Omorashi

Kairi Omorashi by HarukoOmo 
deviantart.com

I suppose most of us have experienced the mildly perverse pleasure of a full-bladder and its eventual release, or felt a gently sadistic joy at witnessing a loved one's discomfort when they desperately want to piss in a public space, but are denied the opportunity to do so (the thought that they just might not make it home amusing and arousing in equal measure).  

But only the Japanese have given this variant form of urolagnia a specific name - omorashi - and have not only developed it as αn idea within the pornographic imagination, but built a fetishistic subculture upon it, thereby allowing like-minded individuals who delight in bladder desperation and panty wetting to exchange stories and images and to meet up if so desired. 

It should be noted, however, that for most devotees of omorashi an exchange of bodily fluids is not desired; they neither wish to piss on others, nor be pissed on by them. Nor do they want to see naked organs in close-up action, or hope that things might develop in an overtly sexual manner. 

For the obsession is ultimately with clothed incontinence and omorashi videos tend to focus on the garments worn by the participants; these invariably include schoolgirl uniforms, but films with women dressed as business professionals - looking dignified and in control, before shamefully succumbing to the need to urinate - are also very popular with certain male viewers. 

Now, whilst we might legitimately have concerns with some of the dubious sexual politics played out within the world of omorashi, it is, I think, relatively harmless and is frequently looked down on as too tame by hardcore fetishists for whom watersports involves far more edgy and unsettling elements. 

However, under current UK legislation I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that even omorashi is categorised as a form of extreme pornography and that peeing your pants has thus been made into a criminal offence!

Note: thanks to political writer and researcher - and defender of civil liberties - Nick Cowen, for his kind advice on this post.

Urophilia: From Golden Showers to the Art of Pussing

Man Ray: Tears (1930)

The above photo, despite the title, has always suggested something other than a weeping subject. 

In fact, it brings to mind the charming scene in Bataille's short novel, The Story of the Eye, in which sixteen-year-old Simone asks her equally young but nameless lover to piss up her cunt. When the latter points out that due to the position of their bodies, his urine will almost certainly splash on her dress and face, she simply asks: So what?

This rhetorical question is thrown down as a kind of challenge; it wants to provoke an action, rather than be met with an answer. In a sense, it's as profoundly nihilistic as asking who cares? Met with this, the protagonist-narrator has no choice but to do as he is told. Not that he seems reluctant to indulge in watersports, or any other perverse sexual act that aims not at pleasure so much as the destruction of human happiness and integrity.

Personally, I'd find it a little disconcerting to be asked by a woman to urinate on her like a male porcupine. On the other hand, I'd have no objection were the roles reversed and, like many men, find the sight of a woman pissing strangely enchanting; not simply arousing, but also reassuring and rather touching. It's no wonder, therefore, that it's such a recurrent and popular theme in Western art.

And nor is it surprising to discover the growing popularity of pussing - although one suspects it's the semi-clandestine and semi-illicit nature of this activity that excites almost as much as the consensual voyeurism, or the sex that often follows.  

Of course, not everyone approves of this. Indeed, some might suggest that despite the close anatomical connection between our sex organs and the excretory functions, it's a sign of instinctual collapse to conflate acts of love with the voiding of bladders and so end up fucking in public toilets.  

Dandelions

The body is always looking to exert itself and escape the overcoding of the organism. And it does this in a number of ways that range from the spasm of orgasm, to the sudden yawn or burst of laughter. D. H. Lawrence understood this as a painter, which is why so many of his figures seem to have given themselves over to 'unselfconscious physicality and abandon', as Keith Sagar puts it.

Thus, when in a watercolour entitled Dandelions Lawrence depicts a man urinating on some flowers, he is not simply trying to shock those for whom biological functions are embarrassing or degrading, but also attempting to show how such a simple act might be conceived as expressive of the intensive forces of bodily sensation.

And so perhaps there was something not only touching about the drunk young woman pissing outside the tube station last night, but also liberating.