Eros and The Counter-Inaugural Ball (...long but a good read)
Correspondent:: "Bishop Prune 8th"
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 23:06:03 -0500
--------
Quite possibly a MASTERPIECE of the writtten word.
...a veritable hardon of 14" length glans of dilated arteries.
...a vaginal oriface with the grasping power of a vintage
1959 Electrolux canister floor model.
Please feel free to print and read in bed, nexx to your
lover (..male or female or whatever) who is no doubt
already asleep and dreaming of things strange and slackfull.
ENJOY!
From: http://www.counterpunch.org/block01152005.html
Eros Day 2005
The Counter-Inaugural Ball
By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK
It's almost time for Thanatos, the ancient Greek God of Death,
to ascend the throne of America. This is, of course, a throne
His Immortal Ass is already sitting on. But that doesn't mean
it's not an occasion to throw the most expensive American
Presidential Inauguration in history, ushering in the second
term of one of the most universally loathed American
Presidents the world has known, including a 4-day, 9-ball,
40 million smacker shindig, with a parade, concert, fireworks
display and, at the Ritz-Carlton, white chocolate cowboy
boots (just white?) to honor our horse-fearing Cowboy-in-Chief.
The 40-mil bill for the bash is 5 mil more than Ebenezer Bush's
second offer of aid to tsunami victims, but just a drop in the
bucket of human waste that is the American War on Iraq.
Franklin D Roosevelt, another "War President" who came
from privileged stock, at least had the sensibility (breeding?)
to forego the showy parties when he was re-elected during
WWII. No such restraint for Bush II, the Aw-Shucks
White Chocolate Cowboy Prince of Thanatos.
Nobody talks much about Thanatos these days, except the
occasional discontented Freudian. But His presence is keenly
felt. Death is always with us, a constant companion to Life.
But He is most powerful in wartime. According to the
Greeks, Thanatos is the fatherless son of Nyx (Night), twin
brother of Hypnos (Sleep), a wingéd young male God
who, in Euripides' Alcestis, coolly reminds Apollo, "I win
greater honor when the victims are young."
Of course, Thanatos is no more merciful to victims of
tsunamis than He is to victims of war. Yet there is
something about being killed deliberately by our fellow
humans that twists the knife more sharply (at least to
those of us left behind) than death at the tides of nature.
And killing fellow humans is what Bush, our second-term
"War President," prides himself on. The Shrub is a
Lynching Tree, a Burning Bush of Apocalyptic Mass
Destruction, an obedient servant of Thanatos.
Thanatos will be inaugurated into His place at the very
pinnacle of the American political pantheon, with pomp
and ceremony, bands and some major balls, as the
Rape of Iraq plays on. Many of the important guests,
paying as much as $250,000 (not to mention
under-the-table billions) per "inauguration ticket package,"
will be leading Death profiteers, arms dealers and
world-class polluters, sponsors of Dubya's Christian
Crusade and End-of-the-World Environmental Policies.
Fine champagne will flow, but Inauguration Ballers are
sure to be high on the narcotic of war, hooked on the
endgame logic of death.
Cold Death, accompanied by His hot handmaiden
Torture, shall reign supreme, as the Chickenhawk Pussy named
Bush and the Dickless Dickhead named Dick are honored for
their crimes, and their devastatingly inept cronies and lackeys
are promoted for their doglike devotion, with deferential
Presidential Consigliere Alberto Torquemada Gonzales ascending
to the post of United States Attorney General. And we thought
old Ayatollah Asscraft was bad! Gonzales became world-famous
when it emerged that he wrote the Torture Memo essentially
greenlighting all the "disgusting" BUSH POW PORN of Abu
Ghraib, Guantànamo and other American torture chambers.
Al appears to be the quiet type, exemplifying the Moral Values
of the New American Hero: "Speak softly and carry a big
stick you can shove up a detainee's ass without calling it torture."
At least, he's come out for abortion rights, sort of. But nobody's
asking one question on everyone's minds: Will Gonzales take
Asscraft's $8000 drapes off the venerable, half-topless Spirit
of Justice....?
But back to the party. I love a good party, but for
George W. Bush to have a mammoth Mother of All U.S.
Presidential Inaugural parties in his own pseudo-cowboy
honor, with the Iraq War, the Asian tsunami aftermath and
American poverty raging all around us, is, in a word, obscene.
Unless you can get yourself a quick Dumb-Me-Down-to-Red-State-Levels
lobotomy, it's enough to make you sing the Blues all over again, and you
know you've been singing that tune since November. SO, what's a
good Blue Values gal or guy who believes in Faith-Based Sex
to do to counteract the immeasurably Thanatoxic effects of the
Bush Party Blow-Out that's about to explode like a mushroom
cloud of anthrax-laced bullshit in our nation's capital and
throughout the virtual court of our 90% sycophantic media?
Why, fly the flag of Eros as high as you can! Yes, indeed Brothers
& Sisters, Lovers & Sinners, it's time to speak out against the
Bad Bush and celebrate the Good Bush (you know what I'm saying).
There are, essentially, three ways to do this: 1) PRAY, 2) PROTEST
and 3) PARTY. But more on the Three P's in a minute
Back to Eros, who (or which) is, as those discontented Freudians
remind us, the opposite of Thanatos. Since Thanatos is Death,
that means Eros is Life. Yay! It's good to be on the side of Life.
Then again, it's not so simple. This isn't one of those
black-and-white Battles between Good and Evil that the Red Staters
love to fight. Eros has an edge. The word is, after all, from the
same root as "erotic," so it has something to do with sex.
But we're not just talking about Valentine sex here, true love,
or procreation, or just lust, porn, or recreational sex. We're
talking about the primordial sexual energy that is the essence
of life. Yes, indeed.
The Greeks say it best. According to the Theogeny, the Genealogy
of the Gods, written in 800 BCE by Hesiod of Boeoita, Eros was
one of the four great original Creators of the Universe, all of
whom emerged from Chaos. The other three were Gaia, Goddess
of the Earth, Uranus, God of the Sky; and Tartarus, God of the
Underworld. The fourth Great Creator was Eros, God of Life, Love
and Sex. Eros blew the Breath of Life into all beings, even the
Gods Themselves. This was what I call The Original Blow-Job.
And this is why, at least mythologically speaking, Eros gets the
clout to counter Thanatos.
In later Greek mythology, the Great Creator Eros trades some
of His primal power for something akin to our idea of rock
stardom, morphing into a classical rather naughty teenage
heartthrob with glorious feathered wings, the original sex symbol.
The arrows from his potent quiver never kill you
(at least not directly), but only excite your desire. Still, like many
stars, Eros is a trickster. Some people call him a Motherfucker.
And he is. Because, in addition to billions of other lovers, Eros does
occasionally fuck his mother (or at least, they engage in a lot of
what we call foreplay), his mother being Aphrodite (Venus to
the Romans), the supreme Goddess of Love.
Eros' father is uncertain, in keeping with his swinging character.
It could have been Zeus, Ares, Hermes or any one of Mama
Aphrodite's many lovers. It doesn't matter. Like a bonobo
chimpanzee, Eros is a mama's boy in love with love and lust.
Classical myth has him fall in love with a human girl named
Psyche, who eventually becomes the Goddess of the Soul.
Their love story is a timeless tale of passion, jealousy, faith
and betrayal, suffering and redemption. In the happy ending,
the child of their union is named Pleasure. Not quite a
savior, but definitely a blessing.
Eros became Amor in Rome, and later, Cupid. Nowadays,
Cupid is usually portrayed as a cuddly little angel, or a troop
of cuddly little angels, cute as a Hallmark card and almost
utterly drained of the potent sexuality of the primordial Eros
or the erotic appeal of the teenage Eros. But in resisting
the reign of Thanatos being inaugurated into our White
House, we need all the Powers of Eros we can get--primordial,
erotic and cuddly! No cynical retorts, now; that's succumbing
to Thanatosis! So, back to the 3 P's
1. PRAY
Brothers and Sisters, Lovers and Sinners: Prayer is not the
exclusive domain of the Christian Right. It is not even the
domain of religion. We all pray. Even atheists pray.
It's no great virtue to pray. The best of us pray, the worst of us
pray. It's human nature, maybe even pre-human (personally, I think bonobos
pray).
We all, at times, sit in contemplative silence, or sing out with
a few fellow humans, surrendering our consciousness to
forces we do not understand. We may pray from a place
where we are deeply grateful, or passionately hoping-even
asking--for something for ourselves or for others, or submitting
to the forces of nature, or marveling at the miracles of life,
or stopping and really thinking about what the hell we're doing
(or not doing) on Earth, or just singing those Blue Values Blues.
We don't have to pray in a House of Worship. We don't
have to pray in a particular direction or with our hands folded
together. We can pray when we meditate. And, by God and
Goddess, we can pray when we masturbate (or copulate, for that matter).
We can pray as we paddle our little boats down the river.
We can pray as we look up at the stars. We can pray as we
watch TV (though some call this "vegging out"). We can
certainly pray as we make love (oh God, oh God, oh baby, oh God!).
We can pray as we mow the lawn. We can pray as we sit in
endless bumper-to-bumper traffic (and a Pocket Rocket in the
glove compartment can only help in this case).
But back to the Inauguration. You can bet your last rosary
(or anal) bead that they're going to be doing a LOT of praying
there. And most of them will NOT have the Big Tent
definition of "prayer" that I have. Not at all. They will be praying
to the One and Only "Christian God," with a little "Judeo-" thrown
in as a prefix to appease certain Semitic Neo-Cons. They will
be praying to Jesus the Bloody Christ as revealed in the Gospel
according to Mel Gibson. Don't get me wrong; though I was
born and raised Jewish, and I'm now basically an
agnostic/tantric/pagan/ethical-hedonist, I love Jesus
(and Jesus Loves My Ass!). But the ketchup-streaked masochist
who virtually exhorts his followers to follow his example and
die painfully for each other portrayed in Mel's snuff movie is
not the Jesus I love. The only deity in classical mythology
that comes close to Mel's level of morbidity is Thanatos.
Even Ares takes a break from the wars to romp in the
sack with Aphrodite once in a while. Thanatos, like Mel's
Christ, like Bush's legacy, is all about the DEATH.
So yes, I plan to pray during Inauguration week.
Amen and Awomen. If I have to name a God to
whom I'll be praying--which does feel kind of silly,
but everybody's pushing their patron Gods these
days, so here's mine--Eros.
II want to reassure my fellow agnostics: this is not quite
as loopy as it sounds. Then again, maybe it's even loopier.
What I mean is, Eros is not just some funny Valentine
or mythological divinity. Eros is a planet! More
specifically, it is a "planetoid" or large asteroid, 25.3 by
9.1 by 8.8 miles in size, spinning on its own axis.
Coy astronomers say it's shaped like a banana. I say it's
shaped like the male member in its happy state.
The Planetoid 433 Eros was discovered in 1898 by
astronomer Carl Gustav Witt, who, while playing with
his telescope, must have had sex on the brain, so he
named this new heavenly body Eros. Recently explored
by NASA's NEAR spacecraft, Eros is especially
intriguing to astronomers because, despite its large
elliptical orbit around the Sun, it comes closer to the
Earth than any other body of comparable size, except
the Moon. Eros is also one of the most elongated
planetoids in our solar system (there's that delicious
banana shape!), the better to penetrate our hearts.
---> and here's the relevant clincher: the closest it comes to
Earth each year is right around Inauguration time (January 20-22)
So it's a good time to pray to Eros. Or is it for Eros? Either
way, we're talking about peace, love and understanding
here, so get down on your knees! Whether you're watching
the Inauguration on TV with a barf bag handy, or completely
avoiding it out in some mountainside teepee, whether
you're seriously helping the tsunami victims or unhappily
helping to tear up Iraq, give it a whirl. Offer up an Eros
Prayer. Pray for (or is it to?) Eros, Life, Love, Peace,
Understanding, Compassion, Passion, Sex. If you find it
difficult to relax and focus, try using a vibrator.
Okay, okay, it doesn't always have to be about sex.
There's a neat little movement to make Inauguration
Day "Not One Damn Dime" day, asking us to "boycott
all forms of consumer spending" for 24 hours..
This seems like a good way to focus your own personal
opposition toward the American corporations that
support this administration. Much as fasting from food
fosters a prayerful heightened awareness of your
body as your temple, fasting from spending can affirm
your existence as more than just another consumer.
It also gives you more time for sex (the free kind)!
2. PROTEST
Just Do It. Especially if you can get your ass over to
Pennsylvania Avenue and 4th Street in DC by 9 am
on Inauguration Day. Bring all your "Sorry, World!"
signs, and get your sexy protesting self on the boob tube.
Or make a different kind of statement, like, get married
to your same-sex lover on Inauguration Day
(t'll be legal again soon enough; show a little faith)!
Teach or attend a sex education class. Wear your
"Bush Sucks" T-shirt to work. Show our international
community that this King of the White Chocolate
Cowboy Boots does NOT have the "will of the
people at (his) back," at least not all the people,
and certainly not the cool people, the Eros people.
One intriguing idea is the "Turn Your Back on Bush" protest.
These folks plan to legally infiltrate several different
public inaugural gatherings and, upon a given signal, turn their
backs to the proceedings. Being the incorrigible pervert
that I am, I'm hoping that some protestors will turn Turning
Your Back on Bush into Mooning Bush, especially if they
have nice buns. If I could make it to that protest, I'd wear
my "Jesus Loves My Ass" panties, over tights, of course
(it's January!). Turn End Times into rear-end times.
Then there's the DAWN DIE-IN, "in memory of the
dead at the hands of Bush and his Administration."
Dying is sexy, if you're not really dead, but just
making a point: BUSH KILLS. One of the die-ers really
should act out Mel's Passion. Bush might not crucify
Jesus (though that first iconic tortured Abu Ghraib
detainee, with his arms outstretched, looked pretty
Christlike), but he'd certainly keep him imprisoned indefinitely
without any rights. And the torture? Well, let's just
say it would make an interesting sequel for those who
enjoyed the first Gibsonian Passion.
The theme may be Thanatos, but the Spirit of Eros
infuses any good protest--the drama, the costumes,
the excitement of marching together, laying your
body on the line, seducing hearts, minds and TV
cameras, and the potent possibility of going home
with that sexy fellow protestor later on...
Just remember the man whose birthday we celebrate
around this time, one of the greatest protesters
since Jesus, an American Man of Eros if ever there
was one: Martin Luther King.
3. PARTY
THIS is where we fight fire with fire. Sometimes fireworks.
Yes indeed, Brothers & Sisters, Party Animals and Blue Angels:
This is where we show ourselves and others that we don't
have to spend 40 million devalued dollaros to be the Party
Masters of the World. This is where we reach out to one
another to commune, comfort, collaborate and conspire,
share knowledge and desire, information and aphrodisiacs,
honoring Eros and our erotic resistance to the bullies
and ninnies who give the Thumbs-Up (a kind of new Sieg Heil?)
to Death, War, Torture, Born Again Censorship, Abstinence-Only
Miseducation, Fleecing the Poor to Soften the Beds of the
Rich, Creationism, Repression, Oppression, Regression,
and did I mention Death?
This is where you hold your own Counter-Inaugural Party
that celebrates all your favorite Blue Values that the
President's Party is against (for examples of Blue Values
worth celebrating, please see my column "Blue Values").
Charge admission and donate the profits to Tsunami Relief,
or Iraqi War Victims, or the ACLU, or Sex Education,
or the Bonobos. If you don't feel like throwing a
Counter-Inaugural Party, get a friend to do it, or you
may want to come to mine
Yes, indeed. Come one, come all or just come. Every year
at this time, when the Planetoid 433 EROS is closest to
Earth, I celebrate a holiday called EROS DAY. Introduced to
me five years ago by pioneering erotic filmmaker Lasse Braun, I
knew it was my kind of holiday, a celebration of love and lust
with this intriguing astrophysical aspect. Every year, around
January 22, the Planetoid Eros is at its closest distance to
Earth. Does this mean that this is the time when some kind
of astral sexual energy is closest to us? Perhaps.
Of course, our complex, neurotic human lives are ruled
by far more than the stars and planetoids. It's not so
simple to just point to a day on the calendar, and say
that this is the day when we'll all be at our hottest.
But if you believe that the positions of the Sun, Moon
and other heavenly bodies have some influence over
the tides and emotions of the Earth, if you believe in
the power of Equinoxes and Solstices, then you might
believe in the power of Eros, strongest when it is
closest to us, on EROS DAY.
It certainly makes at least as much, if not a little
more, sense to expect the erotic on EROS DAY
than to, say, expect excitement or "resolution" on
New Year's Eve, or romance on Valentine's Day,
a date which commemorates the death of a Christian
saint who believed celibacy was a virtue.
Halloween is kind of sexy because you get to dress up,
but it's really for kids these days. Mardi Gras is hot,
but it's never caught on outside New Orleans, and
Carnavale is so Brazil.
What truly adult holiday celebrates sex as the essence
of life, in the fullest, most unabashed, unapologetic,
orgiastic sense, AND boasts an astrophysical
component? EROS DAY! So, I make a point of celebrating
it every year, usually with a bunch of fellow Ethical Hedonist
types, always with plenty of whatever we find erotic
(bacchanalian works too) -- an art opening, a bar, music,
dance, fetish, perhaps a Commedia Erotica performance
of the Passion of Eros & Psyche, perhaps a speech and
a striptease. Some of my EROS DAY celebrations have
been more political than others. Actually, the more
Thanatos sinks His cold claws into America, the more
hotly political EROS DAY becomes.
EROS DAY 2005, coming in the wake of the Thanatoxic
Bush Inauguration, will be a Counter-Inaugural Ball
(in every fine sense of that word), a tribal revival crossed
with an orgy crossed with a private peace rally, a Celebration
of Love, Lust & the Blue Values we hold dear. As my
EROS DAY '05 co-host, internationally renowned digital
artist Laurence Gartel (whose work is in the permanent
collections of the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of
American History and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris),
emailed me, "I never get really political, but now I just
can't stop myself."
Don't stop yourself. Not now. Now is the time to release
your political art, prayers, protests and resistance
parties, while we've still got a few precious freedoms left.
As the Bushies hoist Thanatos to the top of their pyramid,
think of how you can topple that baby down. Think of how
you can honor Eros in your life. Then take it to the streets
(always with nonviolence, darling), or to the bedroom,
or to the EROS DAY Counter-Inaugurals, or take it to
your webcam. And don't let the Thanatoxic Brigade take
it away from you.
----
Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, cultural
commentator, host of The Dr. Susan Block Show
and author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure.
Her essay on John Ashcroft's "breast fetish"
is included in CounterPunch's Serpents in the
Garden: Liaisons with Sex and Culture.
Visit her website at http://www.drsusanblock.com.