Category Archives: Sex

July 07

Suzuki Harunobu and Japanese Erotica

posted by

On the 7th of July 1770, allegedly, Japanese woodblock print artist Suzuki Harunobu died of a sudden illness. The place and real cause of his death remain unknown. In fact, except for his artistic endeavours, very little is known about his life at all. Born in Edo (modern Tokyo), Harunobu was the first to successfully produce […]

»»
June 21

Jacqueline Livingston: Male Nudity Against the System

posted by

On the 21st of June 2013, American photographer Jacqueline Louise Livingston (nèe Barrett) died in Ithaca, New York. Born in August 1943, Jacqueline Louise Barrrett, grew up in Chandler, Arizona, where her father worked on the Air Force base as chief of the Fire Dept. He died when she was 12 years old, leaving her […]

»»
June 11

Renée Vivien and the Trials of Lesbian Poetry

posted by

On the 11th of June 1877, English poet Renée Vivien (née Pauline Mary Tarn) was born in London to a wealthy British father and an American mother. She adopted her French name at the age of twenty-one after moving to Paris, where she lived a notorious bohemian lifestyle defined by her quirky style of dressing, turbulent […]

»»
May 24

‘Pink Narcissus’: Gay Fantasy vs Reality

posted by

On the 24th of May 1971, the American arthouse drama film by James Bidgood, Pink Narcissus, was released in New York City. The film focuses on the life of a handsome male prostitute, played by Bobby Kendall, immersed in his erotic fantasies. Like the mythological character of Narcissus, he is obsessed by his own beauty […]

»»
May 19

Oscar Wilde in Prison

posted by

On the 19th of May 1897, Irish writer Oscar Wilde was released from prison after serving a two year  sentence for criminal sodomy and “gross indecency”. He had to go through hard labor and major deprivation, a very problematic situation for a hedonist accustomed to his creature comforts. His experiences in prison were the basis […]

»»
April 16

Adler’s Bordello: Jewish Female Paths in America

posted by

On the 16th of April 1900, Pearl (Polly) Adler was born in Ivanava (Yanow), Belarus, as the oldest of 9 siblings in a traditional Jewish family. When she was 12, her father, a successful travelling tailor, decided to send her ahead as the first link in the Russian “chain emigration” to the United States to […]

»»
April 15

Leonardo da Vinci, Freud and Psychoanalysis

posted by

On the 15th of April 1452, Leonardo da Vinci was born in Vinci (hence the name), Italy. Generally considered the quintessential Renaissance Man, his input reached fields as various as painting, sculpture, architecture, music, mathematics, engineering, invention, anatomy, geology, cartography, botany and literature. His instatiable craving for knowledge is as much as a mystery as […]

»»
March 26

Spermatic Imagery in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

posted by

On the 26th of March 1892, American poet Walt Whitman died in Camden, New Jersey, aged 72. A humanist, whose work progresses from realism to transcendentalism, he is probably America’s best loved poet. His collection Leaves of Grass, which he published in 1855 with his own money, is an American epic dedicated to the common […]

»»
March 24

Wilhelm Reich: Climax To Happiness!

posted by

On the 24th of March 1897, eccentric psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich was born in the village of Dobzau, part of the old Austro-Hungarian empire (present-day Ukraine). An anti-Fascist Marxist, Reich is primarily considered the inventor of the notion of ‘sexual revolution’ who coined the phrase in the 1930s in order to illustrate his belief that a true political […]

»»
March 09

Furs and Female Domination in Sacher-Masoch’s Writing’s

posted by

On the 9th of March 1895, the Austrian writer and journalist Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (the term ‘masochism’ is derived from his name) died in Lindheim, the German Empire; although, there is some discrepant information about him having died in an insane asylum in Mannheim in 1906. Leading his life on the verge of reality […]

»»