Wow, a movie that is on par with Visitor Q. Didn’t expect that.
Closer, by Dennis Cooper.
From Wiki:
I definitely felt kinda ill reading parts of this book. One part has a man giving a young man an anesthetic injection so that the younger guy doesn’t feel anything below the waist. The quote is something along the lines of “…so you don’t feel anything while I take you apart down there.”
Also, people eat poop.
That’s why we’re called “perverts.” And when a lot of people have some form of sexual perversion, guess what? It’s normal.
It includes pedophilia, rape, torture, and murder. Is that normal?
“perverted” might have too broad a word to use, but I can ceratinly understand and share Qin’s bewilderment about how somebody can be turned on by torture, murder and rape. What the hell is erotic about any of those things?
I’m not really into murder or torture, but reading about rape does it for me. Justine was definitely one of the most erotic texts I’ve ever read. (Take that, overrated Histoire d’O!)
Erotic in the sense “it had lots and lots and lots of sexual content” or “it was really sexy and arousing”?
Wasn’t it DeSade himself who said that since people and their behaviors are products of nature, nothing is “unnatural”?
ETA: I haven’t read enough about him to know his full philosophical and religious beliefs, but what little I know suggests the man was almost a proto-Nietzsche.
Trust me, Visitor Q pales in comparison with A Serbian Film. Visitor Q at least has comedic elements to it…
If you don’t mind me asking, do you also get excited hearing about women being raped for real? Is physical and emotional violence to women only exciting to you if it happens to somebody else, or would you think it would be exciting if it happened to you too?
Forgive my impertinence, but I’ve heard that a lot of women have rape fantasies and I can’t fathom why. What, exactly, is erotic about it?
It is the idea of feeling pleasure at the hands of someone else, in spite of one’s self.
Lot’s of people have sexual fantasies about things that they would not want to experience in real life. Men and women, alike.
I don’t know. As Frank said, it’s common to have fantasies about things you wouldn’t wouldn’t necessarily want to do. Maybe it’s the idea of something dangerous in a controlled setting, like a roller coaster or scary movie?
BDSM is pretty much a rape/torture/slave fantasy rolled into one leather/vinyl bound activity. I hear its quite popular.
They are basically freedom fantasies, being given an excuse/forced to shed societies restraints and values, being given an excuse to be able to rut like wild animals again.
Fantasy, of course, since that always ends badly. Hence why a big part of the fantasy, if you ever wander into the darker regions of porn, is that the victim ultimately enjoys it in some manner or is ‘converted’.
Its little different than vigilante fantasy that is highly successful in Hollywood.
The most disgusting, disturbing book I have read, is “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”, by Harlan Ellison.
Should not be read by a young teenager. >_<
We’ve had this talk before- I’ve told you that I, like Slit, am turned on by rape scenarios and have acted them out with partners. But I’m pretty horrified when I hear about actual rapes. I think it’s somewhat analogous to my enjoying blowing up buildings and mowing down pedestrians in GTA despite being disgusted by violence IRL.
According to the Attackclan, GTA was not good for my driving. I thought they’d like going to school in a police cruiser.
Yup. Fantasy sex games versus rape is like the difference between playing a very competitive and fun game of paintball versus being stalked by some psycho with a gun. Night and day.
I kind of figured that out about the third time I drove off an overpass at maximum speed just because it got me to Asuka faster. “You know…maybe this isn’t the best game to teach good driving habits.”
Fair point - but ‘it didn’t work for me’ sounds quite a bit different to ‘devoid of literary merit’. The latter suggests it is a pointless novel and therefore, as the OP might suggest, might as well never have existed. The former is a subjective opinion. I only say because, having read the book about 4 times now at approximately 8 yr intervals, it is near the top of my list of favourite, intelligent and compelling reads, and I notice new aspects to it every time.
The film, on the other hand, was a major letdown with an ending that completely subverts the satire in the novel. A classic case of letting Hollywood produce a classical, dull and moralistic tale out of a work of genius - in my opinion!
As for the OP, like others I’m wondering what your motive is here. Having read all your posts in this thread, I think you might just be a little too naive still to genuinely grasp that horrific thoughts, feelings and actions are actually part of the real world, and suppressing the expression of such is not only impractical but also would deny the world some great (and, admittedly, not so great) works of art.
Just as a final thought OP, why do you think de Sade is remembered (and reproduced) nearly 300 years after his birth? Even more to the point, if and when you do/did read such works, what did it mean to you - did it alter your perception of the world, of other people or of yourself in any way? Pretty key questions if literary criticism is what you’re aiming at, I think.
I’ll let the Red Hot Chili Peppersanswer this.