Photo of Lindsay Lohan, by Terry Richardson
(Chateau Marmont, Los Angeles, 2012)
It's no great revelation that Frenchmen like to look up the skirts of pretty young girls; France, after all, is the country that gave us The Swing, the cancan, and the story of Melody Nelson being knocked off her bicycle.
Even so, it came as something of a surprise to discover prose poet Francis Ponge comparing the pleasure of viewing a frilly white carnation to that of glimpsing a pair of fine-cut lace knickers worn by a maid who attends to her linens.
Even so, it came as something of a surprise to discover prose poet Francis Ponge comparing the pleasure of viewing a frilly white carnation to that of glimpsing a pair of fine-cut lace knickers worn by a maid who attends to her linens.
Ponge goes on to add - and here one is uncertain whether he refers to the flowers or the undergarments - that they continually emit the sort of distinct perfume that threatens such pleasure that one is brought to the verge of a violent spasm (such as a sneeze or an orgasm).
And so we observe how panty-fetishism is a complex phenomenon involving not just the eyes, but also the nose - even if some snobby psychologists like to insist it's not a true paraphilia.
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