Winning artist profile: Nathalie Daoust
By Celio Barreto
nathalie daoust
daoustnathalie.com
training
Photography degree at Cegep du Vieux, Montreal
media
35mm analog photography plus hand-printing
artist q&a
What are you presenting here?
My latest project - "Tokyo Hotel Story" - continuing my exploration of female sexuality and subversion of gender stereotypes. I spent several months living in Alpha In, one of the biggest love hotels in Japan, and made intimate portraits of 39 women in hotel rooms, surrounded by the specialist equipment and dressed in the regalia that define their trade. I believe numerous challenges still exist in terms of confronting deep-rooted stereotypes of gender-roles. My work helps me to delve beyond taboos while showing the universal human desire to escape reality and create fantasy worlds that often oscillate between dream, reality and perversion.
Why are you doing what you are doing?
To explore the border between dream and reality and where people go to escape. I also like to push the boundaries of photography through experimental methods, working with new mediums and discovering new techniques in the darkroom.
What are your aspirations?
Since my very first experiments in photography I have been fascinated by human behavior and its various realities, by the ever-present human desire of escaping and living in a dream world. Photography allows me to go deeper into those worlds and to discover different philosophy without judging.
the experts' view
Celio H. Barreto: This artist's works inhabit both the real and the fantasy worlds of lust and desire, pain and pleasure. Daoust's photographs are a complex compositions of elements and references that come together to create single, powerful images. Her use of shallow focus and sepia tones give the final subjects the feel of a historical document. This seems to address the ancient and always-present sexual desires of human beings. The dichotomy between pain and pleasure is evident in the context of each figure and the classical composition of each picture.
Guido Saldaña: The answer to what goes on behind closed doors, the pleasure fest of imagery for the bizzarre voyeur in us all.
Sightseeing in Akihabara or Kabukicho?
Tokyo Realtime Audio Guides: Your Personal Tours of Akihabara and Kabuki-cho
By Manuel Gere
Getting to know Tokyo's most interesting wards is one of the great pleasures of living in Japan, though it can be a haphazard process that takes years of trial, error, more error and disorientation (not to mention stacks of ichi-man-en bills).
Enter Tokyo Realtime Audio Guided Walking Tours, an ingenious new series of products designed to introduce you to areas of the capital - beginning with Akihabara and Kabuki-cho - by means of the spoken word and simple English-language maps.
Each of these packages contains a glossy photo booklet of its area, a map of Tokyo Realtime's suggested tour route, and a CD containing an hour-long MP3 audio guide to pretty much everything of note as you follow the directions you hear in your headphones.
The Akihabara journey is relatively concise yet it's packed with detailed history and anecdotes, which help to bring the area to life without overwhelming you with unnecessary information. The narrator is Patrick W. Galbraith, author of The Otaku Encyclopedia and internationally famous Akiba tour guide (you can often find him cosplaying as Goku from Dragon Ball Z), who speaks clearly and entertainingly on all sorts of subjects - from maids and manga and to electronics and games.
Meanwhile in Kabuki-cho your tour guide will direct you to the area's most colorful destinations, including a remarkably seedy venue called "Sky Heart" - a plane-themed sex shop where patrons can have their way with employees who are dressed as flight attendants. As with Akihabara, there's a lot more to Kabuki-cho than people initially suspect, and the narrator does an excellent job of unraveling its secrets and debunking certain myths.
As for the Tokyo Realtime concept itself, it's surprisingly easy to get to grips with. Just transfer the MP3 file to your iPhone/iPod/whatever and take the small map included to the tour's starting point (the Electric Town exit of JR Akihabara Station, or the gates of Yasukuni-dori in Kabuki-cho), then press PLAY and begin walking. Of course you'll want to press PAUSE every time you stop to look at things in closer detail, but the user-friendly pacing and clarity of the narration means you'll rarely, if ever, need to skip back through the recording.
With plenty of surprises even for those of us who are already based in Japan, and even more useful information for those who are just visiting, Realtime Tokyo is a clever concept done extremely well. At just $12 each, these guides are also excellent value for money. Click here to snap them up!
The Smuttiest French Novel Ever Written
The Smuttiest French Novel Ever Written, Still Shocking 50 Years Later
A new graphic novel based on Story of O.
By Sasha Watson
Posted Thursday, March 4, 2010, at 1:23 PM ET
The Story of O.A woman's existence, wrote French literary critic Dominique Aury in 1958, is "charged with truths of two kinds: those concerning submission and folly in love –– and those regarding daily life." These days, much of the writing about women's lives tends to concern daily life—work, child care, Internet dating—rather than passion. Occasionally, though, the folly bursts to the surface in all its tumultuous glory. One such moment has just arrived in the form of a graphic-novel adaptation of the dirtiest and most daring of French books—one that still feels shocking more than 50 years after it was first published.
NBM's Eurotica comics line has just released a deluxe new edition of Guido Crépax's Story of O, based on the quintessentially smutty French novel of the same name. When the novel was pseudonymously published in 1954, it rocked the small Parisian literary world. The intelligentsia had reason to believe it was written by one of their own, and they went wild with guessing. George Plimpton, André Malraux, and Raymond Queneau were all suspects; still others claimed to have written it themselves. The main character, O, is a Parisian fashion photographer who submits to no end of sexual torture for the pleasure of her directing lover. In his approving presence, she is whipped, raped, and abused in countless ways. The author, whose identity was kept secret for 40 years, was revealed in 1994. To the horror of some, and confirming the suspicions of others, she turned out to be a woman, Dominique Aury, who had written the novel to depict her own fantasies.
What's shocking about Story of O is just how shocking it really is. You'd think, in our pornified culture, that a novel scandalous in 1954 might appear quaint today. But no. Aury delivers the hard stuff straight on, and it's just as potent now as it was back then. The book begins with O and her lover, René, walking through the Parc Montsouris, an idyll that ends as René guides O into a mysteriously waiting car and delivers her to a castle at Roissy, just outside the city. There, she is stripped, bound, and made to submit to the whims of a host of masked men.
By Page 10, the doors of the castle at Roissy have slammed shut, and we see O gang-raped for the first, but not the last, time. The scene is unapologetically horrifying, and we're given no context for it, nothing to leaven the abuse that leaves O "sobbing and befouled by tears" while "the furrow of her loins … burned so she could hardly bear it."
Beyond the pure violence of these acts, it is O's attitude of unwavering consent that startles. Upon leaving Roissy after two weeks, she observes:
That she should have been ennobled and gained in dignity through being prostituted was a source of surprise, and yet dignity was indeed the right term. She was illuminated by it, as though from within, and her bearing bespoke calm, while on her face could be detected the serenity and imperceptible smile that one surmises rather than actually sees in the eyes of hermits.
What would make a woman exult in her own submission? It was in an interview with John de St. Jorre in the New Yorker in 1994 that Dominique Aury revealed her identity, admitting, at last, that she had written the novel for her lover, Jean Paulhan, a prominent intellectual who had written the introduction, "Happiness in Slavery." Aury and the married Paulhan had had an affair, which began in the 1930s, when she was in her 30s and he in his 60s, and continued until his death in 1968. In the interview with St. Jorre, Aury movingly states that she wrote the novel out of a fear that Paulhan would leave her. "What could I do?" she asks, "I wasn't young, I wasn't pretty, it was necessary to find other weapons." The weapon she chose captivated not only Paulhan but generations of readers, inspiring countless tributes and adaptations, including a movie starring Udo Kier, a song by the Dresden Dolls, and a short film by Lars von Trier.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that a few feminist critics have taken issue with all this, calling it male fantasy at its worst and accusing Aury (or Réage) of betraying her gender. Aury's response, as told to St. Jorre, was that she had simply written scenes from her own fantasy life, begun when she was a teenager. "All I know is that they were honest fantasies," says Aury, "whether they were male or female, I couldn't say." She also states the obvious by saying that the book wasn't meant as an instruction manual. "There is no reality here. Nobody could stand to be treated like that. It's entirely fantastic."
It may be fantasy, but many agree that it's something more, too. As the writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues, a contemporary of Aury's, put it in the introductory note written for the novel's 1965 English-language publication, it is "not dependent upon the sensual fire," but on something that is "genuine," "mystic," and "anything but vulgar." Mystic or not, one can't help but feel, when reading Story of O, that there's something more than pornography going on here, that what Aury is really portraying is the beating heart of passion at its wildest and most raw.
It's the great paradox of women's lives that we are expected to begin life with a passionate union and then immediately put it away and get on with the business of working and raising children. Adult women who get stuck on the passion are deemed unstable or tragic. Given that, it takes an extreme act—an act of self sacrifice—to break out of the bind.
Daphne Merkin wrote about giving herself over to spanking in her New Yorker essay, "Unlikely Obsession." Toni Bentley wrote her strange and surprisingly great ode to anal sex, The Surrender, in 2004; Cristina Nehring summed up the instinct in her refreshing apologia for passion in literature and life, A Vindication of Love, writing, "every aspect of romance from meeting to mating has been streamlined, safety-checked, and emptied of spiritual consequence." Dominique Aury lit the way with Story of O, a novel that begins and ends with messy degradation, and in which every physical act leads to spiritual transcendence.
Crépax's beautiful drawings of naked women encased in a velvety black cover are worth drooling over. But the images, which can be merely voyeuristic in the absence of Aury's layered writing, do not quite get at the crux of the novel. Somehow the pictures themselves emphasize the sex and domination and not the nature of passion itself. Throughout the book, O and René exchange assurances of love, and right at the heart of the story, O describes the beginning of this passion:
In the space of a week, she learned fear, but certainty; anguish, but happiness. René threw himself at her like a pirate at his prisoner, and she reveled in her captivity, feeling on her wrists, her ankles, feeling on all her members and in the secret depths of her heart and body, bonds less visible than the finest strands of hair, more powerful than the cables the Lilliputians used to tie up Gulliver, bonds her lover loosened or tightened with a glance. She was no longer free? Yes! thank God, she was no longer free. But she was light, a nymph on clouds, a fish in water, lost in happiness.
In describing the place where violence and tenderness, pleasure and pain, love and brutality all meet, she's not describing an eccentric fetish culture, but a universal desire. We can all recognize in this description the thrilling vulnerability of falling in love. To forge a deep connection with another human being is to transcend the bounds of our selves, Aury is saying, and only then can we truly be free.
Aury was in her 40s when she wrote Story of O. Paulhan was long-married and staying that way. Though their relationship was relatively public, they weren't about to buy a house in the suburbs, have some kids, and get active in the local French PTA. What they had was passion, and it was this passion that Aury celebrated in the novel she wrote and offered, chapter by chapter, to Paulhan. She was that rare woman, who, whether by chance or by choice, was not seduced by the rewards of domesticating her love. She stayed in the passion, explored it, and gave it to her readers whole.
A new graphic novel based on Story of O.
By Sasha Watson
Posted Thursday, March 4, 2010, at 1:23 PM ET
The Story of O.A woman's existence, wrote French literary critic Dominique Aury in 1958, is "charged with truths of two kinds: those concerning submission and folly in love –– and those regarding daily life." These days, much of the writing about women's lives tends to concern daily life—work, child care, Internet dating—rather than passion. Occasionally, though, the folly bursts to the surface in all its tumultuous glory. One such moment has just arrived in the form of a graphic-novel adaptation of the dirtiest and most daring of French books—one that still feels shocking more than 50 years after it was first published.
NBM's Eurotica comics line has just released a deluxe new edition of Guido Crépax's Story of O, based on the quintessentially smutty French novel of the same name. When the novel was pseudonymously published in 1954, it rocked the small Parisian literary world. The intelligentsia had reason to believe it was written by one of their own, and they went wild with guessing. George Plimpton, André Malraux, and Raymond Queneau were all suspects; still others claimed to have written it themselves. The main character, O, is a Parisian fashion photographer who submits to no end of sexual torture for the pleasure of her directing lover. In his approving presence, she is whipped, raped, and abused in countless ways. The author, whose identity was kept secret for 40 years, was revealed in 1994. To the horror of some, and confirming the suspicions of others, she turned out to be a woman, Dominique Aury, who had written the novel to depict her own fantasies.
What's shocking about Story of O is just how shocking it really is. You'd think, in our pornified culture, that a novel scandalous in 1954 might appear quaint today. But no. Aury delivers the hard stuff straight on, and it's just as potent now as it was back then. The book begins with O and her lover, René, walking through the Parc Montsouris, an idyll that ends as René guides O into a mysteriously waiting car and delivers her to a castle at Roissy, just outside the city. There, she is stripped, bound, and made to submit to the whims of a host of masked men.
By Page 10, the doors of the castle at Roissy have slammed shut, and we see O gang-raped for the first, but not the last, time. The scene is unapologetically horrifying, and we're given no context for it, nothing to leaven the abuse that leaves O "sobbing and befouled by tears" while "the furrow of her loins … burned so she could hardly bear it."
Beyond the pure violence of these acts, it is O's attitude of unwavering consent that startles. Upon leaving Roissy after two weeks, she observes:
That she should have been ennobled and gained in dignity through being prostituted was a source of surprise, and yet dignity was indeed the right term. She was illuminated by it, as though from within, and her bearing bespoke calm, while on her face could be detected the serenity and imperceptible smile that one surmises rather than actually sees in the eyes of hermits.
What would make a woman exult in her own submission? It was in an interview with John de St. Jorre in the New Yorker in 1994 that Dominique Aury revealed her identity, admitting, at last, that she had written the novel for her lover, Jean Paulhan, a prominent intellectual who had written the introduction, "Happiness in Slavery." Aury and the married Paulhan had had an affair, which began in the 1930s, when she was in her 30s and he in his 60s, and continued until his death in 1968. In the interview with St. Jorre, Aury movingly states that she wrote the novel out of a fear that Paulhan would leave her. "What could I do?" she asks, "I wasn't young, I wasn't pretty, it was necessary to find other weapons." The weapon she chose captivated not only Paulhan but generations of readers, inspiring countless tributes and adaptations, including a movie starring Udo Kier, a song by the Dresden Dolls, and a short film by Lars von Trier.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that a few feminist critics have taken issue with all this, calling it male fantasy at its worst and accusing Aury (or Réage) of betraying her gender. Aury's response, as told to St. Jorre, was that she had simply written scenes from her own fantasy life, begun when she was a teenager. "All I know is that they were honest fantasies," says Aury, "whether they were male or female, I couldn't say." She also states the obvious by saying that the book wasn't meant as an instruction manual. "There is no reality here. Nobody could stand to be treated like that. It's entirely fantastic."
It may be fantasy, but many agree that it's something more, too. As the writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues, a contemporary of Aury's, put it in the introductory note written for the novel's 1965 English-language publication, it is "not dependent upon the sensual fire," but on something that is "genuine," "mystic," and "anything but vulgar." Mystic or not, one can't help but feel, when reading Story of O, that there's something more than pornography going on here, that what Aury is really portraying is the beating heart of passion at its wildest and most raw.
It's the great paradox of women's lives that we are expected to begin life with a passionate union and then immediately put it away and get on with the business of working and raising children. Adult women who get stuck on the passion are deemed unstable or tragic. Given that, it takes an extreme act—an act of self sacrifice—to break out of the bind.
Daphne Merkin wrote about giving herself over to spanking in her New Yorker essay, "Unlikely Obsession." Toni Bentley wrote her strange and surprisingly great ode to anal sex, The Surrender, in 2004; Cristina Nehring summed up the instinct in her refreshing apologia for passion in literature and life, A Vindication of Love, writing, "every aspect of romance from meeting to mating has been streamlined, safety-checked, and emptied of spiritual consequence." Dominique Aury lit the way with Story of O, a novel that begins and ends with messy degradation, and in which every physical act leads to spiritual transcendence.
Crépax's beautiful drawings of naked women encased in a velvety black cover are worth drooling over. But the images, which can be merely voyeuristic in the absence of Aury's layered writing, do not quite get at the crux of the novel. Somehow the pictures themselves emphasize the sex and domination and not the nature of passion itself. Throughout the book, O and René exchange assurances of love, and right at the heart of the story, O describes the beginning of this passion:
In the space of a week, she learned fear, but certainty; anguish, but happiness. René threw himself at her like a pirate at his prisoner, and she reveled in her captivity, feeling on her wrists, her ankles, feeling on all her members and in the secret depths of her heart and body, bonds less visible than the finest strands of hair, more powerful than the cables the Lilliputians used to tie up Gulliver, bonds her lover loosened or tightened with a glance. She was no longer free? Yes! thank God, she was no longer free. But she was light, a nymph on clouds, a fish in water, lost in happiness.
In describing the place where violence and tenderness, pleasure and pain, love and brutality all meet, she's not describing an eccentric fetish culture, but a universal desire. We can all recognize in this description the thrilling vulnerability of falling in love. To forge a deep connection with another human being is to transcend the bounds of our selves, Aury is saying, and only then can we truly be free.
Aury was in her 40s when she wrote Story of O. Paulhan was long-married and staying that way. Though their relationship was relatively public, they weren't about to buy a house in the suburbs, have some kids, and get active in the local French PTA. What they had was passion, and it was this passion that Aury celebrated in the novel she wrote and offered, chapter by chapter, to Paulhan. She was that rare woman, who, whether by chance or by choice, was not seduced by the rewards of domesticating her love. She stayed in the passion, explored it, and gave it to her readers whole.
The (Almost) Complete Dictionary of Japan Sex
The (Almost) Complete Japanzine Dictionary of Japan Sex
By Jon Wilks
A – Abe, Sada
Few women could erotically asphyxiate their lover, remove his genitals with a household tool, walk “beaming with happiness” through the streets of Tokyo clutching said cock’n'balls in hand and still garner the sympathy of her compatriots. Yet that’s exactly what Sada Abe (阿部定) managed on May 18th 1936. Although convicted, Abe was later pardoned during the celebrations marking the anniversary of Emperor Jimmu’s ascension to the throne. Last seen playing herself in erotically charged bio-pics. The phrase “only in Japan” was coined for occasions such as this.
B – Bukkake
Here’s one for those who believe Japan has given the world nothing. Taken from the verb bukkakeru (打っ掛ける, to dash or splash), this merry little activity was considered a punishment at one time, though we can’t imagine why. Involving a protagonist, several supporting players and a whole lotta treating one’s body like a circus.
C – Chikan
Not to be confused with the delicate Indian embroidery of the same name, chikan (痴漢) are so central to society that in some cities they’ve even inspired their own train. Not that they’re allowed to ride in it, of course. This group of social daredevils get their kicks groping innocents in crowded environments, thriving on the sardine-tight subways of Japan’s larger metropolises.
D – Dekapai
…or “big tits” to you and I, dekapai (デカパイ) are the stuff of otaku dreams. While anime has transformed them into a proud art form, scientifically impossible breasts aren’t merely the stuff of fantasy. Leading dekapai idols include the otherwise miniscule Megumi and the no-holes-barred Anna Ohura, both of whom will retire comfortably on their “natural” assets.
E – Enjo Kousai
The P.C. term for enjo kousai (援助交際) is “assisted dating”, which makes it sound like a recovery program for the romantically challenged. Reportedly on the decline, the phenomenon once provided relief for two subsections of society – Japan’s sexually depressed CEOs and the financially impoverished kogaru, desperate to keep up with expensive trends and transient fashions. Child prostitution or comfort for the elderly? The jury’s still out.
F – Fashion Health
Another oddly misleading phrase that has little to do with its subject. A Fashion Health Massage (ファッションヘルスマッサージ) takes place in a brothel, rather than a gym, and involves everything the male mind could wish for, short of actual intercourse. Apparently.
G – Gokkun
The onomatopoeic cousin of bukkake, gokkun (ゴックン) is the sound of someone swallowing. One human vessel and several eager donors required. ‘Nuff said.
H – “H”
“H” is the first letter of the word hentai (変態) and is therefore afforded supreme status in our little wordbook, for without hentai and its associated pictorial success the world would know little of Japan’s outlandish sexual practices. Suitably perverse, the locals pronounce it ecchi (エッチ). the first word most foreigners learn after watashi wa…
I – Iijima, Ai
Ai Iijima (飯島愛) was gang-raped as a schoolgirl, left home shortly after and made a living doing many of the things we’ve written about here. One of Japan’s most successful porn stars, Iijima retired from the business at the grand old age of 20. Her bestseller biography, Platonic Sex, saw success as a TV series and mainstream movie, and she now earns her keep admiring udon along with the other nonentities on the variety TV circuit. There’s artistic progress for you.
J – Japasen
Sorry, dudes, you’ve been rumbled. For those believing that all you have to do is flex and they’ll come running, japasen (ジャパセン) is the reviled trough into which you have fallen. A code word for foreign men who prey on Japanese flesh, memorizing it may save you several months of bewildered celibacy. Thank God for Japanzine!
K – Kabukicho
Named after a Kabuki theater that never was, Kabukicho (歌舞伎町) is synonymous with all things grimy. Think seedy cinemas, think yazuka, think Kabukicho. For further info, see the article Floating World on page …
L – Love Dolls
It’s unsurprising that the Japanese, along with the Germans, were first to develop the sturdier big sister to the blow-up doll, but few could have foreseen the levels this study in perversion would attain. Manufacturers fight to better each other with new and sinister features, such as the Sayaka Deep Kiss model, now complete with removable, washable vagina and head.
M – Mizuage
As seen in Memoirs of a Geisha (100% accurate), the mizuage (水揚げ) ceremony is the ceremonial deflowering of a maiko to the highest bidder. And curse the blighters who suggest the geisha world is related to prostitution.
N – No-Pan-Kissa
In the mid 80s, No-Pan Kissa (ノーパン喫茶) were the discerning salaryman’s retreat of choice. Involving waitresses, short skirts, no underwear and a lot of mirrored flooring; the phenomenon went into a predictable decline once the no-touching rule was broken. All innocence lost, the establishments moved into seedier surrounds and slowly drifted into the past. Expect the same fate for maid cafes.
O – Onsen Geisha
Again, not quite the thriving workforce they once were, Onsen Geisha (温泉芸者) preceded soapland workers by a few decades, performing services that few governments would shop as a tourist attraction.
P – Prostitution
The Anti-Prostitution Law of 1956 brought the glory years to an end, though various loopholes have been adequately exploited since. Essentially, it’s just coitus that is illegal in Japan, so if you’ve been indulging in anything else, you’re absolutely onside. Go you!
R – Roshutsu
Apparently common practice in the adult film industry, roshutsu (露出) involves the revealing of the body outdoors, often in public places. Not a craze that seems to have spread to everyday society. More’s the pity.
S – San-P
San P (3P) is the involvement of three practitioners in one practice. In other words, a threesome. Can’t imagine Dr. Johnson had this much fun researching his dictionary.
T – Tentacle Rape
A sci-fi fetish that seems to have origins in Shinto and a more playful approach to sexuality. Since woodblock artist Hokusai’s renowned piece The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, the depiction of women impaled on tentacles has found its way into numerous hentai manga. Yet another cultural asset to be proud of.
U – Uno, Sosuke
In August 1989, Prime Minister Sosuke Uno (宇野宗佑) incensed the nation by not supporting his geisha sufficiently, and subsequently resigned. The fact that he had a wife was neither here nor there.
Y – Yoshiwara
The yoshiwara (吉原) was the area of Edo designated for prostitution in the 1700s. Records suggest that up to 1700 women were put to work at the height of its popularity, escorted once a year to view the cherry blossoms, for which you can assume they were damned grateful.
By Jon Wilks
A – Abe, Sada
Few women could erotically asphyxiate their lover, remove his genitals with a household tool, walk “beaming with happiness” through the streets of Tokyo clutching said cock’n'balls in hand and still garner the sympathy of her compatriots. Yet that’s exactly what Sada Abe (阿部定) managed on May 18th 1936. Although convicted, Abe was later pardoned during the celebrations marking the anniversary of Emperor Jimmu’s ascension to the throne. Last seen playing herself in erotically charged bio-pics. The phrase “only in Japan” was coined for occasions such as this.
B – Bukkake
Here’s one for those who believe Japan has given the world nothing. Taken from the verb bukkakeru (打っ掛ける, to dash or splash), this merry little activity was considered a punishment at one time, though we can’t imagine why. Involving a protagonist, several supporting players and a whole lotta treating one’s body like a circus.
C – Chikan
Not to be confused with the delicate Indian embroidery of the same name, chikan (痴漢) are so central to society that in some cities they’ve even inspired their own train. Not that they’re allowed to ride in it, of course. This group of social daredevils get their kicks groping innocents in crowded environments, thriving on the sardine-tight subways of Japan’s larger metropolises.
D – Dekapai
…or “big tits” to you and I, dekapai (デカパイ) are the stuff of otaku dreams. While anime has transformed them into a proud art form, scientifically impossible breasts aren’t merely the stuff of fantasy. Leading dekapai idols include the otherwise miniscule Megumi and the no-holes-barred Anna Ohura, both of whom will retire comfortably on their “natural” assets.
E – Enjo Kousai
The P.C. term for enjo kousai (援助交際) is “assisted dating”, which makes it sound like a recovery program for the romantically challenged. Reportedly on the decline, the phenomenon once provided relief for two subsections of society – Japan’s sexually depressed CEOs and the financially impoverished kogaru, desperate to keep up with expensive trends and transient fashions. Child prostitution or comfort for the elderly? The jury’s still out.
F – Fashion Health
Another oddly misleading phrase that has little to do with its subject. A Fashion Health Massage (ファッションヘルスマッサージ) takes place in a brothel, rather than a gym, and involves everything the male mind could wish for, short of actual intercourse. Apparently.
G – Gokkun
The onomatopoeic cousin of bukkake, gokkun (ゴックン) is the sound of someone swallowing. One human vessel and several eager donors required. ‘Nuff said.
H – “H”
“H” is the first letter of the word hentai (変態) and is therefore afforded supreme status in our little wordbook, for without hentai and its associated pictorial success the world would know little of Japan’s outlandish sexual practices. Suitably perverse, the locals pronounce it ecchi (エッチ). the first word most foreigners learn after watashi wa…
I – Iijima, Ai
Ai Iijima (飯島愛) was gang-raped as a schoolgirl, left home shortly after and made a living doing many of the things we’ve written about here. One of Japan’s most successful porn stars, Iijima retired from the business at the grand old age of 20. Her bestseller biography, Platonic Sex, saw success as a TV series and mainstream movie, and she now earns her keep admiring udon along with the other nonentities on the variety TV circuit. There’s artistic progress for you.
J – Japasen
Sorry, dudes, you’ve been rumbled. For those believing that all you have to do is flex and they’ll come running, japasen (ジャパセン) is the reviled trough into which you have fallen. A code word for foreign men who prey on Japanese flesh, memorizing it may save you several months of bewildered celibacy. Thank God for Japanzine!
K – Kabukicho
Named after a Kabuki theater that never was, Kabukicho (歌舞伎町) is synonymous with all things grimy. Think seedy cinemas, think yazuka, think Kabukicho. For further info, see the article Floating World on page …
L – Love Dolls
It’s unsurprising that the Japanese, along with the Germans, were first to develop the sturdier big sister to the blow-up doll, but few could have foreseen the levels this study in perversion would attain. Manufacturers fight to better each other with new and sinister features, such as the Sayaka Deep Kiss model, now complete with removable, washable vagina and head.
M – Mizuage
As seen in Memoirs of a Geisha (100% accurate), the mizuage (水揚げ) ceremony is the ceremonial deflowering of a maiko to the highest bidder. And curse the blighters who suggest the geisha world is related to prostitution.
N – No-Pan-Kissa
In the mid 80s, No-Pan Kissa (ノーパン喫茶) were the discerning salaryman’s retreat of choice. Involving waitresses, short skirts, no underwear and a lot of mirrored flooring; the phenomenon went into a predictable decline once the no-touching rule was broken. All innocence lost, the establishments moved into seedier surrounds and slowly drifted into the past. Expect the same fate for maid cafes.
O – Onsen Geisha
Again, not quite the thriving workforce they once were, Onsen Geisha (温泉芸者) preceded soapland workers by a few decades, performing services that few governments would shop as a tourist attraction.
P – Prostitution
The Anti-Prostitution Law of 1956 brought the glory years to an end, though various loopholes have been adequately exploited since. Essentially, it’s just coitus that is illegal in Japan, so if you’ve been indulging in anything else, you’re absolutely onside. Go you!
R – Roshutsu
Apparently common practice in the adult film industry, roshutsu (露出) involves the revealing of the body outdoors, often in public places. Not a craze that seems to have spread to everyday society. More’s the pity.
S – San-P
San P (3P) is the involvement of three practitioners in one practice. In other words, a threesome. Can’t imagine Dr. Johnson had this much fun researching his dictionary.
T – Tentacle Rape
A sci-fi fetish that seems to have origins in Shinto and a more playful approach to sexuality. Since woodblock artist Hokusai’s renowned piece The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, the depiction of women impaled on tentacles has found its way into numerous hentai manga. Yet another cultural asset to be proud of.
U – Uno, Sosuke
In August 1989, Prime Minister Sosuke Uno (宇野宗佑) incensed the nation by not supporting his geisha sufficiently, and subsequently resigned. The fact that he had a wife was neither here nor there.
Y – Yoshiwara
The yoshiwara (吉原) was the area of Edo designated for prostitution in the 1700s. Records suggest that up to 1700 women were put to work at the height of its popularity, escorted once a year to view the cherry blossoms, for which you can assume they were damned grateful.
Award winning personal here.
This is a guide on how to write an award winning personal I hope it helps.
1. Always start your ad out with a 2 sentence rant full of hate and cussing about how you got your last ad flagged, then tell everyone what a nice, caring, understanding person you are.
2. Always include the word � NOW� in the title and at the end of your ad to show everyone that you need sex right this minute and how they should drop what they are doing to come meet a stranger for nsa.
3. Never and I mean never travel, always demand that you be the host, and that they should drive 2 hour round trips to you because you are just that awesome and worth it, even though you are the one looking for the hook up.
4. Always (and don�t give an inch on this one) demand face pics. Even though you are on a web site where 98% of the other people looking for nsa are in the closet and would cause them major trouble if found out.
5. Never post a pic of yourself or send one out but always make it clear that if the other people don�t send a pic in the very first response you will ignore them. This again is because of how important you are, even though you are the one looking for sex you should always demand that others reveal themselves first.
6. Always point out that you will not be had by spammers or bots and that no one should try to send you to such sites because you are too smart for that. Even though all those bots and spam are automated and never see your post it doesn�t hurt to show how smart you are and tell the automated systems to not e-mail you.
7. When you do post a pic on your ad always be completely naked except for a hat , that way everyone will think you are young and with it and have hair. Also make sure you suck in your stomach and push out your chest to look like you are in shape, it�s a good idea because everyone else is too stupid to know that is what you are doing.
8. Lie, lie, lie, lie after all it is the internet if you are 50 years old and 230lbs with a 5 inch penis no one will know once they meet you, everyone is blind and takes the internet as truth and will not notice this when meeting you all they will see is a 35 year old that�s 189lbs and got a 9 inch cock.
9. Make sure you post your ad to every single section, even the platonic one .after all heck you don�t know what platonic means why should anyone else.
10. Also always use the word discrete in your ad, but just for fun, throw everyone for a loop by misspelling it like this �discreet�. Then to throw them even further off the trail of how smart you really are, pretend you don�t know the meaning of the word either by demanding face pics.
Guys when it comes to your cock bigger is better right? So here are some tips to make it look bigger that no one will ever know you�re doing(again because you are smarter than the rest remember)
1. Take your hand and squeeze as much of your cock up over your fist to take a pic.
2. First get hard then pull your nuts back as far as you can between your legs to make it look longer.
3. Again get hard then hold your fist over the end of your cock so the head doesn�t show but you really got it just inside your fist this makes it look like your cock is as long as your fist too.
4. Find the smallest bottle of something you have in your house then hold it further away from the camera so that when you take the picture it looks like your cock is as big as the bottle your holding (this is an excellent trick just remember to remove your hand from the pic so others don�t have a real reference to your actual size).
5. Hide all you got in your pants and just let the head hang out the zipper.
6. Get hard and put on some thick pants then take the pic of the outline in the pants (it�s the sweater effect just like females that wear sweaters it always makes their boobs look way bigger when adding a � of cloth).
If you can�t take a pic then here are some tips to calculate your size for your written response.
1. Just lie (hell 5 is 9 right).
2. Do not ever measure the shaft by itself! start back at your stomach and measure to the tip.
3. There is always the �undercarriage measurement� as I call it. That is where you start to measure from your anus out to your tip (after all the actual penis muscle is attached there so technically you are not lying right?) And remember no one will notice that you told them you were 8 or 10 inches and when they meet you they will just be so glad you came that your 4 or 5 won�t matter.
Just follow these easy steps and you too will have a personal that will get you laid every time.
1. Always start your ad out with a 2 sentence rant full of hate and cussing about how you got your last ad flagged, then tell everyone what a nice, caring, understanding person you are.
2. Always include the word � NOW� in the title and at the end of your ad to show everyone that you need sex right this minute and how they should drop what they are doing to come meet a stranger for nsa.
3. Never and I mean never travel, always demand that you be the host, and that they should drive 2 hour round trips to you because you are just that awesome and worth it, even though you are the one looking for the hook up.
4. Always (and don�t give an inch on this one) demand face pics. Even though you are on a web site where 98% of the other people looking for nsa are in the closet and would cause them major trouble if found out.
5. Never post a pic of yourself or send one out but always make it clear that if the other people don�t send a pic in the very first response you will ignore them. This again is because of how important you are, even though you are the one looking for sex you should always demand that others reveal themselves first.
6. Always point out that you will not be had by spammers or bots and that no one should try to send you to such sites because you are too smart for that. Even though all those bots and spam are automated and never see your post it doesn�t hurt to show how smart you are and tell the automated systems to not e-mail you.
7. When you do post a pic on your ad always be completely naked except for a hat , that way everyone will think you are young and with it and have hair. Also make sure you suck in your stomach and push out your chest to look like you are in shape, it�s a good idea because everyone else is too stupid to know that is what you are doing.
8. Lie, lie, lie, lie after all it is the internet if you are 50 years old and 230lbs with a 5 inch penis no one will know once they meet you, everyone is blind and takes the internet as truth and will not notice this when meeting you all they will see is a 35 year old that�s 189lbs and got a 9 inch cock.
9. Make sure you post your ad to every single section, even the platonic one .after all heck you don�t know what platonic means why should anyone else.
10. Also always use the word discrete in your ad, but just for fun, throw everyone for a loop by misspelling it like this �discreet�. Then to throw them even further off the trail of how smart you really are, pretend you don�t know the meaning of the word either by demanding face pics.
Guys when it comes to your cock bigger is better right? So here are some tips to make it look bigger that no one will ever know you�re doing(again because you are smarter than the rest remember)
1. Take your hand and squeeze as much of your cock up over your fist to take a pic.
2. First get hard then pull your nuts back as far as you can between your legs to make it look longer.
3. Again get hard then hold your fist over the end of your cock so the head doesn�t show but you really got it just inside your fist this makes it look like your cock is as long as your fist too.
4. Find the smallest bottle of something you have in your house then hold it further away from the camera so that when you take the picture it looks like your cock is as big as the bottle your holding (this is an excellent trick just remember to remove your hand from the pic so others don�t have a real reference to your actual size).
5. Hide all you got in your pants and just let the head hang out the zipper.
6. Get hard and put on some thick pants then take the pic of the outline in the pants (it�s the sweater effect just like females that wear sweaters it always makes their boobs look way bigger when adding a � of cloth).
If you can�t take a pic then here are some tips to calculate your size for your written response.
1. Just lie (hell 5 is 9 right).
2. Do not ever measure the shaft by itself! start back at your stomach and measure to the tip.
3. There is always the �undercarriage measurement� as I call it. That is where you start to measure from your anus out to your tip (after all the actual penis muscle is attached there so technically you are not lying right?) And remember no one will notice that you told them you were 8 or 10 inches and when they meet you they will just be so glad you came that your 4 or 5 won�t matter.
Just follow these easy steps and you too will have a personal that will get you laid every time.
The Body and Thought
Abstract Thoughts? The Body Takes Them Literally
By NATALIE ANGIER
Published: February 1, 2010
The theory of relativity showed us that time and space are intertwined. To which our smarty-pants body might well reply: Tell me something I didn’t already know, Einstein.
Researchers at the University of Aberdeen found that when people were asked to engage in a bit of mental time travel, and to recall past events or imagine future ones, participants’ bodies subliminally acted out the metaphors embedded in how we commonly conceptualized the flow of time.
As they thought about years gone by, participants leaned slightly backward, while in fantasizing about the future, they listed to the fore. The deviations were not exactly Tower of Pisa leanings, amounting to some two or three millimeters’ shift one way or the other. Nevertheless, the directionality was clear and consistent.
“When we talk about time, we often use spatial metaphors like ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you’ or ‘I’m reflecting back on the past,’ ” said Lynden K. Miles, who conducted the study with his colleagues Louise K. Nind and C. Neil Macrae. “It was pleasing to us that we could take an abstract concept such as time and show that it was manifested in body movements.”
The new study, published in January in the journal Psychological Science, is part of the immensely popular field called embodied cognition, the idea that the brain is not the only part of us with a mind of its own.
“How we process information is related not just to our brains but to our entire body,” said Nils B. Jostmann of the University of Amsterdam. “We use every system available to us to come to a conclusion and make sense of what’s going on.”
Research in embodied cognition has revealed that the body takes language to heart and can be awfully literal-minded.
You say you’re looking forward to the future? Here, Ma, watch me pitch forward!
You say a person is warm and likable, as opposed to cold and standoffish? In one recent study at Yale, researchers divided 41 college students into two groups and casually asked the members of Group A to hold a cup of hot coffee, those in Group B to hold iced coffee. The students were then ushered into a testing room and asked to evaluate the personality of an imaginary individual based on a packet of information.
Students who had recently been cradling the warm beverage were far likelier to judge the fictitious character as warm and friendly than were those who had held the iced coffee.
Or maybe you are feeling the chill wind of social opprobrium. When researchers at the University of Toronto instructed a group of 65 students to remember a time when they had felt either socially accepted or socially snubbed, those who conjured up memories of a rejection judged the temperature of the room to be an average of five degrees colder than those who had been wrapped in warm and fuzzy thoughts of peer approval.
The body embodies abstractions the best way it knows how: physically. What is moral turpitude, an ethical lapse, but a soiling of one’s character? Time for the Lady Macbeth Handi Wipes. One study showed that participants who were asked to dwell on a personal moral transgression like adultery or cheating on a test were more likely to request an antiseptic cloth afterward than were those who had been instructed to recall a good deed they had done.
When confronted with a double entendre, a verbal fork in the road, the body heeds Yogi Berra’s advice, and takes it. In a report published last August in Psychological Science, Dr. Jostmann and his colleagues Daniel Lakens and Thomas W. Schubert explored the degree to which the body conflates weight and importance. They learned, for example, that when students were told that a particular book was vital to the curriculum, they judged the book to be physically heavier than those told the book was ancillary to their studies.
The researchers wanted to know whether the sensation of weightiness might influence people’s judgments more broadly.
In a series of experiments, study participants were asked to answer questionnaires that were attached to a metal clipboard with a compartment on the back capable of holding papers. In some cases the compartments were left empty, and so the clipboard weighed only 1.45 pounds. In other cases the compartments were filled, for a total clipboard package of 2.29 pounds.
Participants stood with either a light or heavy clipboard cradled in their arm, filling out surveys. In one, they were asked to estimate the value of six unfamiliar foreign currencies. In another, students indicated how important they thought it was that a university committee take their opinions into account when deciding on the size of foreign study grants. For a third experiment, participants were asked how satisfied they were with (a) the city of Amsterdam and (b) the mayor of Amsterdam.
In every study, the results suggested, the clipboard weight had its roundabout say. Students holding the heavier clipboard judged the currencies to be more valuable than did those with the lightweight boards. Participants with weightier clipboards insisted that students be allowed to weigh in on the university’s financial affairs. Those holding the more formidable board even adopted a more rigorous mind-set, and proved more likely to consider the connection between the livability of Amsterdam and the effectiveness of its leader.
As Dr. Jostmann sees it, the readiness of the body to factor physical cues into its deliberations over seemingly unrelated and highly abstract concerns often makes sense. Our specific clipboard savvy notwithstanding, “the issue of how humans view gravity is evolutionarily useful,” he said.
“Something heavy is something you should take care of,” he continued. “Heavy things are not easily pushed around, but they can easily push us around.” They are weighty affairs in every tine of the word.
The cogitating body prefers a hands-on approach, and gesturing has been shown to help children master math.
Among students who have difficulty with equations like 4 + 5 + 3 = __ + 3, for example, performance improves markedly if they are taught the right gestures: grouping together the unique left-side numbers with a two-fingered V, and then pointing the index finger at the blank space on the right.
To learn how to rotate an object mentally, first try a pantomime. “If you encourage kids to do the rotation movement with their hands, that helps them subsequently do it in their heads,” said Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago, “whereas watching others do it isn’t enough.”
Yesterday is regrettable, tomorrow still hypothetical. But you can always listen to your body, and seize today with both hands.
By NATALIE ANGIER
Published: February 1, 2010
The theory of relativity showed us that time and space are intertwined. To which our smarty-pants body might well reply: Tell me something I didn’t already know, Einstein.
Researchers at the University of Aberdeen found that when people were asked to engage in a bit of mental time travel, and to recall past events or imagine future ones, participants’ bodies subliminally acted out the metaphors embedded in how we commonly conceptualized the flow of time.
As they thought about years gone by, participants leaned slightly backward, while in fantasizing about the future, they listed to the fore. The deviations were not exactly Tower of Pisa leanings, amounting to some two or three millimeters’ shift one way or the other. Nevertheless, the directionality was clear and consistent.
“When we talk about time, we often use spatial metaphors like ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you’ or ‘I’m reflecting back on the past,’ ” said Lynden K. Miles, who conducted the study with his colleagues Louise K. Nind and C. Neil Macrae. “It was pleasing to us that we could take an abstract concept such as time and show that it was manifested in body movements.”
The new study, published in January in the journal Psychological Science, is part of the immensely popular field called embodied cognition, the idea that the brain is not the only part of us with a mind of its own.
“How we process information is related not just to our brains but to our entire body,” said Nils B. Jostmann of the University of Amsterdam. “We use every system available to us to come to a conclusion and make sense of what’s going on.”
Research in embodied cognition has revealed that the body takes language to heart and can be awfully literal-minded.
You say you’re looking forward to the future? Here, Ma, watch me pitch forward!
You say a person is warm and likable, as opposed to cold and standoffish? In one recent study at Yale, researchers divided 41 college students into two groups and casually asked the members of Group A to hold a cup of hot coffee, those in Group B to hold iced coffee. The students were then ushered into a testing room and asked to evaluate the personality of an imaginary individual based on a packet of information.
Students who had recently been cradling the warm beverage were far likelier to judge the fictitious character as warm and friendly than were those who had held the iced coffee.
Or maybe you are feeling the chill wind of social opprobrium. When researchers at the University of Toronto instructed a group of 65 students to remember a time when they had felt either socially accepted or socially snubbed, those who conjured up memories of a rejection judged the temperature of the room to be an average of five degrees colder than those who had been wrapped in warm and fuzzy thoughts of peer approval.
The body embodies abstractions the best way it knows how: physically. What is moral turpitude, an ethical lapse, but a soiling of one’s character? Time for the Lady Macbeth Handi Wipes. One study showed that participants who were asked to dwell on a personal moral transgression like adultery or cheating on a test were more likely to request an antiseptic cloth afterward than were those who had been instructed to recall a good deed they had done.
When confronted with a double entendre, a verbal fork in the road, the body heeds Yogi Berra’s advice, and takes it. In a report published last August in Psychological Science, Dr. Jostmann and his colleagues Daniel Lakens and Thomas W. Schubert explored the degree to which the body conflates weight and importance. They learned, for example, that when students were told that a particular book was vital to the curriculum, they judged the book to be physically heavier than those told the book was ancillary to their studies.
The researchers wanted to know whether the sensation of weightiness might influence people’s judgments more broadly.
In a series of experiments, study participants were asked to answer questionnaires that were attached to a metal clipboard with a compartment on the back capable of holding papers. In some cases the compartments were left empty, and so the clipboard weighed only 1.45 pounds. In other cases the compartments were filled, for a total clipboard package of 2.29 pounds.
Participants stood with either a light or heavy clipboard cradled in their arm, filling out surveys. In one, they were asked to estimate the value of six unfamiliar foreign currencies. In another, students indicated how important they thought it was that a university committee take their opinions into account when deciding on the size of foreign study grants. For a third experiment, participants were asked how satisfied they were with (a) the city of Amsterdam and (b) the mayor of Amsterdam.
In every study, the results suggested, the clipboard weight had its roundabout say. Students holding the heavier clipboard judged the currencies to be more valuable than did those with the lightweight boards. Participants with weightier clipboards insisted that students be allowed to weigh in on the university’s financial affairs. Those holding the more formidable board even adopted a more rigorous mind-set, and proved more likely to consider the connection between the livability of Amsterdam and the effectiveness of its leader.
As Dr. Jostmann sees it, the readiness of the body to factor physical cues into its deliberations over seemingly unrelated and highly abstract concerns often makes sense. Our specific clipboard savvy notwithstanding, “the issue of how humans view gravity is evolutionarily useful,” he said.
“Something heavy is something you should take care of,” he continued. “Heavy things are not easily pushed around, but they can easily push us around.” They are weighty affairs in every tine of the word.
The cogitating body prefers a hands-on approach, and gesturing has been shown to help children master math.
Among students who have difficulty with equations like 4 + 5 + 3 = __ + 3, for example, performance improves markedly if they are taught the right gestures: grouping together the unique left-side numbers with a two-fingered V, and then pointing the index finger at the blank space on the right.
To learn how to rotate an object mentally, first try a pantomime. “If you encourage kids to do the rotation movement with their hands, that helps them subsequently do it in their heads,” said Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago, “whereas watching others do it isn’t enough.”
Yesterday is regrettable, tomorrow still hypothetical. But you can always listen to your body, and seize today with both hands.
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