My gig as reviewer at Edenfantasys caught me a wee bit off guard last week. Basically the guys over there, who are super cool, were like, “Sam, whatever you want to review is fine with us.”
“Whatever I want to review?”
“Yes,” they repeated. “Whatever.”
They have a pretty enormous catalog at EF, which includes not only movies, but toys and book and CDs and everything that you could think of that’s sex-related. My last review was of a movie, so I figured I’d get sort of “creative” and review one of their audio materials. I have a long-standing interest in audio; and also, I like fucking; so I thought I’d be well-prepared for a li’l CD coming straight-of-out-Georgia in 2005, called “Music To Make Love To.”
Oh, how I was wrong. I was assaulted from the jump, beginning with the cover art of the CD. Now, not to be niggling or whatever, ’cause some cover art represents the music contained therein a bit over-accurately, and some cover art talks down to its viewers, and essentially in the end it shouldn’t much matter. But this bad boy takes it to a new level. Basically it’s just walloping you over the head with a petal-flavored clitoris. Georgia O’Keefe would blush if she saw that erect little mama coming towards her.
Now for the music. You are probably going to want to put some headphones on before getting into this baby:
That was called “Waves of Ecstasy.” Pretty embarrassing, huh? I want to know all about Suzie Johnson (co-writer) and Danny Jones (arranger, producer, recorder) and the way they get down. (Number one, are they “making love” to one other? Did “sparks fly” in the studio?) Now, either they are very cynical, and they think they can put one over on some unsuspecting customers by creating the latest in new age nut-cheese and labeling it “audio erotica,” or they actually do think that madness is sexy, which makes me believe that they want to create some mental picture of a Hawaiian Luau Orgy with tons of sex-positive anal lubricant and then a frank, open discussion afterwards about the virtues of taking a bath with your cat watching you.
Look: I know music is subjective, and everybody likes something different. My old girlfriend liked to fuck to Nirvana. I thought that was sort of strange. A little too agressive for me. So what? I indulged her. And I’m glad I did. This is my main point: sex-positivity and new age music (not collapsing those two things; they are separate and distinct categories, I know) have awful reputations already. Both are well-meaning genres; and this well-meaningness often comes across as a kind of mental sogginess, a sputtering goo that hardy Republican shitheads characterize as “bleeding-heart” and smart cynics just sneer at. We must not give these people further ammunition to laugh at us.
I’m a sex-positive man through and through - or at least, I’m trying to be. There’s evil in me; but there’s evil in everyone, and that’s the thing. Sex-positivity is going to have to acknowledge the blackness and the foulness if it’s going to get to the next level. It must come to terms with the regular, crass, boring, workaday rigid boner that’s carried around by the most-well-meaning and the friendliest dudes among us.
The enemy is not aggression or hostility. The enemy is fake positivity: fake happiness, fake laughter, fake sensuality, and fake compassion. There’s simply nothing worse out there. I’d rather hang out with Bill O’Reilly and get an earful of his backwards dogma, because at least he’s not trying to snow me. This whole Jamaican Beach Luau with steel drums pulsating and coconut oil smeared on a seventeen-year old teen pig in “Waves of Ecstasy” is a lie, and that gets me angry. It gets me angry because it’s co-opting something rather special. Sex is special. Sex with someone you love is sacred. Waves of actual ecstasy are rare and wondrous things. True sadness, real emotion and challenging thoughtfulness is actually the kind of music I’d like to make love to.
But it’s all relative. What music IS great music to make love to? Barry White?
It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s worked for millions.
 |
