I just finished a reread of RAW's Book of Forbidden Words last night and, in a weird sort of synchronicity: "There seems to be a rising interest in enemas as a sex kick, and the practice has already produced a criminal cleverly dubbed the “Enema Bandit” by newspapers. It seems that around a large midwestern university a man with a gun, a gym bag and a ski mask has been breaking into women's apartments, tying his victims with bedsheet strips and then proceeding to give them enemas. Police claimed at least 13 such enema rapes in one year." Page 284.
And
"The coital position most favored in our society, with the woman supine and the man above her; the name derives from the Polynesians, who were astonished when told that other positions were regarded as sinful." Page 198
I don't have the new version of Forbidden Words, but I have an old ppbk version of the Playboy edition. I once read it cover to cover and what is memorable is RAW's wit and the sheer number of citations for movies. When I read the entry on klismaphilia in Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices (1992), it seemed I had read about that Enema Bandit before and I assumed it was in earlier readings of Love. Her encyclopedia has an extensive bibliography and she cites EO Wilson's Sociobiology but not RAW. RAW has "women's apartments" which seems more plausible than college dorms.
I suspect the "missionary position" faulty facts are repeated in hundreds of books.
Your synchronicity reminds of one I had last month: I was watching It Came From Kuchar (2009 Jennifer Kroot), a documentary on the Kuchar twins, avant-garde low-budget filmmakers, which included a lot of sequences from their films. There was a bit about Mike Kuchar's short film, Statue In The Park, which featured a non-actor that Mike is clearly in love with, a blond surfer guy named Mike Diana. It's softcore gay porn, really (btw: that was one of Paul Krassner's neologisms: "softcore porn"), and the film has two females ogling Mike Diana. The next day I was reading about censorship and right wing attacks on books and came across an article about an underground comic book writer who was convicted of obscenity in Florida; there had been a panic about a serial killer and this guy was suspected, but when they realized he wasn't the killer, they persecuted him anyway. The comic book writer was...Mike Diana, the same guy in the Kuchar film. I had never heard of him until then, and he appears twice for me in two different areas of my life: doing research on books and fascism toward books and late night watching weird films.
It appears that Michael H. Kenyon was the "Illinois Enema Bandit" and he was active in the 1960s. When I wrote that piece yesterday I didn't do a search for "enema criminal" but I should have. That he was called "Enema Bandit" was a sheer guess on my part, and I thought I was kidding. The "popular culture" part of the Wikipedia entry for Michael H. Kenyon seems interesting to me. Frank Zappa wrote music about him.
I am glad you wrote about "Sexy Neologisms", so I can comment on, in my view, very 'non-sexy' neologism: "missionary position". I never liked that term. It actually killed any desire for me to make love when I heard the word "missionary". Why? Apparently, that was the only position approved by conservative , often religious/ missionary, groups.
I am heavily for separation of Church and State. And I am heavily for separation of Church and Sex (meaning having sexual intercourse). I do not need church in my bedroom; I do not need priests in my bedroom; I do not want any missionaries sent by a religious group to spread their faith in my bedroom: I do not need their charity in my bed.
On the contrary! I need and want: freedom of expression, imagination, love, playfulness and joy in my bedroom.
So: out with this desire-killing term "missionary position". (I prefer to position myself!)
The semiotics of the missionary: man on top, woman supine, and below, passive, while man taking charge and control, doing the energetic "work", etc: it reproduces 5000 years of patriarchy right there. The Man is Church and State in missionary, while the woman is the laity...it's got "lay" right in the root of the word! The rhetoric from the Church is that's how Yahweh ordained it, so let's get to it. Of course the missionaries - assholes who have the One True Reality and thus all others must be "wrong" - will go to the furthest reaches of the Earth to "convert" the savages to the One True God, (who's male) and all the patriarchal ideas that go with it. (We all suspect the savage sexual positions are hot and it's partly why we read the latest ethnographies of some newly found tribe in deepest Iturian or Amazonian rainforest, or Siberian tundra. What did these unsullied-by-the-West people come up with, by way of the sacred nookie?)
The obvious political move by anyone who wants to be free is to reject missionary altogether, stick it to the clerically collared man, and go for tantric yab-yum, which clearly has the most egalitarian politics.
Or, to ritually enact a counter to 5000 years of patriarchy, the Amazon position: man on his back, holding his ankles, while woman is on top and in control. I understand it's quite a workout for the female and her core, abs, hips, but She can control angles and is basically using the male as a human dildo...take THAT, priests and nuns and bishops and cardinals and deacons and reverends and pastors and elders and choirboys! (Whew! Got myself a little worked-up by my own scenario and will have to go rub one out...and TAKE THAT, man of the cloth!)
I am curious what people consider their favorite sexual positions, and if that preference sometimes conflicts with a partner who wants another one.
I once dated a woman who worked at a local health department who introduced me to a position that was novel to me: The woman lies on her back, but the man "interacts" with her while lying on his side. She explained that she had learned in her job that it was a good position when the woman is pregnant.
"Interacts": is that what the kids are calling it these days?
I recently finished a book of collected essays by Richard Kostelanetz (b:1940), a lifelong Manhattan-based technofuturist libertarian-anarchist. Political Essays (1998).
In a very short 1993 essay, "Anarchist Sex," he writes, "Having said it before, I find it a pleasure to say so again. The original The Joy Of Sex (1972) has been, after several million copies, the most influential libertarian book of my lifetime." (p.170)
I saw a copy of that when I was about 13, maybe my mom had it. It probably isn't a stretch to link that book to ideas about trying all kinds of different positions. I wrote "Kama Sutra" because it seems funnier, but while many of our generation and later have probably seen one of the very many editions of Kama Sutra, it was Joy Of Sex (and its offshoots) that was far more influential.
Alex Comfort was an anarchist, as you no doubt know, publishing anarchist stuff in British journals in the 1940s, and Hugh Kenner is quoted on Comfort, gnomically telling of the time Comfort was not allowed on the BBC, but broke into "the evening broadcasts from a mobile transmitter Scotland Yard never tracked down."
I just finished a reread of RAW's Book of Forbidden Words last night and, in a weird sort of synchronicity: "There seems to be a rising interest in enemas as a sex kick, and the practice has already produced a criminal cleverly dubbed the “Enema Bandit” by newspapers. It seems that around a large midwestern university a man with a gun, a gym bag and a ski mask has been breaking into women's apartments, tying his victims with bedsheet strips and then proceeding to give them enemas. Police claimed at least 13 such enema rapes in one year." Page 284.
And
"The coital position most favored in our society, with the woman supine and the man above her; the name derives from the Polynesians, who were astonished when told that other positions were regarded as sinful." Page 198
I don't have the new version of Forbidden Words, but I have an old ppbk version of the Playboy edition. I once read it cover to cover and what is memorable is RAW's wit and the sheer number of citations for movies. When I read the entry on klismaphilia in Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices (1992), it seemed I had read about that Enema Bandit before and I assumed it was in earlier readings of Love. Her encyclopedia has an extensive bibliography and she cites EO Wilson's Sociobiology but not RAW. RAW has "women's apartments" which seems more plausible than college dorms.
I suspect the "missionary position" faulty facts are repeated in hundreds of books.
Your synchronicity reminds of one I had last month: I was watching It Came From Kuchar (2009 Jennifer Kroot), a documentary on the Kuchar twins, avant-garde low-budget filmmakers, which included a lot of sequences from their films. There was a bit about Mike Kuchar's short film, Statue In The Park, which featured a non-actor that Mike is clearly in love with, a blond surfer guy named Mike Diana. It's softcore gay porn, really (btw: that was one of Paul Krassner's neologisms: "softcore porn"), and the film has two females ogling Mike Diana. The next day I was reading about censorship and right wing attacks on books and came across an article about an underground comic book writer who was convicted of obscenity in Florida; there had been a panic about a serial killer and this guy was suspected, but when they realized he wasn't the killer, they persecuted him anyway. The comic book writer was...Mike Diana, the same guy in the Kuchar film. I had never heard of him until then, and he appears twice for me in two different areas of my life: doing research on books and fascism toward books and late night watching weird films.
It appears that Michael H. Kenyon was the "Illinois Enema Bandit" and he was active in the 1960s. When I wrote that piece yesterday I didn't do a search for "enema criminal" but I should have. That he was called "Enema Bandit" was a sheer guess on my part, and I thought I was kidding. The "popular culture" part of the Wikipedia entry for Michael H. Kenyon seems interesting to me. Frank Zappa wrote music about him.
Yes, I was going to bring up Frank Zappa. Here is a link to recordings of the song:
https://www.donlope.net/fz/songs/Illinois_Enema_Bandit.html
I am glad you wrote about "Sexy Neologisms", so I can comment on, in my view, very 'non-sexy' neologism: "missionary position". I never liked that term. It actually killed any desire for me to make love when I heard the word "missionary". Why? Apparently, that was the only position approved by conservative , often religious/ missionary, groups.
I am heavily for separation of Church and State. And I am heavily for separation of Church and Sex (meaning having sexual intercourse). I do not need church in my bedroom; I do not need priests in my bedroom; I do not want any missionaries sent by a religious group to spread their faith in my bedroom: I do not need their charity in my bed.
On the contrary! I need and want: freedom of expression, imagination, love, playfulness and joy in my bedroom.
So: out with this desire-killing term "missionary position". (I prefer to position myself!)
Btw: inviting "dark academia image"!
The semiotics of the missionary: man on top, woman supine, and below, passive, while man taking charge and control, doing the energetic "work", etc: it reproduces 5000 years of patriarchy right there. The Man is Church and State in missionary, while the woman is the laity...it's got "lay" right in the root of the word! The rhetoric from the Church is that's how Yahweh ordained it, so let's get to it. Of course the missionaries - assholes who have the One True Reality and thus all others must be "wrong" - will go to the furthest reaches of the Earth to "convert" the savages to the One True God, (who's male) and all the patriarchal ideas that go with it. (We all suspect the savage sexual positions are hot and it's partly why we read the latest ethnographies of some newly found tribe in deepest Iturian or Amazonian rainforest, or Siberian tundra. What did these unsullied-by-the-West people come up with, by way of the sacred nookie?)
The obvious political move by anyone who wants to be free is to reject missionary altogether, stick it to the clerically collared man, and go for tantric yab-yum, which clearly has the most egalitarian politics.
Or, to ritually enact a counter to 5000 years of patriarchy, the Amazon position: man on his back, holding his ankles, while woman is on top and in control. I understand it's quite a workout for the female and her core, abs, hips, but She can control angles and is basically using the male as a human dildo...take THAT, priests and nuns and bishops and cardinals and deacons and reverends and pastors and elders and choirboys! (Whew! Got myself a little worked-up by my own scenario and will have to go rub one out...and TAKE THAT, man of the cloth!)
I am curious what people consider their favorite sexual positions, and if that preference sometimes conflicts with a partner who wants another one.
I once dated a woman who worked at a local health department who introduced me to a position that was novel to me: The woman lies on her back, but the man "interacts" with her while lying on his side. She explained that she had learned in her job that it was a good position when the woman is pregnant.
"Interacts": is that what the kids are calling it these days?
I recently finished a book of collected essays by Richard Kostelanetz (b:1940), a lifelong Manhattan-based technofuturist libertarian-anarchist. Political Essays (1998).
In a very short 1993 essay, "Anarchist Sex," he writes, "Having said it before, I find it a pleasure to say so again. The original The Joy Of Sex (1972) has been, after several million copies, the most influential libertarian book of my lifetime." (p.170)
I saw a copy of that when I was about 13, maybe my mom had it. It probably isn't a stretch to link that book to ideas about trying all kinds of different positions. I wrote "Kama Sutra" because it seems funnier, but while many of our generation and later have probably seen one of the very many editions of Kama Sutra, it was Joy Of Sex (and its offshoots) that was far more influential.
Alex Comfort was an anarchist, as you no doubt know, publishing anarchist stuff in British journals in the 1940s, and Hugh Kenner is quoted on Comfort, gnomically telling of the time Comfort was not allowed on the BBC, but broke into "the evening broadcasts from a mobile transmitter Scotland Yard never tracked down."
Terrific piece. So much depends on a wicker basket.