Latex and Anger

Fetishism seems interesting in the abstract, however I'm not one that it makes very hot. At least not rubber and Latex. But this photo seems to beckon from a new world even beyond arousal. All the particulars which display individual flaws have been removed, details of the skin or facial features are gone with the exception of two sense organs--eyes and mouth. These have become more specialized, as if genetically morphed into an identityless doll or slave. She's ensconced (or bound) in an artificial skin of a most particular texture (even smell--I imagine something like a bicycle inner-tube with the dusty residuals of talcum powder). The subject is left tight yet pliable, a new species whose primary purpose, one supposes, is pleasure, or perhaps even bypassing the physical altogether and using the rubberized binding merely as a sleek cloak to protect the mental or imaginary life within the body. A libidinous armour protecting the "idea" of sensuality rather than a tool to excite the subject or her audience: a totem.

The ingredients of fashion still exist, in fact the black neck-to-head-to-widow's peak cowl theme introduces elements of a uniform or graphic standardization. I get the idea that hundreds of women could be wearing similar suits featuring lips, eyes, like shoals of sleek and scaleless fish in 8 inch heels. Perhaps a new breed of nun. Photo by Steven Diet Goedde


A completely different type of fetishism is exhibited in PUCE MOMENT, the Kenneth Anger short from 1964. Whereas the earlier photograph of the woman in Latex depicts a costume devoid of specific ornament, PUCE MOMENT begins with a "slide show" of tantalizing shimmer and texture as sherbet-colored sequined dresses are introduced to the camera one after another like a bodyless beauty pageant of 1920's Flappers. I'm not interested in critiquing the short film, it doesn't need my interpretation. Like most interesting art it creates its own world and invites you inside to splash around, perhaps in enjoyment, or perhaps in spectacle, or perhaps in utter confusion. There are no givens that I know of, hence the mysterious intoxication it can provide--if we're lucky. The face of Miss Sunshine in Kenneth Anger's film is antithetical to the rubber mask from Steven Diet Goedde's photograph. We are given loads of detail, the excessive eyelashes and dark eye-liner, nimbus of black curls, short in the style of a WW I pin-up, or Clara Bow wanna be. She seems to reinforce the look of a Silent Movie Star almost embalmed in her boudoir. We are witnesses to an excavation of 1920's female sensuality as filtered through the lens of fascination 40 years later. After all, the movie was shot in the mid 1960's, and intentionally distances itself from straight "period-piece" narrative by including a contemporary soundtrack of songs by Jonathan Halper. Lyrics adding an additional stratum of vague information, yet no doubt evidence of a more modern intention.

The woman seems "kept," perhaps by a person, or perhaps by a metaphorical constraint, but my guess is that she's a prisoner of her own choosing--something of an actress vamping a role and thumbing her nose at provincial realities. Her home is wealth. Her clothes are wealth. Her 4 Irish Wolfhounds are flourishes of wealth and style. And yet she isn't behind the Camera making an art movie, but is most assuredly an object created by Mr. Anger, an obtuse mannequin with whom to perform temporal experiments. She seems to express the feminine attributes of someone's sexy mother, or more precisely a mother being idolized by a son. It's a type of perfectionism, the idealization of a bond which some men never break, or only break by displacing our ardor into replacements--perhaps dressing as women, maybe feeling desirous of surroundings with traditionally feminine things: cut glass atomizers, perfume bottles, vintage dressing table accessories: the incidental toys of a different fetishism. The scenes open a Pandora's Box of Psychoanalytical speculation. When the woman finally wiggles into her puce dress, her close-ups convince us of an ecstatic reverie. We can almost feel the inside of the gown against our own skin. It's probably the apex of the film--before she readies herself to meet the outside world, which eventually becomes greeted by ennui and boredom. I'm somehow reminded of Venus exiting the sea, leaving the kingdom of gods shining and naked. Being wrapped in lengths of cloth by attendants and introduced into the adoring world of mankind. This short isn't SCORPIO RISING, but it's a wonderful slice of dreamy eroticism.