MISTRESSES AND SLAVES

MISS HAVISHAM


What do Slaves and Submissives want from a Master, or Mistress? Once again I’m looking to the past to help me find an answer. In GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Charles Dickens gives writers of Erotica a template for a Mistress, in the character of Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham is clever and cruel. She knows all about psychological manipulation; she’s an adept.

And how we love our Slave and Submissive stories. Reading them, writing them. I’ll never forget when I first came to Erotica and read a Slave story, by Patrick Califia. I felt like I had come home. The girl in the story finally realises her dream. She is neither weird, nor insane. She’s simply different and that’s okay. It’s okay to be submissive. It’s okay to be different.

Away from fantasy land, I would rather die than submit to someone who has physical control over me. I am not turned on by cruel treatment; by someone’s desire to dominate me. But psychological control -- well, that’s something else. Like many people, I’ve succumbed to the terror, and unhappiness of mind games, without even realising it.


Pip is a child, caught up in Miss Havisham’s cruel game of psychological manipulation. Through Miss Havisham’s bizarre and obsessive behaviour, Pip is manipulated into loving Estella.




BREAK HIS HEART. Miss Havisham, Estella and Pip.



Miss Havisham, is a prototype of a Mistress. Miss Havisham, is what she is. Despite her sad story, she could have behaved differently. She devotes her life into seeking revenge on the male sex and she is training the beautiful Estella, to continue her work, by becoming a Mistress herself.


At the end of the novel, Miss Havisham tells Pip;

"Believe this: when she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first I meant no more. But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always before her a warning to back and point my lessons, I stole her heart away and put ice in its place...



Dickens provides Miss Havisham with a back story.

As an adult, Miss Havisham fell in love with a man named Compeyson, who was only out to swindle her of her riches. Her cousin Matthew Pocket warned her to be careful, but she was too much in love to listen. At twenty minutes to nine on their wedding day, while she was dressing, Miss Havisham received a letter from Compeyson and realizing that he had defrauded her and she had been left at the altar, she falls into a sort of pathological grief, that defines her as a character and drives the plot of the novel.

So, once again, I’m looking to the great writers of the past, whether it’s the Greek story tellers, or the Victorians, to help me to understand where writers of the 21st century, find their inspiration. Whether we write about subs or doms, heroes or villains. Whether we write just for fun, for ourselves, or in hope of riches and fame, we owe a debt to those folk whispering forbidden stories in the firelight; or, like the Victorians, scribbling their little stories by candlelight, and ruining their eyesight in chilly rooms. We should thank them all.

Leonard Cohen - The Future (Official Music Video)

My friends in the UK will know about the recent case of the 2 kids, torturing 2 other kids. Horrific -- reminded me of Leonard Cohen's great poetry...

Belle's First Client

Billie Piper (secret diary of a call girl) talks to the real Belle du Jour.

RAPE

Rape: an insidious little word. Those four letters, in that order, conjure up a variety of emotions. We’ve an unwritten, unspoken contract, drawn up between ourselves, about what words convey to us. What they signify. Rape, signifies violation; and much, much more.





The word rape itself originates from the Latin verb rapere: to seize or take by force. To us, it is much more than that. It connotes fear, anger, guilt, shame. Sadly, those emotions are burdens, carried by far too many people.






We talk about “victims of rape.” So why is rape a favourite fantasy of so many people? Why do artists paint pictures of rape? Why do writers of erotica write their carefully crafted rape stories? Why is a word that conveys that a violation, a heinous crime, has taken place, a turn on? Why do we find the paintings and stories such a turn on? We know exactly what is going on; yet still we look at the pictures and read the stories.

The tale of Persephone is a favourite subject for artists. Here is her story. She was abducted by Hades and starved into submission.



In the days when gods and goddesses walked on the Earth, the three most powerful gods were brothers. Zeus was ruler of the sky, Poseidon was god of the sea and Hades was the Lord of the Underworld.

The Underworld was a terrible place, a place without light, where the spirits of the dead went. Having entered the underworld, and having eaten there, no-one was allowed to re-enter the world of the living.

A beautiful girl lived on the Earth and her name was Persephone.
One day Hades visited Earth and rode past Persephone while she was gathering flowers in a field. He was dazzled by her beauty. He wanted her. And being one of the three most powerful gods, he kidnapped her and drove off in his chariot.

Persephone was terrified. She was pinned to the floor of Hades' chariot while he drove faster and faster, down and down, into the darkness of the underworld. In the black halls of Hades, Persephone crouched and cried, refusing all food, refusing to speak to the god who had snatched her away.

Days passed. Persephone's hunger grew. At last she could resist no longer, she ate some pomegranate seeds and, having eaten, she could not return to the world above.

Meanwhile, her Mother, the goddess Demeter, grew distracted. She knew what had happened but she could do nothing. She raged all the more because she was powerless against Hades. She went to Zeus, the king of gods, and she begged him to bring about Persephone's return. Zeus could not bear Demeter's crying. Her tears were destroying the harvest. He had to do something.


Unfortunately, he was too late to stop Persephone eating the Pomegranate seeds. The rules of the Underworld had to be obeyed. Yet, Zeus being Zeus, the rules could be stretched a little. He sent Hermes, the messenger of the gods, to strike a deal with Hades. The deal was this. Persephone would marry Hades and remain Queen of the Underworld, living there half the year. In the spring she could return to earth, and live there in the warm, bright light of the summer.

And this is what happened. While Persephone lives in the underworld, the days are short and dark and cold. But with her return to Earth in the spring, the flowers start to bloom, the leaves to bud, and the birds to sing in the sky.

VOYEURS: PEEPING TOMS.

In the 19th century artists and writers, turned the viewer and the reader into a voyeur. In painting the viewer was no longer just a spectator, he or she was invited into the narrative of the painting. Writers like Emile Zola, gave the reader the opportunity to engage with their stories. To see other people’s lives from the inside.

The painting told a story and the viewer, now the voyeur, gazed on sights that may never before have been dreamed of. Imagination was given free rein and the voyeur was drawn into participating in the story. What is going on here? What has just happened? What is going to happen next? It’s up to the voyeur. This can be as titillating, or as debauched as he, or she, likes. The mind is free to wander. There is little room for an innocent story to be told; the images are as shocking and arousing today, as for the 19th century voyeur. Sex is in the truth of the narrative of the painting. As writers today, we carefully craft our pornography and erotica, but I think we have to concede that those guys, painting over one hundred years ago, did it before us, and did it very well.


Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ women in THE TURKISH BATH (1862) are blowsy, drowsy, voluptuous. The heat from the steaming room drifts through the atmosphere. One woman lazily caresses another woman’s breast. Another strums some sort of lute. In the background a woman dances. The scent of slippery sex juices warm the air; the viewer can taste the women’s arousal. The women are available, lounging carelessly. Ingres’ erotic scene invites participation. The women are thinking only of sex. Perhaps the women are waiting the arrival of the master of the harem. The man who will choose, to take one, maybe two or three of them, to his bed chamber. The women left behind might roll together in a sleepy orgy.

At the end of his life, Ingres created the most erotic of all his works with this harem scene. In it he combines the figure of the nude with an oriental theme, taking as his inspiration the letters of Lady Montague (1690-1760), who recounts a visit to a women's baths in Istanbul in the early eighteenth century. Ingres has borrowed figures from some of his previous paintings for this composition full of arabesques. This late masterpiece was only revealed to the public many years after his death. (from the web).

Dozens of nude Turkish women are sitting or lying on sofas in various poses, in an Oriental interior which is arranged around a pool. Many of these bathers have just emerged from the water and are stretching themselves or dozing off; others are chatting or drinking coffee. This picture, dating from 1862, combines two subjects which had been close to Ingres’ heart for more than fifty years: the nude and the Orient. (from the web).

You can see Ingres’ THE TURKISH BATH in The Louvre Museum, Paris.






In THE SLEEPERS, Gustave Courbet paints an erotic ideal of lesbian love.(1866) Courbet highlights the importance of the lesbian theme in contemporary writers and artists. The lesbian image, in the 19th century, was, as now, a popular theme in erotica.

Two women lie in an exhausted, erotic embrace. The viewer’s focus is fixed on the women’s languorous caress. There is little to distract the viewer from the image of the two sleeping women. Their limbs are entangled; the broken string of pearls, the hairpin strewn on the bed are indicators, as if they are needed, of the nature of their embrace.

Who is this painting for? One needs to consider the nature of the artist’s sexuality, and that of his patron. Also the male heterosexual approach to female sexuality; and there are more general implications about the role of art in sexual fantasy, imagination, voyeurism and titillation.

You can see Courbet’s THE SLEEPERS, at the Musee de Petit Palais, in Paris






THE NIGHTMARE is a 1781 oil painting by Anglo-Swiss artist Henry Fuseli (1741–1825). Since its creation, it has remained Fuseli's best-known work. With its first exhibition in 1782 at the Royal Academy of London the image became famous; an engraved version was widely distributed. Due to its fame, Fuseli painted at least three other versions of THE NIGHTMARE.

We see a voluptuous woman, asleep, and in the grip of a nightmare. Her dream is erotic and fearful, yet Fuseli displays her, open and ready to succumb to the hideous incubus, claiming her and squatting on her chest. The dream image is further signified by the entrance of a crazy horse at the back of the painting.

THE NIGHTMARE simultaneously offers both the image of a dream—by indicating the effect of the nightmare on the woman—and a dream image—in symbolically portraying the sleeping vision. It depicts a sleeping woman draped over the end of a bed with her head hanging down, exposing her long neck. She is surmounted by an incubus that peers out at the viewer. The sleeper seems lifeless, and, lying on her back, she takes a position believed to encourage nightmares. Emerging from a part in the curtain is the head of a horse with bold, featureless eyes. (Wiki)

Today, post-Freud, we can see that the painting is primarily about sex - although whether it is about submission, empowerment or voyeurism is still being debated by art historians.
Contemporary critics were taken aback by the overt sexuality of the painting, which has since been interpreted by some scholars as anticipating Freudian ideas about the subconscious. (Wiki)


I think that the NIGHTMARE is a liberating force for women; women are allowed to have erotic dreams. Women don’t need to feel guilty about giving in to their darker side; for waking wet and flushed from orgasm. For that reason it’s a sexual leveller; it’s not just men who are permitted to have sexual fantasies.

You can see Fuseli’s painting at the Detroit Institute of Arts, although it would be wise to check before you visit; it is often on loan to various exhibitions around the world. Another version of the painting is at the Goethe Museum, Frankfurt.

Ingres, Courbet and Fuseli are allowing morally subversive art to stand alone, independent of the accustomed role of service if the state, or official religion. The paintings are devoid of sentiment, but they do create an emotional impression and move the viewer.

The voyeur, is a polite way of saying “peeping tom.” There’s something deliciously naughty about that. We are peering in at the object’s most private moments. Spying and prying into affairs that are none of our business. The object has no control of how they are seen. It is in nakedness and sleep that we are at our most vulnerable.

While 19th century middle class women were expected to be chaste and to have little, or no knowledge of their bodies; artists went quite a way to giving women back control of their sexuality. They have as much right as men to erotica and to be voyeurs, “peeping toms,” if that is what they choose.

WHEN I AM OLD...

My antidote for growing old disgracefully, is writing porn-but there is another way.

Check out Jenny Joseph's great poem!



Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

By Jenny Joseph






When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.



You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.



But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

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