On the Cancerous Downside of Cunnilingus (with Reference to the Case of Michael Douglas)

Image: someecards.com

I've long admired the work of American actor and producer Michael Douglas; ever since his days alongside the magnificent Karl Malden in The Streets of San Francisco in fact. 

For whatever reason, throughout a period stretching across three decades Douglas displayed a brilliant knack for making critically interesting and commercially successful movies that perfectly captured the cultural, political and sexual concerns of his era. These include The China Syndrome (1979), Fatal Attraction (1987), Wall Street (1987), Basic Instinct (1992), and Joel Schumacher's controversial drama Falling Down (1993).

Sadly, in 2010 it was announced that Douglas had been diagnosed with an advanced form of throat cancer (later revealed to actually be tongue cancer), for which he would undergo chemotherapy. As well attributing the cancer to stress, heavy drinking, and a lifelong cigarette habit, Douglas also indicated in a 2013 interview with The Guardian that he blamed it on his penchant for cunnilingus.

Whether the latter was a contributory factor or not, I don't know. But it's certainly the case that human papilloma virus (HPV) can be spread via oral sex and is known to cause cancer. In fact, it's estimated that around a quarter of all mouth cancers and a third of throat cancers are HPV related.

It's also known that HPV related oropharyngeal cancer is twice as common in men than women and is most common of all in heterosexual men. This indicates that giving head to a woman is not only more complex and uncomfortable than fellating a man, but also a far riskier proposition; the thinner, moist skin of the cunt containing a much higher concentration of the virus than the dry skin of the penis (though it should be noted that HPV can certainly be passed on in semen).               

All of which is unfortunate for devotees of pussy-licking - though health concerns happily never deter illicit lovers ...  


Note: despite the advanced stage of his cancer, I'm pleased to report that the treatment Michael Douglas recieved was effective and he is (as far as I know) presently in good health. 

Vaginal Seeding: Why C-Section Babies are Dipped in Love Juice

Illustration by Cara Gibson (2015) of vaginal seeding procedure. 

The left panel shows a sterile gauze incubating in the vagina prior to C-section. 

The right panel shows the gauze colonized by vaginal microbes being swabbed on the newborn. 

mostlymicrobes.com

In the UK today approximately 1 in 4 births are by Caesarian section. This figure is lower than the US and Australia where around a third of babies are delivered via surgical incisions in the abdomen and uterus, but it has significantly increased during the last couple of decades. In 1990, for example, still only around 10% of births were C-sections and these were mostly carried out on medical grounds to protect the well-being of mother and child.  

Doubtless there are many reasons for this development; pregnant women in the West are often now much heavier and much older, for example, and this may necessitate the real or perceived need for a Caesarian.

But we must also mention the narcissistic arrogance of those women too posh to push who regard giving birth 'naturally' as messy, painful, inconvenient and archaic. For such women, a Caesarian is not so much an emergency procedure as it is a combination of human right, professional expediency, and a sign that one can afford to be bang on trend when it comes to the latest fashion in obstetrics.

Of course, it's not simply the mothers-to-be to blame; as with the boom in cosmetic surgery the medical profession is doubtless complicit in the insidious rise in the number of C-sections performed and the normalization of such. It's worth noting that in the US a hospital can charge many thousands of dollars more for a non-vaginal delivery.

And then there's the Hollywood factor: I read recently in a popular fashion and gossip magazine, that it's not only the biggest names in film, TV, and popular music who are electing to have their babies this way: Even C-list celebrities are crazy for C-sections.

Whatever, the reason, the sad fact is that children born in this manner seem to be more prone to a range of medical conditions including asthma, obesity and, later in life, diabetes. The reason for this brings me back to a topic currently of much interest: vaginal fluid.

It seems that babies born via the birth canal receive a sticky coating of lubrication containing a vital cocktail of immune-boosting microbes. Babies delivered surgically, however, miss out on this and as a result suffer a bacterial deficit which, some scientists now speculate, may be a key factor in the health problems more frequently found in those born by Caesarian.

I find it interesting and amusing that the same salty elixir that is deadly to sperm due to its acidity and which commonly carries the cancer-causing HP virus that nearly did for Michael Douglas, is so beneficial for babies that even C-section newborns are now being swabbed with their mother's cunt juice.

Pussy Juice (Isis Unveiled)

Isis Unveiled - Print by Linda Hill (2014)

theredseeds.wordpress.com

One of the most pleasing aspects of Lawrence's rewriting of the Resurrection myth is that the man who died at last surrenders to the temptations of the flesh and finally discovers the unique joy of deeply penetrating the interfolded warmth of a living body.

By going unto the woman of Isis, he overcomes his fear of physical touch and exchanges the stale smell of the tomb for the exquisite scent of her cunt, which, Lawrence writes, is like the essence of roses. The man who died thus learns that there are many ways of entering into holy communion and serving God without having to deny the world or martyr oneself. 

In other words, between the limbs of a pagan priestess the man who died abandons his virgin idealism; she washes away his youthful fanaticism, his self-disgust and his pain, not with tears, but with the secretions of her vagina.

Being a fertile young woman, sexually aroused by a stranger she mistook for Osiris (i.e. the god for whom she had long searched in order that he may fecundate her womb), we can assume her cunt to be naturally well lubricated at the time of coition.

But it's interesting to note, is it not, that the actual lining of the vagina contains no glands and it's plasma seepage from the vaginal wall due to vascular engorgement that is thought to be the chief source of moisture. This is topped up by mucus from glands located near the vaginal opening and cervical secretions at the time of ovulation (the fact that the priestess is impregnated by the man who died provides us with evidence of where she was on her menstrual cycle).  

The resultant fluid, or pussy juice as some like to call it, varies in consistency, texture, colour, odour and taste depending on a variety of factors. These include the level of arousal, time of the month, health and diet. Although some lovers like to think of it as sweet honeydew, vaginal lubrication is actually quite acidic in composition, normally somewhere between 3.8 and 4.5 on the pH scale, in (deadly) contrast to the neutrality of semen which is typically between 7.2 and 8.0.  

Thus, ironically, although a kind of paradise offering those who enter a form of bliss that is immanent to desire, the cunt is a fairly inhospitable environment; not only actively hostile to sperm, but a place where insects and deities lose their way.


See: D. H. Lawrence, 'The Escaped Cock' in The Virgin and the Gipsy and Other Stories, ed. Michael Herbert, Bethan Jones and Lindeth Vasey (Cambridge University Press, 2014). 

Of Mites and Men (Notes on the World of Dust)

Apart from having to listen all day (and often all night) long to my mother's babbling stream of consciousness - an inane interior monologue involuntarily made public thanks to her dementia - one of the more depressing aspects of my Essex exile is living in a home in which dust is a permanent and triumphant feature.

Like many people, I used to subscribe to the comforting myth that dust is essentially made up of dead skin cells; i.e. human in origin and harmlessly inert. But, thanks to Mr Sheen, I now know that this isn't the full story. In fact, the composition of dust is far more complex, far more vital, and potentially far more menacing.

For house dust not only contains human detritus, but also insect remains, plant pollen, animal hairs and various fibres, materials and pollutants found in the local environment all of which create a perfect feeding and breeding ground for microscopic, translucent-bodied arachnids known as dust mites.

These cosmopolitan little creatures are the major inhabitants of dust and they flourish in the dark, warm spaces provided by mattresses, bedding (particularly pillows), upholstered furniture, carpets, etc. Unfortunately, their faeces is known to contain an enzyme harmful to people, particularly those with asthma who are commonly allergic to such. Dust mites are also thought to be a cause of eczema.

As if the thought of these mites creeping about shitting everywhere weren't bad enough, scientists who have studied the subject also estimate there are more than 70,000 types of fungi and over 125,000 kinds of bacteria contained in the dust we vainly try to keep at bay and which we inhale with every breath.

One day, perhaps, it might be possible to artificially control and manipulate the dust; to fill our homes with microbes that actively improve human health. Until then, the best we can do is either wipe and vacuum with renewed vigour, or hope that Quentin Crisp was telling the truth when he observed that after four or five years the build up of dust plateaus.


Notes 

Photo of Quentin Crisp (NYC, 1999) by Piers Allardyce. 

Readers interested in dusty ecosystems and bacterial diversity might like to explore the online public science project established by the Rob Dunn Lab entitled Wild Life of Our Homes.

On Revolutionary Fun (A Message for May Day)

If you make a revolution, writes Lawrence, don't act with ascetic militancy in the name of some grand ideal, or in order to seize control of the economy; make it simply for the pleasure of gobbing in the eye of those who would assert authority and the anarchic joy of upsetting the old order.

As a manifesto, this will doubtless strike many terrorists of theory interested in preserving the pure order of politics and the serious business of revolution, as puerile and irresponsible; the sort of romantic tosh that only a poet can get away with.

Nevertheless, it rather nicely anticipates the poststructuralist thinking that flourished prior to, during, and after the festive upheaval of May '68 and, indeed, encapsulates the insouciant nihilism of punk as conceived by a Situationist-inspired Malcolm McLaren in the mid-late Seventies.    

What unites Lawrence with Deleuze and ties Anti-Oedipus to Never Mind the Bollocks, is a perverse refusal to conform to the accepted way of doing things as prescribed by tradition (be it a literary, philosophical, or artistic tradition); they challenge and change the terms of the debate and shift the zone of combat, discrediting old idols in the process.

But above all, these figures and these works show us that we do not have to be sad or self-serious in order to be radical. Thus, paraphrasing Lawrence if I may: If you want to torpedo the ark, don't do it in ghastly seriousness, don't do it in deadly earnest - do it for fun.


See: D. H. Lawrence, 'A Sane Revolution', in The Complete Poems, ed. Vivian de Sola Pinto and F. Warren Roberts, (Penguin Books, 1977). 

Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace

Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace (front cover photo)

The rapid evolution of popular music and youth culture in the wake of punk continues to fascinate many commentators, including some who weren't even born in the wildly exciting and experimental period between 1979 and 1984.

Despite their non-being during this era, Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje have lovingly assembled a visual and written record of the time when some wore leather, some wore lace, but all of us - with a greater or lesser degree of success - wore eyeliner and adopted a somewhat gothic sensibility (transforming from punks to pagans and swapping safety pins for magical amulets).

Why things mutated in the manner they did - why kids who started off pogoing at the 100 Club ended  up posing at the Batcave - is a question that the above authors don't really address in a book which, although rich in photos, is disappointingly light on theory. But it's not one I pretend to know the answer to either.

I've heard it suggested, however, that the nihilistic energy and almost childlike joy in destruction of punk was not only impossible to sustain, but quickly became emotionally unsatisfying for those sensitive and creative individuals interested in developing a more sophisticated and glamourous aesthetic that would allow them to express feelings other than anger, boredom and hatred.

I suspect there's something in this argument.  At any rate, better Siouxsie and the Banshees than Sham 69 ...        

See: Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace: The Worldwide Compendium of Postpunk and Goth in the 1980s (Intellect, 2014), by Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje. 

Note: those who are interested in knowing more about the above authors and their work should visit the Postpunk Project by clicking here. 

Never Mind the Bollocks (On Nietzsche, D. H. Lawrence and the Sex Pistols)

Punk Nietzsche by Gary Neill (2010) on Tumblr

Someone writes and asks why it is that so many posts on Torpedo the Ark invariably refer back to either Nietzsche or D. H. Lawrence. What is it about these two figures that first attracted you and why is it they continue to fascinate?

In order to answer this, it's important to clarify that I'm someone whose intellectual background is neither in German philosophy nor English literature. Rather, it's in art, music, fashion, and radical French politics as filtered through the imagination of Malcolm McLaren. And thus what initially attracted me to Nietzsche and Lawrence was the same that attracted me to McLaren's punk revolution; the attitude, the style, the humour, the extreme nature of their call to arms. 

For like the Sex Pistols, Nietzsche and Lawrence demand an intense level of commitment from their devotees, whilst also encouraging a great level of individual freedom; they don't want you to follow them faithfully, but to lose them and find yourself.

Further, they allow outsiders to feel heroic members of a counter-cultural elite; part of a subversive secret society and part of an adventure - if not, indeed, a crusade that pits you against everyone and everything (certainly against all authorities and all orthodoxies).

Ultimately, if you're a Sex Pistol, then everything else is bollocks and of no vital concern. Likewise, if you're a lover of Nietzsche or Lawrence, then all other philosophers and novelists suddenly pale into insignificance.

That's not to argue, obviously, that there are no other great thinkers or artists with genius. But there's certainly very few who belong like Nietzsche and Lawrence to that order of genius which, in the words of Henry Miller, beats out the boundaries of human experience and widens the frontiers of life.    

Why I Don't Much Care for the London Marathon

Logo of the 2016 London Marathon (with official corporate sponsor) 

A friend, Annette, sends me a text from the London Marathon. "How wonderful", she says, "to see 40,000 people - all shapes and sizes, all creeds and colours - running in perfect harmony and raising money for good causes." 

She's German. And a vegan. So her idealism and admiration for körperkultur doesn't surprise me. But I was a bit disappointed that she should know me so badly, after so many years, that she thought I'd share her enthusiasm for this ersatz sporting event. Because I don't.

In fact, I find its mix of fun-running, charity, narcissistic athleticism, media hype, and commercial sponsorship all wrapped up in Lycra and covered in sweat, deeply offensive. It's an example of what Lawrence terms sport in the head and, like him, I loathe those individuals who parade the self-conscious mechanism of their bodies whilst reeking with smugness and self-regard.       

Baudrillard is no fan either of idiots endlessly pounding the pavements. He rightly characterizes jogging, for example, as a type of ascetic idealism born of consumerism and the Californian cult of the self; a form of socially approved masturbation, the pleasure of which has nothing to do ultimately with either sport or sex.

I can't imagine what Pheidippides - who ran with real joy and purpose and not simply to comply with an obligatory performance principle - would have made of what passes for heroism today ...

The Moon at the End of My Street

According to Lawrence, who insists on an essential and dynamic correspondence between man and the heavenly bodies, the moon is a strange, white, soft-seeming world; a great cosmic nerve centre from which we quiver forever. 

Now, as readers of this blog may know, I'm philosophically hostile to such naive vitalism and what Quentin Meillassoux terms correlationism. However, la luna continues to attract my interest and affection and I agree with Lawrence that it's a far lovelier thing than merely a dead lump of rock in the night sky. 

And so it is that - just the other evening - I took the above photo of the moon at the end of my street, which, coincidentally, happens to be the title of a new collection of poems by Isabel del Rio, who, kindly, has given me permission to reproduce the following lines from a verse entitled 'If you and I did not have the moon':

    

If we did not have the Moon,
we would not know what to call
the night, perhaps only
darkness, we would describe it
only by its colour, black,
by its lack of purpose, pointless.


Other lunar-inspired verses in Ms del Rio's new book include 'wondering moon', 'this Moon is but a quaver on the sky', and 'Moon Haiku Number 1':


Like you, the Moon is
not in the universe, but
is the universe


Obviously, as a poet, there are moments when Ms del Rio falls into the same anthropocentric idealism and affectation as Lawrence. It's not so much that either author wilfully privileges the human over other objects, but each seems unable to help thinking the latter unless they conform to the mind of a knowing subject and in this way become products of human cognition and aesthetic fancy.

Still, it's been said that I often do the same, despite my best efforts to adhere to a strict form of speculative realism and object-oriented ontology (i.e. to know that the moon and stars exist independently of Man and are not ontologically exhausted by their relation to us), so who am I to criticise ... 

Note: Isabel del Rio is a writer and linguist, born in Madrid and living in London. She writes in English and Spanish and has published fiction and poetry. Her new book is published by Friends of Alice Publishing (2016).  

(No) Sympathy for the Rich

Christian Michel

In wake of the recent publication of the so-called Panama Papers, the French libertarian writer Christian Michel advises that we resist the urge to howl with predictable moral outrage and instead express our gratitude towards those who are wealthy enough to be able to afford to significantly reduce their tax bills.

In other words, we should sympathise with the super-rich, not curse them. Michel writes:

"It's hard to be rich. I pity the billionaires who, with a bit of hard work and an immense amount of luck, have managed to offer us products and services we want to buy. The public brings billions to their coffers. Then the public unfairly blames them for amassing those billions.

Of course the rich don't pay more taxes than they are required to; they are just like you and I. Who writes a check to the NHS for a treatment that comes free? Or pays TfL full fare when one is entitled to a discount? We don’t believe in paying government bodies more than called for and it so happens, when it comes to taxes, that legal opportunities exist to minimise the burden.

Thus this is not a moral issue. When some politician admonishes corporate executives on their greed and immorality they threaten all our freedom. A government function is to produce legislation. What the legislation allows is no longer the remit of government.

Commentators may choose to debate the perfectly legal behaviour of individuals, but government officials should not do so. That’s a condition of our security. If zoning laws state that you may build a house up to ten meters high, the council’s mission is to check the highest tile is not higher than 10 meters. That’s all. It is not their business to discuss your taste in decoration, or whom you choose to share your home with.

Likewise, if the rich choose to make use of perfectly legal tax havens, that's their business and their right to do so. Some people may resent it, but the law affords protection to all - even the rich.

Cheating, of course, is a different matter. There exist so many ways to mitigate taxes legally that you wonder if it is laziness or simply stupidity that makes some cross the line that separates tax avoidance from tax evasion. (Of course, it may be the source of the funds that's the decisive issue here, but that's another question.)

Ultimately, everyone - rich or poor - wants to protect their own interests and maximise their own advantages and we should not only acknowledge this fact, but encourage it and celebrate it as fundamental to the workings of a mature, liberal society."

Now, although I'd not describe myself either as a liberal, or a libertarian, I'd pretty much agree - perhaps to Christian's surprise and the disappointment of others - with what's said here. It's not that selfishness and greed is good, but rank hypocrisy and politicised moral ressentiment is worse and arguably more dangerous in the long run.

Having said that, it would really stick in my craw having to express sympathy, gratitude, or admiration for the 1%. That's simply not going to happen. In fact, like Joe Strummer, I don't wanna hear about what the rich are doing and I don't wanna go to where, where the rich are going. For great wealth - like great poverty - deforms and makes ugly at last. And wanting to be rich is a sign of low vitality.  


Notes

Christian Michel is a London-based, political theorist and activist; un homme de lettres et un homme de la ville. He teaches courses on economics and is regularly asked to speak at international events as a leading figure within the libertarian movement. Christian also organizes a twice-monthly salon at his West London home known as the 6/20 Club and facilitates the Café Philo at the Institut français on Saturday mornings. His text, which has been slightly edited, is used with kind permission. 

Joe Strummer was the lead singer of British punk band The Clash. The lines quoted are from a song written by Strummer entitled 'Garageland' which appeared on their eponymous debut album (CBS, 1977). Click here if you want to hear it.