http://www.skny.com/lasso-bin/exhibition.lasso?-token.ExID=10209
Having to work in this subject for the purpose of a lecture on her performances, I noticed how familiar are some of these pagan rituals to some of our conceptions on sexuality.
best
Lucio BR
On 10/8/06, Alan Sondheim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This is fascinating. Given the way desire operates, one might say all sex,
at least possibly masculine sex, is masturbation - certainly if based on
what's considered the economy of exchange.
On the other hand, given such an overdetermined subject or locus, I think
almost any position, any theory, holds to an extent. Since it's a psycho-
analytical positioning to some extent, I don't feel that either verifica-
tion procedures or testability is necessarily possible.
- Alan
On Sun, 8 Oct 2006, Dr. T. Michael Roberts wrote:
> Or make it the absent center of a discursive structure
> that only attains coherence and closure on permission
> that this center, this center which everything refers
> to but which is never presented, is what the discourse
> is structured around or, more simply, what it is
> about. What if masturbation is real sex and other sex
> is real only to the extent that it performs a core
> script iterated endlessly as tropes of masturbatory
> fantasy?
>
> What if the traumatic real being hidden is an absence
> of anything for the script of desire to refer to or be
> about? What if the script itself is a purloined letter
> hidden in plain sight? What if "we were afraid to
> touch it" is, like zero, a place holder, a necessary
> way of signifying nothing which is necessary to making
> signification possible.
>
>
> --- Alan Sondheim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> For me the discourse is dialectical; masturbation
>> etc. occurs among the
>> primate and a number of other animals. So it's a
>> question of representa-
>> tion. So I would imagine that masturbation would be
>> presenced everywhere -
>> even an absent discourse would indicate a
>> problematic around the act.
>>
>> - Alan
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 8 Oct 2006, Dr. T. Michael Roberts wrote:
>>
>>> Orgy paintings were common on the walls of Roman
>>> villas. Sex was not taken to be as much a private
>>> matter at that time. These painting were displayed
>> in
>>> public areas, not in private bedrooms. Many of the
>>> Minoan "Bull-jumping" frescos seem to have a
>> sexual
>>> element. Public orgies were as much a part of
>> public
>>> life in Carthage as July 4th parades are in modern
>>> America and were displayed in public art.
>>>
>>> The danger in talking about "sexuality" is that it
>> is
>>> itself an effect of discourse constructed through
>> a
>>> discourse process marked by the constraints of a
>>> particular cultural time and place and by the
>>> positioning of both narrator and intended audience
>>> within that culture. Plato has Socrates mention a
>>> popular prostitute of the time, Diotima, in the
>>> Symposium. Symposium originally meant "drinking
>> party"
>>> and prostitutes were routinely hired to entertain
>> at
>>> such gathering. A good source on all of this is
>>> Reading, Writing, and Rewriting the Prostitute
>> Body by
>>> Shannon Bell.
>>>
>>>
>>> --- mpalmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:
>>>
>>>> So many things to think about with this topic,
>> but
>>>> one question that
>>>> comes to mind is this: When were the first images
>> to
>>>> appear in art of
>>>> individuals masturbating? Or what about the first
>>>> mention in a
>>>> literary work? I can't think of anything from
>>>> ancient Greece, nor
>>>> from India, etc. but that's just off the top of
>> my
>>>> head. Maybe
>>>> somebody better versed in this stuff than I would
>>>> know.
>>>>
>>>> m
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 7, 2006, at 8:04 PM, Alan Sondheim wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> After the Kali Tal nettime blasting and my
>>>> response, I'm hesitant
>>>>> to send this out. But I'm proud of this work,
>> and
>>>> its association
>>>>> of sexuality, dance, freedom and degradation -
>>>> rendering the
>>>>> reader, at least myself, uncomfortable. And this
>>>> is definitely from
>>>>> a mail viewpoint, or at least a ghostly male
>>>> choreographer's
>>>>> viewpoing? Or is it? There's a whole area of
>>>> performance that's
>>>>> open to question.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm responding re: below and in some of the
>> other
>>>> dance-texts I've
>>>>> written
>>>>> - to the fundamentally Apollonian / cool nature
>> of
>>>> western dance,
>>>>> where eroticism is buried. Think of gender
>>>> relations in ballet, or
>>>>> the cool efficaceous computerized choreographies
>>>> of Cunningham, or
>>>>> Rainer's slow and steadied presentation. Early
>>>> dance - what a
>>>>> catastrophic term - often involved sexuality re:
>>>> fertility rites,
>>>>> etc. I apologize for the general- ization.
>> Dance,
>>>> in short, often
>>>>> involved caressing, fucking, rapture, frisson,
>>>> that was seemingly
>>>>> real. What I'm writing into is the Dionysian.
>>>>>
>>>>> The difference might be between the aesthetics
>> of
>>>> eroticism and the
>>>>> non- aesthetics of pornography, and here I'm on
>>>> shakier ground, but
>>>>> I'm not talking about a pornography which
>>>> denigrates women or
>>>>> anyone for that matter. Eroticism flourishes in
>>>> the dance, but of
>>>>> course only goes so far - the rest might be left
>>>> up to the strip-
>>>>> club, which serves (if that's the right word) a
>>>> very different
>>>>> purpose. (The ground is falling away.) So these
>>>> are dances which
>>>>> won't be performed but could be - dances which
>>>> would close
>>>>> theaters, ruin reputations. The descriptions are
>>>> obviously the
>>>>> barest outlines; you can fill in the rest
>>>> yourself.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ====
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The Lek
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Sex dances for one to four people.
>>>>>
>>>>> The dancers are nude. There are no props.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Male dances alone while masturbating. He dances
>>>> until he cums.
>>>>>
>>>>> Female dances alone while masturbating. She
>> dances
>>>> until she cums.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tethered: Male dances with his prick in a
>>>> partner's mouth. The partner
>>>>> crouches, mostly immobile.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tethered: Female dances prone above a male
>> partner
>>>> with his prick in
>>>>> her cunt. The dance continues until one or both
>> of
>>>> them have cum.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tethered: Female dances prone coupling with a
>>>> female partner. The
>>>>> dance
>>>>> ends as above.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tethered: Male dances prone, coupling with a
>> male
>>>> partner. The dance
>>>>> ends when both have cum.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tethered: Male or female dances with his or her
>>>> mouth on a partner's
>>>>> prick. The dances continues until the dancer or
>>>> partner have cum.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tethered: Male dances with one hand holding his
>>>> prick erect.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tethered: Male dances with his cock in a cunt or
>>>> asshole. The
>>>>> partner is
>>>>> on all fours.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tethered: Female dances with one hand in her
>> cunt.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tethered: Female dances with one or more
>>>> partners' fingers in her
>>>>> cunt.
>>>>>
>>>>> Variant Tethered: Male dances with one or more
>>>> partners' fingers in
>>>>> his
>>>>> asshole. The dance ends when one or both have
>> cum.
>>>>>
>>>>> Variant Tethered: Female dances with one or more
>>>> partners' fingers in
>>>>> her asshole. The dance ends as above.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tethered: Male or female dances with her
>> partner's
>>
> === message truncated ===
>
>
> "In so far as literature turns back on itself and examines parodies or treats ironically its own signifying procedures, it becomes the most complex account of signification we possess." – John Deely
>
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