I'll Put a Knife Right In You: Notes on the Case of Sid and Nancy

Sid and Nancy indulge in a little knife play for the camera
Photos by Pierre Benain (1978) 

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Sex Pistol Sid Vicious had a fetishistic fascination with knives: he loved to play with knives: he loved to pose with knives. And, if The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle is to be be believed, he was happy to threaten the good citizens of Paris with a knife if they got in his way whilst he was out cruising the boulevards and arcades looking for trouble.

 

Sid also liked to cut himself, both on and off stage. And his penchant for self-harm and violence was something he shared with his American girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, who was a troubled (some might even say wayward) young woman. 

 

Diagnosed with schizophrena at fifteen, Nancy left home two years later and worked as a stripper and prostitute in New York, before moving to London in 1977, where she met Vicious, with whom she began an eighteen-month relationship. The star-crossed lovers were as devoted to one another as they were addicted to drugs and self-destructive behaviour.        

 

None of these facts, however, means that Sid murdered Nancy on that fateful night in October 1978. And it certainly doesn't mean that an unfairly vilified twenty-year old girl deserved such a horrible fate; lying semi-naked and bleeding to death on a cold bathroom floor, having received a single stab wound to the abdomen.*

 

The established facts of the case are well-documented. But we'll probably never know the truth of what actually happened; was it unintentional homocide ... was there another party involved ...?

 

Vicious was charged with second-degree murder, but died of a heroin overdose whilst out on bail and just days before he was due to go into a studio with Paul Cook and Steve Jones to record an album of popular standards in order to raise funds for his legal defence, including, at Malcolm McLaren's (amusing if tasteless) suggestion, Mack the Knife ...

 

 

* Note: According to the police report, Miss Spungen was stabbed with a Jaguar Wilderness K-11 folding knife and not a 007 flick knife as is often claimed. 

 

Musical bonus: The Misfits, Horror Business (Plan 9 Records, 1979): click here. 

      This classic punk single was inspired by the murder of Nancy Spungen and Hitchcock's Psycho (Marion Crane, as fans of the film will know, also meets her bloody end in a bathroom). 

      It's interesting to note that Jerry Only - bassist with the Misfits - was one of the small group of friends with Sid at his new girlfriend's apartment on the night he took his fatal overdose (1 Feb 1979) and that there was talk of the band backing Vicious on a proposed solo album.  

 

For an earlier post on piquerism and knife play, please click here.       

Piquerism and Notes on Knife Play

The Ballard of Jazz the Knife 

(c. 1992)

 

 

I. Opening Remarks 

 

Piquerism - for those of you unfamiliar with the practice - is a perverse sexual interest in penetrating the skin of another person with sharp objects, including pins, razors, and knives. 

 

Most often, the targeted areas of the body are the breasts, buttocks, and genitals and whilst for many lovers it's a form of edge play or risk-aware consensual kink, for the true sadist - who laughs at the idea of obtaining permission or that libertinism should conform to a code of health and safety - piquerism only becomes interesting when it results in extreme suffering and death or is performed post-mortem.   

 

 

II. Biofictional Remarks

 

As a young child, I might be said to have had something of a piqueresque liking for sharp objects myself. I far preferred, for example, pricking balloons with a needle, than inflating them. And once, at school, I placed a drawing pin on a fat girl's chair in order to see if she too would explode with a bang [1].  

 

And whilst I had an extensive range of toy guns, my favourite thing to play with was a plastic dagger with a retractable blade with which I could create the illusion of having stabbed myself through the heart (or knifed a friend in the back).    

 

 

III. Literary Remarks

 

I don't know how D. H. Lawrence felt about this subject, but the following scenes are worth noting:

 

(i) Women in Love (Ch. VI) [2]

 

Pussum has confessed that she's not afraid of anything except black-beetles. She's certainly not afraid of blood ... 

 

So when a man with a pale, jeering face laughs at her, she suddenly jabs a knife across his hand, causing him to leap up, cursing. He glares at her with sardonic contempt as the blood begins to flow from the wound inflicted by this feline young woman. 

 

Birkin looked on with obvious displeasure, but Gerald is aroused by the girl's action. Later, in the taxi home, she sits close to him and grasps his hand in hers; "rapid vibrations ran through his blood and over his brain [...] and all his nerves were on fire, as with a subtle friction of electricity".     

 

(ii) The Plumed Serpent (Ch. XXIII) [3] 

Cipriano strips and publicly executes a group of prisoners with a bright, thin dagger ...

"'The Lords of Life are Masters of Death,' he said in a loud, clear voice. 

      And swift as lightning he stabbed the blindfolded men to the heart, with three swift, heavy stabs. Then he lifted the red dagger and threw it down.

      'The Lords of Life are Masters of Death,' he repeated." 

Later, Cipriano and his fellow revolutionaries indulge in a little fetishistic blood play, dipping their hands into blood collected from the bodies of the executed men in a stone bowl and raising wet, red fists. They then sprinkle some of the blood on a fire in a neo-pagan religious ritual.   

(iii) The Woman Who Rode Away [4]

 

A bored, middle-class white woman goes in search of adventure and to give her heart to the god of the Chilchui Indians ... 

 

Two men grip her arms whilst two others "with curious skill slit her boots down with keen knives, and drew them off, and slit her clothing so that it came away from her". 

 

They also remove the pins from her hair and touch her on the breasts and back. Then they drug her and groom her over the course of several weeks into the role of sacrificial victim. Her captors, the Indians, are superficially kind to her; gentle and considerate. Yet she sensed their cruelty underneath and when the time comes for her to die, they show no hesitation in killing her:

 

"When she was fumigated, they laid her on a large flat stone, the four powerful men holding her by the outstretched arms and legs. Behind stood the aged man [...] holding a knife and transfixedly watching the sun; and behind him again was another naked priest, with a knife."

 

They are waiting for the right moment, when the red sun is about to sink: Then the old man will strike with his flint blade and accomplish the sacrifice ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] She didn't. And rather than encouraging my scientific curiosty, the teacher, Mrs. Horncastle, gave me a telling off in front of the class and made me apologise to poor, red-faced Mandy Howard.    

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love, ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1987). Lines quoted are on p. 73. 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent, ed. L. D. Clark, (Cambridge University Press, 1987). Lines quoted are on p. 380.

 

[4] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Woman Who Rode Away', in The Woman Who Rode Away and Other Stories, ed. Dieter Mehl and Christa Jansohn, (Cambridge University Press, 1995). Lines quoted are on pp. 55 and 70. 

 

For another post involving knife play (and with reference to the case of Sid and Nancy), click here.