erotic

Thiefing Sugar: Eroticism Between Women in Caribbean Literature

farhana — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Tinsley’s fascinating study of “women loving women” examines their colonial and postcolonial experiences in Dutch, French, and English-speaking areas of the Caribbean. This volume, in the Perverse Modernities series by Duke University Press, takes its title from the writing of Trinidad-born poet-novelist Dionne Brand, whose cane-cutter character Elizete uses the phrase “thiefing sugar” to describe her feelings for another woman, Verlia. The metaphor refers to the time when slaves could be whipped for selling sugar from the plantations for any reason; it embodies both transgression and forbidden pleasure. Tinsley points out that using the term is “stealing language itself” to evoke a “transformative desire” to change the status of women and challenge the injustices of society.

Thiefing Sugar: Eroticism Between Women in Caribbean Literature incorporates black, queer, and feminist theory into its analysis. It draws on literature, history, geography, anthropology, economics, and linguistics to paint a colorful, multilayered portrait of Caribbean women. Texts from Suriname, Jamaica, Haiti, Martinique, and Trinidad (along with occasional references to Cuba, Grenada, Aruba, the Bahamas, and elsewhere in the region) are used to explore the history of sexuality and the complications of Creole traditions. Tinsley begins with love songs sung by black working-class women to their female lovers, along with accounts of birthday parties and erotic dances and religious ceremonies, as well as messages exchanged in the symbolic language of flowers, to show the intricacies of gender identities in the West Indies.

In succeeding chapters she turns to Luminous Isle, an autobiographical novel by the white Jamaican woman writer Eliot Bliss, then to the erotic poems written in the 1920s by Haitian poet Ida Faubert, Mayotte Capécia’s novel I Am a Martinican Woman, Jamaican writer Michelle Cliff’s novel, No Telephone to Heaven, and, finally, Dionne Brand’s poetry collection No Language Is Neutral, in order to trace “their poetics of decolonization” and to point out how these texts suggest reconfiguring gender history to acknowledge the strength and beauty of Afro-Caribbean woman-identified women. Tinsley’s brilliant, sensitive explications, her frequent references to artworks from the area, and her descriptions of lush landscapes make reading her work a delight and a surprise.

However, I do wish that she had studied more than one Hispanic writer, Fidel Castro’s niece Mariela Castro Espín. But I understand that bringing in a substantial number of texts in Spanish would have enlarged her project’s boundaries to perhaps unmanageable proportions. Several references to U.S. interventions in Grenada also left me wanting more information on the effects of North American activities in the region. I hope that Tinsley herself or one of her readers will expand on the groundbreaking work she has done in this book. I highly recommend it to a cosmopolitan audience.

Written by: Kittye Delle Robbins-Herring, December 3rd 2010

Brilliantlove

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:30:00 +0000

Directed by Ashley Horner

Pinball Films

Manchester is taking a photograph of his girlfriend Noon. She’s asleep. He develops the film while she naps and goes outside to lay on a dingy blanket on the gravel driveway that leads to their makeshift garage-turned-apartment. Did she consent to being documented? No one seems to care. When Noon wakes up, she goes outside naked and has sex with Manchester in broad daylight.

A seemingly enviable hipster couple sequestered from the world in their own squalid little space, it doesn’t take long for things to go south. While Noon stays home preparing taxidermy birds, Manchester gets drunk at a local pub and leaves behind his snapshots of her nudity, their lovemaking. Found a bit too conveniently by a local art dealer who then spends an inordinate amount of time tracking the couple down, Manchester’s amateur, low-light snaps are sold and catapult him to fame, complete with praise for his non-technique—“just a willing girlfriend,” he insists. Not surprisingly, their idyllic, secluded, grungy love is ruined by Manchester’s brush with fame and having their privacy traded as consumable art.

Based on the filmmakers’ obsession with objectifying Noon’s ass in every possible shot, with making her the sexual object in nearly every supposedly erotic scene, it’s painfully obvious that the production team is almost exclusively comprised of men. Should the audience be pleased to see female masturbation, so rarely depicted in film, or should we be revolted by the popsicle prop in one scene, that Noon is accidentally hit in the face with the camera during sex, that physical pleasure seems to trump self respect? Brilliantlove isn’t so much a meditation on love, desire, and intimacy as it is degrading soft-core porn with a bit of art world skepticism thrown in for good measure.

I also have to wonder whether this is just a hipster wet dream. Does someone think, "I can just leave these trashy photos in a bar and find fame?" At a time when it’s hard enough to control any aspect of your privacy, I’m so unbelievably unimpressed by the lack of ethics, trust, and respect displayed by Manchester. I also wonder why, within a framework of already shaky ethics, Manchester’s consent was sought at all, or why these photos weren’t just uploaded to the Internet (which is striking absent from the film, as is bathing, eating, and pre-porn employment). Brilliantlove could have been really interesting. It could have relied on actual character development, on normalizing passion, on queering the perceived normalcy of (hetero)sexual relationships. For many, there’s obviously a big difference between sex and love, and my issue is not with this dichotomy. Rather, this is just one more film made by an all-male team unwilling (or unable) to depict thoughtful, engaging intimacy between two enthusiastic, willing partners.

Both my male partner and I were genuinely disgusted while watching it, barely able to force ourselves to finish it; desperate to cleanse our mental palates, we popped in an innocuous film to chase the memory of this damaging one. If disliking this film makes me sex-negative or some other hip third wave feminist label I deem more judgmental than useful, so be it. This film is a voyeuristic, hedonistic, male gaze fuck fest. Watch at your own risk.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, August 17th 2010

Backward Glances: Contemporary Chinese Cultures and the Female Homoerotic Imaginary

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Fran Martin

Duke University Press

The study of female homoeroticism in Chinese media is a small yet evolving academic discipline. It is, therefore, of great importance that Backward Glances was written. Exploring popular media produced during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, author Fran Martin addresses the ways in which same-sex love between women is commonly depicted, and the ways in which those depictions simultaneously reinforce and challenge the conventional discourse on homosexuality in China.

On the surface, many of the novels, television dramas, and films Martin analyzes do not appear to be particularly transgressive. A common theme among the media she explores is memory; stories of same-sex desire between women are often presented as a fleeting childhood fantasy, something that perpetually exists in the past and can never be fully realized by adults in the present. This memorial mode is also tied to what Martin calls the “going-in" story. Unlike “coming-out” narratives, which depict homosexual identity as the final stage of an individual’s struggle with sexual identity, “going-in” stories start with same-sex desire and end with heterosexual marriage. None of these tropes disturb the status quo of Chinese society, where homosexuality remains incredibly stigmatized.

But Martin contends that there is more to these texts than immediately meet the eye. The protagonists of these stories tend to be overly feminine schoolgirls who fall in love with other feminine girls or tomboys. When that love is not ultimately realized, the lead femme becomes sad and nostalgic, leading to her remembering and recounting the story of her love over and over again. The stories are written so that the audience will identify with the lead femme character; as a result, homoerotic attraction is represented as a natural, universal feminine quality. It is depicted as tragic, if inevitable, when such love is not actualized, and the audience is meant to share in that sadness. Although few of the texts discussed disrupt Chinese societal order by depicting a fulfilled, long-term romantic relationship between women, the depictions of love between women as idyllic, universal, and tragic when prevented from closure suggest an innate acceptance of homosexuality as something natural and expected in young women, if also socially taboo.

What is particularly interesting is the contrast between the complex and, at times, subversive images of love between women in Chinese popular culture and the lack of acceptance of actual lesbianism in Chinese society. Martin frequently mentions this discrepancy, though she rarely explores it as it might relate to pro- or anti-LGBTQ legislation in China. Her primary focus is on the media itself, rather than the ultimate significance of the media in a real-life political context. I most appreciated Backward Glances when it touched upon the audience responses to the texts. Should a follow-up be written, Martin may want to explore the interactions between the viewers and the texts in greater detail, as a way of exploring the impact homoerotic media has (or could have) on Chinese politics and queer acceptance in China.

Though academic in style, Backward Glances is quite approachable. Written as a scholarly text, it can also be of interest to and easily enjoyed by anyone interested in the topics of queer representation, media, and Chinese culture. The book covers a wide range of material, but never feels overwhelming or dense. It may not remain the definitive text on the subject, but until one exists, Backward Glances is a well-written, critical exploration of a newly emerging field of study.

Cross-posted at Gender Across Borders

Written by: Carrie Polansky, July 13th 2010

Gurlesque: The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Lara Glenum, Arielle Greenberg

Saturnalia Books

The problem with books with two introductions is that one can inevitably doom the other and, at worst, the entire book. This just might be the case with the contra(dictory)dance of introductions to the anthology Gurlesque, edited by poets Lara Glenum and Arielle Greenberg. According to Glenum, Gurlesue poetry “assaults the norms of acceptable female behavior by irreverently deploying gender stereotypes to subversive ends.” Both editors relate this poetry to cultural movements like riot grrrl, burlesque, kitsch, camp, and more.

For Greenberg, Gurlesque is “not a movement or a camp or a clique.” (Okay, so what is it then?) It is “just something [she] saw...born of black organza witch costumes and the silver worn-out sequins mashed between scratchy pink tutu netting and velvet unicorn paintings and arena rock ballads…” Her list continues and is reminiscent of the sub/counter culture detritus that has wound up at mall stores like Hot Topic. I really wanted to love the idea of Gurlesque and was looking forward to some in-depth and sophisticated rendering. Unfortunately, Greenberg sounds like a chatty scenester at a party, making the anthology seem little more than a self-serving, self-validating effort.

Luckily, Glenum’s introduction is more intellectually sound and includes some interesting theory; however, both seem resistant to lay any more than spotty groundwork about what Gurlesque is or isn’t, at the same time that they see the selected poems as being exemplary of this “idea”. From Greenberg: “Being in this anthology doesn’t mean anything about the poets in particular: we are just trotting these poems out on our sideshow stage because of what we see in them.” And from Glenum: “I am not insisting that this genealogy forms a common knowledge base for Gurlesque poets…I intend the above merely as a loose sketch of aesthetic tendencies and impulses, an artistic and theoretical heritage from which the Gurlesque draws its manifold, relentless energies.” Yet wouldn’t the artifact of the anthology prove more than a loose sketch?

So what about the actual poetry? What does Gurlesque poetry look and read like? I asked a poet friend who said “pile on the cum, pile on the vomit, heap on the porn.” Poet Ariana Reines doesn’t disappoint with lines like “First he spit on my asshole and then start in with a middle finger and then the cock slid in no sound come out only a maw gaping, grind hard into ground.” While this might seem like a performance of pornographic crassness, it could be seen (and I tease this from the Exoskeleton poetry blog) as skillfully employing the savvy irony of our cultural moment: self-consciously using played out shock-for-shock’s sake.

These aren’t easy poems to read. They aren’t your grandmother’s poems, and they aren’t Hallmark greeting card poems. They aren’t like most poems you would read in a book grabbed off the shelf in Barnes & Nobles, or even the library. If you make it through the bric-a-brac of the introductions, you get a good sense of some very new and innovative (if not all that good or likable) poetics.

Readers might be jarred by Chelsey Minnis’ excessive use of ellipses, to the point of frustration. The visual disorientation of the work gives the reader the sense that so much else is going on around and outside the poems, they become part of a much wider extended dialogue in which the reader is invited to imagine the activity in the pauses. Excerpts from Geraldine Kim’s “Povel” recalibrate our sense of poetry, prose, and the quotable. Lines like “I was barn./I was razed./I was mot this flame with no’s sum else blue’s blame noir yearning down the house” from Heidi Lynn Staple’s “Fonder a Care Kept” are going to test even the most adept readers of contemporary poetry.

There is a great deal of variety in this anthology, and as a woman of color, while I was happy to see Asian American women represented, I was strongly disappointed by the apparent lack of work by African American, Latina, or Native American women. While I suppose it is possible (though unlikely) that such women of color aren’t writing Gurlesque, it seems more plausible that when it depends on one’s field of vision that this is an effect of “just something I saw.”

Written by: L, June 2nd 2010

Pleasure Me Purse Kit

admin — Wed, 12 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Good Vibrations

To get it in the open and out of the way: the item’s name, Pleasure Me Purse, is a command to someone else. While the purse is awesome, it could be a downer for someone who expected something along the lines of a Pleasure Myself Purse.

Good Vibrations' Pleasure Me Purse Kit comes with a waterproof Magic Touch Bullet Mini Vibrator, a deliciously scented Mini Heart-Shaped Rub Me Massage Bar, .5 ounces of crème brûlée flavored Devour Me Lickable Body Oil, and a sample of Please Cream Lubricant. While the “purse” itself seems hardly big enough for lipstick and an o.b. tampon, the contents are so varied, and in some cases so multipurpose, one would be hard-pressed to try them all out in one evening (or one morning, or one really exciting afternoon).

In small quantities, the crème brûlée body oil can be great, and opening the miniature bottle can fill a room with its potent scent, which I might have first guessed to be waffles and maple syrup. When dabbed strategically and appropriately, the oil turns ordinary old oral into a tasty treat. As my partner jokingly put it, “I really like that stuff. It made you suck my dick like a delicious lollipop.”

I have mentioned in a previous review that I ask a little more of my vibrators than a gentle shake–which is, of course, what one gets from the small toy included in this kit. It gets tired after five minutes of use, and the low intensity vibrations alone are what bring me to warn all the single ladies: you may be better pleasured by a different bag. That said, if you’re not doing everything yourself, the little silver buzzing bobble can be a lot of fun in more places than one (hey-oh!).

The .17 oz sample of the cream lubricant is really more than enough for a single use. The packaging boasts that it is “water-based, glycerin-free, long-lasting, [and] moisturizing,” which is probably all true, but it was difficult to tell when adding it to what I already had going on naturally. However, in a very weak post-coital study of the cream’s longevity, I did get bored rubbing it between my fingers for what seemed like eternity. This I take as a good sign.

The mint chocolate scented massage bar was definitely my favorite and seemed to go over well with my partner. The heart-shaped bar melts easily by touch and smells good enough to eat (in fact, we were sort of hoping we could eat it). Besides smelling awesome, giving and receiving a massage can be a really nice addition to the usual sexual repertoire, and fosters a sense of intimacy beyond coitus itself.

Overall, if you’re already accustomed to utilizing lotions and vibrators with a partner, then this little purse packs a lot of variety and excitement. If you’re new to sexual accoutrement, it’s a compact way to see what you’re into. Definitely make sure your partner is willing to try it out, and allow yourself the options of both liking something that you may have previously thought weird or disliking it even if it’s supposed to be sexy.

Written by: Tatiana Ryckman, May 12th 2010

Erotic Poems

admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Edited by George James Firmage

W.W. Norton

Love, sex, and springtime are fundamental themes in E.E. Cummings’ lifetime body of work, and in Erotic Poems, editor George James Firmage brings together pieces by Cummings’ that are especially sexual, exalting of fertility, and written in a voice that is at once fresh and wise, evocative of the dumb yet utterly precise instinct to procreate.

These poems, and the line drawings (also by Cummings), were selected from the poet’s original manuscripts and are diverse in their eroticism, tone, and form. Representing a spectrum of sexual desire, thought, and impulse, the poems range from humorous to romantic, graphic to tender. Some are raw, even violent, while others are philosophical, and still others are playful but intelligent. My favorites led me to laugh, delighted by both the humor and the poetic genius in the verse, or else moved me to a deep sentimental ache at the beauty and tragedy of love and the existential anguish in its inevitable loss.

A particularly evocative poem entitled "ix." has a dark shadowy edge evoking the violence of both desire and of life itself, as well as a melancholy awareness of eventual extinguishment of life. It begins:

nearer:breath of my breath:take not thy tingling
limbs from me:make my pain their crazy meal

Then climaxes with:

flower of madness on gritted lips
and on sprawled eyes squirming with light insane
chisel the killing flame that dizzily grips.

And finally concludes:

thirstily. Dead stars stink. dawn. inane,
the poetic carcass of a girl.

This is not your run-of-the-mill erotica! From the sound of the words themselves to the use of unconventional syntax and spacing, the poems in this collection wind up to a climax after following a cadence that varies in texture, from rocky to sinuous.

Perhaps my favorite poem, because it hit me so squarely in the heart, is "vii." After the lovers have made love and:

all the houses terribly tighten
upon your coming:
and they are glad
as you fill the streets of my city with children.

Resting now, the lovers embrace, and it is Cummings' description of the melding of their bodies and hearts that, for me, so poignantly captures the sense of oneness between them:

you are a keen mountain and an eager island whose
lively slopes are based always in the me which is shrugging,which is
under you and around you and forever: i am the hugging sea.

The line drawings are themselves poetic, expressive, and emotional. Their style is reminiscent of Egon Schiele, Chagall, Picasso, and the deco illustrative style of the 1920s. (Interestingly, Cummings worked as a portrait artist for Vanity Fair magazine from 1924 to 1927.) The drawings are a great complement to the poems, as each holds large and complex movement, lovers' limbs and torsos twisting and twining around one another, floating in passion.

The book itself has been beautifully and simply executed; when I took Erotic Poems out of its mailing envelope, I had the sense of receiving a valentine. Its white cover is sparely punctuated by rose and black text and a shadowy crease evocative of the furrow at the center of an open book, or the entry point in clean white sheets ready to be mussed. The fashion in which the poems are headed—with non-sequential Roman and Arabic numerals—didn’t make much sense to me, but that wasn’t really a problem. There were poems that seemed to continue into one another and a few that could work as a triptych. While this may not necessarily be intentional on the part of the poet or the editor, it is indicative of the streaming and deeply subliminal nature of Cummings’ poetry and this collection in particular, which reveals the interior erotic landscape of both body and mind.

Written by: Matsya Siosal, April 29th 2010

Sometimes She Lets Me: Best Butch/Femme Erotica

admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Edited by Tristan Taormino

Cleis Press

So, I sometimes forget that reading erotica and looking at BDSM queer porn in the library of an Ivy League university is not necessarily standard practice. Lucky for me, I go to Brown, where I’m concentrating in Gender and Sexuality studies, and have somehow managed to legitimize studying sex manuals with postmodern theory in order to (supposedly, so they say) get a degree next year. Along with my academic studies and personal intrigues, I am also active with various events and groups on campus explicitly related to sexuality, so am known on campus for… well, let’s just say, when I pulled out Tristan Taormino’s Sometimes She Lets Me: Best Butch/Femme Erotica in the middle of the bustling Science Library lobby during the mad rush of studying for midterms, I got simply passing (mostly jealous) chuckles from friends venturing down into the depths of the stacks with unread textbooks in their arms.

This exciting collection of twenty-three stories is edited by author, director, and educator Tristan Taormino, and is a part of the Best Lesbian Erotica series, which has won three Lambda Awards. Cleis Press, who published the book, focuses on queer sexualities, putting out various sex guides, gender/queer theory texts, and works of fiction.

As the publisher notes, Sometimes She Lets Me: Best Butch/Femme Erotica is about “dispelling myths, realizing fantasies, and delivering outstanding writing with distinct contributor voices.” In the introduction, Taormino expresses the desire to “queer gender throughout the spectrum,” viewing gender as multilayered, constantly changing, and problematizing the reductionist and prescriptive discourses around butch/femme identities:

Butch/femme is bulging jeans, smeared lipstick, stiletto heels, and sharp haircuts. It’s about being read and being seen. Sometimes it’s about passing or not passing. It’s about individual identity and a collective sense of community. It’s personal, political. It’s performance and it’s not. It’s the visceral space between the flesh and the imagination.

The stories focus on the separation and convergence of the personal and the political, the body and fantasy, and address some examples of what really goes on in bed between self-identified butches and femmes. As a new reader of butch/femme lesbian erotica, I was surprised about the diversity of relationships, identities and desires, and found that while some of it was a real turn-on for me, others not so much. But that is okay. In the end, the appeal of the collection is about the confidence and attitude that exudes from the authors as they own their own identity expressions, desires, and pursuits of pleasure.

Written by: Abigail Chance, April 26th 2010

Chloe

admin — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:01:00 +0000

Directed by Atom Egoyan

Sony Picture Classics

A retread of Anne Fontaine’s 2003 film, Nathalie, I walked out of the theater feeling rather disappointed with Chloe.

Julianne Moore plays Catherine Stewart, a successful gynecologist who is married to a college professor named David (Liam Neeson). After David misses a flight home, Catherine looks through his phone and finds a rather questionable photo. Catherine then becomes consumed with the suspicion that David is cheating on her. After a chance meeting with Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), a young escort, Catherine decides to hire her to seduce her husband, ostensibly to determine what makes him tick and turns him on. Chloe accepts the assignment with alacrity, sharing with Catherine the explicit details of her rendezvous with David.

It is at this point that I began scratching my head. If Catherine thought she had proof of David’s extramarital dalliances, why didn’t she just confront him outright? Or hire a private detective to look into his activities? Or go through his things and check credit card statements, emails, and call records to uncover more evidence? Isn’t that what usually happens in real life when women think their husbands are double dipping? Unfortunately, this isn’t the only poor—or poorly explained—choice Catherine makes.

To up the confusion factor, Catherine’s behavior toward Chloe is often inexplicably maternal. She advises her to get checked for STI’s, expresses concern over Chloe’s health simply because Chloe sneezes, and all but kisses her boo-boo when Chloe takes a spill on her bike and skins her knee.

Chloe enjoys being nurtured and obviously views Catherine as a mother figure. This is impressed as she repeatedly tries to give Catherine a hairpin that belonged to her real mother. Telling viewers about Chloe’s mother could have provided this limp story with some interesting wrinkles; however, Chloe’s back-story is never properly explored. How she ended up becoming a call-girl and exactly what drives her obsession with Catherine is left unexplained.

None of the characters are suitably fleshed out, for that matter. We know David is a flirt, but Liam Neeson’s anemic performance would have you believe that his behavior is merely reflexive. The fact that Catherine seems halfway willing to accept that meager explanation makes it even harder to understand her choices. The couple have obviously had problems in their marriage in the past but we never find out exactly what they were or how (or even if) they got resolved.

And what’s up with their son? Michael (Max Theiriot) feels an obvious hostility toward his mother and his trips to a therapist’s couch are alluded to several times, but this character never comfortably inhabits the world of this story. Throwing all of Michael’s footage on the floor and making a few changes to the story would have helped this film immensely.

To make matters worse, the filmmaker’s decision to violate the show-don’t-tell rule further undermined this enterprise. Newsflash! Stories told by unreliable narrators pack more of a punch when the audience initially believes what it’s been told. Moviegoers should never be able to anticipate plot twists.

Properly executed, Chloe could have been an erotic thriller par excellence. Instead, the filmmakers never actually decide what they want this film to be. Is this movie simply a portrait of marriage where the thrill is gone or a glimpse into a career woman’s mid-life crisis? Is it an indictment of prostitution—a trade where workers are purchased, used, and ultimately discarded—or a metaphor for how some mothers collude with father-daughter incest? Maybe this movie is treatise on how sexual passion and jealousy are almost always inextricably linked.

Chloe, manages to be all of these things and none of these things. It is undone by its slack pacing, under-developed characters, depressive tone, and somewhat implausible story. If you are a fan of any of the featured actors, I would suggest that you wait until this film becomes available on DVD. Chloe just isn’t worth the price of full admission.

Written by: Ebony Edwards-Ellis, March 27th 2010

Taste of Cherry

admin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Kara Candito

University of Nebraska Press

One of the best ways to support awareness and understanding of taboo topics is to display them in a way that is non-threatening and invites discussion. Kara Candito’s Taste of Cherry is just such a collection of poetry. Bringing to life love affairs in everything from Greek myth to the HBO series Carnivale, Candito familiarizes the reader with both bizarre and mundane romantic entanglements. The collection’s chemistry is successful because she isn’t dependent on smut to get her point across: sensuality is skillfully woven in between the lines. (Let the records show that Candito’s poems also have their fair share of deliciously overt naughtiness, however. Not to worry.)

When I say sensual, I mean that in a very literal sense. While there is a certain amount of sex and romance depicted, Candito also uses her work to transmit sensual experiences on many levels. Smell, sound, touch, and taste are used to make the reader think about pain as well as pleasure. Subtlety is a powerful tool here, forcing the reader to draw connections and imagine the effect of cumulative sensory stimulation. The beauty, heat, and uncomfortable truth of each moment are fleshed out in a playful way. The casual changing of narrator gender and ambiguity regarding sexual orientation keeps the reader on his or her literary toes.

The undeniably erotic undertones to this collection of poetry are not to be outdone by political statements and what struck me as ultimatums: Candito presents a situation that is socially unacceptable, describes it as tenderly as she has the rest, and forces the reader to rethink his or her opinions. Women’s struggle between the conflict between society’s expectations and their own desires is an important theme, and part of what makes Taste of Cherry a feminist work.

Another theme is the power of suffering—from self-imposed pain, to accidents, to pain that teaches and heals. This expression can be viewed as an outlet of the female struggle between Self and Other, or perhaps the expression of an issue personal to the author that finds its way into several of the poems.

Whatever the case may be, the strength of this collection lies in Candito’s willingness to state the ugly truth, and somehow make it sound lyrical without losing meaning. Even more intriguing is her ability to pull such a high level of detail from historical accounts, published writing, and Italian opera, leaving the reader wondering how much of her writing stems from personal experience and how much is imagined.

Written by: Sam Williams, November 27th 2009

Taxidermia

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:00:00 +0000

Directed by György Pálfi

Regent Releasing

I was given a bootleg copy of Taxidermia about a year ago, before its North American release. True to bootleg copies, the disc went kaput about fifteen minutes into it, leaving me with the opening scene burned into my brain: the image of a flaming orgasm. Fire literally shoots out of a man’s penis.

When I had the opportunity to review this critically recognized and awarded Hungarian film, I was excited to get past the opening scene. All the reviews praised the cinematography and aesthetics of this film, with one caveat—if you can stomach it.

I will freely admit that I could barely stomach it. The flaming orgasm was only the tip of the phallic iceberg. Other masturbation and sex scenes prevailed. Again, tolerable. But then came the pig slaughter, and the subsequent sex scene on top of the pig entrails. I felt myself slinking down in my seat, looking around at my fellow reviewers, hoping someone else would walk out. But they sat tight, so I did as well, queasily.

Director György Pálfi’s Taxidermia is the story of three generations of men in Hungary. The grandfather Vendel Morosgovanyi, the pyro-masturbator, is an orderly for a crude family in the countryside, searching for love. His son Kalman becomes a competitive eater, pursuing victory as voraciously as a professional athlete. Finally Lajos, the last of this family, becomes the film’s namesake: a taxidermist seeking to preserve his own mortality.

The competitive eating chapter pushed me to the point of gagging, so I won’t indulge you with the details except that it involves vomiting and gorging on gelatinous delicacies. And the gruesome finale is a spectacle in itself. Self-taxidermy with the precision of a sculptor’s chisel.

However, lest this review be too tainted by my hang-ups, there are very impressive elements of this film that deserve noting.

A film like this makes me think, why? Is it a satire, a parody, or just sensation? There are plenty of torture films out there that probably rival the grotesque found here (such as the neverending Saw franchise), I just don’t go see them. Taxidermia should not be categorized with those films, because the purpose of this film is not to shock and disgust. This is a film about a family, linked by desire.

The cinematography truly is beautiful. A mix of realism, surrealism, and magical realism create an almost erotic experience, which makes the grotesque that much more disturbing. Two of my favorite scenes come in the first part, as the camera circles a wooden tub that is used for everything in a family’s daily life: to cradle a baby, to bathe in, to knead dough on, to hold the body of a dead relative, and to hold the recently slaughtered pig. It’s so beautifully and seamlessly shot that you forget about the unsavory details of this arrangement. The other scene is in Vendel’s imagination, as he walks into a three-dimensional fairytale storybook.

Consider yourself warned regarding the grotesque, and if you do go see Taxidermia, focus on what Pálfi is really doing here. If you can handle the sight of bodily fluids and animal slaughter, you will experience a unique story, set against a gray backdrop of intensity and hopelessness.

Written by: Claire Burrows, August 25th 2009

The Other Side of Desire: Four Journeys Into The Far Realms Of Lust And Longing

admin — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:43:00 +0000

By Daniel Bergner

ECCO Books

Daniel Bergner’s new work on sexuality, The Other Side of Desire, garnered a considerable amount of press before it was released thanks to an adapted excerpt from the book published in the New York Times under the title, “What Do Women Want?” Many feminists were disgruntled by the piece, which included University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) professor Marta Meana’s insistence of narcissism in the role of female arousal. (“Being desired is the orgasm.”) As one NYT letter writer pointed out, “For many women, it’s occasionally hard to know the difference between sexual agency and male-driven definitions of sexiness[...] we are not ‘post feminist’ yet.”

In the book itself, Bergner examines four distinct case studies of individuals with non-normative sexual proclivities, including a foot fetishist struggling with debilitating shame, a man who propositioned his adolescent stepdaughter, and an unrepentant female sadist who openly rejects the “safe, sane, consensual” mantra of the Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, Masochism (BDSM) community. Bergner alternates within each section between intimate portraits of his subjects’ lives and feedback from psychologists and psychiatrists who provide their professional take on the situation.

The female sadist is by far the most articulate subject and her chapter is subsequently the most memorable. Her practices are intense, and, to his credit, Bergner presents her actions to us without apparent judgment. The book’s greatest strength is the author’s willingness to admit moments when his own sensibilities are challenged and then do his best to set those reactions aside and continue reporting. What his interviewees confess is often stunningly honest, and the best way to respect their candidness is to simply share it.

The book ends on a weak note with “The Devotee,” a section focused on an amputee fetishist, Ron, and his amputee wife Laura. While Bergner touches on the ways disabled individuals’ sexuality is neglected (the doctors never address what sex might be like after Laura’s accident nor do they inform of the existence of a devotee community), he doesn’t linger on the subject for long. He also abandons his strategy of providing medical insight as a counterpoint to the personal experience and instead becomes strangely caught up in describing the artwork of Hans Bellmer, a man who photographed damaged-looking dolls, and Ron’s own photographs of amputees.

While Bergner does an admirable job of conveying the eroticism some men experience in sex with a disabled woman, his writing at this stage is often overly dramatic: “The body parts were letters, and their violent reordering would reinvent the body’s language and unmask its messages and lead to shaman’s wisdom.” Furthermore, there seems to be little room for Laura’s sexual needs in the relationship. She wonders what she can offer a man now after losing her conventional beauty in an accident. Once she begins modeling as an amputee her confidence is somewhat restored, yet she still doubts she could ever attract a “normal” man. It seems that Laura, like many women, grew up substituting being desired by a man in place of any desires of her own. Ron’s tastes are catered to, but Laura’s? As readers, we’re never entirely sure what she wants. Perhaps that New York Times letter writer was on to something.

Written by: Monica Shores, May 4th 2009