Fascination of fetish
September 10th 2006 04:22
So this is an analysis I wrote years ago of the shows I described in the previous entry.
Note that I'm not involved in the Sydney kink scene -- I don't purport to speak for it or even fully to understand it.
Treat this more as the naive thoughts of a newbie.
Why were the shows fascinating?
Well, the shows were sexual (believe it or not). So my claim is that nude female flesh, or the acts being done, or the idea that the acts were being done satiated or titillated any one of any number of desires. And “desires” needn’t be that tangible. Fetish seems to deal in a lot of vague, indefinite, elusive wants.
But if the shows didn’t do it for your sexually, then there were probably other sorts of direct thrill. For instance, you probably would have got a kick if you were sadistic, or empathetically masochistic. And even if you don’t enjoy pain as such, you might have got an emotional ride out of seeing someone go through pain, and you might have experienced suspense and then relief.
And if you bring in empathy, there were interests like seeing how daring someone could be and thinking about whether you or people you know would, under the right circumstances, do the same.
There was a sort of “plot” interest in seeing what’s going to happen next, are they really going to do what I think they’ll do, how far are they going to go.
And then there was a beauty side and an aesthetic side. And there’s certainly an aesthetics to porn in general. As Jerry Seinfeld points out, there’s good naked and there’s bad naked.
There was a pure “new experience” side, the fascination of seeing things you’ve never seen before.
There was a psychological side. You don’t just look at their tits, you also look at their faces. You savour their reactions or lack of reaction, searching for what was revealed and what was hidden.
And related to the “psychological” was an interest in the personal. People look for this all the time in movies: a glimpse into the most private aspects of other people’s lives. In the particular context, there was a fascination of the physically intimate, but also the intimacy of people’s desires, fantasies and reactions.
Though at the same time, you know or suspect that it’s fake, wholly or partly, in the same way that you know reality TV is fake. There’s a level on which you view the shows as performance. And then, the shows answer to all the usual pleasures and evaluative criteria of performance. You look, for instance, for how well they replicate reality, and you bring aesthetic criteria like “organic whole” to judging them.
The audience -- and I don’t know how many of them were seriously into the fetish scene -- the audience was deeply interested in the shows, watching intently, and savouring the details.
Other reactions could have been imagined. For instance, I’ve never seen a stripper before, but presumably the crowd at strip clubs is a lot more rowdy, and will call out comments etc.
But this crowd was mostly serious and quiet, though they broke out in claps, cheers, smiles at the end of each show. Part of the quiet would have been something to do with shock and disbelief, and something to do with awe and respect. And perhaps it was also due to hypnosis.
There were different elements to the hypnosis.
-- Firstly, there was the beat of the dance music. And I saw a lot of people quietly moving to the beat while watching the show intently; and I suppose their experience would have been something like engrossed and open to being affected -- something like what you sometimes get from theatre or movies.
-- Secondly, the shows were ritualistic. They were performed carefully, and with a sense of proper manner. And perhaps any ritual, be it religious or fetish, will not only inspire reverence, but will also create interest in seeing the ritual played out.
Finally, there was a fascination of conflict itself, and you observe conflicting reactions and feelings in yourself, and you experience the results of these conflict and observations.
What sort of conflicts?
Well, for non-regulars like me, there was shocked vs try to be open-minded, and to look vs to embarrassedly look away.
But for anyone... Take the claim that the shows were sexually interesting. The thing is, they were and they possibly weren’t. They possibly weren’t for a number of reasons. The intense gaze, the hypnotic effect of the shows was to some extent at odds with passion. To view them as beauty or “aesthetic experience” or performance is to some extent at odds with viewing them as arousing. To view them as entertainment or amusing can shrivel your erection. And moreover, you’re in a public space. Even if you were touched by wild desire and lust, to what extent would you allow yourself to feel it or to show it?
And I’d claim that if you took any other “fascination” element, similar conflicts could be pointed out. For instance, the women were real bodies, but, viewed as performance, they were also fake or aesthetic bodies, like patches of grass stuck up in a gallery, and there was an interest in observing this real/fake conflict, and seeing real transform to fake and back again.
And any psychological, or even intellectual, interest was offset by emotional interest, and vice versa.
I suppose, to some extent, “conflict of feelings” is a fascination of a lot of different forms of art, and Tennessee Williams said conflict is the essence of drama, and contrast is one of the most effective ways of pushing emotional buttons -- like containing passion within a strict musical form.
But I think there was something about these particular shows, this particular “art”, that made you more aware of contradictions within yourself. I think there was less certainty of audience conventions, and perhaps there were no audience conventions at all.
I think with a lot of art forms, there’s some sort of signalling going on that tells you how you’re supposed to react or how the author wants you to react, or what sort of audience the art is directed at. Whereas with this, you didn’t know what you were supposed to feel, or what you should allow yourself to feel, whether you should be rowdy or not, whether you should be amused or serious, whether smiling was desirable or undesirable, whether you should be passionate or detached, and whether it was good manners to stare, or whether staring was impolite or could be taken as revealing too much of yourself (especially if you were male). You didn’t know what the etiquette of appreciation or reaction was... And you didn’t know what cool was. Remember: you’re in a room with the rest of the audience, and you can see them, and they can see you -- you’re not isolated as in a darkened cinema.
And, fundamentally, there was a blur between performance and exhibitionism, between public and private space. Were the lesbian couples even real couples or even real lesbians?
I think the audience was more inclined to view the shows as exhibitionism. The cheering and enthusiastic clapping that broke out at the end of each show... I don’t know that the cheering was for skill (how much skill does it take to paint someone’s butt?), I don’t know that the cheering was for being entertained (because, like all ritual, the shows were kind of repetitive and boring), and I don’t know that the cheering was for emotional impact (given all the conflicts in and restraints on letting yourself feel things, and the indistinctness and variety of desires). -- So perhaps the cheering was for the daring, and the meaning was that of support -- like being at an AA meeting or on Oprah, and being encouraged to bare your soul.
Note that I'm not involved in the Sydney kink scene -- I don't purport to speak for it or even fully to understand it.
Treat this more as the naive thoughts of a newbie.
***
Why were the shows fascinating?
Well, the shows were sexual (believe it or not). So my claim is that nude female flesh, or the acts being done, or the idea that the acts were being done satiated or titillated any one of any number of desires. And “desires” needn’t be that tangible. Fetish seems to deal in a lot of vague, indefinite, elusive wants.
But if the shows didn’t do it for your sexually, then there were probably other sorts of direct thrill. For instance, you probably would have got a kick if you were sadistic, or empathetically masochistic. And even if you don’t enjoy pain as such, you might have got an emotional ride out of seeing someone go through pain, and you might have experienced suspense and then relief.
And if you bring in empathy, there were interests like seeing how daring someone could be and thinking about whether you or people you know would, under the right circumstances, do the same.
There was a sort of “plot” interest in seeing what’s going to happen next, are they really going to do what I think they’ll do, how far are they going to go.
And then there was a beauty side and an aesthetic side. And there’s certainly an aesthetics to porn in general. As Jerry Seinfeld points out, there’s good naked and there’s bad naked.
There was a pure “new experience” side, the fascination of seeing things you’ve never seen before.
There was a psychological side. You don’t just look at their tits, you also look at their faces. You savour their reactions or lack of reaction, searching for what was revealed and what was hidden.
And related to the “psychological” was an interest in the personal. People look for this all the time in movies: a glimpse into the most private aspects of other people’s lives. In the particular context, there was a fascination of the physically intimate, but also the intimacy of people’s desires, fantasies and reactions.
Though at the same time, you know or suspect that it’s fake, wholly or partly, in the same way that you know reality TV is fake. There’s a level on which you view the shows as performance. And then, the shows answer to all the usual pleasures and evaluative criteria of performance. You look, for instance, for how well they replicate reality, and you bring aesthetic criteria like “organic whole” to judging them.
***
The audience -- and I don’t know how many of them were seriously into the fetish scene -- the audience was deeply interested in the shows, watching intently, and savouring the details.
Other reactions could have been imagined. For instance, I’ve never seen a stripper before, but presumably the crowd at strip clubs is a lot more rowdy, and will call out comments etc.
But this crowd was mostly serious and quiet, though they broke out in claps, cheers, smiles at the end of each show. Part of the quiet would have been something to do with shock and disbelief, and something to do with awe and respect. And perhaps it was also due to hypnosis.
There were different elements to the hypnosis.
-- Firstly, there was the beat of the dance music. And I saw a lot of people quietly moving to the beat while watching the show intently; and I suppose their experience would have been something like engrossed and open to being affected -- something like what you sometimes get from theatre or movies.
-- Secondly, the shows were ritualistic. They were performed carefully, and with a sense of proper manner. And perhaps any ritual, be it religious or fetish, will not only inspire reverence, but will also create interest in seeing the ritual played out.
***
Finally, there was a fascination of conflict itself, and you observe conflicting reactions and feelings in yourself, and you experience the results of these conflict and observations.
What sort of conflicts?
Well, for non-regulars like me, there was shocked vs try to be open-minded, and to look vs to embarrassedly look away.
But for anyone... Take the claim that the shows were sexually interesting. The thing is, they were and they possibly weren’t. They possibly weren’t for a number of reasons. The intense gaze, the hypnotic effect of the shows was to some extent at odds with passion. To view them as beauty or “aesthetic experience” or performance is to some extent at odds with viewing them as arousing. To view them as entertainment or amusing can shrivel your erection. And moreover, you’re in a public space. Even if you were touched by wild desire and lust, to what extent would you allow yourself to feel it or to show it?
And I’d claim that if you took any other “fascination” element, similar conflicts could be pointed out. For instance, the women were real bodies, but, viewed as performance, they were also fake or aesthetic bodies, like patches of grass stuck up in a gallery, and there was an interest in observing this real/fake conflict, and seeing real transform to fake and back again.
And any psychological, or even intellectual, interest was offset by emotional interest, and vice versa.
I suppose, to some extent, “conflict of feelings” is a fascination of a lot of different forms of art, and Tennessee Williams said conflict is the essence of drama, and contrast is one of the most effective ways of pushing emotional buttons -- like containing passion within a strict musical form.
But I think there was something about these particular shows, this particular “art”, that made you more aware of contradictions within yourself. I think there was less certainty of audience conventions, and perhaps there were no audience conventions at all.
I think with a lot of art forms, there’s some sort of signalling going on that tells you how you’re supposed to react or how the author wants you to react, or what sort of audience the art is directed at. Whereas with this, you didn’t know what you were supposed to feel, or what you should allow yourself to feel, whether you should be rowdy or not, whether you should be amused or serious, whether smiling was desirable or undesirable, whether you should be passionate or detached, and whether it was good manners to stare, or whether staring was impolite or could be taken as revealing too much of yourself (especially if you were male). You didn’t know what the etiquette of appreciation or reaction was... And you didn’t know what cool was. Remember: you’re in a room with the rest of the audience, and you can see them, and they can see you -- you’re not isolated as in a darkened cinema.
And, fundamentally, there was a blur between performance and exhibitionism, between public and private space. Were the lesbian couples even real couples or even real lesbians?
I think the audience was more inclined to view the shows as exhibitionism. The cheering and enthusiastic clapping that broke out at the end of each show... I don’t know that the cheering was for skill (how much skill does it take to paint someone’s butt?), I don’t know that the cheering was for being entertained (because, like all ritual, the shows were kind of repetitive and boring), and I don’t know that the cheering was for emotional impact (given all the conflicts in and restraints on letting yourself feel things, and the indistinctness and variety of desires). -- So perhaps the cheering was for the daring, and the meaning was that of support -- like being at an AA meeting or on Oprah, and being encouraged to bare your soul.
| 80 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog