THE AMPHITHEATRE OF
WEALTH
'If a man is not strong and rich he will obtain nothing from women'
Nefzawi in 'The perfumed Garden' (p. 78).
In the previous chapter, we described how love falls apart in seduction,
lovemaking and parenthood and how the complete sexual being falls apart
in a seducer,
a lover and
a parent. Through such falling apart, men
were transformed into insatiable satyrs
gathering around the most
beautiful but frigid woman in the amphitheatre. This drama is the outcome
of the perverse trend inbuilt in every love. As such, it is an
eternal, unchangeable and natural given. Time has come to investigate
which factors are responsible for the historical variations on this
theme.
A first series of factors only enhance the opposition between Venus frigida
and Mars insatiatus, without changing it qualitatively.
Thus, it is apparent that, on a tribal level, the pyramid of
desirability is rather modest: the top is not high and the base not
broad. The groups wherein the competition occurs are small, the levelling
effects of inbreeding too strong and the environment to which the small
groups are exposed too equal to cause great tensions. Only the
development of trade and the formation of cities and states, the
corollary development of techniques of transport or communication, more
still the development of specialised arenas such as baths and saunas,
promenades and theatres, but foremost the development of techniques for
the production of images, broaden the base and heighten the top.
Increasing differences in political and economic power in the course
of human history, though, are a factor that not only heightens the
tensions, but makes them qualitatively change into an open, disrupting
conflict.
For a proper understanding of this process, we should return to the
beautiful man that we left somewhat neglected
in the previous chapter.
Not only the women, who had no eyes for his beauty, but also we ourselves
are responsible for his deplorable position. We forgot to point to other
qualities, for which women have keener eyes. In the chapter on the
primeval mother, we described how the primeval mother as the prime mover
set her men to work. Meanwhile, we know that the most powerful weapon
to reach that goal are not so much the cries of childbirth, but her
blinding beauty, with which she seduces the male with the greatest economic
power. For him, women fall as irresistibly as men for the most beautiful
woman. In front of the amphitheatre of beauty appears the new complementary
amphitheatre of wealth.
Also in this amphitheatre, there are no dramatic differences in the
earliest phases of human history. On the contrary, tribal economy is out
at levelling every inequality. There may be big intertribal differences,
but, since there are no intertribal marriages, these cannot play a role
in mate choice. Things are different as soon as trade and cities develop.
The differences between hunters in a tribe dwindle in the face of the gap
that yawns between a mighty pharaoh and a poor peasant, between a rich
merchant and a poor manufacturer, between a wealthy capitalist and his
workers. It appears that a minority of men succeeded in boosting up their
economical power, at the detriment of an increasing majority. Further in
this chapter, we will describe which motives induce women to build up
and to boost their economical power. In expectance, we concentrate on
the consequences of the seizure of power by the men: it has been the
rule up to recently and continues to determine sexual relations in a
fundamental way.
The appearance of the wealthy man has its influence on the choice of
partners. While formerly all the men desired the most beautiful woman, now women begin to desire the man at the top of an ever more impressive and
world encompassing pyramid of wealth. The economic pyramids of male
power comes to oppose the aesthetic pyramid of women. Also this pyramid
begins to dwindle as soon as the women begin to choose.
The choice
takes the form of the exchange of beauty against wealth.
This time, the result is no factual monogamy, as when beauty is
exchanged against beauty. The wealthiest man can get all the women, but
he restricts himself to the most beautiful. Since he has lots of money,
and since the sexual reluctance of the women makes him insatiable, he
will gather as many women in his harem as possible. After he has made
his choice, it is the turn of the men on the lower steps of the
pyramid. Also they have sufficient means to lure more than one woman
into their harem.
Next, it is the turn of the middle bracket whose income suffices
for merely one woman. They have to content themselves with the crumbs fallen
from the rich men's table. Finally, it is the turn of those men who are
economically so castrated that they cannot keep a woman at all.
This pattern appears already in the tribal stage. Only the chief can
permit himself more than one wife. The rest have to setlle for one
single woman, while the young men who
are dispossessed by the chief may feel lucky when they are allowed to
share the wife of their eldest brother (fraternal polyandry). Only after
the formation of states and empires and the development of trade do we
witness the completed version of this pattern in the harem, as we
described it in chapter I ('The primeval father').
MODALITIES OF THE
EXCHANGE
Females have all interest in selling themselves to the man
nearest to the top or on the top itself. That such a man wants to keep
several women is no obstacle. First, it is more profitable to share the
purse of a wealthy man that to have a monopoly on the purse of a down
and out. But above all can women
now share the burden of motherhood, sexual
commerce and household or relegate it to women of a lesser rank.
That is a far more attractive perspective than to be a sexual partner, a
mother and a housekeeper in a monogamous marriage. Together with the
possibility to build out a polyandrous harem of working men, this is the
reason why many a women prefers polygyny above monogamy. That is why
many a beautiful has no objection in being lured into a male harem. When
all the harems are filled, there are still many women that want to find
a partner, but the candidates have not the required economical power or
the women are not attractive enough. There is a surplus of women, this
time not because there are more women, nor because they would be all
more than beautiful, but because the sum purchasing power of the
rich men
would not suffice to buy them all.
The men that bought the women, abduct them from the scene, impregnate
them and thus make them sexually reluctant. That is why it occurs to
many a man to maintain the sexual attractiveness of his women by sparing
them the fate of motherhood. Such a women is far more cheaper: he has
to maintain no children, and a women only as long as she is attractive.
Since the cost of women decreases, the number of males that can permit
themselves a women increases accordingly.
Men can lower the cost of keeping a women still further by paying their
partners, that are already reduced to sexual beings, only for the
duration of sexual commerce, or, to phrase it differently: by letting
other men have intercourse with them when they are busy elsewhere.
For
the men, that means that their sexual partners become still more cheap:
they pay merely for fragments of the period that they are sexually
attractive, while other men pay for the other fragments. The huge sums
spent in harems for keeping women who are the more idle the
more the harem is bigger, are sheer waste. Also women have an interest
in this arrangement: their beauty is far more productive when they make
an optimal use of their assets. Or, to phrase it with Vatsyayana in the Kama Sutra: 'A
courtesan that can make much money every day by serving many clients,
should not confine herself to one single lover.' Women have to work
harder now, but that lends them a higher economical status than to marry on a
lower step of the pyramid. Through the creation of such cheaper women,
the number of men that can become polygamous (or that can get a woman in
the first place)increases. Next to the feudal lords, also
merchants begin to keep concubines, and on the lowest steps of the
pyramid (for example with the countless soldiers) whoredom begins to
flourish.
THREE KINDS OF WOMEN,
ONE MAN
From an economical point of view, there are henceforward three kinds of
woman. First, there is the legal wife: a woman that becomes a mother and
engages in a lifelong relation with a husband that is a lover and a
father. A wife is an unspecialised,
complete woman: she is first beautiful, becomes a mother and tries to
remain beautiful in function of her motherhood. Concubines and whores,
on the other hand, are specialised women, who want to be women but no
mothers, half women hence, and they are maintained by men who are
equally specialised men, who want to be merely men, but no fathers, half
a man hence. They can only sell themselves during the seven beautiful
years of their life. The whore discerns herself from the concubine in
that she sells herself in fragments to fragments of a half man. To
summarise: a wife is a woman that sells herself first as a woman and
than as a mother to a whole man; a concubine is half woman that sells
herself during a fragment of her life to a half man; a whore is a
fragment of a woman that sells herself during a fragment of her life in
fragments to fragments of a man. We are dealing with three economical
modalities of the sexual relation, that should not be blurred under the
motto that it are all economical relations and that women 'sell'
themselves in all the cases. the term 'whore' can only metaphorically be
used for the economical position of a wife. It is equally mistaken to
promote the beautiful woman of the previous chapter to a 'whore' - like
Weininger and in popular speech. that would come down to obliterating
the difference between spontaneous seduction and cool calculation.
To become the wife of a rich men is the most desirable position for a
woman that has no income of her own -as has been the rule up to recently.
Through her children, she can secure an income for life from her husband.
the lower the income of the man, the more it becomes interesting for a
woman not to marry, but to sell herself as a concubine or, better still,
as a whore: a beautiful woman that serves only one man as an exclusive
concubine, uses her capital not as productive as a whore that serves
more than one man and thereby multiplies the return of her capital. For
many women, it thus can be more profitable to resign from motherhood and
to become a concubine, or, better still, a whore or if possible a
courtesan or an exclusive 'escort girl'.
thus, money is the fuel on the fire of the perverse trend. Only here
appear women who present themselves in principle as beauties to men that
only want to have sexual intercourse, with or without preliminary
foreplay. Their appearance, on the other hand, is responsible for the
removal of the sexual elaboration of the act of reproduction: in that
whores and concubines monopolise the sexuality of men, the mothers can
concentrate on reproduction and try to reduce their men to mere
begetters. The corollary of the separation of sexuality and reproduction
is the introduction of two separate roles: the role of seductress and
lover versus the role of mother, and three kinds of economical status,
the status of whore, concubine or wife.
As long a women were was economically dependent on men, three male roles
corresponded to the three female roles: the role of husband, keeper of a
concubine or whore-hopper. But the male roles are combined in one and
the same person: a man is not or husband, or keeper of a concubine or
whore-hopper. As a husband he is also a keeper of concubines or
whorehopper. Or, to phrase it with Demosthenes:
'We need heaters for our pleasure, concubines for our daily needs and
wives to give us children an keep our households'. Or with Khan i Azam Mirza Aziz Koka: 'A
man has to marry four wives: a Persian to talk with, a Churassian
to keep the household, a Hindu to look for the children and one from Mewar
Un Nahir or Transoxiana to whip in order to deter the three other'.
In woman, on the other hand, the three roles are separated:
motherhood is not favourable to whoredom or concubinate, a concubine
loses her attractiveness when she is also a whore and hence no longer
exclusive property.
THE BROTHEL
(forthcoming)
ANDROCRACY
(forthcoming)
THE BEAUTIFUL MAN (2) (forthcoming)
THE BEAUTY AND THE
PURSE
The courtesan has
to please the man,
but she should not become attached to him,
although she should behave as she were'
Vatsyayana, Kama Sutra, part VI Chapter II.
Normally, beauty is exchanged against beauty,
sex against sex, sperm against egg, and -as we shall
see in the next chapter - male labour against female labour. The
many-sided and reciprocal commerce between man and woman, that was
already reduced to one-sided interest in female beauty as a consequence
of the shortage of beautiful women, is now further reduced to a
one-sided interest in male wealth. Female beauty is no longer the
counterpart of male beauty, but of male economical power; and male
economical power in its turn is no longer the counterpart of female
economical power, but of her female beauty. The dormant asymmetry
between Venus frigida and Mars insatiatus is brought to a head in that
they come to oppose each other as the Beauty and the Purse.
Henceforward, a man is a source of income and power in the first place.
Whore nor wife are interested in the beauty of the male. It could ignite
their sexual desire. That is what makes them really frigid, this time
not because they had to make a second choice from an aesthetic point of
view, but because, from an economical point of view, no man can be rich
enough to meet their standards - and sexual favours are granted
accordingly. The frigidity becomes systematic, since no longer the
sexual, but the economical attractiveness of the male is the motif of
the choice: sexual desires are no longer important and may be suppressed
altogether That may be problematic, especially for women who
cannot refuse intercourse, as is the case with whores. Their frigidity
is no longer a refusal that may contain a promise, but a hard fact. That
many a woman learn to fake transport and orgasm, can only mislead men
who are naive, or who want to overlook their humiliation.
For the man, whose desire to make love and to impregnate is now rebuffed
on principle, money may be a means of making the double perversion of
his wife undone. Wives are prepared to bear children in so far as that
secures them a lifelong income, but there can be no talk of making love
without reproduction. A husband can either force his wife, or maintain a
concubine or pay a whore. But the whore does not receive him because she
desires him sexually, nor because he seduced her with his beauty, but
because the gold coins are jingling in his purse.
The very same money that makes men insatiable, makes women frigid. The
frigidity of women is only the counterpart of their insatiable thirst
for money. Thus, Venus frigida is transformed into a thief: she
accepts money for something she does not give.
Conversely, men buy what they cannot get otherwise.
Thus, Mars insatiatus is transformed into a rapist, and that makes Venus
all the more frigid. Through the conversion of symmetric into asymmetric
exchange, every reciprocity in the relation between man and woman
disappears. The asymmetry of the exchange of beauty for wealth debases
sexual intercourse to the simultaneity of rape and theft. Two aspects of
the complete relation - seduction through beauty and economical
cooperation - come to be diametrically opposed. A fatal cross! Only
under such sign holds what Briffault worded so poignantly: 'Women are
sexual pray for men and men are economical prey for women'.
And no (socio-)biological explanation should be constructed for the fact
that everywhere intercourse is considered to be a favour granted by
women to men, rather than the other way round, regardless of the
question which sex enjoys most or is supposed to enjoy most, as Symons
remarked.
MORTIFICATIO VENERIS
The asymmetric exchange of beauty for wealth not only disrupts the
relation between man and woman, but is internalised in both sexes as
inner division.
Whores are forced to intercourse, wives to pregnancy. Whores relieve
wives form the burden of intercourse, wives relieve whores from the
burden of motherhood. The two halves in which woman is split turn
against themselves: whores en wives reject in each other the half from
which they resigned - witness the periodically returning phenomenon of
the sometimes fierce conflicts between wives and whores (and their
successors in pornography). Not only do they scorn the rejected halves,
they also scorn the halves to which they have reduced themselves. The
whore scorns intercourse to which she is dammed and the wife motherhood.
To the whore, intercourse is contemptible and reproduction impossible.
The conflict rages in all its heaviness, because she earns her money
with having sex and because she can only do so when she is not pregnant.
The whore thus becomes the living negation of her womanhood. To a wife,
pregnancy becomes contemptible and seduction impossible. Also here does
the conflict rage in all its intensity, because a wife can only secure
her income as a mother.
Only now do we understand the deeper background of sexual and maternal
frigidity. Female hostility against bearing children is only obfuscated
in the myth of maternal love, not otherwise than sexual frigidity in the
myth of the sexually gratifying woman: both exist only as a promise in
fantasy or in art.
MORTIFICATIO
MARTIS (1): LOSS OF MANHOOD
The asymmetric exchange of beauty for wealth hurts man as well. In his
creation of whore and wife, man also initiated his inner division in
lover and father.
And that wound is only deepened through his attempts to get the money
with which he can force intercourse with whores and impregnation with
wives. For man can only become economically desirable at the detriment
of his sexual desirability. He desires woman sexually, but is only
appreciated for his economical value. Before gratifying his sexual urge,
he has to perform well first, and he can only achieve that in
cultivating his talents through exercise or study. Except when it is
inherited, wealth has to be acquired through personal effort: Scott Fitzgerald's 'Great Gastby' or Kubrick's 'Barry
Lyndon' had to retire for years to work themselves up before returning
to the amphitheatre after their first rejection, this time with a
jingling purse. And that is not only so in literature. Caesar had to
first conquer Gaul before marrying Cleopatra, Kennedy had to first
become president before getting >Marilyn Monroe, Onassis had to first
make a fortune before gaining Maria Callas - a pity that he did not like
music. Sartre declares bluntly: 'that I have become a philosopher, that
I so eagerly desire to become famous, has only one reason: the seduction
of women'. And when female fans were crowding around Dustin Hoffman he
cried out suddenly:' where were you when I needed you?'.
Instead of going to the amphitheatre, a young man has to isolate himself
in his study, workplace or office. Whereas a whore was to be desirable
the whole day round and condemns herself thereby to intercourse, a young
man has to work a whole day and condemns himself thereby to asceticism. No
doubt, labour ennobles, but it brings also fatigue and is lethal to
sexual appetite. Idleness, fluttering deconcentration and refreshing
sleep are the best aphrodisiacs. Not for nothing did Forel write:
'Abundant food and idleness stir sexual desire and prompt to polygamy, while intense labour, especially physical labour, brings rest'.
Precisely the key to sexual activity kills sexual desire. Kissinger was
right with his dictum that power is the most powerful aphrodisiac, but
he forgot to mention that the means to acquire it have more in common
with camphor.
the daily struggle against seduction must be continued for years. Only
after an often lifelong effort can a man be rich enough to conquer the
most desirable woman at the top of the pyramid. The longer it takes
before the desired goal is reached, the weaker not so much the very
sexual desire it was all about, but rather sexual potency, that begins
to decrease precisely at the moment that one's desirability is at its
height - not to mention physical beauty: the beautiful young man is
degraded to a withered old man, with a flabby skin, bristly eyebrows,
big ears and hears in his nose. No doubt, many a woman does not object
such worn-old old men, but for the men themselves, nothing more is left
than to look on from the wings. To have his harem filled, a primeval
father has not so much to castrate his sons, as rather to sacrifice his
own sexual nature on the altar of the golden calf..
On the lower steps of the pyramid the struggle against sexuality is
imposed in a more indirect way. The poor on the bottom of the pyramid have to work not only for his own wife, but
also for the king, the merchant or the capitalist, and thus also for
their wives, concubines and whores. The extra time that the economically
weak have to spend on extra work is taken from their relation, and since they are bereaved from a part of their income
they become less
attractive sexual partners. Even when they work hard, they will
never reach the top of the pyramid. Even when a handful of lucky guys can
better their situation, the majority has no prospects for a better
future and many a man on the edge of the raft threatens to glide in
the water. The autocastration of the primeval father is completed in the
castration that he imposes on the subjects that produce his wealth. Add
to this both forms of castration the unwillingness to make love with
sexually frigid women, and you have a clear view on the sexual drama in
the beehive or the termite hill!
Only the blessed one who is beautiful ànd who
inherits his wealth can escape such fate. In the full possession of his
beauty and sexual potency, he can acquire the
most beautiful women, and there is some probability that they will do
more than merely exchange of beauty for wealth.
Such male autocastration is seldom described, let alone explained.
Michelet explains man's decrease in sexual
attractiveness through the specialisation that is required to be
successful in a profession, an art or a
science. Weininger is somewhat more explicit: 'While women is totally
occupied with sexuality,
man has dozens of interests' or: 'Woman is exclusively sexual, man is
also sexual'. Also with Freud, man is capable of higher forms of sublimation than
woman. In his wake, Unwin believes that the
superiority of civilized nations lies in their monogamous restriction of
sexuality.
MORTIFICATIO
MARTIS (2): LOSS
OF FATHERHOOD
The economical desirability not only destroys man's
sexual attractiveness and potency, it also bereaves him of his fatherly
nature. The harder a man must work to make his way to the top - or to
maintain the women of other men at the top - the less time he will be
able to spend with his children and the more he will be obliged to
relegate his task to his wife or to specialised educators. His
fatherhood is reduced to impregnation. And also here does the economical
position further corrode male desire: the more children a man has, the
lesser his economical power. That is why he wishes his secondary) wives to be childless.
Thus, the very money that made man triumph over woman, turns itself
against its creator. It reduces him to a breadwinner or a careerist that
may now and then plant a seed and does not find a proper outlet for his
sexuality. This is a moment of truth in Freud's story of the primeval
father: that he chases his sons! Money cannibalises not only the nature
of woman, but also that of man. Man loses his manhood and his
fatherhood: that is the double meaning of castration, of which Freud
described only the sexual aspect
THE TELESCOPING OF
LIFE
But we are not finished yet. Our lament comes only to its apogee when we widen our perspective. Whereas
man's wealth increases with the very age that diminishes his sexual
attractiveness, female beauty withers away when she becomes older. No
woman escapes the fate that is so poignantly represented in Rodin's 'Celle qui fût la
belle Heaulmière: the tragedy of figures like Brigitte Bardot, Sylvia Christel....
In such contradictory development of
attractiveness, the asymmetry of the exchange of beauty against wealth
unfolds in full glory: old rich men come to oppose young beautiful
women. After years of research, David Buss
found that men prefer young women and women older men. The
specialisation of women to a seductress and of men to breadwinner leads
to a reduction of the attractive phase of life, which
is all the more painful since, for a woman, life is reduced to youth
and, for a man, to old age.
Such asymmetry is only obscured because a man does not always wait until
he is old before marrying, and that a woman
does not wait until the prince of her dreams comes along on his white
horse. As a young man, he is already content when he can marry a wife
- as a rule a woman that is situated on the lower
steps of the pyramid. Second choice, hence. His gaze (just like that of
his wife) remains fixed on the top of the pyramid, in view of which he
builds up his economic power. Ascending the higher steps brings more
attractive women within reach. Thus, man approaches his ideal partner
step by step. That results in a chain of relations, each for the
duration of the bloom of one single woman: we already referred tot the
way in which Ibn Saud had four hundred women pass the review. Compared
with such a palmarès, the collections of figures like Picasso and Chaplin
dwindle into nothingness. In principle, a man thereby consumes the seven times seven fat years of seven
women. To him, the meagre years only become fatter. In the polygamous
version, a man takes the more wives the more his economic potential
increases. On a tribal level, it is as a rule only older men that
keep more than one women, while the younger men have
to content themselves with one single woman or
no woman at all.
Only here does the 'shortage of wealthy men' create the surplus of woman
that is required to realise polygamy. Pitt Rivers overlooks how much the
economic inequalities in polygamous societies are responsible for the
postponement of marriable age of men and thereby for the relative
surplus of women.
That goes only for men who can climb up in a mobile society. The
counterpart of those who climb up step by step are those for whom the
postponement equals cancellation. After having worked a lifelong the are
left with as much - or as little - money as in the beginning, so that
they are compelled to end their life with the same women.
Totally different is the fate of the women. Their career evolves in the opposite direction: from high status to
low status, and without intermediary steps: from heaven they land up in
hell. To them, the seven fat years are
followed by forty-two meagre years. After the
decline of their beauty, many a harem woman has been married out to men situated lower on the pyramid, or she had to
manage as whore or matchmaker, as far as she did not retire in a
cloister or was reduced to the beggar's staff.
That goes only for the beautiful women that knew to seduce a wealthy man.
The lesser beauties do not fall, since they never climbed up. For fear of
free fall, many a woman chooses for motherhood:
that ensures them of faithful men.
Under such conditions, the ideal career for a woman is to snare an
old rich man when she is young, to reap his inheritance when he dies,
and then to marry a young men to bear him children and let them sire by
less fortunate women, so that she can continue to parade in the
amphitheatre as long as her beauty allows her to do so, and when it has withered away, to lure young men with the
gold out of the purse of her deceased husband.
The telescoping of the attractive lifespan to the seven beautiful years
of woman, and the seven affluent years of the old man, of necessity
leads to a multiplication of relations: The man who keeps ever new
beauties is not only polygamous in as far as he consumes more than one
beauties simultaneously of keeps more than one wife, but equally
promiscuous, in as far as these relations succeed one another. Such
promiscuity will be the subject of our next chapter.
THE SHADOW THEATRE'
The best paid
whore Athenlais, who sets the city in fire and flame,
lies naked beside me in my dream, the whole night through until dawn,
and she gives herself to me for nothing.
No longer will I shun beauty, nor complain myself,
since sleep grants me such delight'.
An anonymous Greek.
The exchange of beauty for wealth brings no solace to the men who are
consumed by sexual desire. To make love with a frigid woman makes a man
lose all inclination for it: the crux of excitation is in exciting. Whence many a man is fascinated by the sight of
women satisfying each other or themselves, even when he is thereby utterly excluded.
No wonder that women learn how to fake
excitation, or that men complete what is
missing in their imagination. Here lie the roots of the image-ination of
the excited woman. The belly dancer in the harem, who stages not only seduction but orgasm as well, is
gradually replaced with the fleshless two-dimensional image. We already described the stages in this process
in the previous chapter (Helen). In this amphitheatre of the image,
women are bereaved of precisely the body that testifies to their
refusal. They are sublimated into pure images.
An image, such is the ideal woman for many a man:
beautiful, seducing and desiring, and at his disposition without ado.
Woman as an image can only be admired, and spares many a man the
deception of being rejected. As an image, woman is even more cheap than
a whore. No wonder that the activity in the
real amphitheatres dwindles. Many men
prefer to take place in the shadow theatre, where they choose a mate to
eventually retire and make love in isolation. Already in ancient times,
a man got so enamoured with the statue of Aphrodite that Praxiteles had
sculpted after the model of Phryne, that he came
to embrace it at night, and left a stain on it.
Thus, the harems that had been succeeded by
the brothels, are further dissolved in the starry sky of images, gazed
at by greedy eyes from the darkness of the cinema or the living room.
In the shadow theatre, the harem resurges on a higher technological
level. In as far as the erotic images are gazed at by millions of eyes,
the shadow theatre exponentiates the range of exhibitionistic polyandry. In
as far as each onlooker deems himself the only onlooker, generalised but
imaginary promiscuity might be a better circumscription of this pattern
of social relations.
After the wife, the concubine and the whore, man created himself finally
a fourth kind of woman, the cheapest of all: woman as a pure appearance.
He thus ends up like Fellini's Casanova in the arms of a mechanically
moved puppet (the echo of the puppet with which Oskar Kokoschka went to theatre
or that with which Bellmer constructed his sadistic phantasies.
Also Dali's 'Christ of Cadaquez', who with his stretched arms entwined
with the womb's ovaries is sucking his own penis, belongs to this
series, just like the passionate masturbator Nietzsche who cries out 'I
live in my own light, I drink back into myself the flames that break
from me.'
Also woman phantasise, as we described in 'Venus Frigida' (chapter III).
Just like their frigidity, also their phantasy has different roots:
phantasising is the umptiest form of triumph over Mars Insatiatus.
Whence also the weak interest of women for the image: indulging in the
delight of an image might testify to much to their humiliating
dependence. She rather prefers the mirror on the wall.
It will not be superfluous to remind of the fact that also commerce with
imaginary or represented partners is commerce. Or, to phrase it with
Paul: also sinful thoughts are sinful. Whoever phantasises of another
partner when making love - which is already recommended in the Kama
Sutra and is a widespread practice also in our times - is unfaithful,
and in a very subtle way at that: nobody will ever know it. And those
who know, may be so numbed that they even do not feel hurt. Borneman,
sexologist and expert on jealousy, tries to clear a woman from the
charge of unfaithfulness with the excuse that she precisely had not been
unfaithful, but just satisfied herself...
The progression from harem over brothel to shadow theatre goes hand in
hand with an increasing sexual dearth. Sexuality is withdrawing from
real life. In the harem, every woman has a sexual relation. With the
advent of specialised whores, the mothers are bereaved of sexual
relations (with our without their consent). Since the advent of the
shadow theatre, also whores begin to loose their clients. Sexual
activity increases, but social contacts decrease. This evolution
preludes the advent of generalised asceticism, which will be the subject
of chapter VIII.
MANY FORMS OF
POLYGAMY (2)
Before tackling the next chapter, we should dwell somewhat on the
consequences of the foregoing for our understanding of polygamy. At the
end of chapter III on the 'Beautiful woman', we had to reconsider
the concept of polygamy by differentiating between polygamy of
seduction, mating, reproduction and cooperation. After this
chapter IV on 'The wealthy man', we stumble upon a new problem. 'Gamos'
means 'marriage'. In the strict sense, polygamy means to be married with
more than one person. We propose to so widen
the concept as to have it encompass the less complete and less enduring
relations with whores and concubines, as well as all kinds of seduction
and commerce with images.
Polygamy means not only that one is married with more than one partner,
but also that one keeps more than one
concubine, that one goes to the more than one
whore or that one takes delight in looking at many
images.
Polygamy can also mean that one is monogamously
married with more than one partner, but
also has relations with concubines, whores or images.
Most frequent is the combination of a relation with a wife to have
children with and a relation with a concubine for sexual intercourse, or
the combination of a relation with a real wife and a polygamous relation
with countless images in the shadow theatre. Many authors are
biased when only focussing on marriage in the
economical sense. They can then assert that Westerners are monogamous:
their extra-marital relations or their escapades in the shadow theatre
can bluntly be overlooked. Thus, Malinowski
does not include sexual relations in his
conception of 'marriage'. Murdock only succeeds in reducing polyandry to
an
'anthropologic curiosum' after asserting that sexual relations are no
marriages. According to the same Murdock, the
extension of the sexual rights of a man to sisters of his wife or of a
woman to the brothers of her husband is by no means an exceptional
phenomenon. The conclusion must be that polygyny and polyandry are far
more frequent than most people are prepared to
assume (and that goes also for sexual communism and promiscuity, which
shall be dealt with in the next chapters).
The developments described in 'The beautiful woman' and 'The wealthy
man' should not only invite us to differentiate the concept of
'polygamy'. They also make it clear that the new kinds of relations can
no longer be understood in terms of one-sided polygamy. A whore is
sexually polyandrous in as far as she has many faithful clients, as is
often the case with the most beautiful and most successful whores. But
she cannot claim the exclusive love of the lovers in her harem. Apart
from their relation with a whore, most men have also a relation with a
wife (or other whores). The counterpart of the polyandry of the whore is
the polygyny of the males: there is no longer question of one-sided
polygamy, but from reciprocal polygamy. The term 'polygamy' is not at
all applicable when the whore has only non-recurrent relations with her
clients, since such a interaction cannot be called a 'relation', let
alone a 'gamos'. That is why we want to introduce the term 'promiscuity'
for that kind of one-off relations.
Thus, the whore confronts us with two new kinds of relations: reciprocal
polygamy and promiscuity. these will be the subject of or our next
diptych.