Still Life with Marilyn

My heart sank when I first heard reportage of the Marilyn blowjob tape. Weird, right? Why on earth would such a video make me feel, I dunno, sad? Well, to be honest, every time another one of these celebrity sex tapes surfaces, I suppose I find it a just little bit sad. I think it's kind of crappy that the American cult of celebrity is so huge that we feel we have the right to invade the private worlds of people who get famous -- in a way that makes very little sense to me. I mean, watching celebrities have sex is really not much different than watching amateur porn-- their fame doesn't confer upon them superhuman powers of eroticism, by any means. No more than it confers upon them superhuman powers of being interesting outside of the respective fields from which they generated their fame. Celebrities, in their day-to-day lives, do not particularly interest me at all, actually -- with the possible exception of David Duchovny, of course... and that's just mostly because he's an ABD English lit scholar and, godDAMNit, I would give my i-teeth to read his take on "Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose." Oh, man, would I! And he could bring me lemonade and let me pet his hair while I read...

Um, anyway.

Even putting aside my general disinterest in the personal lives of celebrities, I was a little surprised to find myself having much of a reaction at all to the Marilyn tape. Particularly one such reaction that seems to be stemming from some strange desire to keep her distant, starlit and pristine. Marilyn occupies an acme in the collective imagination that no one before and no one since has been able to achieve-- and I dare say none who are to come will do so either. There was something very other about her -- something ineffable. I think perhaps it's that her public persona one that could be described as The Ultimate Receiver. With her wide open eyes and her plush open mouth and her sumptuously buoyant open, open body, it's as though she was designed to take on our fantasies-- of sex goddess, of movie star, of tragic beauty, of perfect, angelic fragility. The real woman, doubtlessly, was NONE of those things. She was notoriously lousy in the sack. She was a neurotic. An addict. A frequent public puker. And she became more and more unprofessional as her addiction progressed. And open? Who really knows the hearts of women?

So, why then, would I care if she got caught on camera giving head to some mystery man? I wonder if it's because I, too, want to believe in the fantasy of her. Because I want her perfect and distant and incandescently celestial. Because I hate old movies -- the pacing, the overacting, the film quality... gak! I just can't hardly sit through them! -- but every time I catch a Marilyn film on TV I stop, transfixed. What is it about this woman? For a woman so plagued with insecurity, how is that that she occupies every ounce of her luscious flesh with such vitality? Such conviction of bodily presence? She is just lovely. And she really does seem superhumanly erotic, in even the simplest of her gestures.

And now, I just can't get my imagined version of that video out of my head. Her cotton candy head, rendered aglow in stark, contrasty black-and-white, bobbing over some miscellaneous penis. Darkened mouth O-ed up, leaving streaks of lipstick in its repetitive wake. Luminous eyes shaded with an absurd overkill of false lashes, checking upwards every so often, obsequiously solicitous: is this right? Am I doing ok?

It's just so very human. So not goddess-like. And that's OK. She had every right to be a real person. Of course she did. But I must admit, I kinda like that she still elicits a gleam of the star-struck in me. She's Marilyn. The Marilyn. That she is of the same species as me seems not quite accurate. That she could be caught on tape rutting like the rest of us feels disorienting to me.

It is so stupid that I would feel like that. I'm not prone to sycophanticism. I don't see much value in either the demonization or the perching-on-pedestals of anyone, let along perfect strangers who just happen to have caught the eye of the public.

... but she's Marilyn.

Craft over content

For one of my craft seminars when I was in graduate school, I had to read Alessandro Baricco's little novela, Silk. It's supposed to be quite erotic. It was the concensus in our class, however, that the "steamier" passages are rendered rather comically. Part of comedy arises out the fact that in the English translation, all references to the penis are euphemised with the word "organ." As in, "I run my hand the length of your... organ." Or "Oh, baby, I want your... organ inside me." OK, I don't have the book in front of me as I'm writing this, and no, those aren't direct quotations, but you get the picture: "organ" isn't a very sexy word, no matter how you manipulate said "organ." Especially when the word's repeated 40 some odd times within an 8-page spread. It also doesn't much help that the plot of the book is roughly analogous to the narrative structure of The Pina Colada Song. It turns out it WAS his own lovely lady in the end! Go figure.

This past weekend, I watched a newish film adaptation of the book, starring Keira Knightly and Michael Pitt. It's pretty much a snoozefest. And that's a shame. As expected, the film suffers from some of the same issues of fetishization of Eastern culture as the book does. But also, all the dirty stuff is completely edited out and sanitized. As such, it becomes a trite period-piece mushfest. Puke. It seems like such a waste of hot actors. Expecially Michael Pitt, who doesn't often shy away from sexual exposition within his films-- like The Dreamers, for instance, or Hedwig and the Angry Inch (arguably the BEST musical film ever made. No, not arguably. THE best. Hands down.)

I bring up this book/film now because I'm recalling that it prompted a classroom discussion about whether or not erotic writing was dead-- whether or not any of us are capable of writing anything that's both well-crafted and actually hot in an age when most of the language we use to describe such acts no longer scandalizes anyone, as it's all become part of the casual discourse. My professor, the illustrious Jane Miller, opined that maybe no one since Anais Nin has been able to do it well. Now, I've read some Nin... I'm not all that convinced that SHE did it terribly well either. Frankly, her literary sex is altogether too flowery for my taste. It's not comical in the way that Baricco's is, but I don't think it's all that hot either.

Maybe it's that I like my sex writing to be simpler, franker, unflourished. This is why I admire the work of sex worker/blogger debauchette -- to whom I have been referring an awful lot lately. Her prose is spare, clean and dirty. It gets down to business. For this, I admire it. I think it's better writing than the more purplish stylings of Chelsea G. over on Pretty Dumb Things, though I quite like Chelsea's feminist stance on pretty much everything. Here's an article that seems to agree with me about overwrought-ness in erotic writing. And poet Dan Chiasson says some similar stuff here in the NYT Book Review, though his argument more pertains to the problems of anthologizing poetry. Anyway--ultimately, I guess I hold this preference dear because prettily written sex scenes ring false in my ear. Sex is messy and sweaty and grunty and sometimes bloody. When it's really good, it isn't sweet at all. What's the point in dressing it in frilly underpants when all you really wanna do is rip 'em off in the first 5 minutes?

Sex writing should always go commando.

Below, you shall find an example of really in-your-face erotic poetry. It was written in 1948. It's a shame I'm going back 60 years to find something so audacious. But what really gets me about the poem below isn't its unadorned brashness of subject matter. It's not that it's graphic as all get-out (though, it is).

It's that Auden's mastery of internal rhyme is totally hypnotizing. Seriously-- pay attention to it. It's not easy to do what he does. It's such a careful craft--funny and rhythmic with its precision of cadence. Poetry's so fucking good. He could have written this poem about rinsing dog poo off his shoes in a mud puddle and it still would've been hot. Skillful articulation is just plain sexy. This is not debatable.

Bon appetite, mes amours!




The Platonic Blow
W. H. Auden

It was a spring day, a day for a lay, when the air
Smelled like a locker-room, a day to blow or get blown;
Returning from lunch I turned my corner and there
On a near-by stoop I saw him standing alone.

I glanced as I advanced. The clean white T-shirt outlined
A forceful torso, the light-blue denims divulged
Much. I observed the snug curves where they hugged the behind,
I watched the crotch where the cloth intriguingly bulged.

Our eyes met. I felt sick. My knees turned weak.
I couldn't move. I didn't know what to say.
In a blur I heard words, myself like a stranger speak
"Will you come to my room?" Then a husky voice, "O.K."

I produced some beer and we talked. Like a little boy
He told me his story. Present address: next door.
Half Polish, half Irish. The youngest. From Illinois.
Profession: mechanic. Name: Bud. Age: twenty-four.

He put down his glass and stretched his bare arms along
The back of my sofa. The afternoon sunlight struck
The blond hairs on the wrist near my head. His chin was strong.
His mouth sucky. I could hardly believe my luck.

And here he was sitting beside me, legs apart.
I could bear it no longer. I touched the inside of his thigh.
His reply was to move closer. I trembled, my heart
Thumped and jumped as my fingers went to his fly.

I opened a gap in the flap. I went in there.
I sought for a slit in the gripper shorts that had charge
Of the basket I asked for. I came to warm flesh then to hair.
I went on. I found what I hoped. I groped. It was large.

He responded to my fondling in a charming, disarming way:
Without a word he unbuckled his belt while I felt.
And lolled back, stretching his legs. His pants fell away.
Carefully drawing it out, I beheld what I held.

The circumcised head was a work of mastercraft
With perfectly beveled rim of unusual weight
And the friendliest red. Even relaxed, the shaft
Was of noble dimensions with the wrinkles that indicate

Singular powers of extension. For a second or two,
It lay there inert, then suddenly stirred in my hand,
Then paused as if frightened or doubtful of what to do.
And then with a violent jerk began to expand.

By soundless bounds it extended and distended, by quick
Great leaps it rose, it flushed, it rushed to its full size.
Nearly nine inches long and three inches thick,
A royal column, ineffably solemn and wise.

I tested its length and strength with a manual squeeze.
I bunched my fingers and twirled them about the knob.
I stroked it from top to bottom. I got on my knees.
I lowered my head. I opened my mouth for the job.

But he pushed me gently away. He bent down. He unlaced
His shoes. He removed his socks. Stood up. Shed
His pants altogether. Muscles in arms and waist
Rippled as he whipped his T-shirt over his head.

I scanned his tan, enjoyed the contrast of brown
Trunk against white shorts taut around small
Hips. With a dig and a wriggle he peeled them down.
I tore off my clothes. He faced me, smiling. I saw all.

The gorgeous organ stood stiffly and straightly out
With a slight flare upwards. At each beat of his heart it threw
An odd little nod my way. From the slot of the spout
Exuded a drop of transparent viscous goo.

The lair of hair was fair, the grove of a young man,
A tangle of curls and whorls, luxuriant but couth.
Except for a spur of golden hairs that fan
To the neat navel, the rest of the belly was smooth.

Well hung, slung from the fork of the muscular legs,
The firm vase of his sperm, like a bulging pear,
Cradling its handsome glands, two herculean eggs,
Swung as he came towards me, shameless, bare.

We aligned mouths. We entwined. All act was clutch,
All fact contact, the attack and the interlock
Of tongues, the charms of arms. I shook at the touch
Of his fresh flesh, I rocked at the shock of his cock.

Straddling my legs a little I inserted his divine
Person between and closed on it tight as I could.
The upright warmth of his belly lay all along mine.
Nude, glued together for a minute, we stood.

I stroked the lobes of his ears, the back of his head
And the broad shoulders. I took bold hold of the compact
Globes of his bottom. We tottered. He fell on the bed.
Lips parted, eyes closed, he lay there, ripe for the act.

Mad to be had, to be felt and smelled. My lips
Explored the adorable masculine tits. My eyes
Assessed the chest. I caressed the athletic hips
And the slim limbs. I approved the grooves of the thighs.

I hugged, I snuggled into an armpit. I sniffed
The subtle whiff of its tuft. I lapped up the taste
Of its hot hollow. My fingers began to drift
On a trek of inspection, a leisurely tour of the waist.

Downward in narrowing circles they playfully strayed.
Encroached on his privates like poachers, approached the prick,
But teasingly swerved, retreated from meeting. It betrayed
Its pleading need by a pretty imploring kick.

"Shall I rim you?" I whispered. He shifted his limbs in assent.
Turned on his side and opened his legs, let me pass
To the dark parts behind. I kissed as I went
The great thick cord that ran back from his balls to his arse.

Prying the buttocks aside, I nosed my way in
Down the shaggy slopes. I came to the puckered goal.
It was quick to my licking. He pressed his crotch to my chin.
His thighs squirmed as my tongue wormed in his hole.

His sensations yearned for consummation. He untucked
His legs and lay panting, hot as a teen-age boy.
Naked, enlarged, charged, aching to get sucked,
Clawing the sheet, all his pores open to joy.

I inspected his erection. I surveyed his parts with a stare
From scrotum level. Sighting along the underside
Of his cock, I looked through the forest of pubic hair
To the range of the chest beyond rising lofty and wide.

I admired the texture, the delicate wrinkles and the neat
Sutures of the capacious bag. I adored the grace
Of the male genitalia. I raised the delicious meat
Up to my mouth, brought the face of its hard-on to my face.

Slipping my lips round the Byzantine dome of the head,
With the tip of my tongue I caressed the sensitive groove.
He thrilled to the trill. "That's lovely!" he hoarsely said.
"Go on! Go on!" Very slowly I started to move.

Gently, intently, I slid to the massive base
Of his tower of power, paused there a moment down
In the warm moist thicket, then began to retrace
Inch by inch the smooth way to the throbbing crown.

Indwelling excitements swelled at delights to come
As I descended and ascended those thick distended walls.
I grasped his root between left forefinger and thumb
And with my right hand tickled his heavy voluminous balls.

I plunged with a rhythmical lunge steady and slow,
And at every stroke made a corkscrew roll with my tongue.
His soul reeled in the feeling. He whimpered "Oh!"
As I tongued and squeezed and rolled and tickled and swung.

Then I pressed on the spot where the groin is joined to the cock,
Slipped a finger into his arse and massaged him from inside.
The secret sluices of his juices began to unlock.
He melted into what he felt. "O Jesus!" he cried.

Waves of immeasurable pleasures mounted his member in quick
Spasms. I lay still in the notch of his crotch inhaling his sweat.
His ring convulsed round my finger. Into me, rich and thick,
His hot spunk spouted in gouts, spurted in jet after jet.