No Speed Bumps

Saint (Jean) Genet (1910-1986) and Post-Vanilla-ism

I started my gay life as a big 'vanilla'. Pity the guys I rooted, or, rather, touched up a bit! If they care to get in contact, I'll do personal and heart-felt apologies, and counseling, for each and every one.

I then became began pushing my sexual boundaries. One great influence in this was Jean Genet:

Early 'Thief' Photo - Mug Shot?

Late 'Great Man of Letters' Shot

I read the novelist and playwright as part of a French major - the work actually had something to do with my own life as a new faggot and beginning sexual explorer !

Genet was born in Paris in 1910 - the illegitimate son of a prostitute. His mother died when he was 7 months old, leaving him a ward of the state. He turned to crime and spent the years from 15-18 in Mettray Penitentiary, where his kind of poetic-rough homosexual vision and high-minded code developed.

Genet spent a period in the French Foreign Legion in Syria, but deserted. Periods of travel and prison followed, interleved with a life of theft, begging and prostitution.

He began his first literary work at 32 in prison - 'Notre Dame des Fleurs' ('Our Lady of the Flowers'), a work that came to the attention of Jean-Paul Sartre, Cocteau and others, and led to an appeal against the life sentence and calls for a pardon, on the grounds of Genet's importance as a literary figure. Sartre championed the writer's worth in 'Saint Genet':

After a period as a novelist, including works such as 'Notre-Dame de Fleurs' (1943), 'Miracle de la Rose' (1945), 'Querelle de Brest (1947), he turned to the theatre, with plays like 'Les Bonnes' (1947 - 'The Maids'), 'Le Balcon' (1956 - 'The Balcony'), 'Les Negres' (1958 - 'The Blacks') and 'Les Paravents' (1961 - 'The Screens').

Two works fired my imagination. First 'Notre-Dame de Fleurs' ('Our Lady of the Flowers'). And in particular, Lindsay Kemp's re-working as a stage play, 'Flowers - A Pantomine for Jean Genet' (1977). It captivated me totally when it toured, and was presented in Adelaide:


But perhaps it is 'Querelle de Brest' that has most captured the gay imagination, and mine. Boy did I do reading thoroughly! In French, avoiding crib translations.

And so many wanted to give the novel a further artistic form.

Jean Cocteau in the etchings accompanying Genet's text in the upmarket Paris edition of Paul Morihien, 1947:



And Werner Fassbinder in the film, 'Querelle' (1976), with Brad Davis, and its accompanying poster by Andy Warhol, with its hard arresting red tongue!

By the way, I remember watching this movie for the first time, and nearly falling off my cinema seat with laughter when the great French actress, Jeanne Moreau, of 'Jules et Jim', had to deliver the line 'I love thin elegant pointy cocks' !!! Often wondered if she was so in awe of the author that she emoted these words without embarassment. Or whether she was smirking or something like it inside, thinking 'Christ, has my career come to this!' I reckon the former.


And finally, the Tom of Finland etchings, with their rough gritty blokes that are now part of my sexual imagination:




Now, the blokes I'm posting below are not straight out Genet's prisons or brothels, but inspired by the writer - guys I find hot and gritty, with some element of danger:



Like this guy cos he really looks as though he knows what to do with his dick - he won't have to consult 'the manual' in the middle of things, or be told what ta do - he knows his business. And with a cock like THAT, he can DO that business:


This bloke wins a 'BBB' (Big Baggy Balls) award - yum:


And I like it that this guy's about to feast:


And that this guys gotta force it down cos it's so fuckin hard and up:


And this hotty has just the right amount of danger:

So where is your reading on the 'pollyana-rough trade' meter? Has it moved at all ... a lot in the last 'x' years?