tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86708120272736328282024-02-06T20:57:35.804-08:00billierosieThe blog is for fun. My wandering thoughts. I like satire and positive thinking. My interests are in the Arts; theatre, literature, painting, sculpture. Erotica and fetish.billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.comBlogger454125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-91260647751273672232022-03-25T05:04:00.000-07:002022-03-26T03:05:22.059-07:00billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-80656343376992466762020-04-22T04:53:00.001-07:002020-06-15T03:36:32.473-07:00A Covenant of Spies...Daniel Kemp<br />
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Daniel Kemp’s latest book ‘A Covenant of Spies’ is everything that I have come to expect from him; an erudite, complex tale, that is so well developed, that he quite seriously, makes me wonder if he really does know something that the rest of us can only imagine.<br />
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Just in case you’re not familiar with Daniel Kemp’s work...He writes political thrillers and A Covenant of Spies is the fourth book in his ‘Lies and Consequences’ series. His books are beautifully researched and crafted into stories navigating the world of his protagonist Patrick West. It’s a device that not only introduces the reader to the murky world of lies and spies, it also delineates the passing of time in, what to the reader, becomes a strange unfamiliar and alien place in the 20th and early 21st centuries.<br />
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The narrative is driven by dialogue between Fraser Ughert and Patrick West. Despite having known each other for many years, and on occasions worked together, there are vast areas of the Secret Services about which West knows little. Ughert is advanced in his years and he tells tales of the Cold War, spies busy with subterfuge, spies who were up to their necks in events that could shift the balance, the potential disaster of a war on humanity. We are dazzled by the sheer amount of spies of all nationalities; this book really demonstrates that there really is A Covenant of Spies.<br />
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But come on, this is fiction, isn’t it? Really? Well think again...<br />
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Cast your mind back to the first of November 2006. Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and KGB. After speaking critically about what he saw as corruption within the Russian government, he fled retribution to the UK, where he remained a vocal critic of the Russian state.<br />
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On the first of November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalised in what was established as a case of poisoning by radioactive polonium-210; he died from the poisoning on 23 November. He became the first known victim of lethal polonium 210-induced acute radiation syndrome.<br />
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The former Russian spy was poisoned with a cup of tea in a London hotel. Working with Scotland Yard detectives, as he lay dying, he traced the lethal substance to a former comrade in the Russian secret service.<br />
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Litvinenko knew that he was dying; we watched him die on television.<br />
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Reports found that Litvinenko was killed by two Russian agents, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun and that there was a "strong probability" they were acting on behalf of the Russian FSB secret service.<br />
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Marina, Litvinenko’s widow, says that she, and the coroner examining his case, are disappointed that the British government has blocked a public inquiry into his death.<br />
The coroner had argued that an inquiry was necessary because vital evidence couldn't be considered by a normal inquest.<br />
Speaking to Jeremy Vine on The Andrew Marr Show, Mrs Litvinenko said that she's worried that it will not be possible to achieve justice until an inquest is completed.<br />
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Is that enough to convince you? If not try googling 4 March 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the UK's intelligence services, and his daughter Yulia Skripal were poisoned in Salisbury, England, with a Novichok nerve agent, according to official UK sources and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.<br />
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Spies are facts; they are there and British history is littered with them. You couldn’t make it up,”people say, when crazy things happen, when we are face to face with “breaking news” on the news channels. The cases above are straight from that genre...reality bites and the sagacious, adroit mind of Daniel Kemp weaves a tantalising, beguiling tale.<br />
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A Russian spy, Nikita Sergevovitch Kudashov, wants the British government to give safe passage to his Granddaughter in Russia and it falls to Patrick West to investigate why Kudashov wants this. The Granddaughter has information that would be useful to our country...why shouldn’t the government grant Shudashov’s request? As a spy himself West is suspicious...and he, and Fraser Ughert deliberate into many long nights as to Shudashov’s agenda.<br />
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If you’re a fast reader, slow down, there’s an abomination here that could just happen; a hideous Orwellian manipulation...I’m saying no more, other than it’s only spoken of in little snippets, little morsels here and there, maybe just a sentence or two. Daniel Kemp gives you the clues, don’t miss them; a shudder ran up my spine as I read.<br />
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It’s no secret that I love Daniel Kemp’s work. He tussles with my mind with conundrums that I could never dream up. Seasoned readers of the ‘lies and consequences’ series will love ‘A Covenant of Spies’. New readers, I envy you. You are in the hands of a master storyteller...enjoy.<br />
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Daniel Kemp's political thriller is at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=a+covenant+of+spies+by+Danel+Kemp&i=stripbooks-intl-ship&ref=nb_sb_noss">Amazon.com</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=a+covenant+of+spies+daniel+kemp&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss">Amazon.co.uk</a><br />
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And at all Amazon outlets.<br />
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billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-52960779803578199072019-01-27T11:26:00.000-08:002019-01-27T11:26:49.810-08:00THE WIDOW'S SON..Lies And Consequences by Daniel Kemp<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdbAlmDaVvTHCgAsYnP7kqTBSBAfmVfbcPH8bqbVxDKf-vh0Gj64npL2Yh3_RDXmcYiDBrodQqn7uE6y81SnsbGzbo4lMHPLADLZrQyHs6jjeOnKTU2F_MkWynVL9-HP-EKbiiRP4BTBS2/s1600/widows+son+image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdbAlmDaVvTHCgAsYnP7kqTBSBAfmVfbcPH8bqbVxDKf-vh0Gj64npL2Yh3_RDXmcYiDBrodQqn7uE6y81SnsbGzbo4lMHPLADLZrQyHs6jjeOnKTU2F_MkWynVL9-HP-EKbiiRP4BTBS2/s400/widows+son+image.jpg" width="400" height="400" data-original-width="218" data-original-height="218" /></a></div><br />
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“The Widow’s Son” by Daniel Kemp is both an intriguing piece of writing and intriguing in terms of the genre of the political thriller; Daniel Kemp has created a tightly paced, engaging narrative presenting his reader with a murky, soiled, strangely exciting world of power and corruption. <br />
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This is a dark world of spies, lies and deceivers and from his newly created position as head of the British Joint Intelligence Committee, and with only one or two people he can trust, Daniel Kemp’s protagonist, Patrick West, realises that he has a potential disaster on a world wide scale; nothing short of a war on humanity, to circumvent. And how is the narrator going to achieve this with deception on such an extensive scale?<br />
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Nothing is clear for him; why this promotion? Whom can he trust? <br />
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In a way, this book can be viewed through the lens of appearance and reality. I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of this before, after all the book is subtitled “lies and their consequences.” Whom can Patrick West believe? Whom can the reader believe? Daniel Kemp has given us an engaging narrator, but how reliable is he?<br />
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We would do well to keep just a tiny space of doubt in our minds. Just as people in the real world tell a tale from their own point of view, so it is with fiction, and Daniel Kemp knows what he is doing; he writes fiction at its finest.<br />
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This is the third book in a trilogy that began with “What Happened in Vienna Jack?” This is followed by “Once I Was a Soldier.” With the exception of a few chapters in all three books, the narrative is driven, in the first person, by Patrick West and it is through his eyes that events unfold. The beginning of each book picks up some twenty years after the conclusion of its predecessor; Daniel Kemp is tracing his protagonist’s life, from his mid-twenties, his late thirties and finally, his early fifties. In the Widow’s Son we join the narrative sometime during the mid nineteen nineties.<br />
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Daniel Kemp is an eloquent writer which makes his book a pure pleasure to read, he understands the need for meticulous research; he has to. If a writer is using past events to blend with his fiction, then those events have to be accurate, Daniel Kemp knows this and he will not patronise his reader by writing an approximate version of history.<br />
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I said earlier that The Widow’s Son is fiction at its finest, I really do believe that. Enjoy. This is worth every penny of a Kindle download, or for a real treat the paperback is a keeper. Oh, and I never saw the ending coming...I wonder if you will!<br />
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The Widow's Son is at all <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+widow%27s+son+Daniel+Kemp">Amazon</a> outlets.<br />
billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-60790004618933381562018-11-30T06:10:00.000-08:002018-11-30T06:12:41.921-08:00Patiently at Her Feet<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5DLTaRvb6Dox1YZ_FNy6mPoBTZL6f0J46msD-D4PcxFwB0Wm1D2-qe3mB1wnczlcoUiawhyphenhyphenug2NgYTaCCusszde80HeGSy0QkPaSHEaYdfWOTDdyeVgYbgrEca2XKOo46x1DZ4-qnAdvs/s1600/subem+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5DLTaRvb6Dox1YZ_FNy6mPoBTZL6f0J46msD-D4PcxFwB0Wm1D2-qe3mB1wnczlcoUiawhyphenhyphenug2NgYTaCCusszde80HeGSy0QkPaSHEaYdfWOTDdyeVgYbgrEca2XKOo46x1DZ4-qnAdvs/s400/subem+pic.jpg" width="289" height="400" data-original-width="409" data-original-height="567" /></a></div><br />
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I read "Enslaving Eli", admittedly some time ago now; it really hit a resonance with me, and it still does. Much "erotica" is simply centred about sex, but good erotica involves the reader, and gives the reader something to think about. Enslaving Eli does just that, what drives his submission, what drives his decisions? When does his submission, willingly given, become binding, the control he gives up become absolute? He willingly enters the wonderful Coterie, never to leave. As a submissive, I’ve moved some way along this journey, but certainly not all the way, but could I, would I?<br />
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Yes, I`m a male submissive, and proud of it. My submission makes me feel strong, and safe. I have no sexual agenda, I seek only to fully give control to another, to be used and cared for by another, to please and be useful to another. It is very difficult to put that submission feeling into words, and just as difficult to predict how far it might take me, but we can try.<br />
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To be in the presence of a truly dominant woman is an "electric" feeling. To kneel at the feet of a dominant woman generates an exquisite wave of submission; not something lost, but something gained. I feel strong, focused and "safe", it`s like entering another world, one in which only your dominant is important, and where consequently your worries simply disappear. It`s a very subservient and incredibly compliant situation; focused only on the dominant, her instructions are unquestioned, binding, there to be followed. While the reasoning behind this submission may be complex, the effects are simple. I feel refreshed, at ease, everything becomes so simple, only one thing to do, to serve. That exquisite feeling of submission is "addictive", it taps into something very natural, and you need it again, and why wouldn`t you!<br />
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Eli`s first meeting may have been both sexually and submissively driven, but his submissive drive quickly takes over; it`s almost inevitable. A submissive will quickly ascertain whether he/she is in the presence of a dominant, and vice versa; put the two together and the result can be predictable. If that submissive wave manifests itself, then he will crave more, will need confirmation, and if She accepts, then the journey will begin. He`ll want to be controlled, to be pushed, tested and abused, in order to prove himself to her; he becomes "obsessed" with her, focused only on her, focused on her dominance and control. I understand that, I feel that, I`m on that journey, but unlike Eli, my journey will be more truncated.<br />
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Why the need to be tested and abused? For myself it is an essential element of the Domme-sub relationship. It can take many forms, infliction of pain, humiliation, deprivation, to name just some. Let me say immediately, I am not a masochist; the situation with a masochist is, in my opinion, very different. A masochist seeks pain; it is a battle within himself to take more pain. Myself, I hate pain, but it is a hugely important part of forging that connection with your dominant. I get through the pain by acutely focusing on the dominant, trusting and respecting her; she has complete control and can do what she wants, and through those actions the connection of Domme with sub is built and strengthened. Through those actions my submission is heightened, and my position with regard to the Domme is exemplified. On the one side I feel strong and safe in her presence, on the other she can inflict pain and discomfort, such a beautiful dilemma!<br />
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Let`s imagine I`m a free agent, no ties, no relationships, would I, as Eli does, take the journey further to its conclusion? I love the idea of the Coterie, a Female led supremacy; as a submissive I`m fascinated with such ideas, but they are just fantasy. I value my intelligence and independence, more so than my submission; to be absolutely enslaved, would I not just become a docile pet, mentally subdued and altered? I think the answer is clearly No, I could not take that journey to it`s conclusion. There has to be a balance established. What is much more feasible is a Female led Relationship, that`s something I would certainly aspire to!<br />
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Some of my thoughts, in part inspired by "Enslaving Eli", it`s what good erotica should do. I've discovered my submissiveness, and I embrace it; let yours out and experience the release!<br />
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A submissive.<br />
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Enslaving Eli is available at<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks-intl-ship&field-keywords=enslaving+eli+billierosie"> Amazon US</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=enslaving+eli+billierosie">Amazon UK</a><br />
billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-16562596986637000272018-08-11T09:25:00.000-07:002018-08-11T09:27:57.307-07:00Once I Was A Soldier by Daniel Kemp<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHffpBYoVJWllz_Pe8jUu0ZQgjVK1pvX4o_LusUUJvFjsgYYDHCNDfB7Xsa9Pt84kImyxuZLQXpyYemxttUPo_Hi2u6liDj74Z6hbhwEDnnmwZDp0flRINhrHy-N5kFaioXTHeqk6qR4De/s1600/danny+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHffpBYoVJWllz_Pe8jUu0ZQgjVK1pvX4o_LusUUJvFjsgYYDHCNDfB7Xsa9Pt84kImyxuZLQXpyYemxttUPo_Hi2u6liDj74Z6hbhwEDnnmwZDp0flRINhrHy-N5kFaioXTHeqk6qR4De/s400/danny+pic.jpg" width="266" height="400" data-original-width="316" data-original-height="475" /></a></div><br />
Once I was a Soldier by Daniel Kemp is the second in a trilogy that opened with What Happened in Vienna Jack? Once I was a Soldier picks up the narrative some 20 years later. It’s not obvious, at first, because the characters seem new, but if you have read the first book, you will realise, slowly, slowly that you have met these characters before. <br />
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This is a thriller of the highest quality. I’ve made the comparison between John le Carre and Daniel Kemp before. Both of these writers have agile, creative minds and both are experts in their chosen fields of espionage and the politics of the era.<br />
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The theme of Once I was a Soldier is power. People crave power, even if they already have it, they are greedy and want more. Those in power are afraid of losing it and guard it jealously.<br />
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The novel opens with an abuse of power. Melissa Iverson has inherited a vast fortune. Her lawyer reads her the contents of her Father’s Will. Her Father has made provisions for his two elderly, much loved servants, leaving them a house in which to live out their days. But the clause isn’t water tight and Melissa demands that the elderly couple are thrown out of their home immediately. This abuse of power drives the narrative.<br />
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This is some of the finest erotica I’ve read. The writer lulls the reader into believing that sex and wealth are so high on the agenda that we are reading a narrative that lures us into the sexually determined world of Jackie Collins, or Shirley Conran. <br />
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And neither is this Agatha Christie, there’s no room for Miss Marple here. There is a change of mood and pace that is shocking. We stumble into a gritty, dark world...the characters with whom we thought were safe and dependable are not what they have seemed. Who are their masters? Who truly, ultimately has power? We don’t know and for the most part we never find out, we can only guess. but the final pages bring us back to the narrative...it is shocking, leaving us in no doubt that evil really does exist.<br />
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If you like your reading to be challenging, if you like the mystery of where Daniel Kemp is taking you..be warned, Once I was a Soldier is disturbing, but you will enjoy the journey.<br />
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Here is Danny Kemp's <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Daniel-Kemp/e/B075XRTBRP/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1534004633&sr=1-1">Amazon Author Page</a> where you can browse Danny's books and read more about Danny, the writer.<br />
billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-76474833739628226032018-06-24T05:58:00.000-07:002018-06-24T06:07:50.567-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiATjcTnZjGaIp6ihGtkEjQL6O9CNrqQXR2yOJVkR9e9O3TZmc5CNvwFnuv__uzecM0VANP0cPs4mq5uRLeKSS5h3te1Aq4nG7qQscCyAhdy9WdqBo8VsFiI0PX0LBvZe0g_5ShNgNUyL_r/s1600/danny+what.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiATjcTnZjGaIp6ihGtkEjQL6O9CNrqQXR2yOJVkR9e9O3TZmc5CNvwFnuv__uzecM0VANP0cPs4mq5uRLeKSS5h3te1Aq4nG7qQscCyAhdy9WdqBo8VsFiI0PX0LBvZe0g_5ShNgNUyL_r/s640/danny+what.jpg" width="423" height="640" data-original-width="314" data-original-height="475" /></a></div><br />
Truth and lies, lies and truth and which is which? Can the truth be hidden in a lie and a lie be veiled in the truth?Suppose there are secrets too? Just the knowledge that something is hidden, well, reality can become a little blurred and obscure. When Patrick West meets Jack Prior in Daniel Kemp’s “What happened in Vienna Jack?” an investigation into police corruption in Soho leads, indirectly, to what could become a world ending catastrophe. <br />
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“What Happened in Vienna Jack?” Is a thriller, a tale of espionage and deceit, a story where a turn of reality can change with the turn of a page. I am constantly amazed by Daniel Kemp’s ability to not only keep control over a vast array of characters but, simultaneously, weave an erudite absorbing narrative that leaves me confounded. It was difficult to harness what I was reading. Daniel Kemp is meticulous in his research and extremely knowledgeable about Europe’s political landscape of 1933-1970.<br />
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In November of 1937 a violation, somewhere in Europe and prior to WW2, precipitates the unfolding narrative. Like any violation it is cruel, humiliating...just by reading about it, I felt dirty. The violation involves a prominent Nazi and a member of the British monarchy...see what I mean about secrets? This secret is so controversial (and “controversial” here is a massive understatement) that it is hidden, even to the point of murder, for fear of the secret being divulged. It’s an adroit piece of writing.<br />
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When I’ve posted this review I shall be reading “What Happened in Vienna Jack?” again. I think that most lovers of the thriller genre will feel the same. I’m not ready to leave either the characters, or this compulsive, gripping narrative...I’ll linger over every paragraph. And I’m pleased to learn that this book is just part one of a book series. If I haven’t made it clear enough, this book is highly recommended.<br />
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What Happened in Vienna Jack? Is at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=what+happened+in+vienna+jack+daniel+kemp">Amazon US</a> and at <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=what+happened+in+vienna+jack+daniel+kemp">Amazon UK</a><br />
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billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-61594549762729469102018-05-03T08:03:00.001-07:002018-05-03T12:53:38.838-07:00LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXepnGA5UcfnjNZ5Eh5rN1uBs3rF_xWcmOTGGWDyNpFZ7qjvG3bAjy9cFPCxK9rnsVOYgydmjmJ00uAnPxg17JQ5QdJDdn-2814MbqZkEQaK8U2FGmw_2bVHiGccIKRplgo6bYP3KG9duK/s1600/danny+why.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXepnGA5UcfnjNZ5Eh5rN1uBs3rF_xWcmOTGGWDyNpFZ7qjvG3bAjy9cFPCxK9rnsVOYgydmjmJ00uAnPxg17JQ5QdJDdn-2814MbqZkEQaK8U2FGmw_2bVHiGccIKRplgo6bYP3KG9duK/s400/danny+why.jpg" width="259" height="400" data-original-width="162" data-original-height="250" /></a></div><br />
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“Why? A Complicated Love” Is a lyrical, urgent tale of love, despair, betrayal and retribution told by my favourite author, Daniel Kemp.<br />
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The novel is told as a first person narrative by Terry Meadows. The reader is privy to Terry’s thoughts..the story unfolds through the effect that the main characters have on his life.<br />
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Daniel Kemp sets a quiet steady pace, there’s no rush, as he introduces his main players...Terry, Laura, Francis and Sammi. We are quickly drawn in to this tale of distorted sexuality. Just a few paragraphs details a reason for Francis’ debauched, controlling behaviour. It’s a behaviour that has Sammi and Laura’s seeming acquiescence. And simply the fact that Terry is witness to this sick, claustrophobic family, means that he also is a puppet to Francis’ depravity. It is Francis who drives the narrative.<br />
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Do you believe in love at first sight? No? Please suspend your disbelief. I’m talking about the sort of love that Shakespeare crafts for his tragedy Romeo and Juliet, or the poignant lyrics that Stephen Sondheim writes for the equally tragic West Side Story. <br />
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For an audience to be drawn into an intense, heated whirl of recognition takes a skilled, sensitive writer...eyes meet across a crowded room..forgive the cliche, but that’s the moment I’m trying to conjure up…and it’s exactly that moment that Daniel Kemp, crafts, so exquisitely, in the meeting of Terry and Laura. <br />
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Many Poets, Artists and Novelists believe in love at first sight...they spend their creative lives telling us about it, we feel their heat as they chant their magic..<br />
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I love this novel by Daniel Kemp, it is pure pleasure to read. Where Erotica occurs, it’s entirely appropriate…as is violence. You can, if you like, dissect the narrative, but in the process don’t lose sight of a beautifully written, absolutely engaging story. I shall certainly be reading a lot more from Daniel Kemp.<br />
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This book is available at all Amazon outlets. <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Why+a+complicated+love+Daniel+Kemp">Amazon UK </a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=why+a+complicated+love+Daniel+Kemp">Amazon US</a>billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-48613673925736123262018-04-03T07:09:00.001-07:002018-04-03T07:09:33.266-07:00THE DESOLATE GARDEN by Daniel Kemp<br />
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">It’s a thriller, it’s a murder mystery...it’s a
tale of lies, spies, espionage and dark, disturbing family secrets; secrets
that go back decades. I’m talking about Daniel Kemp’s masterpiece, The Desolate
Garden.<br />
<br />
Harry Paterson’s father, Lord Paterson has been murdered. The police have
ascertained when, and how, but no one knows why...money? Could be, the Paterson
family are extremely wealthy.<br />
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Daniel Kemp writes in a very visual way; he provokes the reader’s imagination.
I can see the opening scene as a piece of theatre. The stage is dimly lit,
almost dark. A piano, just one soft note at a time, picks out a sinister
child’s nursery rhyme..maybe Three Blind Mice or Oranges and Lemons.<br />
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The effect of the combination of darkness, light, shade and sound sets an
ambivalent atmosphere of uncertainty for the viewer. The written scene will
have a similar effect on the reader. We are drawn into the beginning of a
narrative which we know took skill and courage from the writer.<br />
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Lighting gradually presents a man, seated at a small table. He picks up a glass
of whisky from the table, stares into it, then sips. The piano stops. A woman’s
voice calls out to him..”tell me a joke”...as she speaks, the light falls on
her, she is very beautiful. He responds to her.. “come and join me.”<br />
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It’s a pivotal moment; this meeting of Harry Paterson and Judith Meadows drives
the narrative.<br />
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The amount of research that has gone into The Desolate Garden is phenomenal.
The writer leads us back to the actions of Harry Paterson’s Great-Grandfather,
Maudlin Paterson during the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War. His actions
precipitate events that are yet to come. The reader won’t need an extensive
knowledge about that conflict, but an illegitimate child is born and without
him there would be no story.<br />
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Daniel Kemp’s knowledge of the Cold War is extensive. I’m of the same
generation as he...I grew up knowing about the Iron Curtain, and, as Russia was
then, the USSR. I don’t recall there being a lot on News reports about how, if
at all, we got any information about life in the USSR, but I remember reports
about the Cuban missile crisis.<br />
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between
powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite states) and
powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“There’s an iron curtain being pulled across the whole
of Europe and Stalin has the cord”<br />
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Rewind to early morning on Tuesday 16 October 1962, John F. Kennedy's national
security assistant, McGeorge Bundy, brought to the President's bedroom some
high-altitude photographs taken from U-2 planes flying over Cuba. They showed
Soviet soldiers hurriedly and secretly setting up nuclear-armed missiles.<br />
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At its closest distance, Communist Cuba is just 103 miles from Florida...too
close for comfort.<br />
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For some time previously the Soviets had openly been sending weaponry to Cuba,
including surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles (SAMs). To deflect any
criticism about this from the Republicans, who were busy campaigning for the
November congressional elections, Kennedy had said he would not protest about
such defensive weaponry being installed in Cuba, but warned that if the Soviets
ever introduced offensive weapons, 'the gravest issues would arise.'<br />
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For 14 days during that October of 1962, the world held its breath as President
John F. Kennedy and Party Leader Nikita Khrushchev tried to reach a compromise
and avoid nuclear war.<br />
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By the third day the President publicly announced the presence of Soviet
missiles in Cuba, and ordered a blockade to prevent the introduction of further
missiles, further to this, he demanded that the Soviets withdraw the missiles
already there. (Both for legal reasons and for resonance with Franklin
Roosevelt's 'Quarantine Address' of 1937, the term 'quarantine' was substituted
for 'blockade'.)<br />
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If Khrushchev did not capitulate within a day or two, a US air attack on Cuba
would follow, followed by an invasion.<br />
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After a long period of tense negotiations, an agreement was reached between U.S.
President John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle
their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to
U.N. verification, in exchange for a U.S. public declaration and agreement to
avoid invading Cuba again.<br />
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In relation to Daniel Kemp’s The Desolate Garden, it seems to me pertinent that
I add these paragraphs about the Cuban Crisis and the stamp of the Cold War on
Europe. It illustrates what dangerous times we lived in...and still live in,
bearing in mind what happened three weeks ago in the sleepy town of Salisbury
UK.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Some people believe, because of the nerve agent
used in Salisbury, we are on the brink of another Cold War…I don’t know, but
bearing in mind how closed off, mentally and physically, the USSR was during
the years of the Cold War, I don’t think it would be a good thing. Certainly
not for Human Rights.</span><br />
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Countries are always interested, intrigued and alarmed by what other countries
are doing. Maybe espionage has always existed..agents, double agents. I was too
young, at the time, to understand about the so called Cambridge Five, the young
men lured into spying for the USSR, but I’ve read about them since. The West
had spies within the USSR, spying for us and it is against this backdrop that
The Desolate Garden is thrown into relief.<br />
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Daniel Kemp’s book illustrates one family member, long since passed, embroiled
in a vortex of politics, power, espionage and money laundering.<br />
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There’s a shattering betrayal too with an ending that I didn’t see coming and
totally blew me away.<br />
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Before coming to The Desolate Garden, the only book I’d read in this genre was
John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy. Daniel Kemp’s book equals that
superb spy thriller, in fact The Desolate Garden easily supersedes it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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The Desolate Garden by Daniel Kemp is at <a href="https://amzn.to/2JcIlRw">Amazon US</a> and <a href="https://amzn.to/2GvBMfh">Amazon UK</a></div>
<br />billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-46130929531609451112018-01-27T08:39:00.002-08:002018-01-27T08:39:54.603-08:00SUPPORTING HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY. The Night Porter, directed by Liliana Cavani, featuring Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vDG7Ytkj_a4" width="420"></iframe><br />
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Directed and written by Liliana Cavani, the controversial film “The Night Porter,” “Il Portiere di Notte”, was released in 1974. The film features Dirk Bogarde, as Max, a discreet, unassuming night porter in an exclusive Viennese hôtel and Charlotte Rampling, Lucia, as the figure from his past, who continues to haunt Max.<br />
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The year is 1957. Max tends to the hôtel guest’s needs; everything to providing a glass of cold water, to a bed-warming gigolo. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that during the dark years of World War II, Max was an S.S. officer at a Nazi concentration camp where Lucia was a beautiful, young prisoner. Lucia, became Max's sexual slave, a position that she apparently relished.<br />
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The moment where the two recognise each other in the lobby of the hôtel is compelling. Both remember. The flashbacks tell of the chilling photographs Max took of Lucia, while pretending to be a physician. Through the flashbacks appropriate to Lucia, the viewer learns of episodes of rape, sodomy, and torture. Lucia is afraid. The viewer soon realises that it is not Max that she is afraid of, but the primal, carnal power of their relationship.<br />
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Max was not simply Lucia’s tormentor. He was her protector. It is a scenario which we see rewritten in our own contemporary erotica. “The Night Porter” is a pertinent template for any “Daddy’s Little Girl”, tale; it whispers and awakens forbidden fantasies. It allows us the space to relish the darker side of desire.<br />
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Charlotte Rampling, for her part, insisted that she knew nothing about sadomasochism before embarking on the film. 'The girl had to be an innocent, both fearful, and tempted by the mysteries of unknown pleasures,' she said.<br />
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If the scene in the hôtel lobby is compelling, the scene at the opera is electric. Max is seated a few rows behind Lucia and her husband. A sensation causes Lucia to turn. She meets Max’s eyes. She turns away, then turns again. He is still there, willing her to hold his gaze. She turns away, then looks again. Max is gone.<br />
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Lucia stays in Vienna after her husband travels on. She wants to see Max, and they find themselves caught up in a renewal of their former sadomasochistic relationship. But Max is to be tried for his war crimes. His former S.S. comrades have been carefully destroying documents and "filing away" witnesses to clear all their names, and while Max tries to keep Lucia's existence a secret from them, they eventually find out about her. They consider her a threat, and they urge Max to turn her over to them. He quits his job, and he and Lucia hide out in his apartment, while his former friends keep watch, waiting for the opportunity to strike.<br />
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Filmmaker Liliana Cavani visited a Nazi concentration camp after WW II and interviewed a woman who had been involved in a sadomasochistic relationship with a guard. She then made her story the basis for this powerfully, compelling film.<br />
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Liliana Cavani certainly gives her audience a strange and unforgettable picture that questions deeply the psyches of torturers and the tortured, “The Night Porter” presents its psychoanalytically provocative material without exploitation. On another level it deals with the psychological condition known as Stockholm Syndrome<br />
where the victim develops an empathy with his or her abuser.<br />
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In an iconic scene, Lucia sings a Marlene Dietrich song to the concentration camp guards while wearing pieces of an SS uniform, and Max "rewards" her with the severed head of a male inmate who had been bullying the other inmates. Max has previously described his relationship with Lucia as “Biblical,” but he cannot remember the story in the Bible that draws him. Then he remembers. It is the story of Salome. King Herod presents Salome with the severed head of John the Baptist as a reward for her display of erotic dance.<br />
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In responses to “The Night Porter”, Liliana Cavani was both celebrated for her courage in dealing with the theme of sexual transgression and, simultaneously, castigated for the controversial manner in which she presented that transgression: within the context of a Nazi Holocaust narrative. The film has been accused of mere sensationalism: film critic Roger Ebert calls it "as nasty as it is lubricious, a despicable attempt to titillate us by exploiting memories of persecution and suffering.” Given the film's dark and disturbing themes and a somewhat ambiguous moral clarification at the end, “The Night Porter”, has tended to divide audiences. It is, however, the film for which Liliana Cavani is best known.<br />
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I was transfixed by Liliana Cavani’s film when I first saw it, many years ago. I was transfixed again when I watched it yesterday. “The Night Porter” tells of terrible things, and the Holocaust tells a tale of the worst that human beings can ever be. Would Max and Lucia have entered into this distorted, warped love affair -- and it is most certainly, definitely a true love affair, without the Holocaust? Well, of course we don’t know. Would our world today be the same had the Holocaust never happened? Again, we don’t know. The Holocaust is our shame as human beings. We need to be reminded, we need the mirror to be held up to our dirty faces, and if this can be only achieved through a film such as “The Night Porter,” well that’s fine with me.<br />
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“The bulk of the Nazi war crime trials took place right after 1945. Basically, from 1945 to 1949, there were parallel Allied tribunals and German courts. The German courts largely dealt with crimes committed against German citizens; the Allied courts dealt with all others, which meant the majority of Nazi crimes. These proceedings petered out by the end of the 1940s and early 1950s largely because West German society suppressed the past and preferred not to talk about it. Nazi crimes hardly found mention in public discourse in the early 1950s.<br />
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<br />
Thus the Ulm trial in 1958 marked the reopening of criminal proceedings against Nazi criminals. It was seen as a sign that the West German judicial system was taking the Nazi past more seriously. But the most striking thing about the Ulm trial was that it made clear that Nazi atrocities were not just committed within the Third Reich but largely in Eastern Europe.”<br />
Dieter Pohlbillierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-71792348417666976552018-01-20T05:25:00.000-08:002018-01-20T05:25:20.284-08:00THOUGHTS ABOUT INCEST.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Lillah McCarthy (1875-1960) as Jocasta, Oedipus’ wife and mother, in “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles. Painted by Harold Speed 1913<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Incest. The final taboo. It is taboo, as far as I am able to ascertain, in every society on the planet. The exceptions to the rule appear to be royal dynasties, in particular the ancient Egyptian Kings and Queens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">We’ve heard of Freud’s theory about the Oedipus complex: it is the famous Greek tragedy that the theory is based on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">The writers of the Greek myths warn of what will happen if we break the taboo; if we embrace the depravity. Sophocles, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschylus"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Aeschylus</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;"> and </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euripides"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Euripides</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;"> have all dramatised the story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Most writing on Oedipus comes from the 5th century BC, and the stories deal mostly with Oedipus' downfall. Various details appeared on how Oedipus rose to power. Here is the outline of this powerful tale.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">King Laius of Thebes, heard of the Sphinx’ prophecy that his son will kill him. Fearing the prophecy, Laius pierces his baby son’s feet and leaves him out to die, but a herdsman finds him and takes him away from Thebes. Years later, Oedipus, the grown up son, hears a similar prophecy, applied to himself, and not knowing he was adopted, leaves home in fear that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Laius, meanwhile, ventures out to find a solution to the Sphinx' riddle. As prophesised, Oedipus crosses paths with Laius and this leads to a fight where Oedipus slays Laius and most of his guards. Oedipus has killed his father. Oedipus then defeats the Sphinx by solving a mysterious riddle to become king. He marries the widowed queen Jocasta, not knowing she is his mother. After many years of prosperity and conjugal bliss, a plague falls on the people of Thebes. Upon discovery of the truth, Oedipus blinds himself and Jocasta hangs herself. After Oedipus is no longer king, Oedipus' sons kill each other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King”, has the Chorus, screaming out Oedipus’ crime. The audience, having seen the horrific tragedy unfold, has been anticipating this moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“O Oedipus, name for the ages --<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">One and the same wide harbour served you<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> son and father both<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">son and father came to rest in the same bridal chamber.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">How, how, could the furrows your father ploughed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Bear you, your agony, harrowing on<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">In silence O so long?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> But now for all your power<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Time, all-seeing Time has dragged you to the light,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Judged your marriage monstrous from the start --<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The son and the father, tangling, both one --<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">O child of Laius, would to god<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> I’d never seen you, never never!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Now I weep like a man who wails the dead<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">And the dirge comes pouring forth with all my heart!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Translation by Robert Fagles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">The Chorus laments Oedipus’ crime. Just because he didn’t know that Queen Jocasta was his mother, he is still guilty, and the Chorus damns him in their profound disgust. Jocasta hangs herself. Oedipus puts out his eyes with pins from her brooches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">“But Oedipus’ destiny still moves us, only because it might have been ours — because the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Oracle</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;"> laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so.” Sigmund Freud. “The Interpretation of Dreams.” 1901<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">“In Freudian terms, we draw from the myth of </span><a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A0836390.html"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Oedipus</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">, designating attraction on the part of the child toward the parent of the opposite sex, and rivalry and hostility toward the parent of its own. It occurs during the phallic stage of the psycho-sexual development of the personality, approximately years three to five. Resolution of the Oedipus complex is believed to occur by identification with the parent of the same sex and by the renunciation of sexual interest in the parent of the opposite sex. Freud considered this complex the cornerstone of the superego and the nucleus of all human relationships.” WIKI<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Fast forward millennia. “Brookside” 1996: A British Soap, famous for its challenges to our views. The incest storyline, in which brother and sister Nat and Georgia Simpson were discovered in bed together by their younger brother, is described by Phil Redmond, the producer, as “breaking the last television taboo.” It was so shocking an MP urged viewers to complain "in their millions".<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Phil Redmond, doesn’t shy away from the issue, he tackles it head on. It is a consensual incestuous relationship -- Nat and Georgia, the brother and sister <i>BOTH WANT</i> to have sex with one another.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">One perceptive student says; “We tried to discuss the incest storyline with teachers at school. I think they were thoroughly disturbed by what we were watching as one encouraged us to watch "normal" television. I suppose she meant games shows.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Another student says; “I think the problem with this storyline is that it came in an era where society was just not ready. Not suggesting that they’re ready now, but consensual sex between family members back in the 90’s wasn’t seen as effective story-telling, let alone talked about. Now, however, you have to look at the latest magazine on the shelf and there is probably some true-life story about GSD (Genetic Sexual Disorder). As ludicrous as that sounds, it exists. Usually, it’s contrived, so that the two people of the same genetic family meet as adults, not where they grew up together like Nat and Georgia did.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Here’s the episode “Family Therapy” from the Soap, “Brookside”. Okay, it lacks the sophistication of Sophocles, and it certainly does not conform to Aristotle’s concept for tragedy as discussed in his “Poetics”, but in its way, it is more effective for today’s TV generation audience. It is more accessible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">As far as I can remember from the TV soap, Nat and Georgia move away from Brookside Close, to live out their lives happily and anonymously somewhere in the south of England.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Nothing adds that certain flavour to a storyline like a romantic or sexual attraction between siblings. Most of the time it may be merely implied, but sometimes it's laid out right in the open for the viewer to see. Its presence in a story usually adds a great deal of emotional intensity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Frequently, actual incest is avoided through the device of siblings who aren't really — </span><a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotBloodSiblings"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">they're fostered, or step-sibs, or adopted</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">. Thus, while in arbitrary terms of a relationship they may be brother or sister, in "true" terms of blood they are not, and may pursue their chosen target with </span><a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AWorldwidePunomenon"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">relative</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;"> impunity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">I found this on the Web. “Forbidden Love” Can sex between close relatives ever be acceptable? Johann Hari on the queasy issue of 'consensual incest.’ </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">The Guardian</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;"> newspaper, Wednesday 9th January 2002.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">“The exponents of incest that we talked to in cyberspace were very keen to draw a distinction between "consensual incest" on the one hand and abuse, rape and paedophilia on the other. Consensual incest, we were told by "JimJim2" from Ontario, is ‘when two adults who just happen to be related get it on. You can't help who you fall in love with, it just happens. I fell in love with my sister and I'm not ashamed ... I only feel sorry for my mom and dad, I wish they could be happy for us. We love each other. It's nothing like some old man who tries to fuck his three-year-old, that's evil and disgusting ... Of course we're consenting, that's the most important thing. We're not fucking perverts. What we have is the most beautiful thing in the world.’”</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">This blog post has been compiled from my own studies of Freud's Oedipus Complex and sources from the Web.</span></div>
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billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-14170977064137018152017-12-07T06:20:00.002-08:002017-12-07T08:22:29.345-08:00THE PRISON OF THE ANGELS by Janine Ashbless<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I Didn’t Know She’d Be So Kinky!</span></u></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Janine Ashbless<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You know that thing where characters get away from you while you’re writing, and do something you aren’t expecting?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">That happened for me with Milja, the heroine of my <b><i>Book of the Watchers</i></b> trilogy. When I started the first book, <a href="http://janineashbless.com/romance-novels/cover-him-with-darkness.php" target="_blank">Cover Him with Darkness</a>, I thought she was going to be sort of vanilla. A bit sheltered due to an isolated childhood, a bit geeky, longing for passionate love but not in any knowing way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Then she freed a fallen angel who became her demon lover, and because Azazel is necessarily a strong, even overwhelming personality, I figured Milja would have to be fairly happy to let him take the lead in bed. “She’s a bit submissive,” I told myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But Azazel isn’t just dominant, he’s wicked and seriously lacking in social boundaries. He likes to show her off, getting her naked and having sex in public. “That makes sense,” I reassured myself. “She’s always been the invisible girl: now she gets off on everyone watching her and her gorgeous bloke.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But by the second volume of the series, <a href="http://janineashbless.com/romance-novels/in-bonds-of-the-earth.php">In Bonds of the Earth</a>, Milja’s deep in a not-really-platonic affair of frustration with a man, Egan Kansky, too. Is she so drawn to him because he’s the stable, kindly, <i>human</i> partner she can’t find in Azazel? Is she hell — her relationship with Egan has turned out to be even kinkier than her passion for Azazel! Milja spent a childhood with an angel chained in the cellar, and it’s affected her deepest fantasies. She likes her strong, dominant masculine guys all tied up and helpless and suffering. Azazel won’t indulge her – he doesn’t have a submissive bone in his body – so she can’t help getting the hots for Egan and his admirable capacity for, ahem, soaking up damage…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">By book three, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077M2PJL5/">The Prison of the Angels</a>, the three-way relationship has left vanilla far behind. There’s a long and elaborate scene in which all three of them … well, that would be telling! Suffice it to say that Egan has all his boundaries pushed to the max and Milja has her most shameful fantasies exposed and fulfilled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I wasn’t expecting to write this when I started. I thought I’d just stick to romance, mostly. Oh well ;-) Milja – sub, exhibitionist, shamefaced sadist – has turned out to be a bit of a shock for her poor writer!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Egan’s got his eyes screwed shut, his head flung back, his throat stretched taut. Azazel looks down critically at his victim and slaps his still-pulsing cock hard enough to swing it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Again,” he says. “Harder.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Somehow, Egan’s flesh stiffens obediently. That’s when I see the deadly little tethers snap and writhe loose from the bed. They stay knotted around his cock and balls like bizarre Christmas streamers, but at least he is free from the iron ring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Get further up the bed.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Egan opens his eyes. He seems to realize slowly that he’s no longer tied down, but when he does he shuffles on his back away from Azazel with pitiful alacrity, as if he somehow thinks he can escape that long reach. He casts me a wild, shamed look.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“That’ll do,” Azazel decides. “You’d like to ride that now, wouldn’t you Milja? His rod and his staff will comfort you…here in the Valley of the Shadow.”<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Ride that? Yes, always.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What is he planning?</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I climb back onto the bed, nervous. Egan is looking from me to Azazel and back again as if we are conspiring assassins. His lips are swollen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“<i>And I will fasten him as a peg in a firm place; and he shall be for a glorious throne</i>,” quotes Azazel, wandering around to slap my ass in encouragement. “Get up on your throne, little harlot.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I thought I was a good girl. I thought that no matter what others did for my sake, I could stay innocent. I thought that as long as I acted out of love, I’d be blameless.</span></i></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br />
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<b><i>I was wrong, wasn’t I?</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Milja Petak’s world has fallen apart.</b><b><br />
<br />Her lover, the fallen angel Azazel, has cast her aside in rage and disgust. The other contender for her heart, the Catholic priest Egan Kansky, was surrendered back into the hands of the shadowy Vatican organization, Vidimus, after sustaining life-threatening injuries.<br />
<br />She has killed and she has betrayed. She is alone, homeless, and at the end of her tether - torn apart by guilt and the love she has lost. But neither Heaven nor its terrifying representatives on Earth have finished with Milja. Both of her lovers need her in order to further their very different plans, and both passionately need <i>her</i>, though they may try to deny it.<br />
<br />Milja is once again forced into a series of choices as she uncovers the secrets Heaven has been guarding for centuries. But this time it is not just her heart at stake, or even the fate of a fallen angel.<br />
<br />This time, the choices she make will change <i>everything</i>.<br />
<br />This time it’s the End of the World.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Prison of the Angels<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></u></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">by Janine Ashbless<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Prison of the Angels</span></i></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, the final novel in the <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B01MRSGKR9/">Book of the Watchers</a></i> trilogy, and the story of a young woman who releases a fallen angel from centuries of imprisonment, is now available from <b>Sinful Press.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“When there’s war in Heaven, on which side will you stand?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Genres: Hot M/F/M Romance, Thriller, Supernatural<br />Pages: 388<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Prison of the Angels is available at </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://sinfulpress.co.uk/">Sinful Press</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prison-Angels-Book-Watchers-ebook/dp/B077M2PJL5/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1512655615&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=prisoner+of+angels+janine+ashbless">Amazon UK</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Prison-Angels-Book-Watchers-ebook/dp/B077M2PJL5">Amazon US </a> <a href="https://play.google.com/store/search?q=prison%20of%20the%20angels%20janine%20ashbless">Google Play</a> and <a href="https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/search?Query=Prison+of+the+angels+janine+ashbless">Kobo</a></span><br />
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<br />billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-44000256806525717772017-11-16T05:36:00.002-08:002022-01-20T02:46:43.454-08:00Vampires, Witches, Fairy Tales and Sexual Initiation.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Q9Lp2qozgJGOuYaeU57-6Suquou6eqijO-Q7pAFajYSRWGZ2KrsH6pp1am7MIiyiaZjO9U8QC9cEc0euew0hZFt-kj_DEw9ei3E-RMiHbeg9teYcp8vVD3yG03h2zkQQ0XSQd8952t40/s1600/sleeping+woman+in+orange+dress.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Q9Lp2qozgJGOuYaeU57-6Suquou6eqijO-Q7pAFajYSRWGZ2KrsH6pp1am7MIiyiaZjO9U8QC9cEc0euew0hZFt-kj_DEw9ei3E-RMiHbeg9teYcp8vVD3yG03h2zkQQ0XSQd8952t40/s320/sleeping+woman+in+orange+dress.jpg" width="313" /></a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Anne Rice is perhaps best known for her vampire tales; tales which have a certain erotic frisson. She amazes me with her creative energy, creating not one, but two lengthy sagas. The vampire tales reach back into the dawn of time, building on Bram Stoker’s Dracula and creating a new mythology around the very beginnings of vampire evolution.</span></div>
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Someone correct me please if I am wrong, but I think that Anne Rice was the first to make vampires sexy, with their dark brooding erotic intentions.<br />
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Then there is the saga of the Mayfairs. A wealthy and powerful family of witches, breeding and mutating over the generations. Incestuous, charismatic -- a blip in their DNA produces a strain of monsters, the Taltos.<br />
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Anne Rice brings the two sagas together in her final novel; “Blood Canticle.”<br />
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What is not so well known, is that Anne Rice also has written erotica under the name of A.N. Roquelaure. Her “Sleeping Beauty” trilogy is loosely based on the fairy tale of the Sleeping Beauty. It is an allegory of sexual adolescence, sexual desire and finally, sexual maturity. The three books are: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty”, “Beauty’s Punishment” and “Beauty’s Release”.<br />
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They are erotic BDSM novels dealing with a wide spectrum of fetish and fantasy. They describe the sexual adventures of the female protagonist Beauty in a medieval fantasy world. Anne Rice doesn’t stop at Male/Dom and Fem/Dom, she covers fetish as diverse as anal fisting and pony play. There is rape as a fantasy; she also touches on bestiality. They were first published in America in the 1980’s.<br />
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In the familiar fairy tale, the beautiful sleeping princess is awakened by a kiss from a handsome prince. In Anne Rice’s version, the prince wakes the princess with a violent rape.<br />
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Anne Rice's retelling of the Beauty story probes the unspoken implications of this suggestive tale by exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Here the Prince reawakens Beauty, not with a kiss, but with sexual initiation. His reward for ending the hundred years of enchantment is Beauty's complete and total enslavement to him as Anne Rice explores the world of erotic yearning and fantasy in a classic that becomes a compelling experience.<br />
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About the same time that Anne Rice published the Beauty trilogy in America, the writer and Academic, Angela Carter published her collection of tales in “The Bloody Chamber.”<br />
<br />
Angela Carter says of her collection:<br />
“My intention was not to do 'versions' or, as the American edition of the book said, horribly, 'adult' fairy tales, but to extract the latent content from the traditional stories.”<br />
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<br />
Both writers are talking about the hidden side of our psychology. The side, that in the cold light of day we dare not own.<br />
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The tales from both writers give us permission to fantasise and even act upon our darkest dreams. The stories liberate us and set us free from guilt, fear and shame.<br />
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Freud talked about the Id. Here is what he says:<br />
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<br />
"It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have learned from our study of the Dreamwork and of the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of that is of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations.... It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle."<br />
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<br />
“The id is the unorganised part of the personality structure that contains a human's basic, instinctual drives. Id is the only component of personality that is present from birth. The id contains the libido, which is the primary source of instinctual force that is unresponsive to the demands of reality. The id acts according to the "pleasure principle", seeking to avoid pain or unpleasure (not 'displeasure') aroused by increases in instinctual tension”<br />
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WIKI<br />
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“The mind of a newborn child is regarded as completely "id-ridden", in the sense that it is a mass of instinctive drives and impulses, and needs immediate satisfaction, a view which equates a newborn child with an id-ridden individual.”<br />
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Jungian psychoanalysis talks about “the Shadow”.<br />
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"Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. It may be (in part) one's link to more primitive animal instincts which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.”<br />
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<br />
Jung also believed that "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity.";so that for some, it may be, 'the dark side of his being, his sinister shadow...represents the true spirit of life as against the arid scholar.<br />
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Some of these ideas here are my own...I have also drawn from sources from the Web.billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-28450222154064028192017-10-20T06:03:00.000-07:002017-10-20T06:03:02.957-07:00LOVE, LUST, PASSION. WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdHiA7Q4EG8bheqRaia9MnCM06zhSkCIQDZz-KzPhCtHhbtwmnGqNDL3qIIwXuebgzFQV-RwWEu5qmEpJo_ZfTX_gTjAxxK4l3Qjf5dmv-S1YMsEGnnsTt6pekmCJvobT_a1LMliJ0ZvYD/s1600/loving-couple-006.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5510407009810663698" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdHiA7Q4EG8bheqRaia9MnCM06zhSkCIQDZz-KzPhCtHhbtwmnGqNDL3qIIwXuebgzFQV-RwWEu5qmEpJo_ZfTX_gTjAxxK4l3Qjf5dmv-S1YMsEGnnsTt6pekmCJvobT_a1LMliJ0ZvYD/s320/loving-couple-006.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 192px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
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<br />
Love's Philosophy:<br />
<br />
THE fountains mingle with the river<br />
And the rivers with the ocean,<br />
The winds of heaven mix for ever<br />
With a sweet emotion;<br />
Nothing in the world is single,<br />
All things by a law divine<br />
In one another's being mingle—<br />
Why not I with thine?<br />
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Sorry, Percy Bysshe Shelley, it ain’t gonna happen.<br />
<br />
Forget it. If that special something is missing, she won’t want to kiss you. Your lips will repel her. Your breath will disgust her. She won’t fall into your arms -- no matter how much you weave your magic with those wonderful words -- it’s just not going to work.<br />
<br />
Am I talking about love? Lust? Sexual Attraction? Infatuation? Passion? I don’t know. Probably I’m talking about all of them.<br />
<br />
Love -- unrequited love. Thousands and thousands of words have been written about it, by pens far more graceful and elegant than mine.<br />
<br />
And the songs. We all have our favourites. Beautiful words, melodies, rhythms and harmonies, that remind us of that one time that special something happened. Makes us yearn for it to happen again.<br />
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Thousands of Romance writers, re-write the same story, over and over again. He’s a bastard. She falls in love with him, despite herself. The reader is in love with him too. The reader is addicted to the re-telling of the story. The reader believes in that elusive something.<br />
<br />
Nobody can bottle it for sure; that thing that makes it happen. Perfume distillers with all their ancient skills have tried to capture it for centuries. It cannot be done.<br />
<br />
If that something is missing, then it can’t be found.<br />
<br />
A friend of mine, Lucy had a guy doing some building work in her house. They got talking -- she touched his hand…<br />
<br />
Within a second they were in each other’s arms. Within another second their tongues were down each others’ throats -- it happened, just like that. No need to analyse it; there’d be no point anyway. That mysterious, elusive thing had happened.<br />
<br />
Time stood still. The overworked phrase suddenly made sense.<br />
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What was it? Raw lust? I don’t know; neither does Lucy.<br />
<br />
Lucy and her builder are still together, two years later.<br />
<br />
But it can hit you at anytime. I do believe it. Eyes meet across a crowded room/restaurant/rock festival. And he/she is there. The one. It may only last for an hour, or days. For some it can last a lifetime.<br />
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But what is IT? Where is IT? Why does one person make our juices flow, cocks stand to attention? Another person, leaves us, well…flaccid and dry?<br />
<br />
So I guess I have ended up talking about lust. Does lust come first? (pun intended).<br />
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Sometimes it smoulders, long and low. Think of all those office Christmas parties. Folk who have barely spared a glance for each other, all through the long year, are suddenly together. Alcohol lowers the inhibitions, and it hits you.<br />
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That happened to me, long ago. It took twenty years to burn itself out.<br />
<br />
Then months ago, I was convinced it was going to happen again. A guy I knew from a long while back. But when we kissed there was nothing. Nada. Rien.<br />
<br />
I felt sad, cheated, disappointed.<br />
<br />
So did he…billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-78463570190962927022017-09-29T06:35:00.001-07:002017-09-29T06:35:37.346-07:00A life of submission & dedication to her Master.<br />
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<br />
I wonder how many of you know my friend Oatmeal Girl? I’m using the word ‘know’ reservedly – as far as it is possible to know someone in this, rather desolate at times, cyber landscape. I’ve never met Oatmeal Girl – we only really became aware of each other when we both had stories published in 2010, in Logical Lust’s ‘Best S & M III’.<br />
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<br />
I know that she follows my blog – silently – very, very occasionally leaving me an astute, thoughtful comment…I know from those comments that I am communicating with a refined intellect…a lover of words, finding the right word…the perfect word following the perfect word.<br />
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<br />
But most of what I know about Oatmeal Girl comes from her blog – ‘Submission and Metaphor’. From her intriguing poems and poetic prose I learn that she is a submissive woman in a compelling relationship. Oatmeal Girl speaks exquisitely of how she willingly relinquishes control bowing humbly to the man whom she loves and adores, her Master. She refers to him as ‘the Sadist,’ sometimes as ‘the Fiend. The Sadist knows what is best for her – the tasks he sets her are acts born of love, just as Oatmeal Girl’s dedication to the tasks are a demonstration of her love and devotion for him.<br />
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Yes, they love -- but let’s not be shy about this daunting, haunting relationship -- Oatmeal Girl tells of butt plugs, caning, chains, collars, floggings, masochism, masturbation, orgasm denial and spankings. These are the things that inform their love for one another. It must be an exhausting relationship at times and not just for the submissive who time after time submits to the ordeal. The Dominant has to plan, organise, take care of his submissive and take care of himself – keep himself physically fit, emotionally fit too.<br />
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<br />
At this point it seems appropriate to give Oatmeal Girl the opportunity to read what I’m saying about her, so I forwarded my ramblings to her. Here is her response – as you will read – in some ways I am right – in others I fall way off the mark.<br />
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“What intrigues me is the impression you have of the relationship from the glimpses I've given into some of my emotional reactions to it. What you (and many others) mainly see at this point - because that's what it seems I've been describing - is the love part of it. Which is only part of the foundation of the relationship. As the fiend reminds me periodically - and as I know deep down inside - the CORE of the relationship, which we must never stray from, is that he really IS my Master. I really do belong to him. Oh, not in some sort of slave registry thing. But in a very real internal sense. He really does see into my soul, he knows me, he freed me, his dominance isn't based on tearing me down but on building me up and teaching me to treasure myself the way he treasures me. We don't just "draw heavily on S&M." The power exchange is the foundation for it all. And it was only after years of training, with catastrophes along the way, that the BDSM side of it was solid enough that it became safe for him to connect with me - at times - as a lover and as a friend.<br />
<br />
Which is obviously something I haven't made clear enough on the blog.<br />
<br />
It is certainly fine for you to speak about us as you have, based on what you have gleaned from my writing. And, in fact, now it really is a love relationship. Now and then, speaking to him, I'll refer to "all the different ways we are together", referring to my being his mistress, his pet, his submissive, his slave, and his own little girl. But eventually that makes him uneasy, and he'll repeat that if we lost sight of the core, we will lose our way and get into trouble.<br />
And he's right.<br />
<br />
BDSM isn't something we just DO.<br />
It is not a game.<br />
This is what we are.<br />
Deep inside, in truth, this is what we are.<br />
<br />
But there's nothing you've written that reveals anything that should not be revealed. So that's fine.<br />
<br />
Where you call him my "Dominant Master" I would just say he's my Master.<br />
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What you say about planning and organizing is absolutely true. He does work things out in a very detailed way before each visit and has a long-range plan as well."<br />
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Recently, a fellow tweeter told me that the stories that I write are disgraceful. Apparently, I write of sex without love; I write of pain, degradation and cruelty – She hasn’t actually read any of my stories, she just somehow ‘knows’ what they’re like. If I could be bothered to have a dialogue with her, which I cannot do because she has blocked me on all social media, I would argue that my stories are about people who are very much in love – they just happen to have ‘kinks’ and it is how those kinks inform their relationship -- that is what I find interesting.<br />
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<br />
And that is why I am intrigued by Oatmeal Girl – despite the S&M, her poems and poetic prose are a dedication of her love for the ‘Sadist’, the man she adores – the man who adores her. She is in an all-consuming love affair with the Sadist – without him, she is nothing – without him she would shrivel and die, like the autumn leaves on my magnolia tree -- exquisitely scarlet when they fall, only to turn muddy brown, found in the spring, as thin and fragile as finest tissue paper in their skeletal remains.<br />
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You can visit Oatmeal Girl’s blog “Submission and Metaphor” <a href="http://submissionandmetaphor.blogspot.co.uk/">here.</a><br />
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Follow Oatmeal Girl on Twitter. @oatmeal_girlbillierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-60933795677807273292017-09-01T11:43:00.000-07:002017-09-01T11:43:02.703-07:00PORN & EROTICA; ART & ARTSTS<br />
I think a lot about pornography. I’ve written about it too; you’ll probably be familiar with my tweets regaling the powers that be that writers and artists have no clear guidelines on what exactly is pornographic. But am I being fair? One girl’s porn is another girl’s erotica. There is stuff that disturbs me profoundly, but may not affect you one teensy weensy little bit.<br />
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Let me say right away that I am not talking about “hard core” porn here. I wish that there were not those horrible images of children on the Web. I wish that the sites could be shut down as soon as they pop up. “Snuff” films too. Sites where people can get off on death and torture; that is not what I am talking<br />
about.<br />
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A while back I looked at Aubrey Beardsley’s beautiful pornographic art. Beardsley’s lovely pen, ink and brushwork. His images are graceful; elegant. Yet they do convey humiliation; disgrace and depravity. Tiny naked men with massive erections being farted on by huge women. The image of lascivious Salome speaking lovingly to the severed head of John the Baptist hints at necrophilia. And even more tiny men are dwarfed by their own massive erections.<br />
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I get the idea that Aubrey Beardsley was not comfortable in Victorian society. That the Victorians were sexually repressed has been well documented. Aubrey Beardsley delights in showing the hypocrisy of the Victorian era; he made people think, then and now, by poking fun at society and its values. And that made me think again. What about social context? Different eras have different values and standards about what is acceptable and not. So does social context justify pornography? Does Aubrey Beardsley’s clever satirization of Victorian sensibilities and values make pornography okay?<br />
<br />
<br />
How about the Art of Hans Bellmer?<br />
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Die Puppe series 1932<br />
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<br />
Hans Bellmer was born in the city of Kattowitz in 1902. Kattowitz was then part of the German Empire (it is now Katowice, Poland) Until 1926 he’d been working as a draughtsman for his own advertising company. He initiated his doll project to oppose the fascism of the Nazi Party by declaring that he would make no work that would support the new German state. Represented by mutated forms and unconventional poses, his dolls were directed specifically at the cult of the perfect body then prominent in Germany.<br />
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He produced the first doll in Berlin in 1933. Long since lost, the assemblage can be described thanks to photographs that Bellmer took at the time of its construction.<br />
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The images show Bellmer's assemblage, made of wood, flax fiber, plaster, and glue, under construction in his studio or arrayed on a bare mattress or lacy cloth. Seductive props sometimes accompany the doll—a black veil, eyelet undergarments, an artificial rose. Naked or, in one case, wearing only a cotton undershirt, the armless doll is variously presented as a skeletal automaton, a coy adolescent, or an abject pile of discombobulated parts. In one unusual image, the artist himself poses next to his standing sculpture, his human presence rendered ghostly through double exposure. Here Bellmer's own body seems to dematerialize as his mechanical girl, wigged, with glass eyes, wool beret, sagging hose, and a single shoe, takes on a disturbing reality.<br />
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And what of today? There is so much porn available on the Web it is difficult to talk about it constructively. A lot of porn involves children. The police are vigilant, but find it increasingly difficult to keep up with the demand of sick minds.<br />
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We have to talk about the terms and conditions of pornography. I think of the children’s Beauty Pageant industry; it is popular in the US and becoming increasingly popular here in the UK. Children, girls as young as three playing at being mini adults, polished and coiffed. As Melissa Henson argues in her recent CNN.com op-ed, subjecting young girls to child pageants contributes to the sexualizing of 3-year-olds. For example, a recent episode of Toddlers and Tiaras contained footage of a mother dressing up her daughter like Julia Roberts’ prostitute character on Pretty Woman for a pageant. Furthermore, on both shows, parents are often applying layers of makeup and spray tanning their daughters for performances and dressing the girls in risqué costumes that are just part of the show.<br />
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Elizabeth Day, writing for the Observer on Sunday 11th July 2010 interviewed Amber age seven.<br />
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“They parade in miniature ballgowns, wear false eyelashes and can be as young as five… We venture into the world of mini beauty pageants to meet the young princesses and their pushy parents.<br />
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“To all intents and purposes, Amber is a confident little girl with an array of enthusiasms and interests. But it is hard not to notice as she talks that her eyelids are powdered with gold eyeshadow. Her hair has been styled with two sparkly hairclips and she is wearing a pale pink dress studded with fabric flowers. Later, she will show me a certificate she was given for taking part in the Mini Miss UK competition earlier this year. Because as well as being a normal seven-year-old, Amber is also an aspiring child beauty queen.<br />
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Did she enjoy entering the beauty pageant? Amber thinks for a second and then nods her head. Will she be entering any more? "Yes." She pauses, a touch uncertainly. "If Mummy told me to."”<br />
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The work of Jake and Dinos Chapman is about as shocking as you can get. Children, girls, sexualized and grotesque. Are the artists saying something about childhood and children as a commodity?<br />
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"The job of a work of art is to raise questions about its terms and conditions," said Jake Chapman in an interview with Time Out London. "That’s what we do. We present the viewer with a puzzle. We put an injunction on speedy consumption, by refusing to offer a straightforward aesthetic experience. And to defend the integrity of the work, we produce a bit of turbulence that makes it more than a simple sip – of art." Dinos told Time Out, "By the time we die we will have done everything – flower arranging, pottery, origami… We have no signature style; the work is recognizable for its attitude, not its form."<br />
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The age at which very young girls are sexualised is becoming younger and younger.<br />
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Jake and Dinos Chapman investigate society’s taboos. Their fiberglass mannequins are unsettling and unnerving; they are meant to be. The girls in their distorted poses stare out blankly; their gaze challenging the viewer.<br />
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The Chapman’s images are unpleasant; to say that they are not nice is a terrible understatement.The very existence of the mannequins addresses the very heart of human experience and moral behaviour. We don’t know what to think and we flounder. We are repelled. But surely these grotesque mannequins are nothing to<br />
do with us, are they? The girls eyes lock onto our horrified gaze.<br />
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“Don’t you dare judge us;” they are saying. “You created us.”<br />
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Thanks to Francis Potts for introducing me to the work of Hans Bellmer. Francis can be found at his <a href="http://www.francispotts.com/?p=215">blog.</a><br />
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and at Twitter. @Francispottsbillierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-50913134621360763432017-08-18T10:34:00.002-07:002017-08-18T10:34:59.313-07:00WRITING BDSM AS A FEMINIST Christina Harding<br />
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I am a self-described feminist, yet at the same time, I also enjoy reading and writing BDSM. These two traits seem to contradict each other. On one hand, feminism is about the equality of the sexes, while on the other hand “dominance and submission” is literally in the definition of BDSM. And so, it has been a bit of a grapple for me to figure out how to rationalize these two opposing values.<br />
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In this rationalization, I think it’s important to keep in mind exactly what feminism entails. For this, I would like to refer you to this speech given by Emma Watson to the UN:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rymHYhlbBmw" width="560"></iframe><br />
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If you have not yet had a chance to watch this powerful and eloquent speech, I highly recommend it. Ms. Watson perfectly encapsulates my views on feminism. Unfortunately the word “feminism” has become synonymous with “man-hating” and with cold-hearted women who only care about their career. But this is not the integrity of the ideology which feminism stands for. Feminists simply believe that both sexes should be treated with the same respect and privileges. It would be hard for me to list an ideal which I hold closer to my heart.<br />
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However, I remember back to when I was as young as seven years old having dreams in which I was a slave being whipped, which I strangely enjoyed. At that time, I didn’t have the understanding or vocabulary to describe this strange joy, but in my later years I came to realize I was experiencing arousal. This type of dream reached an apex for me many years later when I was traveling in Venice, Italy (strangely enough). In this dream I was being gang-raped by three different completely unattractive men. They were practically fully clothed and I was naked. Over the years I’ve learned to have some control over my dreams, and so I manipulated it to make the scenario as vulgar as possible. I woke myself up, soaking wet. I had to go to the restroom to dry myself off. When I woke up the next morning I had completely forgotten the dream, until I discovered I still needed to dry myself off.<br />
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At this point, it’s important to backtrack. Both of the stories I have provided have been dreams. The reality of the matter is that truly whipping a slave or gang-raping a woman are horrible crimes which will have lasting effects on the physical and mental well-being of the victim. Nearly ten years ago I was home alone at around 12:30am when a stranger tried to break into my home with the intent of hurting me. Fortunately the criminal was unsuccessful in his ploy, but it left me terrified of being home alone at night. It’s a fear that has lead me to install alarm systems in my home and avoid being home alone at night whenever possible. This close call nearly ten years ago has made me feel uncomfortable in my own home ever since. I can only imagine the impact it would have had if this criminal had actually been successful.<br />
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Clearly I become aroused when BDSM graces my dreams, but pushing this line in reality is a completely different matter. However, that’s where the important distinction lies. Dreams, much like fantasies, are not reality. Many little boys love the fantasy of killing a dragon, but if faced with the “reality” of a huge fire-breathing dragon, would probably feel otherwise. This is the same case with BDSM.<br />
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There are many authors who refuse to write BDSM because they “know too many people who have been raped.” I completely sympathize and respect this concern. However, I think psychotic men who would actually rape a woman would do so regardless of whether or not they read my work. A man who would do such a thing has a lot of other problems which have little to do with my writing.<br />
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Additionally, I personally found I could only truly appreciate my own sexuality when I learned to embrace my desire for the fantasy of BDSM. Finally learning to embrace and express this fantasy originated in the very safe place of reading BDSM. Then it progressed into role-play with my husband. While this may seem more like “reality” the fact of the matter is that I’m in a loving, committed, trusting relationship, and I know that if I ever seriously conveyed any kind of discomfort my husband would stop immediately. This is fantasy because we’re “pretending.” Finally, I continued to explore my thirst for BDSM by writing some of my own in the form of a paranormal erotic novelette, Underneath the Gargoyle. The fact that this is a paranormal novelette couldn’t underscore more the fact that this is a fantasy. Embracing and exploring my love for BDSM has enriched my sex life and strengthened my relationship with my husband.<br />
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I am a feminist who also believes that sexuality is an integral part of human existence and a happy marriage. Sometimes fully embracing our sexuality entails accepting and cultivating a desire for BDSM. I write BDSM because I believe enacting our sexual fantasies in a committed, trusting relationship is another way to express our love.<br />
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Christina Harding is a pseudonym. She is a guest blogger for Romance at Random of Random House and the author of Underneath the Gargoyle a paranormal erotic series available at <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_6_11?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=underneath+the+gargoyle&sprefix=underneath+%2Cdigital-text%2C354">Amazon US </a>and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=underneath%20the%20gargoyle%20christina%20harding">Amazon UK</a><br />
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She also blogs at www.christinahardingerotica.blogspot.com and tweets @tinaerotica. Christina is happily married and enjoys reading sexy stories with her husband.billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-8210888620440734992017-08-05T06:19:00.001-07:002017-08-05T06:19:27.941-07:00The Pied Piper of Hameln<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I love Robert Browning’s poem; THE PIED PIPER OF HAMLYN. I love its lulling rhythms, the chanting, lyrical story that it tells.<br />
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I went to Hamlyn some years ago; I walked over a bridge, crossing the River Weser, deep and wide…<br />
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I came away enchanted; I imagine most tourists do. At the time I never gave much thought to what happened to the children of Hamlyn. If I did, it was of a Disneyfied version.<br />
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But it’s a strange story; a whole generation of kids just disappearing. Has anyone ever asked what exactly happened to the children of Hamlyn? Browning’s narrative poem is based on an actual event. Something went very wrong in that quaint German town, so many years ago.<br />
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Jack Marx talks about the narrative poem on his blog. The story of what happened to the children of Hamlyn.<br />
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Thursday, July 24, 2008.<br />
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“Most of the English-speaking world knows of the Pied Piper from the poem by Robert Browning, which itself was adapted from the tale as told by The Brothers Grimm. The story goes that a flamboyantly-attired troubadour promised to rid the town of its rat infestation, which he did by hypnotising the vermin with his flute and leading them to drown in the nearby river. However, when the townsfolk refused to pay him for his services, the piper took revenge by leading the children of the town to an unknown fate, never to return.<br />
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As fairytales go, it’s one of the more ghastly, whose moral appears to be little more than a warning about neglecting bills. But the legend seems based upon a true incident whose exact details have vanished into history, to be subsequently coloured in by centuries of folklorists. What is certain is that there is a town in Germany called Hameln and some children did go missing there sometime in June, 1284, the event so significant the early Hameln statutes measured the passing of time in ‘years after our children left.’<br />
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But there’s something about the silence in this tale - an event so terrible it remains forbidden to play music and dancing on a certain street in town, that suggests something more dastardly than an organised change of address took place.<br />
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Is it just possible that the fate of Hameln’s children was dealt with the townsfolk’s knowledge, if not necessarily their blessing? Perhaps they were sold, ‘donated’, abandoned en masse, or simply neglected, in a moment later regretted. At very least, they were lost, and nobody wants to be responsible for loss, especially a parent.<br />
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Enter the Pied Piper, with his seductive ways and other-worldly appearance. It was he who took the children, and then he vanished, an alien abduction for the Middle Ages. He is an invention, a diversion, and an absolution at once. Browning and the Brothers Grimm were probably closer to the truth than the town scribes - the Pied Piper was not so much a tragedy as a dubious transaction, and the less said about it the better.”<br />
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The writer, John Boswell, casts children as a kind of burdensome currency in the Middle Ages. All over Europe, they were frequently left to die in the wilderness, sold into the slave trade, used to pay debts, made to ‘disappear’ en masse so that rivals could be blamed and forced to compensate, or, most commonly, “donated” to the church, the return being relief from that mouth to feed and a promise of spiritual dividends.<br />
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The Holy Roman Empire turned something of a blind eye to the moral question of child abandonment, (no surprise there then) its various edicts on the matter seemingly more concerned with maintaining a fluid serfdom than protection of the children.<br />
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In 13th-century Spain, for example, it was law that “a father who is oppressed with great hunger or such utter poverty that he has no other recourse can sell or pawn his children in order to obtain food.” Furthermore…<br />
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“...a father who is besieged in a castle he holds for his lord, may, if so beset with hunger that he has nothing to eat, eat his child with impunity rather than surrender his castle without permission of the lord.”<br />
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The Pied Piper story seems to have its root in an event that happened on June 26, 1284. Hamelin historian Martin Humberg states that around 1300 a stained glass window was added to the central market church in Hamelin showing "an old figure of a man in coloured clothes and surrounded by a crowd of children." The inscription around this window has been reconstructed and reads:<br />
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“In the year of 1284, on John's and Paul's day<br />
was the 26th of June.<br />
By a piper, dressed in all kind of colours,<br />
130 children born in Hamelin were seduced<br />
and lost at the calvarie near the koppen.”<br />
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Scholars disagree on the meaning of "the calvarie near the koppen" but most agree that it refers to a place of execution near an as yet undetermined hill. There are many other references to the story in Hamelin itself, including a street named "Bungelosen Strasse," literally "the street without the sound of drums," allegedly so named because dancing was forbidden in that street in memory of what had happened to the children.”<br />
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In A World Lit Only by Fire (1992) by William Manchester, Manchester makes a passing reference to the Pied Piper of Hamelin. According to Manchester the piper was a psychopath and a pederast who was involved in some sort of mass child killing. Many of our children's stories are based on real events, many of them sinister and certainly not the type of thing you would want to lull your child to sleep with, but this seems especially grim. Is this true, and if so what's the whole story?<br />
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The quote in question comes from page 66 of Manchester's book and reads;<br />
"The Pied Piper of Hamelin . . . was a real man, but there was nothing enchanting about him. Quite the opposite; he was horrible, a psychopath and pederast who, on June 24, 1484, spirited away 130 children in the Saxon village of Hammel and used them in unspeakable ways. Accounts of the aftermath vary. According to some, the victims were never seen again; others told of disembodied little bodies found scattered in the forest underbrush or festooning the branches of trees."<br />
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Manchester doesn't footnote this passage and although he does give a long bibliography at the end of the book, the reader can't readily determine where he got it. The official website of the German town of Hamelin makes no mention of it, which is no surprise, since the romantic version of the legend has monetary value and they have an official town "Pied Piper" to this day. Perhaps Manchester got some of the details wrong -- among other things, he appears to be off about 200 years on the date. But he didn't just make the whole thing up.<br />
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The legend of the Pied Piper has probably as many variants as it does tellers. The most popular versions derive from the poem by Robert Browning and the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. In pretty much all versions, rats infest Hamelin and the town hires a travelling rat catcher to exterminate them. When he does so, the king, mayor, or whoever decides not to pay him, so he extracts his revenge by spiriting away the town's children.<br />
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Taken at face value, the inscription suggests that Manchester was right --130 kids came to a bad end at the hands of a deviant. But there is no corroborating record of any mass execution of children in the vicinity of Hamelin, which would seem to be an important event if it really happened.<br />
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The window with the inscription was replaced in 1660 and is now lost, so we're relying strictly on secondary evidence and not much of that. There doesn’t appear to be any factual basis for Manchester's lurid tale of "disembodied little bodies found scattered in the forest underbrush or festooning the branches of trees."<br />
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The earliest versions of the tale make no mention of the piper's skill as a rat catcher--that part of the story doesn't show up in literature until about 1550. It appears that the final tale was a mixture of the true story of whatever happened to the children in Hamelin plus various European rat catcher legends. Stories of an itinerant rat catcher similar to the one in Hamelin show up in Austria, France, Poland, Denmark, England, and Ireland. Duke Froben von Zimmern (1556) was the first to put the legends together into the tale we know today. Fifty years later Richard Verstegan was the first to tell the tale in English and introduce the name "The Pied Piper" in his book A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence.<br />
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But there is still too much speculation and not enough evidence to say what actually happened to the children of Hamelin in 1284. A typical conjecture might be; the Pied Piper was a charismatic leader who, in the eyes of the ecclesiastical as well as secular authorities, misled a group of young people in a revival of pagan worship. He and his group were therefore captured and killed.<br />
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The Black Death has also been mentioned as a possible suspect, although the plague post-dated most of the legends and would have affected adults as well as children. Earthquakes and the Children's Crusade have also been mentioned as possibilities, but are far from convincing.<br />
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One currently popular interpretation comes from Jurgen Udolph and focuses on the variant that the children emerged from the cave either in Transylvania or somewhere in eastern Europe. Udolph believes that the phrase "children of Hamelin" should be interpreted figuratively and not literally. He thinks the tale may refer to an eastward migration of people from Hamelin into the area between Berlin and the Baltic. The theory has root in German historian Wolfgang Wann's conjecture that Bruno von Schaumburg, who was then Bishop of Olmutz, recruited some residents of Hamelin to settle in Moravia. This would have happened in 1281, three years before the date in question.<br />
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Udolph rejects this particular idea but thinks something along the same lines may have occurred. He uses place names to fortify his speculation, on the theory that people who relocate to a new land tend to name their new homes after the places they came from. Therefore, it should be possible to trace new settlements by establishing the origins of their names. In an article in Time International, Ursula Sautter reports:<br />
<br />
"After the defeat of the Danes at the Battle of Bornhoved in 1227, the region south of the Baltic Sea, which was then inhabited by Slavs, became available for colonization by the Germans." The bishops and dukes of Pomerania, Brandenburg, Uckermark and Prignitz sent out glib "locators," medieval recruitment officers, offering rich rewards to those who were willing to move to the new lands. Thousands of young adults from Lower Saxony and Westphalia headed east. And as evidence, about a dozen Westphalian place names show up in this area. Indeed there are five villages called Hindenburg running in a straight line from Westphalia to Pomerania, as well as three eastern Spiegelbergs and a trail of etymology from Beverungen south of Hamelin to Beveringen northwest of Berlin to Beweringen in modern Poland.<br />
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Udolph's explanation seems likely. Like most legends, the Pied Piper story probably has its origin in something more prosaic than fantastic.<br />
But the fantastic does make a much better fairy tale.<br />
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This blog post has been put together using sources from the Web.billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-8323536712614191602017-07-14T06:16:00.001-07:002017-07-14T06:16:36.201-07:00NECROPHILIA; fucking dead people<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiISUZJ2Dx-n88Ji4UGWOI2gqRzSxUfaB9UCp83AqBNZ1tp8XGnK8w13IuIlNOqSNvT58Qe02jwsAaRrVimdj8OAiwiRWKMecDmke5WmfgM1xb5ZkVeKvroexidSIew0oITXrLBXSKrjsu/s1600/gothic+tomb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="760" data-original-width="1152" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiISUZJ2Dx-n88Ji4UGWOI2gqRzSxUfaB9UCp83AqBNZ1tp8XGnK8w13IuIlNOqSNvT58Qe02jwsAaRrVimdj8OAiwiRWKMecDmke5WmfgM1xb5ZkVeKvroexidSIew0oITXrLBXSKrjsu/s640/gothic+tomb.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Necrophilia; it’s a tough one. Is it a fetish or a perversion? What do you think? It’s a strange and disturbing phenomenon. It’s haunting; it’s taboo. But let’s not be squeamish; we’re going to talk about fucking dead people.<br />
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Yes it’s tough, but because it’s tough and makes us squirm, that’s not a reason not to talk about it. I think it’s a good reason to talk about it. Google is always a good place to start, so that’s where I went. And going on what you can find on the Web, with just a basic search; there’s a helluva lot of folk, curious and wanting to know more.<br />
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Are they all shouting “disgusting” and running away? It seems not; they’re intrigued. Reading about it; writing about it. Yearning for it…<br />
<br />
Janine Ashbless writes a great necrophilia story, in Montague’s Last Ride,” in her “Cruel Enchantment.” collection. Jan Vander Laenen writes another great necrophilia tale in his short story, “The Epistle of the Sleeping Beauty.”<br />
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So, necrophilia is there. It’s in the stories that we tell each other, from Classical Greek and Egyptian Mythology, to the Victorian Gothic. It’s in Fairy Tales and it’s in Popular Culture.<br />
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In the Greek legend of the Trojan War, the Greek hero Achilles slays the Amazon queen Penthesilea in a duel. Upon removing her helmet and seeing her face, Achilles falls in love with her and mourns her death. The soldier Thersites openly ridicules Achilles and accuses him of necrophilia. Achilles responds by promptly killing Thersites with a single blow. (In some traditions, Thersites' accusation is not unfounded—Achilles was so stricken by Penthesilea's beauty that he could not control his lust for her, even after her death.)<br />
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In Egyptian mythology, we are told of the myth of Osiris and Isis. It tells of the god Osiris, who had inherited his rule over the world from his ancestor Ra. Osiris was murdered and dismembered by his jealous brother Set, a god often associated with chaos. Osiris' sister and wife Isis reassembled Osiris' body so that she could impregnate herself and conceive an heir.<br />
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So the template for necrophilia is there, in our oldest stories. Mythology gives us permission to explore those dark and secret ideas.<br />
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And what about our current obsession with vampire stories? Starting with Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, are they not a fantasy about a physical union with the un-dead?<br />
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And as for Heathcliffe in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, he sure as hell didn’t dig up Cathy’s body to gaze on her beautiful face.<br />
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And there’s so many more. In Cormac McCarthy's Child of God (1973), the protagonist Lester Ballard finds a dead couple in a car, and carries the female corpse back to his cabin to engage in sexual acts with it. After losing the corpse in a fire, he begins murdering women to create dead female sex partners for himself.<br />
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Georges Bataille's gruesome novella Story of the Eye ends with the main characters performing perverse and sacrilegious sexual acts on a passive priest, who is raped and strangled to death as he climaxes. After murdering him, the characters continue to perform sexual acts with his dismembered eyeball.<br />
<br />
Edgar Allan Poe once described the death of a beautiful young woman to be one of the most beautiful images. (By this, he was not saying that it is a good thing for young women to die; to him melancholy and pain were sources of beauty.) Also, his poem<br />
"Annabel Lee" includes, towards the end, possible necrophilic imagery. As does his short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher.”<br />
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Oscar Wilde's scandalous play, Salome, based on the Biblical story of a Judean princess who performs the Dance of the Seven Veils for the Tetrarch, Herod, in exchange for the head of John the Baptist. When Salome finally receives the Christian prophet's head, she addresses it in an erotic monologue that has highly suggestive necrophiliac overtones.<br />
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And coming closer to today’s literature.<br />
<br />
In Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon, (1977) Macon Dead is explaining to his son Milkman that he is disturbed by the relationship that his wife Ruth had with her father, Dr. Foster. Shortly after Dr. Foster's death, Macon caught Ruth lying naked in bed with her father's corpse, while sucking on his fingers.<br />
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In Canadian author Barbara Gowdy's short story, "We So Seldom Look On Love", a funeral parlour employee learns how to make the penises of recently dead men erect, and she commits sexual acts on the corpses until she is caught. In 1996, the story was adapted into the film Kissed.<br />
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Can’t leave out Fairy Tales either. Some Commentators like Marina Bychkova read the story of “Snow White”, as having a necrophiliac theme. Disney has sanitised it, just as he has done with “The Sleeping Beauty.” In a much older version of the story, the handsome Prince doesn’t just kiss the sleeping/dead princess, he rapes her.<br />
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From the Web.<br />
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“Sigmund Freud maintained that our deep childhood experiences (or lack of them) affect our adult lives in a profound way. In other words, when people are highly functional in their childhood experiences, this mirrors their adult reality, and when adult people are highly dysfunctional as children this, too, mirrors and mars their adult experiences.<br />
There seems to be strong indications to support this concerning necrophilia. The list of necrophiliacs seems to clearly support Freud’s viewpoint. Here is a brief list: Ed Gein, Jeffery Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Albert Fish, Denis Nilson. All of these personalities had strained strange childhoods, felt abandoned, felt rejected and felt worthless. According to Dr. Jackson it is the perverted and extremely aberrant feelings of loneliness, rejection and abandonment, this feeling of total isolation, and total inability to connect to another human being that propels necrophilia.<br />
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As disturbing as this approach might be for some, in a nut shell what is being said here is that the necrophilia evolves to a state where the surest and easiest way to have total control, total acceptance, and total success in relating to another human being tragically descends to the point that the human being which is to be the object of intimacy is, of all things, a corpse.”<br />
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From the Web again.<br />
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“Erich Fromm, the psychologist and philosopher considered that necrophilia is a character orientation which is not necessarily sexual. It is expressed in an attraction to that which is dead or totally controlled. At the extreme, it results in hatred of life and destructiveness. Unlike Freud's death instinct, it is not biologically determined but results from upbringing. Fromm believed that the lack of love in the western society and the attraction to mechanistic control leads to necrophilia. Expressions of necrophilia are modern weapon systems, idolatry of technology, and the treatment of people as things in bureaucracy.”<br />
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It’s described as “the highest taboo,” worse than rape, paedophilia, bestiality. So what’s going to happen if you do get caught fucking a corpse? The law in the United Kingdom says that fucking a corpse is very definitely illegal.<br />
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From Wiki;<br />
“In the United Kingdom, sexual penetration with a corpse was made illegal under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. This is defined as depictions of "sexual interference with a human corpse" (as opposed to only penetration), and would cover "depictions which appear to be real acts" as well as actual scenes (see also extreme pornography).<br />
As of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, it is also illegal to possess physical depictions of necrophilia, electronic or otherwise. Necrophilia-pornography falls under the governmental description of extreme pornography, of which, possession is classed as illegal under the aforementioned act.”<br />
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So in the U.K. you’re not only breaking the sexual offences act law if you indulged your profane urges and fuck a corpse, you’re going to be hauled up for possessing “extreme pornography” as well.<br />
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In the United States, there doesn’t seem to be a blanket law covering the whole country. The law varies from state to state. As of May 2006, there is no federal legislation specifically barring sex with a corpse. Here’s a few examples of how the states differ in their application of the law.<br />
<br />
In Arizona, It is unlawful for a person to engage in necrophilia. A person engages in necrophilia by:<br />
1. Having sexual intercourse with a dead human body.<br />
2. Having sexual contact with a dead human body, other than the contact normally required to store, prepare, disinfect or embalm a dead human body according to standards of practice in the funeral industry.<br />
1. "Sexual contact" means any direct or indirect touching, including oral contact, fondling or manipulating of any part of the genitals, anus or female breast by any part of the body or by any object.<br />
2. "Sexual intercourse" means penetration into the vulva or anus by any part of the body or by any object or masturbatory contact with the penis or vulva.<br />
F. A person who violates this section is guilty of a class 4 felony.<br />
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In California, you can get up to eight years in prison, for the act of necrophilia. In the state of Georgia, you can get ten years in prison, for the same offence. In Nevada it’s considered a Class A felony with a maximum penalty of life in prison.<br />
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I still don’t know whether necrophilia is a fetish or a perversion. Certainly the sub-text in the Sigmund Freud statement, and the quote from Erich Fromm, seem to see necrophilia as something that needs to be “cured.”<br />
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So I’m lost for a proper conclusion.<br />
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How would I feel if a relative of mine who had passed, was “played” with? I would not like it at all. I would be distressed, incensed, livid. But, as I don’t think I’m likely to come across a necrophiliac any time soon, that’s as near to making it personal as I can get.<br />
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And not forgetting contemporary literature; Post Mortem by Rose W. Sweetly gentle; a dying woman's last wish. Post Mortem is available at <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=post+mortem+by+rose+w&rh=n%3A341677031%2Ck%3Apost+mortem+by+rose+w">Amazon UK</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=post+mortem+rose+w">Amazon US</a>billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-28281297356276690292017-06-23T05:36:00.000-07:002018-04-08T17:07:39.225-07:00THE MARQUIS de SADE; JUSTINE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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His name is synonymous with the very worst that human beings can be. He plumbs the depths of depravity in his quest for mere titillation; Bad people celebrate his birthday; good people shudder at the mention of his name. He is the Marquis de Sade and I’ve just finished reading “Justine”.<br />
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It really is time that I confront de Sade. I call myself a writer of Erotica; indeed, I blushed and trembled with dizzy, giddy pride when the Christian right slammed a “Danger Pornography” notice on my tweets.<br />
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But de Sade. He was a French aristocrat, 2nd June 1740—2nd December 1814. A revolutionary politician, famous for his libertine sexuality. His works comprise novels, short stories, plays, dialogues and political tracts. In his lifetime, some were published in his own name, while others appeared anonymously and de Sade denied being their author. He is best known for his erotic works which combine philosophical discourse with pornography, depicting sexual fantasies with an emphasis on violence and blasphemy against the Catholic Church. He was a proponent of extreme freedom unrestrained by morality, religion or law. The words ‘sadist’ and ‘sadism’ are derived from his name.<br />
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He was incarcerated in various prisons and in an insane asylum for about 32 years of his life. Many of his works were written in prison. His ethos is focused absolutely on pain and pleasure.<br />
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“It is always by way of pain that one arrives at pleasure.”<br />
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“I have already told you; the only way to a woman’s heart is along the path of torment. I know none other as sure.”<br />
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“When she’s abandoned her moral center and teachings…when she’s cast aside her façade of propriety and ladylike demeanor…when I have corrupted this fragile thing and brought out a writhing, mewling, bucking wanton whore for my enjoyment and pleasure, enticing from within this feral lioness…growling and scratching and biting, taking everything I dish out to her…at that moment she is never more beautiful to me.”<br />
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“Justine,” with the subtitle, “The Misfortunes of Virtue”, is an extraordinary book. The philosophy is that of the merits of vice vs. virtue. The protagonist (a virtuous woman) falls prey to a series of libertines who use and abuse her in whatever ways they deem pleasurable to themselves.<br />
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We join the narrative at the point where Juliette, aged 15 and her sister, Justine aged 12 have been orphaned by the death of, first their father and then their mother. They have been educated at a convent, a private establishment, where they had access to the finest minds of their generation.<br />
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Their relatives deliberate about what to do with the two girls.<br />
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“Since no one cared to take care of them, the doors of the convent were opened to them, they were given their inheritance and left free to do whatever they pleased.”<br />
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They were harsh times.<br />
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<br />
Juliette is sensitive to the pleasures of freedom, while Justine, with her serious and melancholy nature, is aware of the full horror of her situation. Juliette intends to use her pretty face and beautiful figure to her advantage and become a great lady. Justine is horrified by the course her elder sister intends to take and the two go their separate ways.<br />
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The story is told at an inn by “Therese” (the name that Justine adopts for the purpose of the narrative) to Madame de Lorsagne (who is actually Justine’s elder sister Juliette. They do not recognise each other) There is irony, in that Juliette,who went briefly for a life of vice, is now in a better position to do good than Justine, who refused to make concessions and so is plunged further into vice.<br />
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Justine’s tale begins. On departing from the Convent and leaving her sister, Justine goes to the house of her mother’s dressmaker and asks to be taken in. She is turned away.<br />
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A tearful Justine goes to see her priest. De Sade describes her beauty. A perfect picture of innocence.<br />
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“..she was wearing a little white close fitting dress, her beautiful hair carelessly tucked beneath a large bonnet. Her bosom could just be discerned, hidden beneath a few ells of gauze, her pretty complexion a little pale owing to the troubles that weighed upon her. Her eyes welled with tears, making them even more expressive..”<br />
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The priest does not have Christ, the Holy Spirit or the Our Father on his mind. He drools over the pretty girl.<br />
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“God’s spokesman slipped his hand into her cleavage, kissing her in a manner far too worldly for a man of the church.”<br />
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When Justine rebuffs him, he throws her out.<br />
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In prerevolutionary France, the Church is corrupt and the rich and powerful can get away with more or less anything; Justine’s ideas on how to live a decent and good life are hopelessly out of time. Her tale follows an odyssey of misadventure as she moves from place to place, determined to lead a good and honest life, but encountering abuse after abuse. Always, she is taken in and promptly imprisoned. She takes refuge in a monastery, hoping to claim sanctuary and it is in the Holy place, inhabited by Holy men that she is degraded, abused and defiled to a hideous extreme; all described in explicit detail. She is witness to, and has inflicted on her, every sexual depravity you can think of. Child sex, rape, sodomy, coprophilia, endless whippings, orgies and multiple partners. Every encounter follows the same pattern, followed by an exercise in, quite remarkable, lengthy sophistry as the lecher explains his own version of the Libertine’s credo with passionate intensity and the certainty of experience. This is in contrast to Justine’s assertions of Christian principles which are expressed pathetically in the moment, stubbornly, and with the certainty of blind faith.<br />
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So what does de Sade’s novel offer BDSM today? Does what de Sade describe have any relevance to BDSM as we know it in 2013? Probably not. The world is a very different place, we have different values and different ways of understanding.<br />
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<br />
I wasn’t expecting to find fun in de Sade’s work, neither was I expecting to find anything like joy, there is certainly no sense of playfulness in any of the sexual acts that he describes. What he does do, I think, is to touch on many common fantasies such as the need for pain, inflicted or inflicting that brings to the foreground the means for some of us to celebrate our sexuality.<br />
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Is de Sade onto something when he talks about pain and pleasure? He wouldn’t have known about endorphins; the mysterious little opioid peptides released by the pituitary gland at times of great excitement, pain, stress and orgasm. We only know about that sort of stuff because of 20th century research methods.<br />
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A friend, whose sexual orientation is submissive, tells me that the rush of endorphins, when the pain of a whipping is almost too much to bear, is almost exquisite. “Better than morphine…”<br />
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Freud wrote about the pain pleasure principle. He understood that ‘something’ happened, he just wasn’t sure what…<br />
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“When pleasure and pain occur together, a certain amount of confusion may occur, which itself may be pleasant or painful and hence determine what happens. Simultaneous pain and pleasure is a basis for masochism.”<br />
<br />
(Author unknown.)<br />
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In The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography, Angela Carter suggests that de Sade is perhaps the first writer, and in this respect he is surprisingly modern, to see women as more than mere breeding machines, as more than just our biology.<br />
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And that, I think, is liberating.<br />
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Perhaps we are wrong to take de Sade so seriously? Is he actually talking about an achievable, or even desirable philosophy? de Sade didn’t just write about sex; he had very serious things to say about life, oppression, equality and power. But he said them in such an uncompromising, aggressive way, laughingly indulging himself in his most extreme fantasies and perversions that we recoil in horror. His particular proclivities have a place in his argument and his refusal to excise them, using them and himself as examples, shows, I think, that he is not lacking in integrity.<br />
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Still I’m not happy. Let me just throw this in; something to contemplate. I haven’t looked at intent. What is de Sade trying to achieve with his pen? Is he just a dirty old pervert, masturbating into our faces sniggering and sneering at our self-righteous disgust? Or is he laughing at our naiivity, our inability to see through what could be considered a sophisticated piece of satire?<br />
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We are so busy being shocked, we miss the point.<br />
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It is neither inappropriate nor inconceivable to interpret de Sade’s work as a biting parody in the same tradition as the satirist Jonathan Swift, or the great satirists of today. How many times have you watched (the show that keeps me sane) South Park, with your gut clenching, cringing, as you wonder how the writers dare put such corrupt words into the mouths of children? Nothing is sacred in the hands of Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Even the Sacred are a target. God, Satan, Christ, the Virgin Mary. As is the President, sex, age, sexual orientation, social media, popular culture, child abuse, paedophilia. Nothing is off limits: make up your own list from these scatological writers. With wonderful belly aching laugh out loud hilarity, they prick the bubble of pomposity of anyone who takes him, or herself too seriously; no one is exempt. No one escapes.<br />
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We know that it’s funny; we give ourselves permission to laugh as Cartman directs yet another totally anti-Semitic ranting tirade at his Jewish friend Kyle. The writers put into the child, Cartman’s mouth, all of the old nonsense of why it’s right to hate the Jews. There is even an episode where Cartman talks enthusiastically and chillingly about “his final solution.” The Nazi euphemism for the total annihilation of the Jewish people.<br />
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Is de Sade’s work a brilliant, way ahead of his time, piece of satire? Or is it gratuitous porn; porn for porn’s sake?<br />
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You know what? I still really don’t know!billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-74508435017400017302017-06-02T06:31:00.001-07:002017-06-02T06:31:06.703-07:00SEX & DEATH: EROS & THANATOS<br />
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It seems a strange notion; a link between sex and death. I think most people would agree, that life's greatest drives are to reproduce and to avoid death. The Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and the French social theorist Michel Foucault argued that the two are fused, that the death instinct pervades sexual activity. I’m not sure whom came up with the idea; Eros and Thanatos, Freud or Foucault, but that is the term generally used to demonstrate the concept. Sex and death are inextricably linked.<br />
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Our lives seem to be governed by polar opposites. I think it is helpful to think of Thanatos (death) in these terms suggested by Doctor Stephen Farrier.<br />
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“But Thanatos (death) is often overlooked. I think of it as the desire for zero excitation - total non desire (which of course is death)."<br />
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And, of course, the French have given us the concept of “La petite mort”; “the little death.” A wonderful metaphor for the orgasm.”<br />
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In the Encyclopaedia of Death and Dying, the writer suggests that;<br />
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“…with the AIDS epidemic their (Freud and Foucault’s) view has become particularly poignant. A 1992 study from Amsterdam, for instance, found that about one in six U.S. soldiers surveyed said that sex without condoms was worth the risk of getting the AIDS virus. A year later a story released by Planned Parenthood counsellor offices in San Antonio, Texas, explained how teenage girls were demonstrating their toughness by having unprotected sex with an HIV-infected gang member. It seems that, for some, sexual desire is intensified in the presence of taboos and boundaries, even deadly ones."<br />
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On television, I heard Stephen Fry tell the tale of a young, gay man, being “gifted”. He had anal sex with as many HIV positive men in one night as he could; hoping to get the virus.<br />
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Are human beings inexorably drawn to what can damage, or even kill them? Is there really a pleasure in dicing with death?<br />
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The Encyclopaedia of Death and Dying again;<br />
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“Attempts to enhance one's sexual experiences can be deadly as well. In 1998 the Food and Drug Administration reported the deaths of several men taking the highly popular Viagra impotence pill. Each year, attempts at sexual self-gratification accidentally kill between 500 and 1,000 individuals, predominantly men, because of autoerotic asphyxia. To heighten their sexual orgasm during masturbation, these individuals cut off the supply of oxygen and blood to their head, often by tying a belt or rope around their neck. Consciousness may be lost, and the individual dies by strangulation.”<br />
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It seems that the sex drive and the death drive are powerful forces. But hang on a minute, we don’t all take dangerous risks, do we? Surely, most of us live quite sedentary lives. Sometimes life has a way of tripping us up. Someone lets us down, badly. Love may be unrequited. Our own bodies might betray us.<br />
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From the web:<br />
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“To be betrayed feels like surrendering to a painful process of death, like being forced to experience the pain of abandonment and loss. Each death, however, seems to be a “sacred” process of transferring to new forms of existence. As Carl Jung reminds, the development of personality almost always passes from a deathly sacrifice, and if we manage to process the experience of betrayal and mourning, the result may be transformation.<br />
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Betrayal might seem abhorrent to our conscience. Nevertheless, without maturation deriving from the experience of betrayal, we remain trapped in the unconscious, repeated questing of a merger with another person. We remain out of the mystery of life forever. If we never change direction, we refuse to undertake the responsibility of existence as unique and separate entity, because the repetition of the miraculous discovery of the ego, according to Jung, is possible only if rupture takes place in its temporal consistency and in its beliefs.”<br />
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In other words, we have to allow ourselves to experience rupture in order to mature and grow. If we don’t, we remain as children for ever.<br />
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The Eros/Thanatos equation has not been unnoticed by Artists.<br />
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”<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnmZ785F4NkaJP8OiUWGFT_m7iWn5olNECzHDBedmjxe1HRAHhaaEYQwpGOitsrPXiFNO8VyXOTACBgPViMRd7GkKP8gc-4gKa_PBcO6ND_vLmm7DCTTKa3l1rCceic8UNPNTHnhbQo-mk/s1600/salome+and+john.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525666221990927330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnmZ785F4NkaJP8OiUWGFT_m7iWn5olNECzHDBedmjxe1HRAHhaaEYQwpGOitsrPXiFNO8VyXOTACBgPViMRd7GkKP8gc-4gKa_PBcO6ND_vLmm7DCTTKa3l1rCceic8UNPNTHnhbQo-mk/s320/salome+and+john.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 229px;" /></a><br />
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Aubrey Beardsley’s ink drawing of Salome, conveys the pivotal moment of the Biblical tale in all its gruesome detail. In a rapture that is indecent in its intensity, Salome gazes at John’s severed head with glutinous glee. Beardsley’s line is perfection. Over a blank white paper he gives us a story that is grotesque, weird, macabre, sinister, in a perverse and playfully theatrical style. Salome clutches at John’s decapitated head, as if she is about to devour it. Beardsley has conveyed the tale in all its erotic glory. Salome is sex personified: John’s death is down to her lust. The viewer is repulsed, feeling that Salome is about to burst with terrible laughter.<br />
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Here is the story of Salome from the Bible. Mark 6:21-29:<br />
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“And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee; And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee. And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom. And she went forth, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist.<br />
And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist. And<br />
the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her. And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her mother.<br />
And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb.”<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN10W-Q_YDqhp1YpjAi2943sfF-oMyTUqlP9b_uVupqL_vlWpC6eEbNyLGVsSwtm94Wi1SrerKVD_i8o0SbLjJEOraYMkBv_x_VoWYtIJjX2agDN_R-IW51_UnVYexlvXriCfpZ3bFtuz5/s1600/Deux+jeunes+filles+la+bell+Rosine+1847.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525668260446908290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN10W-Q_YDqhp1YpjAi2943sfF-oMyTUqlP9b_uVupqL_vlWpC6eEbNyLGVsSwtm94Wi1SrerKVD_i8o0SbLjJEOraYMkBv_x_VoWYtIJjX2agDN_R-IW51_UnVYexlvXriCfpZ3bFtuz5/s320/Deux+jeunes+filles+la+bell+Rosine+1847.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 211px;" /></a><br />
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The Belgian artist, Antoine Joseph Wiertz painted a confrontation of Beauty and Death, Deux jeunes filles—La Belle Rosine in 1847. You can see it at the Musée Wiertz, Brussels.<br />
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It’s a hauntingly beautiful painting. A lovely, almost naked, nubile young woman stands before a skeleton. The young woman is not daunted by this presentation. Is it a confrontation, or is there a narrative of which the viewer is unaware? I don’t know any stories in mythology that this could have been drawn from; Wiertz is weaving a tale, but I don’t know how to read it. I have the feeling that there is more to this painting than meets the eye. Wiertz’ pictorial language is enigmatic, perhaps hinting at the Surrealist movement that was not to show its face until the following century.<br />
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Dissatisfied with the shiny effect of oil painting, Wiertz developed a new technique combining the smoothness of oil painting with the speed of execution and the dullness of painting in fresco. He has used this to effect, in this painting. It gives the work a sombre feel, even ominous. Something is about to happen to disturb the woman’s quiet contemplation. Her head is very slightly tilted, as if acknowledging the skeleton. She could be looking into a mirror, maybe admiring what she will one day become. You would expect her to recoil, yet there is no horror in the young woman’s face, there is even a hint of a small smile.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvgJXgdWbn55OpHSREMEAeD0lRx9NoLKk8-TxiG11C2hVb4MjcfKC6nMXEtD4HYeEXPO7jcOsvthQpa9bHaCoFbK2h_DWOt-aXLlox1rVcrCO2UCviHYHJYweY5BPR8S6aWIrLUgofQK0T/s1600/ophelia.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525670848876045858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvgJXgdWbn55OpHSREMEAeD0lRx9NoLKk8-TxiG11C2hVb4MjcfKC6nMXEtD4HYeEXPO7jcOsvthQpa9bHaCoFbK2h_DWOt-aXLlox1rVcrCO2UCviHYHJYweY5BPR8S6aWIrLUgofQK0T/s320/ophelia.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 217px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
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The Pre-Raphaelite painter, John Everett Millais, gives us the doomed maiden, “Ophelia.” Millais painted the picture in 1852; you can see it in the Tate Gallery, London.<br />
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Franny Moyle talks about the painting. “The model is dressed up in Shakespearean reference, it is nevertheless the depiction of a woman committing suicide and an exploration of female sexuality. Ophelia is ecstatic at the moment her life expires. The sexual charge in the picture is heightened by the abundant, competing natural world of the river bank that, portrayed with almost photographic faithfulness, surrounds this woman not only resigned to but aroused by her fate. The depiction of an offering to a greater natural order.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvo6t6P2gzMWq1dnZuZxAxUXXQ7_CMoX-FFNhuBpA6XTyqR5pU-FIYQqaJChDns_y73EuVn7e7t4UKJtc9xzlGMKeNjEYsS6U0EhuWQr1x9lTcIVuD_WlenKpEEmIs9VtpArCZyrVT8dNx/s1600/waterhouse_the_lady_of_shalott02.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525673260593709666" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvo6t6P2gzMWq1dnZuZxAxUXXQ7_CMoX-FFNhuBpA6XTyqR5pU-FIYQqaJChDns_y73EuVn7e7t4UKJtc9xzlGMKeNjEYsS6U0EhuWQr1x9lTcIVuD_WlenKpEEmIs9VtpArCZyrVT8dNx/s320/waterhouse_the_lady_of_shalott02.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 239px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
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Franny Moyle commentating again. "The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, draws from Tennyson’s poem, a mythical lady, cursed never to look out of her window, chooses to sacrifice her life for a glimpse of Lancelot and then float to Camelot in a barge to face her doom.<br />
In an allegory of sexual longing and capitulation, Waterhouse freezes Tennyson’s story at the moment the lady is about to release the chain that ties her barge. And so he anticipates the abandonment of the rational self to subconscious sexual impulses."<br />
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I think that “The Lady of Shalott,” is also at the Tate Gallery, London.<br />
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The encyclopaedia of Death and Dying.<br />
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“In a 1992 book, Camille Paglia claimed that it was in the West that sex, violence, and aggression are major motivations for artistic creativity and human relationships. There is little doubt that these are qualities of audience appeal. Hollywood has long known of the attractions to the erotic and the violent, which is why 60 percent of R-rated movies and nearly half of X-rated movies contain violence. The long-term success of the James Bond movie series derives from its fusion of sex and death.<br />
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"According to Geoffrey Gorer, such seductions derive from cultural pruderies to matters of sex and death. William May observed that as sex becomes pornographic when divorced from its natural human emotions of love and affection, so death becomes pornographic when divorced from its natural emotion, which is grief. Perhaps the pornographic connotation is why designer Christian Dior chose in the 1990s to label one of his perfumes "Poison."”<br />
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Thanks to Jan Vander Laenen, Fulani and Doctor Stephen Farrier, for helping me put this essay together. And, of course, sources from the Web.billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-33840694039759606192017-05-20T05:41:00.001-07:002017-05-20T05:41:21.861-07:00MALE DOMESTIC ABUSE<br />
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“The number of women prosecuted for domestic violence rose from 1,575 in 2004-05 to 4,266 in 2008-09. "Both men and women can be victims and we know that men feel under immense pressure to keep up the pretence that everything is OK," said Alex Neil, the housing and communities minister in the Scottish parliament. "Domestic abuse against a man is just as abhorrent as when a woman is the victim.”<br />
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Denis Campbell The Observer, Sunday 5 September 2010<br />
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I am not going to go into detail about violent stuff inflicted on guys by women. Most of it is too horrible to think and write about. There is plenty of stuff online if you care to search.<br />
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If you share a pint with a mate at the match and he turns up with a black eye, would you automatically believe it if he said he walked into a door?<br />
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Look across your row before kick-off. One in five men are a victim of domestic abuse at some stage in their life.<br />
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A lot of men suffer in silence, fearing pals will laugh. Most domestic violence help is for women but there are confidential help-lines for men.<br />
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“If you are a victim and in danger, the advice given is leave if you can and call police, who have officers trained to help.<br />
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Don’t retaliate physically or verbally — you may end up arrested. Keep a diary of incidents and photos of injuries. If kids are involved, seek council help.”<br />
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And it isn’t just physical violence. Many men suffer screaming, shouting or controlling behaviour from partners. This can, and I am sure in some cases, go on for years. A woman embarrasses her partner in front of their friends. It might be something that is deeply personal -- his sexual prowess. His habits in the bedroom. Even his habits in the bathroom. It doesn‘t matter what his hobbies are; she will be scornful about those as well. The ring of laughter in his ears humiliates him into silence. Perhaps later, when they are alone, he complains.<br />
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“But I was only joking!” he is told. “Can’t you take a joke?”<br />
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Or she might say; “I was only being honest!”<br />
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It isn’t joking. It isn’t being honest. It’s bullying. If he persists, or complains another time, he is told that he is “whiny, wimpy, uptight, insane, paranoid.”<br />
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Any word will do, as long as it demeans, cuts deep, makes him feel less of a human being.<br />
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We hear so much about female domestic violence, it seems only fair to redress the balance.<br />
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It happens in the pub, on a night out with friends. If the two work for the same company, it may happen in the workplace. It is hardly a surprise that it even happens online, on Facebook! The absolute, venomous control and humiliation is there -- for the whole world to laugh and sneer at.<br />
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Here are the details of one help line in the UK. If you search online, there are many more.<br />
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The Men's Advice Line is a confidential helpline for male victims of domestic violence and abuse.<br />
We welcome calls from all men - in heterosexual or same-sex relationships.<br />
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The Men's Advice Line offers emotional support, practical advice and information on a wide range of services for further help and support.<br />
Our focus is to increase the safety of men experiencing domestic violence (and the safety of their children) and reduce the risk.<br />
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0808 801 0327 - free from landlines and mobile phones.<br />
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<br />billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-40370520839746092682017-05-05T06:09:00.003-07:002017-05-05T06:09:47.115-07:00SEX, MURDER, STATE OF THE ART TECHNOLOGY (EDWARDIAN STYLE) & A race across the Atlantic!<br />
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It was the first notorious killing of the twentieth century. July 1910 Britain was gripped by the progress of a huge manhunt. It was on a scale that hadn’t been seen since Jack the Ripper.<br />
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The fugitive was Doctor Hawley Harvey Crippen and he was wanted for the murder and mutilation of his wife Cora. Together with his mistress, Ethel le Neve, Doctor Crippen had fled from London. Handbills had been printed and pasted everywhere and distributed to police around the world. Everyone was talking about this case.<br />
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The Home Secretary, a certain Winston Churchill had organised a reward of £250, worth £20,000 in today’s money for their capture.<br />
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So where were Doctor Crippen and his lover Ethel le Neve? In fact, they had already left the country and were holed up in a hotel in Belgium. They had plans to leave for North America.<br />
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Henry Kendal was the captain of a steamship heading across the Atlantic to Canada. But two of his passengers had aroused his suspicions. The SS Montrose had only been at sea for one day when Captain Kendal noticed a father and son behaving strangely on deck. He thought it was very odd that they squeezed each other’s hands immoderately, as he put it, and that they would sometimes disappear behind the lifeboats. The two of them were travelling as Mr and Master Robinson.<br />
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What happened next was just like a detective novel, with the Captain playing the part of Sherlock Holmes. Captain Kendal decided to carry out an experiment to try and confirm his suspicions that he had Doctor Crippen on board. He took a newspaper photograph of Doctor Crippen and using chalk he whitened out the Doctor’s moustache and then blackened out the frames of his spectacles and it was a photo fit. Without his moustache and spectacles, the mysterious Mr Robinson was clearly Doctor Crippen.<br />
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Captain Kendal had access to a pioneering piece of technology that would speed up the process of twentieth-century crime investigation. It was the Marconi wireless, but the transmitter only had a range of 150 miles. When Captain Kendal made his breakthrough he was already 130 miles from the nearest receiver; he had 20 miles left to get the message out. Rushing along the lower deck to the wireless room he handed the wireless operator the message that would electrify the world.<br />
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<br />
It read:<br />
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“Have strong suspicions that Crippen the London cellar murderer and accomplice are amongst the passengers. Accomplice dressed as a boy but with voice manners and build undoubtedly a girl.”<br />
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<br />
But would the message get through in time?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs-Fz9_OlpTQ3O9xH8i3ta3P9kxqq-Y-u7KnfhMJlXvhaVKHJTvEpoezAVGdwXABW7Cwcnb7vlIfa3sNZj09RB5lkVY6P74gX0Ode_p-9kOcUugTOjVV9WvtQO4livtKBN4PY15XQNeUAD/s1600/crippen+ethel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs-Fz9_OlpTQ3O9xH8i3ta3P9kxqq-Y-u7KnfhMJlXvhaVKHJTvEpoezAVGdwXABW7Cwcnb7vlIfa3sNZj09RB5lkVY6P74gX0Ode_p-9kOcUugTOjVV9WvtQO4livtKBN4PY15XQNeUAD/s320/crippen+ethel.jpg" /></a></div>
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So what exactly were the events that had led up to this extraordinary situation?<br />
<br />
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Doctor Crippen, an American, who dabbled in cheap patent medicines and dentistry had been living what seemed a pretty conventional life in a North London villa. His wife, Cora, was a would be music hall artiste. But the marriage was troubled and Crippen had begun an affair with his young secretary, Ethel le Neve. On the 19th January 1910, Crippen visited a chemist to purchase five grains of hydrobromide of hyoscine; an enormous dosage of a deadly poison. He signed the poison book like he was supposed to, with the words “for homoeopathic purposes.”<br />
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<br />
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On the 31st January, the Crippens held a little party at home. Later, Crippen would claim that it had been followed by a terrible quarrel between him and his wife. Cora had said that she was leaving him the very next day. Whatever really happened that night the guests at that party were the last people to see Cora Crippen alive. To explain Cora’s absence Crippen claimed that she had gone back to America and then he later said that she had died out there. Very suspicious Cora’s friends now paid a visit to New Scotland Yard. The case was taken up by Detective Chief Inspector Walter Dew, a veteran of the Ripper murders. He was a member of the Yard’s newly formed “murder squad”. Its members prided themselves on their prowess and their skills in disguises – however unconvincing. Chief Inspector Dew searched Crippen’s house for evidence but found nothing. But he wasn’t quite satisfied. He went back three days later for another look and discovered that Crippen had disappeared. “My quarry has gone,” he said.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59JFfN5TQGbbWnoAXClcevVVbV-DEuoSLRhjNqUX10YHffTW8kZ6jAtUpf_Di-fFt8hSRHSX94SScP13_i_Ddp2rPSPG67UMDcVcYz0zaIF-uyWAaACNeFGAotTPlV8ZzRfZ2CBtjxI6r/s1600/crippen+house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59JFfN5TQGbbWnoAXClcevVVbV-DEuoSLRhjNqUX10YHffTW8kZ6jAtUpf_Di-fFt8hSRHSX94SScP13_i_Ddp2rPSPG67UMDcVcYz0zaIF-uyWAaACNeFGAotTPlV8ZzRfZ2CBtjxI6r/s320/crippen+house.jpg" /></a></div>
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Crippen’s house, where a block of flats now stands held a strange attraction for Dew. “That sinister cellar,” he wrote, “draws me to it.” His sergeant began to work away at the brick floor, then to remove the earth beneath. There was a nauseating stench and Dew and his men had to rush out to the garden for fresh air. Fortifying themselves with brandy, they returned to the cellar and soon made a grim discovery. There, in a shallow grave, lay a limbless headless torso. What kind of person could have done this? Surely not gentle Doctor Crippen?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii8OUKD5oZm8VaYX2vMyo6CLWKc5gC2WXETWXO1yut7OfbzesazTDu6oDCfZwdXWXZOACcUHLr7HKVztbbM20inlbJLtOJtbNCRVRN9t53DgSLKonAwjzjMPMEgc6dbbCy9M4Zdym5NS98/s1600/crippen+cellar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii8OUKD5oZm8VaYX2vMyo6CLWKc5gC2WXETWXO1yut7OfbzesazTDu6oDCfZwdXWXZOACcUHLr7HKVztbbM20inlbJLtOJtbNCRVRN9t53DgSLKonAwjzjMPMEgc6dbbCy9M4Zdym5NS98/s320/crippen+cellar.jpg" /></a></div>
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The story caused a frenzy of excitement, with lurid headlines in the popular press. Inspector Dew was now under enormous pressure to catch the killer.<br />
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And then, that sensational telegram arrived from the mid-Atlantic.<br />
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Chief Inspector Dew now hatched an ingenious plan – he had to take a faster ship to overtake the Montrose before it reached Canada and to arrest Crippen on board. And the press were hard on his heels. Word had leaked out about what was happening on the SS Montrose. Newspaper readers could follow Dew’s pursuit as he closed in on his suspects at the rate of three and a half miles an hour.<br />
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This story has it all. As well as a gruesome murder, there is an illicit romance and a chase across the Atlantic. And best of all, the suspects didn’t have a clue that the police were onto them, although every newspaper reader in Britain did. Doctor Crippen had become the most famous murderer in the world.<br />
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Dew attempted to evade the journalists by disguising himself as a harbour pilot in order to board the Montrose. But it was no good. Reporters were there to capture the moment when Dew finally greeted his suspect with the words; “Good morning Doctor Crippen.” Can you imagine an actor and director lingering over that line – the pace, the dramatic pause?<br />
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Press photographers caught everything that happened next. The crowds waiting at Liverpool docks. Dew escorting Crippen off the boat. The anticipation outside Bow Streets magistrate’s court for the committal of Crippen and Le Neve.<br />
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<br />
The press had made the couple into a highly marketable commodity. This was a very modern murder.<br />
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Bizarre offers now began to come in. If they were acquitted Crippen would get £1000 a week for a twenty week tour. le Neve would receive £200 a week for a performance including a musical sketch entitled “Caught by Wireless.”<br />
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On the 18th of October, the trial of Doctor Crippen began at the Old Bailey. This was going to be a huge spectacle. Four thousand people applied for tickets, the court had to issue special half day passes so that double the normal numbers could get in. In the words of the Daily Mail’s reporter;<br />
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“…the crowds begged, pleaded and argued for seats in the public gallery.”<br />
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Inside there was even more chaos. There was a rowdy atmosphere, like a music hall. People were shouting ‘blue tickets that way, red tickets up here.”<br />
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The trial ended on Saturday the 22nd of October. The jury only took twenty-seven minutes to find Crippen guilty of wilful murder. He was sentenced to death.<br />
In his evidence on oath, Crippen said that his wife had often threatened to leave him and had picked a quarrel with him over his behaviour while they were having friends round for dinner. Recounting the last time he saw her, he said:<br />
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She abused me, and said some very strong things; she said that if I could not be a gentleman she had had enough of it and could not stand it any longer and she was going to leave. That was similar to her former threats, but she said besides something she had not said before; she said that after she had gone it would be necessary for me to cover up any scandal there might be by her leaving me, and I might do it in the very best way I could. I came back the next day at my usual time, which would be about half-past seven or eight o'clock, and found that the house was vacant.<br />
The trial ended on Saturday the 22nd of October. The jury only took twenty seven minutes to find Crippen guilty of wilful murder. He was sentenced to death.<br />
The jury took just 27 minutes to reject Crippen's explanations for his wife's disappearance and convict him of murder.<br />
Crippen was executed on 23 November 1910, less than four months after his arrest. His last request was to have a photo of Ethel Le Neve in his top pocket when he was hanged. He was buried in the cemetery at Pentonville prison.<br />
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Ethel le Neve, at a separate trial, was acquitted and she lost no time in selling her side of the story. A publicity shot shows her in her infamous disguise as a boy. But her fame was short-lived. It was Crippen himself that would be immortalised. Even during his trial sculptors at Madame Tussaud's had been preparing a wax figure based on those snatched court photographs. Within days of the passing of Crippen’s death sentence, Taussaud’s unveiled their new addition to the chamber of horrors. Crippen was on display to the public before he’d even met the hangman.<br />
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And over one hundred years later he is still on show.<br />
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In the 1912 catalogue to the Chamber of Horrors he takes his place amongst the greats. His fellow doctor, William Palmer the poisoner. And opposite the 19th century murderess, Maria Manning. They have a description of their crimes in the catalogue. Doctor Crippen has none. Everyone knows who he is; what he did.<br />
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And a contemporary journalist described this place, the Chamber of Horrors as “the holiest of holies.” These were the people everyone wanted to see. What does that say about the Edwardians?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgdZYlScahIwYVsfKwbzdoOARwI31q8NDSSYy0iI_fhtGadzrryNUaVmSp9ZKf2di4ytjJMwFJvy7DOBSAxdRJr0kekOjNQqz2jb7svzFjSyQhwoM-qCxAyApMAgIcnjriokuxcV5cxVD8/s1600/crippen+waxwork.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgdZYlScahIwYVsfKwbzdoOARwI31q8NDSSYy0iI_fhtGadzrryNUaVmSp9ZKf2di4ytjJMwFJvy7DOBSAxdRJr0kekOjNQqz2jb7svzFjSyQhwoM-qCxAyApMAgIcnjriokuxcV5cxVD8/s320/crippen+waxwork.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br />
Indeed; what does it say about all of us? Public hangings are no more; but I bet people would go to see them if they were. I recall watching the Crime channel (I’m addicted to it. It’s my version of a seat in the public gallery at the Old Bailey) there were crowds outside the jail where they’d got Ted Bundy. They cheered when it was announced that his death sentence had been carried out.<br />
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It seems that a lurid fascination with murderers and death did not die with the Edwardians.<br />
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You can read statements taken by the police and transcripts from the trial here; http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=def1-75-19101011&div=t19101011-75<br />
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TV viewers of BBC 4 will recognise that I have plundered parts of “A Very British Murder” presented by Lucy Worsley. The rest of the post has been put together using sources from the web.billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-74216392650772188712017-04-21T03:49:00.003-07:002018-07-18T07:40:45.943-07:00Cool class...sophistication. It is Mistress Angelica.<div class="MsoNormal"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/d7FOE4XnqqU" width="560"></iframe><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJUozfdRAvzYh93SAUGdPwAq87ehVK-jT4MbBg7jX-HwCQI6WfVrD0690PbkAi8bYu_YUPctmn0NGHUbhIZBJB-I9NRGbzhXAU-MKH1YzIQVAAdcbirwfd6dDifQS6DrNIwRdlYclLIcQN/s1600/image+for+page+break.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="66" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJUozfdRAvzYh93SAUGdPwAq87ehVK-jT4MbBg7jX-HwCQI6WfVrD0690PbkAi8bYu_YUPctmn0NGHUbhIZBJB-I9NRGbzhXAU-MKH1YzIQVAAdcbirwfd6dDifQS6DrNIwRdlYclLIcQN/s320/image+for+page+break.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px;">Mistress Angelica has published two books. My Dinner Party is at <a href="http://amzn.to/2hfRQU1">Amazon UK</a> and <a href="http://amzn.to/2in9Ola">Amazon US</a><br />
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</div>billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-20717593974135557732017-04-07T04:46:00.000-07:002017-04-07T04:46:22.398-07:00SYPHILIS & THE VICTORIANS<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4HP8GsAWte53WayNDfFEKKUeP4uvsBRN_jWcAilq3x0l9SWAban2XImJMJ172fS00xgOsSZRVrPegv8sSC_EzXEV3sir82GVwEZH5rsmrzbSrrI1bsrDymBHktKIsUMurkwMFwtxTjnmF/s1600/220px-400Behandlung_der_Syphilis.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481453331730090370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4HP8GsAWte53WayNDfFEKKUeP4uvsBRN_jWcAilq3x0l9SWAban2XImJMJ172fS00xgOsSZRVrPegv8sSC_EzXEV3sir82GVwEZH5rsmrzbSrrI1bsrDymBHktKIsUMurkwMFwtxTjnmF/s320/220px-400Behandlung_der_Syphilis.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 314px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 220px;" /></a><br />
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For a man in Victorian times there were two kinds of women: 'nice' women of your own class, whom you married; and prostitutes or women of easy virtue, whom you went to bed with. Victorian society looked indulgently on men who sowed their wild oats. For respectable women it was a different story: they were expected to be virgins when they married. This meant that, to gain sexual experience, men would resort to prostitutes. Unfortunately, with prostitutes came the threat of a sexually transmitted or venereal disease, such as syphilis or gonorrhoea.<br />
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As well as being painful and deeply embarrassing, venereal disease, if untreated, could lead to sterility, impotence, madness and eventually death. Penicillin would not be discovered until the 1920s and would not be available as a medicine until the Second World War. In the 19th century, the main treatment was mercury, in the form of calomel, ointments, steam baths, pills, and other concoctions. It was crude, painful and largely ineffective, as well as having side-effects such as tooth loss, kidney damage, anaemia, mouth, throat, and skin ulcerations; neurological damage; and death.<br />
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Research into an effective treatment for syphilis was controversial because of the perception that a widely available cure would increase “immoral” behaviour.<br />
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In Victorian days the official line on sex was that it was solely for the purpose of producing children. It wasn't supposed to be fun. So, however tolerant the Victorians may have been in practice of men having sexual adventures, venereal disease was, in some quarters, regarded as God's punishment - the wages of sin.<br />
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This is one reason for the flourishing trade in virgins - for those upper class men who could afford them. They were not necessarily paedophiles; but were protecting themselves by having sex with a woman who had never had sex before. She could not be infected with these diseases.<br />
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There was another, more chilling reason, why virgins were so highly prized. It was believed that sex with a virgin could actually cure a man who was infected with syphilis.<br />
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By the middle of the 19th century the authorities were increasingly worried about the high incidence of venereal disease among soldiers and sailors. For this reason the Contagious Disease Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869 were passed. They allowed known prostitutes working in garrison towns or naval bases to be examined, often brutally. If they were found to be infected they could be imprisoned in state institutions.<br />
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Women were assumed to be the source of infection and the Acts were deigned exclusively to protect men. The men themselves were not examined, so that there was every chance of a client passing a disease on to a prostitute, rather than the other way around.<br />
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However, Victorian society was not concerned about prostitutes who were infected with incurable diseases by their clients. It was the danger of men passing on venereal disease to their wives and families that caused anxiety and moral outrage.<br />
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Moral reformers such as Josephine Butler campaigned against the Contagious Disease Acts. They claimed that they were sexually discriminating in that they laid all the blame for 'immorality' on women. The Acts were finally repealed in 1886.<br />
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Syphilis first appeared in Europe in the 1500s. But by the Victorian era, it was rampant. Thousands endured paralysis, blindness and insanity from the infection before finally dying.<br />
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Syphilis in the Victorian era was known to be an infectious disease that entered the body through a minute cut or small wound. The primary impact of the disease would be a lesion or a sore at the initial “site of inoculation.” Six to eight weeks later, a secondary eruption would flare up, generally first pink in colour and eventually copper. In this second stage of syphilis, symptoms such as depression and chilling in the joints and limbs would often occur and within weeks or years disappear spontaneously. In its tertiary stage, syphilis affected the brain, liver, lungs, and muscle. This disease was most often spread through sexual contact but it also spread congenitally, where mothers would infect the infants in their womb.<br />
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As I write, syphilis cases are rising. Some hospitals in major British cities report that they are now treating hundreds of patients a year, compared to none at all just a few years ago. In the past two years, there have been outbreaks in Manchester and London through unprotected sex.<br />
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This blog post has been compiled using sources from the Web.billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8670812027273632828.post-11590858380766833552017-03-24T04:11:00.003-07:002017-03-24T04:11:43.993-07:00The Waltz and erotic display.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For the younger generation there is nothing so entertaining as shocking their parents and grandparents. This, they always do with a flourish; if they get a reaction, that is wonderful and is definitely worth the effort. In the years of George, the Prince Regent’s rule over London’s fashionable elite, the younger generation, shocked the older generation in a bold, extravagant gesture, with a brand new dance; the Waltz.<br />
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The year was 1815, the ending of the time of the Napoleonic wars. The government, led by Lord Liverpool, negotiated a peace settlement. The king had nothing to do with the details. Poor King George III had descended into madness and George, his son, the Prince Regent was too intent on going to licentious parties and generally having a pretty wild time, to be bothered with the politics of foreign policy.<br />
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Within the rural and urban counties of England, there was a mood of social and economic malaise, yet the Prince Regent and his entourage of the young aristocracy, exuded a mood of confidence, exuberance and expectation. There was an explosion of outrageously expensive design on an unprecedented scale. New styles were embraced. And then there was this decadent new dance craze.<br />
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The Waltz was a couples dance, as opposed to the traditional group dances. The gentleman actually clasped his arm around the lady's waist, giving the dance a dubious moral status. The Waltz was a dance born in the suburbs of Vienna and in the alpine region of Austria. It was foreign, that in itself was enough for the parents of the young, English aristocracy to view it with suspicion.<br />
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The shock of the new. Each generation thinks that they are the originators of this phenomenon, but it has been done so many times before.<br />
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Before the scandalous Waltz came along, dancing had been civilised. You danced in large groups, only occasionally touching each other. Flirting would be done with eye contact. In the Waltz, you held your partner in an embrace for a whole dance. Touching, whispering to each other; social rules were broken. A strong arm around a slender waist. Long, delicate fingers cling to a firm shoulder. Warm rounded flesh beneath fine, creamy lace, or translucent muslin. White thighs pushed apart with an insistent, probing knee. Breasts, yearning for urgent caresses, crushed against a broad chest. Waltzing was dirty dancing for the Regency teens. The impact of the Waltz would probably have had the same effect on the older generation, as any sweet grandmother today stumbling into a full on swingers party.<br />
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The waltz was criticized on moral grounds by those opposed to its closer hold and rapid turning movements. Religious leaders almost unanimously regarded it as vulgar and sinful. Continental court circles held out obstinately against the waltz, seeing depravity in every swaying, graceful move.<br />
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In July of 1816, the waltz was included in a ball given in London by the Prince Regent. A blistering editorial in The Times a few days later stated:"We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English court on Friday last ... it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the civil examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion." (Source: The Times of London, 16th July 1816)<br />
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Even as late as 1866 an article in the English magazine Belgravia stated: "We who go forth of nights and see without the slightest discomposure our sister and our wife seized on by a strange man and subjected to violent embraces and canterings round a small-sized apartment - the only apparent excuse for such treatment being that is done to the sound of music - can scarcely realize the horror which greeted the introduction of this wicked dance."<br />
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Reportedly, the first time the waltz was danced in the United States was in Boston in 1834. Lorenzo Papanti, a Boston dancing master, gave an exhibition in Mrs. Otis' Beacon Hill mansion. Social leaders were aghast at what they called "an indecorous exhibition."<br />
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I thought that the 1960’s generation made a pretty good case for shocking the older generation. It seems that they had nothing on those wilful teens of Regency England.<br />
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This blog post has been put together using sources from the Web.billierosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00288997506566830393noreply@blogger.com0