Voluptuous Panic

Back in November I bought this book from the Neue Galerie in NYC while attending a Klimt exhibit. (I was trying to think of wholesome things to do by myself over the long Thanksgiving weekend. Klimt and Weimar Germany were the only ideas I could come up with. No wait...I did also go look at trees in Central Park that weekend!)

Anyhow, I put the book aside at the time and have just now really been looking at it. Aside from all the spanking photos that I love so, I am also struck (figuratively) by how much this picture of a Weimar coke-addict ("Dangerous Passion" by Manasse) looks, to me, EXACTLY like Joan Crawford! (Oh, if only more coke whores looked like that...)

When I was looking for references to the book online. I came across one woman's blog, where she talked about taking a lunch break to go "fondle" this book at a Barnes and Noble before "furtively" buying it... For some reason this reminded me of a former co-worker back in Austin. When I once mentioned in passing that I was gay, she then proudly recounted the time she'd been to a leather bar! She'd gone along with a friend of hers who was doing a "sociological study" for her Master's degree that involved visiting local gay bars in Austin, including a leather bar that was mere blocks from my house at the time (where I'd often gone with my then-girlfriend): "And they almost didn't let us in because we looked too straight, but we explained it was for a study, so they said it was OK! I had a great time!"

Wait, what was my point? Oh, maybe about people attempting to pose as "provocateurs." It seemed to me that the above-mentioned blog-woman and co-worker were trying to portray themselves as being really "hep" and decadent. By... (1) BUYING A BOOK AT BARNES AND NOBLE (!), and (2) going with a herd of nerdy friends to a leather bar, where the kindly door-guys were amused and let them in.

Their attempts at "learning" were/are relatively touching, but still... After their reports back from "the edge," one just can't help wanting to see them actually injected or spanked or...something! Sigh. I guess completely ignorant Republicans are much worse. But...arrrrgh. Yuppie liberals still pain me (only figuratively/furtively/fondlingly).