holiday giveaway.

Now, normally I'd ignore this. But I've already pimped Fetlife here, because I think it's a great community service. It's an online gateway that has brought about a quarter-million people into contact with the Kink Community, and it has a really high threshold of legitimacy. It's not like the old boards I used to see where about 98% of the people were trolls looking for a fight or a date. It's social networking for Kink.

I think that's outstandingly important, because it makes the Kink Community safer by building ties so that people don't have to enter it alone and scared, and have some device for finding safe friends and communities and checking out their options.

That makes Fetish safer and more mainstream, which makes it easier for people to get into it, rather than being fifty and bitter wishing they had known about this stuff when they were young.

Fetlife is actually changing lives and our culture.

So...they're running a contest and giving away 218 items.

That's it. Signup and login and you get put in the drawing. Admittedly you get more chances if you pimp the contest like I'm doing. But...there's not a trick or a downside, it's just an incentive, supplied by their merchants and advertisers.

Have I mentioned that their advertising focus has been "legit" kinksters and pornographers. That's also impressive.

In short I like everything about fetlife. So get over there right now and sign up at www.fetlife.com, and enter the “Sit on Kinky Santa's Lap” contest.

And...Happy Festivus...

Thanksgiving and License WTF

So as we approach the holiday...somebody's holiday, I thought I'd do something entertaining. All of my ideas got nixed with vague mutterings of "public indecency...Sir..." so that leaves me with prose and pictures.

I always have mixed feelings about Thanksgiving. It's true I have a tremendous amount to be Thankful for. But...why do I have to be Thankful about it November 25?

Mostly it's the religious overtones...I'm not big on religion but we knew that.

I was told in school that it was because the Puritans did it, so that just doesn't put Thanksgiving up on my list of favorite holidays.

The celebrators of the First Thanksgiving weren't just Puritans, they were Separatists. Separatists were to Puritans what Jesse Helms was to Republicans.

There were many reasons for coming to the New World. For many Scots-Irish and Continental Europeans it meant a chance to own land, to live free, to get out from under crushing poverty or generations old land-slavery. For the younger sons of Jamestown it meant a chance to make a name for themselves. For the vast majority of English who came as indentured servants it was a chance for a remission of debt, or simply to learn a new craft/trade/service and enter life with references and money and a chance to marry.

The Separatists were fairly well off - economically they were mostly priviliged members of a wealthy class that could afford bribes and patronage. And they didn't flee England for Religious freedom in America. They fled England for Religious freedom in Amsterdam in 1608. Where they found it. In abundance. These people weren't poor. They made good livings as tradesmen in Leiden, and John Robinson actually bought an estate so that the more rural members could make a living.

Their colony failed largely because the Dutch weren't enthusiastic about a bunch of anal-retentive English religious fanatics, and their younger members were peeling off and either going home or becoming culturally Dutch. Amsterdam then was the equivalent of Amsterdam now.

So they fled religious freedom in Amsterdam to come to the U.S. where they could raise their children in their own anal-retentive fashion, if they happened not to die of privation in the meantime. An inspiring example to parents ever since. The Puritans got along famously with the Indians while they were starving and less than a generation later butchered the Wapanoag pretty thoroughly after taking all their land.

And that's not all Thanksgiving has to recommend it. It was largely forgotten about a name for a regional harvest festival. Other places held harvest home, homecoming, etc. Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving largely for political purposes during the Civil War, on several occasions, including 1863.

A side confession...as a Virginian I tend to agree with Historians who have the cheek to suggest the Civil War need not have been fought. I don't agree with involuntary slavery, but there's a fairly good case to suggest that allowing the country to dissolve into war on both sides was a terrible idea, and that abolition in the middle of a bloody internecine conflict led to many of the problems with integration that exist to this day. Just to be clear, I blame southern extremists more for provking a fight, but a real look at the situation paints Lincoln as a political naif who did little more than play the bitter hand of cards he was dealt, not particularly brilliantly, then die before he could be proven incompetent to govern in peacetime.

Context for November 1863....the Union won a huge but fantastically costly victory in Gettysburg in September, but was being forced to enact tremendously unpopular Draft Laws, which provoked riots in New York in July (see "Gangs of New York" for a modern portrayal).

Since Gettysburg (which merely drove out a Confederate invading force) the news had been fairly bad. A bloody defeat at Chickamauga, and a campaign that was stagnating badly in Chattanooga, with no evidence yet that Ulyssees Grant would emerge (as he did) to save the day.

Nowadays we'd be saying "quagmire" and questioning why we had troops in Chattanooga. And George McClellan was doing just that as he geared up his 1864 Presidential Bid. Hard as it is to believe of the man who appears on the Five, Lincoln's days looked numbered. McClellan was widely expected to crush Lincoln and the latter's "Day of Thanksgiving" amounted to "declaring victory" at the end of a muddy campaign season, and declaring that "God was on his side."

So...no great love for Thanksgiving. That said, people have celebrated Harvest Festivals for ten thousand years or so, and I don't suppose it matters what you call it. It is a time to give thanks, however much one doesn't care for long forgotten political gambits, or Puritan morality.

It's Harvest Home, and time for drawing in and thinking about the good things we have and forgiving the sins of the past, possibly even Puritans, and people who spilled blood to enslave their fellow man or maintain political ideals against all costs and reason. I'll have people I love and care for around me, and that is a thing to be thankful for.

So...after that heavy note, a little light entertainment...

First...a contest...driving to work this morning

WTF...

Liscense Plate: TPLS SWD

So...honestly WTF? "Topless Sword" was what immediately came to mind. Kthxpls? Any suggestions. I'm stumped. It's probably obvious and I'm not thinking straight but I cannot for the life of me figure out this plate and miranda, who is fluent in LOL couldn't either.

Music Awards

And, S. suggests "if you don't think BDSM is Mainstream...check this out." I shall now have Adam Lambert and Lady GaGa in the house.

Though I do have to admit the latest Lady GaGa video is pretty cool if only for the cinema homages.

The View from the Roof

In the fall I make three annual pilgrimages. Unless of course I forget to. Unfortunately, one is often to my roof. The Manse passed its centenary a few years back, and the roof is old. The other Victorians in the neighborhood are mostly flat roofed, but the manse boasts a high hip roof which stands proudly above its neighbors.

Very high…

Three and a half stories above the street…not squat modern stories either…on a 45 degree angle. There's no walking. That's not a surface you can "kind of " walk on. It's a rappelling job.

Once upon a time I used to do a little climbing. Never with ropes though. Somebody in our group would get the idea to go rock climbing and we'd pile down some ridiculous scarp or up some cliff, without any regard for our lives, showing our supposed bravery by pointedly ignoring the immediacy of a fall that would leave us hurt or worse. Nowadays I suppose we could call it "extreme sports."

I never really learned to climb the way real climbers do, using ropes and belay points and slings and devices. That didn't suit the "spur of the moment" nature of our crowd. It was a little too much like organized sports.

So, I found myself learning rappelling for the joy of patching my roof, and this weekend it was time to try and fix some of the damages of the year before the winter comes. Eventually I'll get round to coughing up the 20k to pay to have professional roofers handle it, but I keep finding something better to spend the money on when I have it in hand.

I'm not afraid of heights particularly. But I know rappelling is a dangerous sport, and I'm always a little nervous about the fact that I'm self-taught, out of books, not "trained" in the proper fashion. I've never really had the opportunity and I'm smart, but…I'm aware I need to be very careful. There are responsibilities in my life now, and I can't be as reckless as I was many years ago.

But you might have guessed this isn't a story about patching my roof…

I've mentioned before that rope work is not my strong point. miranda is really our rope expert, though jenn is coming right along. I'm pretty good at other 3d work but both girls pick up rope faster than I do, and miranda has a real faculty for being able to tie anything she can see.

Before going out, I had miranda tie the belay and check my auto-block. This isn't climbing for pleasure and I use two Petzl ascenders to handle most of the moving around, but the auto-block is an important safety backup. And of course the belay is the thing that keeps me from contacting the pavement in a fair imitation of a rotten tomato at a Cherry Sisters performance.

In the evening miranda thanked me for the trust I'd shown in allowing her to set up the belay. The fact that I hadn't let my own pride get in the way and felt I had to do it myself, but let someone more competent handle it. "I felt better because I knew I had done it."

That got me to thinking...

One of the qualities I have tried hardest to develop as an adult is the ability to divest control. I am obviously a control freak, or to put it in a more complimentary light a "controlling bastard." I think that's a tendency among Masters and Dominants. Sort of goes with the turf.

But I realized years ago that too much control wasn't good. It left me stuck with my own resources, and try as hard as I might to be a Renaissance Man, I end up being a jack of trades but master of few. I am also not made of time, and to control everything myself is to obligate all of my time.

The reason this was interesting is that control has been a subject with the girls in the past few months. jenn and miranda are both growing very quickly in terms of taking responsibility and finding their way in life. And that is certain to bring up the question "so why the fuck do I let this older man take control of significant elements of my life."

Sure…I have a comparatively egalitarian household. Little of great importance happens without consultation, and I've never represented myself as a "my way or the highway," Master.

But in the end, it is about control. There are times when I must say "I know better than you, and I am going to exert control over you," or it's just a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. I can be as cooperative as hell about it, but if the basic concept isn't there "I will exert control in these ways," then it's all just an empty pretense.

So…it presents a good question. I was raised as Democratic as the next American. Why should anybody give over control to another person. Isn't that a terrible stroke against personal pride.

And I've seen that. It's been a sharp pain. The internal voice asking in the most humiliating possible tone "what kind of useless girl are you that you let some man have control of your life. "

I can point out all the benefits, all the gains, all the growth. But neither girl has ever doubted it, so it's a moot point.

I've sat and talked and heard the same story. "My logical mind tells me that you've improved my life and that I am better off with you and I want to stay. But a part of me is telling me that I should want to run away and hate you because you are controlling me and I ought to be able to stand on my own two feet." And I know it is tough. I see the conflict. Our society teaches us that giving any control to someone else is wrong, is self-betrayal or worse.

I can try to explain why accepting help, guidance and control from another person, why an act of trust and faith that they can guide you is not self-betrayal or immature abrogation of responsibility; that it is wisdom and a sign of maturity.

And it's hard for me to preach what I don't practice. I know in principle I have signed on to being willing to intelligently delegate control of my life and projects. But…because of my age and situation, I am usually the controlling partner.

Today I got a rare chance to give up control without a thought. It was a minor matter, just my own personal safety. It really didn't occur to me not to trust and voluntarily hand control over to someone more experienced than me. It pleased me that I acted to give up control for my own safety as readily and with as little hesitation as I ask my girls to.

But thinking back over the day I understood some of how they feel. I saw myself twenty years ago. Ashamed of not knowing how to tie knots well. Vain and arrogant in my own assurances that I should do everything for myself and my own way. Proud of having learned it all on my own from a book without an instructor.

I would have had to struggle with myself to turn the job over to someone else. It would have been a big deal.

Maturity has had its way. I never had any doubt who should tie my belay. Being "Master" does not mean knowing everything better than everyone else. It means being smart enough to know your own limits.

And I think that is at the core. Maturity and wisdom is understanding one's own limits and understanding how we can accomplish more when we give up control than when we retain it.

I struggle to be a Master worthy of the control I am given.

But I will never be the "go to" guy for knots.

Stumbling on Happiness - Part the First

For the past year or so I’ve been making occasional allusions to a great book with a really stupid title. Daniel Gilbert’s book Stumbling on Happiness sounds like it should be what the late Douglas Adams called a “Liff” – a book that claimed “this book will change your life!”

Gilbert makes no such claim. In fact, being a dry, acerbic wit that I can relate to, he actually tells you that you won’t accept his advice on how to become happy. He's probably right when it comes to stubborn asses like me, but it's useful advice nonetheless.

When somebody talks about “how to be happy” I’m immediately skeptical. My guess is that they are going to sell me a choice lot of horseshit that is little more than common sense, and call it profound. Fortunately Gilbert does not want to give us advice on how to do things to be happier….”eat better, get more rest.” He wants to tell us how the human brain works and how it processes information and how that affects one of three states we lump together as “happiness.”

Gilbert puts forward that most of what affects our “happiness” is our perceptions and handling of the future. He goes on to explain how, and why, we think about the future, and why we make mistakes that lead us to be unhappy. He then goes on to propose a remedy we probably won’t accept.

You can argue about emotions and theory all day long, but Gilbert is talking about firm, provable, mechanical facts about how the brain works. He’s simply not wrong. When he talks about our perceptions he’s defining things as provable as this famous illusion:

It’s a little scary to have the future so reduced, but he does it brilliantly, with tongue in cheek. If you can follow him, you understand a lot more about why we do the things we do, and along the way learn several tricks that are very useful to the M/s and BDSM lifestyles.

In the next several essays I am going to break down his basic principles as they apply to M/s and D/s.

For starters Gilbert explains

Why we think about the future.

On one hand, thinking about the future is pleasurable. Studies confirm that when people daydream about the future “they tend to imagine themselves achieving and succeeding rather than fumbling or failing.”

The bad news? “Researchers have discovered that when people find it easy to imagine an event, they overestimate the likelihood that it will actually occur.” Statistically that biases us towards un unreasonable optimism.

Right now you’re probably thinking “that doesn’t sound like my sub.” The converse is true. We think about the future in order to avoid bad things. “People who seek treatment for their inability to stop thinking about the future are usually worrying about it rather than reveling in it.”

Does that sound familiar? In a community where trauma is not an unknown, how many times have we held the hand of a partner who is cursed with anxiety, and not the good kind.

Gilbert explains why we think negatively about the future:

The Paralysis of Negative Anticipation

“First, anticipating unpleasant events can minimize their impact.” If you want to read about the studies that support this buy the book…the short version is that it’s true.

This is fertile ground. We’ve all dealt with girls (or boys) who simply would not look on the bright side or embrace opportunity because it hurt too much. Better not to hope or dream and not be disappointed. It affects Masters too, and can cause a paralysis of anxiety that is one of the most common reasons a submissive seeks a Dominant partner. The need to have a controlling influence to break that paralysis.

It’s easy to tell someone “well just jump into deep water.” And so terribly easy to become frustrated when they seem to be unable to. Our own experience teaches us that there is no joy and happiness without risk. Why do our submissive partners not see this.

Let’s define the qualities of a Dominant – someone who tends to bend things with their will. Now we all know that “Submissive” doesn’t mean “beta.” The world is full of strong willed girls who aren’t submissive to anyone else. Many submissive are strong, brave, and make good leaders. But on some level the characteristic of Submission is a to be conservative in regards to certain types of personal choice. To seek protection and shelter not to risk it all.

We can’t, as much as we’d like to, simply pitch them into deep water and teach them to swim. Sometimes we can and must do that, but if we do it without any base-work we are courting disastrous failure. The basis for any D/s Relationship is to build a solid foundation of trust and care that makes the submissive partner feel safe jumping into deep water. That is critical to offsetting their tendency to think of the future negatively or pass up opportunity in order to minimize the chance of hurt.

The Benefits of Negative Anticipation

Whether one is a proponent of Capital Punishment or not, I am willing to hazard that fear of the noose or being put in the hot seat has kept more than one of our fellow men alive who otherwise would now be pushing up whatever it is that cemeteries allow you to grow on graves in these diminished days.

In short, the other reason we think negatively about the future is that it actually allows us to avoid consequences. Humans don’t have to have their left hind foot snapped off in a trap to learn to avoid things that are made of steel and smell of oil.

Gilbert says “in short we sometimes imagine dark futures just to scare our own pants off.”

With this benefit comes a danger. Humans have a frighteningly long childhood. One theory of evolution suggests that a slow maturation rate is a random mutation that is responsible for much of human intelligence. Whether that’s true or not, we do a lot of thinking and learning before our adult personalities are fully formed.

Not surprisingly this means we learn some important lessons while our personalities are still that of a child. The things we learn are the root of most of our paraphilias. They are deep and complicated and often seem simpler than they are.

One thing we often see is aversion…the personality that avoids a specific common thing because it learned differently. If it was Daddy’s habit to beat you with a stick every time he did gardening, Roses may strike one much as a steel trap strikes the three-legged fox.

All this is obvious and if it was all that this book had to say we’d consider ourselves out a few bucks, but this is just laying the groundwork.

The Allure of Control

In investigating the “why” of “why we think about the future” Gilbert suggests and obvious truth. We don’t think about the future to have a pleasant entertainment. We think about the future in order to do something about it. Start a fire before it gets cold, take an umbrella if it will rain or shift money out of bonds before interest rates skyrocket.

He asks the apparently obvious question of “why should we want to have control over our future.” He then posits two answers one right and on “surprisingly wrong.”

“The surprisingly right answer is that people find it gratifying to exercise control – not just for the futures it buys them, but for the exercise itself. Being effective – changing things, influencing things, making things happen – is one of the fundamental needs with which human brains seem to be naturally endowed, and much of our behavior from infancy onward is simply an expression of this penchant for control.”

Hear that Doms and Dommes? It’s natural.

Now, here is the interesting thing. Gilbert goes on to talk about the risks involved in loss of control. “Human beings come into the world with a passion for control, they go out of the world the same way, and research suggests that if they lose their ability to control things at any point between their entrance and their exit they become unhappy, helpless, hopeless, and depressed.”

So, let’s remember for a moment that this is not a statement about Doms. It’s a statement about humans. Stupid word games aside, last time I checked that includes your submissive or slave.

Gilbert cites some rather scary research. Patients at a nursing home who were given a plant statistically lived longer if they had the responsibility of caring for it – 30% to 15%. If those odds hold true as a Master I should never die.

But…that’s not the chilling part…they did another experiment where students visited a nursing home. Some patients got to tell the students when they could come and visit others just got visited on the students’ schedule. Those in the high control group reported being “healthier, happier, more active and taking fewer medications” than those with little control. Remember these are abstracted studies so this isn’t random hearsay…there are careful inventory and analyses for these things.

So…same result. Only in a followup after they discontinued the experiment, they found a disproportionately high number of the patients in the high control group died in the ensuing six months. A significant enough number to convince the researchers something they hadn’t thought to test…that losing control has a more negative impact than never having had it at all.

‘These and other findings,” says Gilbert “have led some researchers to conclude that the feeling of control – whether real or illusory – is one of the wellsprings of mental health.”

Gilbert spends a bit of time exploring how we often behave towards random events as if our control matters. People will bet more on a game of chance if they pick the number or roll the dice, even if there is no statistical ability to influence the outcome.

What does this mean for BDSM? I see a couple of immediate fallout observations.

1) Having a dominant to exercise control may in many cases fulfill a need to limit the impact of the unpleasantness of losing control by refusing to take any.

The downside to this is something we experience all the time. A submissive or slave who is willing to “give up control,” but bridles at “taking orders” when those orders involve doing something that is challenging. If we understand that this is a motivation to experience control we can understand that limitation better

2) A D/s Relationship that is going to be non-egalitarian should start that way. We’ve all heard of couples where they “slowly came round to an M/s dynamic. “ In practical terms taking away a partner’s control is likely to provoke resentment and upset. State the terms of a relationship clearly.

3) We may exert control over a Submissive, but we know that their mental health is dependent on their feelings of control. Very few people really want to lose all control. What they actually want is to exchange some control for a feeling of safety and security. Often what we are really doing is creating a solid basis from which those who have had control ripped away, or have never had much and are scared to experiment with it, or fear a loss of control can feel “safe” while going experimenting with using control. We create an environment where someone who has had problems with control can experiment “a little at a time.” But contrary to all M/s literature, it’s unlikely that in most cases completely depriving our partners of all control is really what is desired, except inasmuch as that may be an act of taking control.

The Surprisingly Wrong Answer

The next thing which Gilbert investigates is the surprisingly Wrong answer to why we try control the future. “We insist on steering our boats because we think we have a pretty good idea of where we should go, but the truth is that much of our steering is in vain – not because the boat won’t respond and not because we can’t find our destination, but because the future is fundamentally different than it appears through the projectiscope. “

Gilbert likens this to other illusions – those of eyesight and memory, and puts forward an explanation based on how the human brain actually works.

Gilbert’s Central Thesis

In the book, Gilbert holds his central thesis till the end. He projects, correctly, that it is an answer that most readers probably won’t and can’t accept. In the remainder of the book he details painstakingly why we aren’t actually all the good at projecting how our future will be, and then proposes a better method for making decisions about what will bring us happiness…alas, his answer is one that, however practical, most of us will have a hard time digesting.

As time permits, I’ll build on this essay, and detail the remainder of the interesting and creative points that this fascinating look at how our minds actually work

.....More to come

Californication and M/s

Californication

I don't really love TV shows all that much. I tend to let them go for a year or two then watch all the episodes in three weeks. I like to take the lead on the literature and ideas in my life, but I'm inclined to let girls take the lead on television...it just doesn't seem like an area where I need to exert control. Possibly I reject the typical male dominance model a little too hard, but I tend to leave the girls to play with the "penis" as the remote is affectionately termed.

My most recent fixation, largely due to S., has been Californication, written by Tom Kapinos and directed by Ken Whittingham. I think if I hadn't gotten my shit somewhat together I'd be Hank Moody. But less successful. Being a fuckup is so much more attractive when you're a wealthy author. At any rate I dress like Hank Moody.

Anyway...the show follows the adventures of a Bukowskiesque (is that even a fair word) writer named Hank Moody. His agent Charlie Runkle is the typical kind of bland guy who tries to be cool but benefits from the cool company he keeps. He's George Costanza from Seinfeld, dressed for L.A. He's not entirely uncool but...his cool moments are outweighed by his awkward.

So there was one scene that made me laugh out loud...really. The backstory is that Charlie's (Evan Handler) secretary has been pushing him to BDSM games. We eventually find out she wants his connections not his hot body and isn't as subby as she comes across, but that's later. In the meantime, he has her crawling around on the floor, when his wife Marcy comes in. She pretends to be looking for an Advil and actually finds it, easing tensions since Marcy is pretty clear something weird is going on. Marcy (Pamela Adlon, above in the scene) has a disappointing quickie with Charlie.

Later in bed they have this scene. It's probably funnier to watch...if you have Netflix on Demand it's Season 1, Episode 6: Absinthe makes the Heart Grow Fonder and starts at 16:44

Charlie: Although I must admit when you said that thing about her being my slave, it did get me kinda thinking...

Marcy: Thinking about what

Charlie: (halting and shifty) mmm...ohhh...y'know...roleplaying master slave, dominance submission bondage...y'know we never tried any of that stuff...

Charlie: Just trying to y'know mix things up a little bit, like you did today

Marcy: okay. Okay, hear ya. So...you want me to beat the crap outta you?

Charlie: uhhhhh...I dunno...if you want...I guess...or (laughs neverously) you know I could beat you up. Whichever you prefer. Or...nobody has to beat anybody up. we just...there's a master and a slave, right...and the slave does whatever the master tells it to...

Marcy: HER...being me...your slave...

Charlie: In that example...uhh...yeah...

Marcy: okay...(closes eyes) so whatta ya want me to do?

Charlie: Uhh...whatever...y'know...whatever makes you happy right. Maybe you want me to make you wear a ball gag in your mouth...or...maybe you would want me to drip hot candle wax on your nipples. Or maybe you like to be teased. You know I could bring you to the brink of orgasm without ever letting you cum.

Marcy: I feel like we've done that

Charlie: Or...y'know...mmm....maybe you want me to pee on you.

Marcy: Why would I want you to pee on me?

Charlie: I dunno...it's just...I know there's people that do that. Okay, that's all

Marcy: Look baby...I'm in...just...start doing some shit to me, we'll see where it goes.

Charlie: Look we should probably have a safeword...so y'know I know what your limits are.

Marcy: How about "Don't pee on me."

Charlie: That...should work...

Marcy: (He hits her open handed on the ass) "OW GOD DAMM IT...FUCK"

Charlie: "Sorry sorry..."

Marcy: "That Hurts!"

Charlie: "I'll rub it I'll rub it.."

Marcy: "Don't touch it...

Scene fades.

So...my first reaction was to think "aren't you glad you didn't have to discover BDSM in this awkward a fashion." Uh...for those of you who didn't. I think at some level it resounds for most of us because we all started somewhere.

My second reaction was "Holy shite...safewords. Ball gags. 'Master/slave' with a slash that was pretty much audible. The slip on 'it,' which Marcy catches." This is not a passage written by people who saw BDSM once in a movie. This is people who know the language. And they're exposing an American audience to it (albeit largely the same fairly sophisticated audience that watched Weeds and Dexter).

Still, even though the scene was silly and somewhat disparaging, I thought it was good. The idea that moderately normal people might introduce these things into the bedroom to "mix it up," was at least put on the table, and if it was poked fun at...well that's what the show does. Comedy increases familiarity which makes things which are strange and scary not so strange and scary.

So...amusement for the week. Something serious next, but I haven't posted for a while, and I thought I ought to start with something light...

RIP Jack McGeorge, and the Instinct for Humiliation

Jack McGeorge

This is the last place anyone in the kink community will read it, but Jack McGeorge has died. While I did not agree with everything that he had to say, I always found him a powerful, provocative, and solid presence, and have a great deal of respect for him on many levels. I was proud to be a member of a community that included him. I was proud recently when he positively commented a Fetlife Post I made on Leather History. I admired him and felt he was a role model for living bravely and "out" in the world. I did not know him well, though we spoke several times. I will be the least of those miss his presence at the MsC.

So...I am back down to crossposting my Fetlife Posts again. I was determined to get some new material up before the fall kink events, but the next two weeks of my life are...hectic. I have two posts coming up, but neither is quite ready for prime time.

On the other hand, in answering a question from a newbie on Fetlife, I ended up fully developing a set of ideas I have had congealing in my mind for a while. Attractive word that "congeal." The ideas could stand better polish, but having nothing else to offer, I decided to put them forth here, if nothing else so I don't lose the thoughts.

If nothing else, since the original poster was a foreign language speaker, I tried to use good, simple, English, which is a challenge for me.

The Instinct for Humiliation

My thesis:

Many people think that the motivations behind desiring humiliation are unhealthy. I do not.

• I think humiliation is hard for us because we live in an egalitarian culture, where we are taught that even submission is dirty and wrong, and that self-abasement in submission is doubly wrong. But our emotions did not read the Constitution, and know only that we have deep needs we seek to fill.

• I think that humans desire submission because it brings them a feeling of control in life, safety and acceptance.

• I think that humiliation is a more pro-active form of submission, and in some ways a perfection of it. I think humans crave humiliation when their need for safety and acceptance through submission is very deep.

• I think it is often associated with trauma, because experiencing trauma and the losses associated with it usually provoke a very deep seated craving for control, safety and acceptance.

• I think that the need for humiliation can and does become muddled with trauma if the trauma was sexual in nature. I think that can increase the shame and internal conflict that accompanies humiliation.

• I think that humiliation, like surrender/submission, and most other forms of BDSM is part of a search for psychological wellbeing. Because it is poorly understood, it is often poorly answered.

To go into a bit more detail:

All humans crave control. But we also know that many humans have gotten by through adapting to bad situations. And our need for control is answered in fulfilling our needs for food and shelter, which we abstract as "safety." Our emotional health is governed by how safe we feel. Throughout history populations were captured, enslaved and so forth. Men and Women.

Submission is an act which promotes safety and security under difficult circumstances,whether it is professing to a primitive King who we were born to, or a foreign invader who has taken our lands. Humans tend to band together and serve a leader. We are tribal

Submission is an expression of tribalism, and humiliation is an expression of the desire for tribe.

If you look through history, acts of humiliation are most often seen in four contexts:

• Acts by the defeated and minorities to buy their survival
• Acts of religious devotion
• Acts of devotion to a leader, Lord, Master, King.
• Acts of devotion to a lover

I think that the act of enduring/actively seeking humiliation is tied to the basic instinct of surrender, making it sharper and more powerful. And that the instinct of surrender is an expression of a basic desire for safety and security.

If you look at history, the most extreme acts of humiliation are often performed by those demonstrating their devotion. Religious ascetics. Knights. Those joining secret societies. In all cases the person being humiliated experiences a powerful emotion in response. A sense of rightness and place that is often confusing and often described differently, but always seems tied to some emotional comfort.

The rush that is described in the Chansons de Geste of a knight carrying out humiliating self-deprivation, or casting off his pride and abasing himself at the feet of a lady...the emotions strike me as exactly the same as the rush of excitement and self surrender that a man might describe at the feet of a Domme.

I think we like to believe that the act of a monk being scourged or wearing a hair shirt is different from a girl being spat on and forced to suck cock. We want to believe that the eros-tied rush that the girl experiences is different from the pure burning of shame in the monk. But is it?

Isn't it strange that in old manuscripts even the vague feeling of pride associated with humiliation is the same. In a strange way the girl is actually proud of her actions, while feeling no less burning shame. The monk is at least supposed to feel shame and humiliation yet is proud of them, and time and time again we find the monk cautioned to feel the actual humiliation not the pride that goes with it. In each case I think that if it is not merely play acting, but a true deep experience, the same frantic burn and rush is present.

I think that the instincts are the same. The most powerful love stories often contain the strongest descriptions of humiliation. The...burn...the rush...that comes from letting go and sinking into that state. Is very powerful. Most often girls tell me that they don't know exactly what they get from humiliation but it fulfills a need. If they can say anything they say it makes them "feel in their place." I think that is because a sense of place that relates to comfort and safety is a bit more abstract than most of us can lay a finger on in this day and time.

Because we are capable of thinking in abstractions, a tendency to humiliation does not need to be directly answered by a Master for us to feel some emotional need to perform it and receive some abstract comfort from it. It is better and more perfect if there is an object/recipient, and better still if that object is tied to our safety and wellbeing.

I mete out and inflict humiliation to, and receive reactions from some of those who submit to me and I do not feel in any way conflicted about it. The more strongly humiliated...the more powerfully abased... a girl feels, the more they may become able to accept comfort and safety that is hard for them to experience in any other way.

The Lion the Witch and the Strap-On...

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Gays and the Danger of Going Against your Nature...a provocative finding....

Last night I was, ironically, at Trio in Dupont (the stronghold from which we try to watch the Drag Race every year) when I saw the print version of the Washington Post Website (my cute name for Post Express...live with it) proclaim: Psychologists repudiate gay-to-straight therapy. and pointed this out to M. who said "well duh..."

So nobody that I know is very surprised that in a recent APA vote S. worked at APA (American Psychological, not American Psychiatric) for a number of years and the attitudes there were very sane, and generally a lot more progressive than I think the "in the field" point of view. She had the honor of meeting and working around some people like Phil Zimbado, who carried out the famous Stanford Prison Study. She also got to hang out backstage at the APA convention and hear stories about the bad old days when APA board meetings were generally conducted like meetings of the Agrestic City Council (yes, a media reference from me), at least in terms of solubility.

So. Not...shocked...at....all...that

In a resolution adopted on a 125-to-4 vote by the APA's governing council, and in a comprehensive report based on two years of research, the 150,000-member association put itself firmly on record in opposition of so-called "reparative therapy" which seeks to change sexual orientation." Wow must be fun to be one of the four who opposed it.

So it's now official, you can't give people therapy and teach them not to be gay.

This isn't the first time APA has come out against gay-curing therapy, but it's the most scientific and strongest. But that isn't what interested me.

APA went on to say: No solid evidence exists that such change is likely, says the report, and some research suggests that efforts to produce change could be harmful, inducing depression and suicidal tendencies.

Interesting. So, if you try to therapize people to go against their basic sexual nature they might get depressed or suicidal.

Now. I want to stress something. I'm not a scientist, I'm a writer. I understand well that pseudoscience is a thing of "taking real science and running with it." I'm not trying to do that.

But in five years of talking to human beings, reading blogs, and trying to learn how the mind works, I've increasingly come to the personal, radical, opinion that trying to force people to go against their basic sex drives is a bad idea. I have seen more misery, shame and frustration caused by that than almost anything else I've encountered.

And in many cases the sexual behaviors that we are talking about are ones that are either in the DSM-IV or were until recently.

When I started beating girls, it was still a sickness according to the books. Wikipedia (I'm lazy) tells us that: "the American Psychiatric Association modified the criteria of sadism and masochism in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV) in 1994 so that consensual sadomasochistic behavior alone is no longer considered to be a sexual disorder. In the DSM-IV TR, published in 2000, sadomasochistic behavior can be diagnosed as a disorder if the patient "has acted on these urges with a non-consenting person" or "the urges, sexual fantasies, or behaviors cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty" [6] [7]. As a result, consensual sadomasochism can no longer be considered a disorder unless it causes severe difficulties in the patient's life.

That was only ten years ago...

But we still have that scary...

the urges, sexual fantasies, or behaviors cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty

Hear that...if your need for fulfilling your sexual desires through beating or being beaten, or any of the other palette of fetishes that drive our deepest inner workings twists you around and makes you change your life...you're sick. According to the DSM.

And so we said about homosexuality until the DSM-II in 1968. "Ego-dystonic Homosexuality" remained on the books in some form until it was finally eliminated from the DSM-III-R in 1987.

So...finally it was not sick if you had to rearrange your personal life and relationships to accomodate the fact that you wanted to fuck men.

Wikipedia goes on to say that:

The results of the newer studies have led to calls to abolish sadism and masochism as disease categories completely, arguing that the truly pathological forms are adequately covered by other diagnoses. The BDSM subculture added another dimension to this drive by highlighting claims of discrimination and its potential, and by referring to the precedent of the previous removal of homosexuality from the list of mental disorders [5].

As of course, I'm doing right now. Not an original thought, but one that bears repeating and reinforcing. But that's not entirely my point.

The DSM-V is due in 2012. I look forward to the hope that things that drive the lives of myself and my friends will cease being considered illness and that one day I can be officially as much of a normal person as Ellen DeGeneres or Harvey Milk. In the meantime, life goes on, I go to Camp, I meet people and understand this on an empiric level.

The thing that I think is most interesting about the recent APA decision is the finding of potential harm.

We know historically that trying to force left handed kids to be right handed fucks them up. We know that trying to force kids not to masturbate fucks them up. But I think it is time to strongly consider going one step further and suggesting that not allowing people to indulge thier sexual instincts fucks them up. Whether the instict is to stick their cock in another man's ass, or be hit.

Human sexual behaviors are complicated and we don't always understand where they come from. We've only been working on the issue with serious tools for about 120 years, and I've only been working on it for five-ten in my personal-empiric way. But it is my prediction that we will someday see a strong indication that trying to force people to simply repudiate their sexual drives is not a very healthy thing. Channel, redistribute, maybe.

In "the smart book with the stupid title" Stumbling on Happiness, which I quote so often that I need to start a series of analytical posts on it, Daniel Gilbert suggests that everyone seeks happiness at all times, even suicides. Everyone is actively engaged in acts they think will make them happier. Acts of self-destruction or self-degradation are often acts that, to the psyche, promise to limit future pain. Animals don't commit suicide because they lack the ability to imagine they'd be in less pain if they would. Humans hurt themselves for a variety of complex reasons, but I firmly believe that very few of them are pathological in any meaningful way.

I think that this particular finding adds fuel to the current call to declassify most paraphilias, but going further I think it suggests that we need real research into just how harmful it is to ignore our "paraphilias" to sweep them under the carpet or attempt to discipline ourselves out of them.

"It was all on the Cover of Newsweek..."

"I'm on my way..."

So this is one of those weeks when I don't have time to tie my shoes (for which I have an elegant solution), but I wanted to post very quickly with this article for anybody who missed it. It's unique for two reasons. First, it's a very positive coverage of poly lifestyles. Second, it's the first time I've seen a major publication treat it as anything other than a weird thing that some weird people off in weirdland do. This article comes pretty close to acknowledging that poly is becoming a common American lifestyle for normal middle class people. And it mentions Tristan which amuses me.

For my part of course, I have strong feelings. When divorce became acceptable in the 1950s and 60s, I think it was a "great leap forward" (apologies Chairman). But also a pretty profound negative. I mean, let's all cheer, we don't have to have one miserable relationship till the end of our lives. All we have to do is be willing to hurt the people around us and fuck our lives up, and make a horrible choice between the new sexual adventures we are driven to, and a partner we love and care about. The divorce rate suggests just how much people were willing to pay for that little bit of freedom. But...it's like abortion. It may be better than the alternative, but nobody thinks it's a particularly good thing, except maybe Marla Singer (sue me I feel literary today).

So now we're finally coming around to the idea that it might be healthy to have multiple relationships that support multiple needs. That the roles of romantic lover, source of security, indulgence, disciplinarian, partner can all get juggled around. It seems like a no-brainer.

At some point I'll share my amateur sociological ramblings on why this is good, and why we can do it today but couldn't do it in 1740 (and how the fact that some people did anyway generally proves the point). For now, read and enjoy:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/209164

Excerpt:

It's enough to make any monogamist's head spin. But the traditionalists had better get used to it.

Researchers are just beginning to study the phenomenon, but the few who do estimate that openly polyamorous families in the United States number more than half a million, with thriving contingents in nearly every major city. Over the past year, books like Open, by journalist Jenny Block; Opening Up, by sex columnist Tristan Taormino; and an updated version of The Ethical Slut—widely considered the modern "poly" Bible—have helped publicize the concept. Today there are poly blogs and podcasts, local get-togethers, and an online polyamory magazine called Loving More with 15,000 regular readers. Celebrities like actress Tilda Swinton and Carla Bruni, the first lady of France, have voiced support for nonmonogamy, while Greenan herself has become somewhat of an unofficial spokesperson, as the creator of a comic Web series about the practice—called "Family"—that's loosely based on her life.

Pimping

Back in March when it was cold outside, S. circulated an article in the Washington Post
to me that we thought was very amusing. It was about how a sex store was opening in Old Town, despite the histrionics and aneurisms of the local high hats. This was just amusing. The shop also got coverage in the Alexandria Gazette (one of the oldest newspapers in the country).

To be honest, I never thought anything more of it. I do most of my shopping online from JT's Stockroom, Blowfish and the like.

However, I've also had some bad experiences ordering online. I've ordered toys that ended up being too big, or not of a good material, not because they were badly advertised, but just because it's hard to gauge these things online. There are times that you want to see merchandise, especially something like a hood or a piece of clothing, and there are times that you want to get an idea of the size and quality of a toy.

Leather Rack at Dupont Circle used to be my venue of choice. They were always better than Pleasure Place. But they also focused heavily on a gay male clientèle. The last time I was in Leather Rack, all I could say was "it looks like the recession has hit them hard." They seemed to be focusing on a few lines of stock and had very little general merchandise. It's possible they're just narrowing focus as well, but...they fell a good bit on my list of "places to shop."

That left me feeling as I had for a while that the only place to go for toys was Passional in Philadelphia. They're a great store, but also about a 5 hour round trip from DC, and I simply don't get through Philadelphia as much as it seems I used to.

Which left me a little high and dry. So this weekend at the end of a weekend trip I ended up in Old Town Alexandria for dinner with J. We were functionally broke at the end of a weekend, and mostly window shopping, when she noticed a toy store. I really figured it would be the standard run for a suburban lingerie store. Racks and racks of flimsy, poorly made, babydoll negligees; a rack of Doc Johnson vibes; and a little chained room in the back with a paltry stall of a few very basic toys.

This turned out not to be the case...

Le Tache compares favorably to some of the best stores I visited in San Francisco. At three levels, you don't realize right away how awesome it is, because the *kinky* stuff is in the back. Not in a little side room though. Half the basement and all the upstairs are given over to equipment.

And not just a few vibes. They have a really thorough lineup of just about every vibrator you could imagine. I won't say it's as big as the biggest online stores, but I have never seen as much equipment on the walls at one time, and the displays cover a huge wall and straggle upstairs and downstairs. It's a really tremendous selection.

They have a big selection of the fucking machines you can see at JT's Stockroom (which provides most of the stock I think) or Kink.com, cases of electrical play toys, cages...I was obscenely impressed.

And the atmosphere was friendly and clean. I think despite the protests it speaks to the fact that BDSM is becoming mainstream. When my mother operated a Lingerie store, I think it would have been a given that if a customer turned a corner and saw piston-driven fucking machines a la Kink.com, they would run away. It's clear that the average girl on the street today is not particularly freaked out by walking into a place that sells armbinders, or TENS units, and isn't likely to walk out even if all the stock is not something they'd want to play with.

The place is healthy and I like that. For all my perversions, I feel like at core WIITWD is something people should not be ashamed of, and that should be found in a boutique in Old Town, not just a run down building in a scary back section of town.

So...Washington (the area if not the city) once again has a really first rate Kink-Store.

The only negative I'll say is that compared to dealer prices at events, even by stores, some of the higher end items had a steep markup. But Old Town isn't a cheap district. On the other hand, there is a metal plug that I've been wanting for months but couldn't find on a shelf without going to Philadelphia. Le Tache carried the same toy in a friendlier modern silicone of some sort for $15. I may eventually get the metal plug but they were easy on the budget at the end of a weekend, and I like the idea of being able to experiment before laying down better than $100 for a toy.

Give them your business or shop online...if you're in Washington and want to see the quality of what you are buying, Le Tache is an excellent choice.

Leather History and Revisionism...

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Choking...with a long awaited story...

I actually feel kind of bad about posting right now. One of the girls noted I had a detractor back in April. I sent an ameliorative note, but it seems like I'm trying to push the blog ahead just to pave that under. I don't moderate comments here and never intend to, and anonymous posting is fine.

It's the busy season and I have little time to post. More in the fall and all next year when things are easier.

Anyway, truth is I just wanted to push this article. It was written by a guy on Fetlife. Amusing story is he e-mailed me about it, but it was in the middle of the first summer production. Truth to tell I'm a novice and couldn't have added much, but it still pleased me to be asked.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-14/the-sexual-appeal-of-choking/2/


On a that note...I've been promising various people I'd post this story for more than a year now. I'd like to thank certain people who helped with editing it, and gave me remarks...you know who you are and my appreciation is genuine.

The disclaimer: it's a composite, it's not about anyone, including anyone who happens to share the same name. I picked a girl's name that wasn't the name of anyone I'd known in years. That worked well...

At any rate, it's out and public. It may go onto other media, but for now the damn story finally has a URL and that's good enough for me.

http://www.gordonsdrysin.com/jennifer.htm

Non-Consensual Figging Scene

Non-Consensual Figging Scene

Note - comments on this page are disabled, because it is a very high hit on Google, and was attracting spam. Feel free to comment on other posts.

So first of all, I should explain what figging is. I suspect most everyone reading this already knows, but I’ll be short column inches if I don’t. “Figging” is the practice of inserting ginger into the anus or vagina.

Wikipedia, that repository of all human trivia, gives a reference from the The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose where it is spelt “feauging” or “to feague.”

So the first thing is that it has nothing to do with figs, those widely worshipped fruits of the ficus tree that we of the first world know only as that kind of strange and disturbing sweet brownish stuff in Nabisco Fig Newtons. Despite the obvious symbolic relationship between the filling of a fig newton and the contents of the anus, figging has nothing to do with the fruit of the ficus. I except of course the Australians who use a fig paste made by Kraft Foods as an after shave.
Figging comes from the German word “fegen” which means “to polish.” I am lying about the after shave, but you thought for a moment it might be true, didn’t you. I’m not sure how closely fegen relates to ficken, but the folk etymologist in me wants badly for there to be a relationship.

Figgging is the practice of sticking a bit of peeled ginger up the ass which produces a fairly strong burning sensation, but unlike say Tabasco sauce or a heated object, does not do any lasting harm.

This practice was not originally, as surprising as this may be, applied to humans. It was originally applied to horses. I originally heard this from S. who knew about it from before the proliferation of BDSM and well before Wikipedia. S. told me that it was applied to horses to make them run faster in races, but apparently this is not precisely the case. It was applied to horses because it makes them move around a lot and hold their heads and tails high. This is a trait that is associated with young and energetic horses. Since in the time before mortgage scams and used cars the only really good fraud in the human race was selling decrepit horses for too much money, every little trick counted and this is a good one. The practice is used in competition where it makes horses show better, but every civilized club or league outlaws it, and there are even tests for it.

Apparently veterinarians say that the actual trick is to put it in the vagina of a mare. It will stay there longer, and the behaviors are actually better. They also say it’s cruel and a bad practice. But, you know, if you’re going to anyway, you might as well get the most bang for your buck, right?

Figging is supposed to have been a popular BDSM practice in the Victorian era…circa “The Pearl.” If you don’t know what I mean by “The Pearl,” I’ll comment that a lot of places will sell it to you for five dollars as an ebook, but you can read it free here: http://www.folklore.ms/html/books_and_MSS/1870s/1879-1880_the_pearl_journal/issue_01_-_july_1879/index.htm

Soo….

I use toy cleaner or the dishwasher fairly regularly, but don’t always have them with me. If a toy is (and most are) relegated to use on one girl, if we’re at a hotel or on the road and I don’t have a good cleaner, I’ll wash it off with warm soapy water. I realize that’s not medically hygienic, but I’m doing roughly the same thing with my hand and it’s going in the same place. We’re not looking at any huge contamination issues here. It’s not the best way to clean a toy but beats leaving it dirty on the bedside table.

So a given girl uses a given toy. And being the nice fellow I am, while she’s recovering I clean up the scene. And this includes rinsing the toy, washing it with just a little lather of soap, rinsing it off carefully and setting it on a clean hotel washcloth to dry.

So the same toy gets put to use the following morning. After the toy has been used, I end up applying some manual stimulation. I notice that said girl’s vagina is very tight and slightly puffy. This mystifies me. Don’t get me wrong here. I like to think of myself as a great stud as much as everyone else. But you have to have a little realism. I think to myself. “Nothing I did with personal equipment or toys last night should have resulted in chafing to the point of swelling.” I resolve to ask about this.

A little while later the event, which was not a big centerpiece fuck-fest to begin with, sort of peters out. There is discomfort. Discomfort leads to fear. There is *burning* in there. Have we done something bad? Now of course I am concerned. Lurid thoughts leap to mind. Battery leakage on one of the toys! What the hell would make for swelling and burning.

I have done a lot of things to torture girls. But when one of them is hurting, and it is obviously something real, and there is no clear cause and it cannot be put down to aches and pains…then I begin to worry, and I want to know precisely what is wrong and why.

I know my hands are clean…and…

It hits me…

I walk into the bathroom. And pick up the soap of this above average nice hotel. I tend not to be a big spender on personal travel so I’m used to places where the soap is, basically, Ivory. This is something very nice. Ginger and Orange…

Ginger and Orange…

There is relief that there is not something untoward wrong. There is also rinsing, sans soap.

And I check another list on my lifetime kink list. I have never actually done figging before. Just not one of those things that held massive appeal and most people I’ve played with put “burning” very low on their list of sexy desirable sensations.

So endeth my first…nonconsensual…figging scene.

Repo - the Genetic Opera

While this isn't specifically on topic...this is a "sin" blog rather than a "sex" blog, and Repo has high fetish value, so I'm gonna "include it in."

So I spent the weekend with S. and she suggested a Saturday night entertainment.  She said REPO  was in town, and we should go see it.  I said "sure." 

I'd heard of Repo.  It had been brought to my attention because it concerned a dystopian future where they repossessed people’s personal organs, and that happened to vaguely match a plot I’d been writing for an interactive theater presentation.   But Repo was a musical and I’m not that fond of musicals.  Also a number of people ranted and raved about it, and I’m not a big joiner.  Finally a friend who saw it wasn’t impressed by the “personal sell” element of the Road Tour.

But I didn’t have anything against it either, figured it would be amusing. 

So for people who don’t know the background, here’s the quick rundown.  Repo was an indie arts project playing in black box theatres, that managed to get a budget and a theatrical release as a project of Director Darren Lynn Bousman, best known for the  Saw franchise.  It’s a very SFX and squip heavy satire.  It’s impossible to really say what genre it is.  You could say roughly it fits into the dark musical genre associated with Assassins or Sweeny Todd.  But theatrically it shows more like Frank Miller’s Sin City, or other dark anime rendered into live action.  You might through Guillermo's Pan's Labyrinth in there too...but it's not serious, so that's a very weird divergence. 

I can understand why it's a marketing nightmare.  It's "Springtime for Hitler" level fucked up...like "Hey what if we made Pan's Labyrinth into a musical comedy."  It's the sort of thing that does well on stage but has a very fucking hard time getting in front of a film audience.

One paralell that has been invoked is The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the roadshow adapts this framework, encouraging people to come out in costume.  Since the costumes include pretty hot looks for the girls, I’m generally okay with that.   For actual thematic similarity the closest thing I’ve ever seen to it was Brian De Palma’s 1974 Phantom of the Paradise.  In terms of feel and content, it struck me an awful lot like Frank Miller, but the universe complexity and themes really reminded me of  Mike Kaluta’s Starstruck (not the more recent Gaiman piece).   I think the feel may come somewhat from the fact that Starstruck was derived from an off-Broadway play by Elaine Lee, Norfleet Lee and Dale Place.   It’s darker and more “modern” than Starstruck of course, along the lines of Watchmen. 

At any rate, Repo flunked it’s test-screening badly and Lionsgate sent it straight to DVD.   It missed the mark largely because it was billed to the test audience as a horror vehicle by the Director of Saw II, and it’s not.  It’s not surprising that “Frank Miller as musical comedy” did not play well to that crowd.  It was a flop, and so like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil faced a huge issue getting released.

Theatres are sockets that studios put movies into to make money.   You pick the movies that are going to fill a 200 seat theatre to 200 people.  Not that are going to fill it to 50 people.   It’s true hype and advertising play a role.  But while I don’t agree it is the worst movie ever made, I can see it having real trouble finding a clear advertising method and an audience.  I’m not sure the people who went to see Sin City would like it, and I’m not sure who you’d sell it to.  One thing to understand about movies is just how fucking enormous releases are.  Sin City cost $40 million (a lot more than Repo’s 8m,) but grossed 158 million worldwide.  You can have a TV show, or Broadway show that a fuckload less people are interested in that is still very profitable.   Movies need a big audience to be anything other than arthouse films.  I suspect that Repo’s gore makes it hard to play in art houses like the Landmark E St. Cinema.  And frankly that’s a big drawback.  I can’t say “everybody is going to love this show,” because unlike say Sweeny Todd, if you are not okay with seeing human skin cut open and blood spurt out this is going to freak you right the fuck out.  It's not incredibly far afield in either tone or gore from Kill Bill, but it's a lot more fantastic and it's a musical.

At any rate, Director Darren Lynn Bousman and Writer Terrence Zdunich are touring around with lead Alexa Vega to try and generate a cult following.  Intentionally or not there's a sort of push for it as a new Rocky Horror, and they want to see a bigger big-screen release.  I think it’s a noble goal, and I doubt it’s really profiting Bousman, though it may be the best thing Zudnich can be doing for himself right now.  If you've read Terry Gilliam's The Battle for Brazil  you have some idea of how these things work. 

They make a good show and it’s fun and friendly.  People who know me know that I’m not big on actresses.  I don’t care much about them…my fandom stops with Ingrid Bergman, Myrna Loy, Katherine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich.   A friend of mine got me half sold on Julie Christie.  But that’s about it.  That said, Alexa Vega kinda kicks ass.  She’s got a commanding personality which is not something you usually hear said about actresses.  When she takes charge, vocally, you actually feel it, and that’s sometimes very hard to do with a pretty girl especially one who’s playing young.  I’m gonna like the girl of course, it’s me, but she’s a cut above. 

I was pleased to meet them all where “meet” = seeing their presentation and passing about nine words in the lobby on the way to the gents.  All friendly words though.

So this film is not without talent.  The big names in the film other than Alexa Vega (who was in Spy Kids and is apparently now on Broadway in Hairspray) are Paris Hilton and Anthony Head (who played Giles on Buffy for folks like me not good with names). Paul Sorvino (Law and Order) rounds out the bill.

There's also apparently a cameo by Joan Jett though I missed it.

The music is pretty fucked up in a good way.  Sarah Brightman actually has a screen role as does Ogre of Skinny Puppy.  But I think a real chunk of the sell is the soundtrack. You’ve got David Lee Roth's in studio guitarist Brian Young, the frontman from Filter, the drummer from Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros, the rhythm guitarist from Guns n' Roses,  David J Haskins the bassist from Bauhaus and Daniel Ash of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets.  It also includes Ozzy's bassist Blasko, the drummer from Rob Zombie, POE ("Hey Pretty"), and Rami Jaffee, who has played with The Wallflowers, Foo Fighters, Soul Asylum and Pearl Jam. 

The producers were Yoshiki (who I've never heard of but is apparently big in Japan the way Elvis was big in the U.S.) and Joseph Bishara who produces Glenn Danzig, which kinda figures.

So what did I think of it?

Well…I did not walk out thinking “this is the greatest fucking movie ever made…I am obsessed with it.”   But I think it has the power to grow on you.  There’s a lot of rich complexity of the sort that you see in Pan’s Labyrinth that feels like there's a world behind it.  It feels strongly like it was made from a comic or graphic-novel media. 

The music was the same way.  It's complex and despite it all not all that catchy except for "Zydrate Anatomy."  Some of it really seems to suborn music for story which since it claims to be an opera you can't complain about.

But I think it grows on you.  It's rich and there's enough there for two watchings.  It's a fascinating world, and in the end you've only sort of licked the dark corners of it. 

I think it's destined to become a cult classic, though I doubt it will ever see a major theatrical release.  It's got some serious chops and if it seems a little scratchy in places, it's really beautiful in others.  And it draws you back.  Sin City was pretty, but I'll be damned if I remember more than one or two scenes. It was a comic book - bubblegum.  I suspect I'll remember Repo ten years from now in pretty good detail.

It's worth buying rather than pirating, and I'd strongly recommend it (out on DVD and Blu-Ray on the 20th).  It isn't often art is "something else" and Repo is definitely something else.