Correlations
in Sex and Art
SHEILA: If what you say
is true ... about politics, art, and sex all hanging together on an equal level
of development in any given class-stage of evolution, then it should be
possible for one to equate a given sexuality with a compatible aesthetic or political
development, and thus come to form a better understanding of that sexuality
both in terms of its nature and the extent of its applicability to any specific
society.
DONAL: I agree! And therefore, not altogether surprisingly, I
have worked out an exact correlation between each of the subjects to which you
refer, with particular reference to the relationship between sex and art.
SHEILA: Please proceed
to expatiate on this correlation!
DONAL: Well, I divide
sex, no less than politics and art, into spiritualistic and materialistic
categories, since such a distinction is endemic to a relative civilization,
where either an atomic dualism or a relatively post-atomic dualism prevails, as
in Britain and America respectively. I
also distinguish between two stages of petty-bourgeois evolution within each of
these relativities, viz. an early and a late, and further divide each stage
into two phases, the first of which I equate with a revolt against civilized
precedent, the second of which I equate with the attainment to a new civilized
ideal - a distinction, in effect, between lower and higher manifestations of a
given class integrity.
SHEILA: Hence the
barbarous art of the lower/early petty-bourgeoisie and, by contrast, the
civilized art of the higher/early petty-bourgeoisie, to name but one of the two
petty-bourgeois class stages. Though one
could just as easily refer to early/lower petty-bourgeois art and, by contrast,
to late/lower petty-bourgeois art, if one wanted an alternative logical
structure within which to work.
DONAL: I agree, though
I prefer to reserve the distinction between lower and higher for the type of
art being produced within the context of any given class stage, whether early
or late petty-bourgeois. However, since
we were intending to correlate a given level or type of sex with a compatible
aesthetic framework, we may as well concentrate more on those subjects and
distinguish, to begin with, between lower and higher manifestations of early
petty-bourgeois sexuality and their aesthetic correlates, before proceeding to
tackle the parallel manifestations of those same subjects as applying to the
late petty-bourgeoisie, always bearing in mind a further distinction between
the spiritualistic and the materialistic side of each subject.
SHEILA: Which can
presumably be equated with the predominating moral bias of any given
manifestation of petty-bourgeois culture?
DONAL: Yes, with
particular reference to its mainstream manifestations, as applying to
SHEILA: Against which
the Nazis were to rebel in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
DONAL: Until their
ascension to power in 1933 enabled them to destroy virtually everything for
which it had stood. As should now be
apparent, Nazism signified a lower/late petty-bourgeois rebellion against
Weimar civilization, being essentially a spiritualized politics and therefore
opposed, in particular, to materialistic manifestations of civilized art and
sexuality, the two chief representatives of which in Germany at that time were
Abstract Expressionism and soft-core unisexual pornography, by which I
primarily mean a kind of rump-biased heterosexual pornography, one involving
young women in a variety of rear positions.
If one is to find an aesthetic equivalent for Nazism, it must be in
architectural light art, in the lower, impressionistic art of the late
petty-bourgeoisie - a type of spiritualistic barbarism paralleling
expressionist light art, its materialistic counterpart, which was more
sculptural than architectural.
SHEILA: Certainly the
Nazis had a reputation for light art, for building 'cathedrals of light', as
during the annual Nuremberg rallies, when numerous spotlights were trained on
the night sky from a variety of angles and positions, making for a kind of dome
of light above the heads of the assembled faithful. Such architectural light art, corresponding
to a barbarous because paradoxical use of light, would presumably parallel the
sculptural light art of those artists who would appear to be primarily in
rebellion against Abstract Impressionism, as mainly pertaining to America, and
who consequently employed a materialistic barbarism.
DONAL: Yes, and whose
sexual equivalent would be homosexuality, a barbarous sexuality not unknown to
Communists either. However, as for the
Nazis, who opposed Communists and homosexuals alike, we should have little
hesitation in contending that the sexuality most relevant to them was
paedophilia, or the condition of being sexually attracted to children, which
accords, it seems to me, with a lower/late petty-bourgeois phase of sexual
activity, being, in large measure, a revolt against rump-biased soft-core
pornography, a fresh sexual medium, but one employed in a paradoxical and,
hence, barbarous way.
SHEILA: Are you
serious?
DONAL: Perfectly! Just as architectural light art bears no
resemblance to Abstract Expressionism, and Fascism no resemblance to
SHEILA: Thus from the
contemporary point of view, both paedophilia and homosexuality are passé, anachronistic
modes of barbarous sexuality.
DONAL: Absolutely! Following the brutal demise of Nazism, the
way was clear for the development of higher/late petty-bourgeois sex and art,
which took the forms of hard-core pornography and abstract light art, as
relevant to the late petty-bourgeois civilization of the Federal Republic of
Germany on its materialistic side, and to post-War American Republicanism on
its spiritualistic side - the former the relevant political setting for a bias
favouring hard-core homosexual pornography and abstract-expressionist light
art, the latter the relevant political setting for a bias favouring hard-core
heterosexual pornography and abstract-impressionist light art, which usually
takes the form of slender neon tubing symmetrically arranged rather than, as
with its 'materialistic' counterpart, a-symmetrically arranged in everywhichway anarchic fashion.
SHEILA: Doesn't a kind
of sculptural light art continue to exist with these developments?
DONAL: Yes,
particularly in
SHEILA: Thus certain
barbarous American trends in sex and art would be adopted by
DONAL: Yes, until such
time as that integrity was no longer necessary and could be superseded by
Social Transcendentalism's mature phase, the phase more dedicated to construction
than destruction, when abstract holography would come to supplant the
barbarous, or representational, variety and, in sexual matters, hard-core
juvenile pornography become the logical successor to soft-core juvenile
pornography, with its representational perspective.
SHEILA: How exactly
would juvenile pornography become hard-core?
DONAL: By exclusively
focusing on the rump and, in particular, anus of the mature teenage model, be it boy or girl.
Such a hard-core absolutism would transcend both heterosexual and
homosexual hard-core pornography, the former tending to focus on the vagina,
the latter on the penis. From being
sexist, pornography would become post-sexist in the transcendental
civilization, a juvenile's rump distinct from either male or female sex organs
and significant, moreover, of a higher order of unisexual focus - one literally
transcending sex. In such fashion
pornography would attain to its consummation, a consummation wholly relevant to
computer discs and thus to VDU contemplation, while holography was likewise
brought to its
consummation
in the purest abstractions, abstractions originating in sculptured objects
projected into space through the reflection of mirrors.
SHEILA: Quite a remove
from Nazi paedophilia and architectural light art!
DONAL: To be sure! And quite a remove from all modes of
civilized late petty-bourgeois art and sex as well, not to mention civilized
late petty-bourgeois modes of religion like neo-Buddhism and mescaline
tripping, about which we have not said a word!
Certainly there will be no toleration of barbarous modes of late
petty-bourgeois art or sex either, which means that paedophiliacs
and homosexuals, if any such exist in Eire, would be subject to censure and, if
necessary, internment. Similarly there
would be no encouragement of either architectural or sculptural light art, nor,
I need scarcely add, of their civilized successors. A Social Transcendental
SHEILA: That is
something to which one can only look forward!