AdamSmith

Not too bad a selection, as these things go. The 10 best works of erotic artArt has always been intrinsically linked to expression, passion and sensuality, but across the centuries, there have been surprisingly few unambiguous depictions of the carnal act in its naked glory. Here, Jonathan Jones chooses his favourite 10 erotic pieces Jonathan Jones The Observer, Saturday 27 September 2014 The British Museum Katsukawa Shun’ei (attributed to) Ten scenes of lovemaking, a scroll painting (Edo period, 1795-1810) British Museum Japanese Shunga art is explicit about sex in a way western artists never found easy before the 20th century. Free from any Christian identification of sex with sin, Shun’ei here offers an erotic luxury. As you unfurl the scroll, detailed and beautifully coloured scenes of lovemaking reveal themselves. Time stands still. The cares of life are forgotten in a relaxed, mutually fulfilling utopia of pleasure. V&A Collection Andrea Riccio Satyr and Satyress (1510-1520) V&A, London In Greek and Roman mythology satyrs are goat-legged followers of the wine god Bacchus, hairy votaries of sex, dance and ecstasy. In Renaissance art they are walking penises, embodiments of lust, who chase nymphs or spy on sleeping goddesses. Here, however, the brilliant craftsman Riccio imagines a satyr couple, tenderly embracing in some balmy woodland nook. Being half goat, they are all desire. Love is wild. The Tate Picasso The Kiss (1967) Tate, London When Picasso draws or paints a kiss - and he returned insatiably to this subject - it is no chaste romantic touch of lips but a carnal encounter of tongues. The oral entangling in this late work by the most sexual of artists is impossible to misunderstand. Clearly it is not so much a kiss he is portraying as an ecstatic allegory of all the copulations he can remember or imagine. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Egon Schiele Two Women Embracing (1915) Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Egon Schiele is a great artist who found his subject in the bedroom. In the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud was researching sexuality and Gustav Klimt was painting sensual dreams. Young Schiele took this respect for sex to a new level in superbly drawn masterpieces like this depiction of women in love. He turns his erotic curiosity into moving, beautiful, arousing art that may well be the most sublime pornography ever created. ©Jeff Koons/Whitney Museum of MA Jeff Koons Made in Heaven (1991) Whitney Museum, New York When Jeff Koons married porn star and (later) Italian MP Ilona Staller (Cicciolina) he marked their union in a series of works, including this poster, as well as glassware and sculptures of them having sex. The imagery is indistinguishable from porn with Koons identifying himself with pop culture at its most shameless. The Tate Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec In Bed, the Kiss (1892) Desire is beautiful. Toulouse-Lautrec’s portrayal of two women in bed is intimate and frank, and free from all the prejudices we ascribe to his age. Toulouse-Lautrec lived among and regularly portrayed the prostitutes, dancers and artists’ models of Montmartre. His pastels recording the real lives of his women friends are his true masterpieces. Love is easy, and love is free. The National Gallery After Michelangelo Leda and the Swan (After 1530) National Gallery, London There are strong hints of homosexuality as well as fellatio in this depiction of Leda making love to a swan. In ancient myth, Jupiter took the form of a swan to seduce Leda. Such myths were transformed by Renaissance artists such as Titian into alluring sensual painting. Michelangelo provocatively makes the coupling real. The model for Leda was his assistant Antonio Mini. The work barely conceals Michelangelo’s fantasy – or record – of his own penis meeting Mini’s mouth. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Rembrandt The French Bed (1646) Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Images of sex abound in Renaissance and baroque art, usually in mythic couplings of woman and cloud, boy and eagle. Rembrandt here shows the thing itself, stripped of mythology or metaphor. A couple – probably Rembrandt and his lover Hendrickje Stoffels – are going for it in spite of the cold that keeps them semi-clothed in their bed. Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid Photograph: Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid Salvador Dalí The Great Masturbator (1929) Reina Sofia museum, Madrid Surrealist leader André Breton urged artists to unleash their unconscious. Along came Dalí confessing to desires that appalled Breton. This painting acknowledges its creator’s seamy mind, sleazy fantasies and onanism. The sex act that requires one participant is Dalí’s image of art, a narcissistic daydream that feeds on memory to create something self-contained. The Trustees of the British Museum Giulio Romano I Modi (The Positions) British Museum Renaissance Rome was rocked by I Modi, a printed sequence of graphically illustrated sexual positions. It was designed by Giulio Romano and engraved by printmaker Marcantonio Raimondi. This was luxury art porn. Despite being banned, it became a European bestseller. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/28/the-10-best-works-of-erotic-art

...Schrödinger's scat? http://www.boytoy.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17787-poop-poll/ http://www.boytoy.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17245-fart-filtering-underwear/

One for the Other Side...

http://www.poopourri.com A real product! "Spritz the bowl before-you-go And no one else will ever know!"

Although, as the article notes, its inhabitants do occasionally venture in and out. Including onto the Truman Balcony, where these shots struck. And the guy who made it inside the door the other day could have been a real nuisance had he not left his firearms in his car. Of course you're right that the bubble around a moving President is very difficult to make airtight. But it does seem that securing a fenced fixed asset like the White House could be done rather better than the SS has managed lately.

Secret Service fumbled response after gunman hit White House residence in 2011 http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-stumbled-after-gunman-hit-white-house-residence-in-2011/2014/09/27/d176b6ac-442a-11e4-b437-1a7368204804_story.html?tid=HP_more

I agree with that.

I meant to recommend the Republican Party do that, not any of us here.

Just realized a devious, underhanded, but I think brilliant way to make this happen. For Grandma, at least: Nominate someone in opposition who is more electable! Sneaky, huh?

Or just possibly...? ...and here's mine...

Sex and drugs boost UK economy Official figures expected to show Britain's economic recovery even stronger than previously thought, with illegal drugs and prostitution, which represent 0.7pc of GDP, fuelling faster growth Britain's recent recovery was stronger than previously thought, official figures are likely to show this week, with the inclusion of prostitution and illegal drugs expected to boost the economy by around £10bn a year... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11125015/Sex-and-drugs-boost-UK-economy.html

Bidis! With supreme effort I quit cigarettes at age 32. About 4 years after that, I took a drag off a friend's bidi, then a few days later thought to buy a pack myself. Found some in a tiny Indian-goods shop in Somerville, MA that was packed floor to ceiling and wall to wall with what must have been the highest density of merchandise, indeed any kind of matter, this side of the event horizon. Most everything in there, now that you mention it, looked like it had cow dung involved, one way or another. The place smelled quite good, though, from all the incense etc. on the shelves. Anyway, I promptly got hooked on those damned bidis, and took nigh on a year to quit them. I almost want one now.

Too good to bury in the Lit'rature graveyard. 11 Poets Who Wrote Dirty Verse Think poets are just stodgy writers who sit at their desks penning boring poems? Think again. Here are eleven poets who sometimes showed their bawdier sides. 1. T.S. Eliot Getty Images Eliot had a reputation for being a stodgy poet, but he’s one of the most well-known Modernists and responsible for some of the most widely read poems in the English language (The Waste Land and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock being two of his most famous). But in his early years he wrote a series of scatological limericks including the racist caricature of a well-endowed ruler named “King Bolo.” One of the stanzas reads: King Bolo’s Royal Body Guard Were called ‘The Jersey Lilies’— A bold and bestial set of blacks Undaunted by syphilis. They wore the national uniform Of a garland of verbenas And a pair of big black hairy balls And a big black hairy penis. Another example of Eliot’s latent dirty verse is in his poem The Triumph of Bullsh*t. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the poem, which was not published during Eliot’s lifetime, as the first use of the word “bullsh*t.” It ends with the following stanza: And when thyself with silver foot shalt pass Among the Theories scattered on the grass Take up my good intentions with the rest And then for Christ’s sake stick them up your ass. 2. John Donne Getty Images Donne is considered to be the most prominent member of the Metaphysical poets, a group of seventeenth century British lyricists who used complex metaphors called “conceits” in sonnets and poems about topics like love or religion. Though he became an Anglican priest in 1615 and was later appointed Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, he spent much of his early years as an educated womanizer. Maybe his early experiences helped him when writing these eloquently cheeky lines from To His Mistress Going to Bed: Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy, Until I labour, I in labour lie. The foe oft-times having the foe in sight, Is tired with standing though they never fight. Off with that girdle, like heaven’s come glistering, But a far fairer world encompassing. Unpin that ‘spangled’ breastplate which you wear, That th’ eyes of busy fools may be stopped there. And later: By this these angels from an evil sprite, Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright. License my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below. 3. Robert Burns Getty Images This trailblazer of the Romantic Movement is also the national poet of Scotland, and is even known as “The Bard” in his native land (take that Shakespeare!). But Burns is probably best known by students as that poet who wrote in that weird Scots dialect you can’t really understand. You may know that we sing the lyrics to his poem Auld Lang Syne every New Year’s Eve, and that his poem, Comin’ Thro’ the Rye, is the children’s song misinterpreted by Holden Caulfield in JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye—but you probably didn’t know it has a more explicit version. The traditional verse of one of the stanzas is like this: Gin a body meet a body Comin thro' the grain, Gin a body kiss a body, The thing's a body's ain. Comin’ thro’ the rye, etc. While the dirty version of the same stanza reads like this: Gin a body meet a body Comin’ thro’ the grain, Gin a body f**k a body, C**t’s a body’s ain. Comin’ thro’ the rye, etc. In the dialect Burns uses, “gin” means “if” and “ain” means “own,” but those other words, well, they’ll just have to speak for themselves. 4. Ovid Getty Images Known for his long narrative poem the Metamorphoses, Ovid is one of the best writers in all of Latin literature. His mastery of the elegiac couplet is unparalleled, and his writing greatly influenced everyone from J.M.W. Turner to Miguel de Cervantes. But who knew he was kind of a perv? Ovid's first completed book of poetry, Amores, is a poetic account of a love affair with a high-class lady named Corinna. Here is a selection from that book's In Summer’s Heat: Then came Corinna in a long, loose gown, Her white neck hid with tresses hanging down, Resembling fair Semiramis going to bed, Or Lais of a thousand wooers sped. I snatched her gown, being thin the harm was small, Yet strived she to be covered therwithal, And, striving thus as one that would be chaste, Betrayed herself, and yielded at the last. Stark naked as she stood before mine eye, Not one wen in her body could I spy. What arms and shoulders did I touch and see? How apt her breasts were to be pressed by me? How smooth a belly under her waist saw I? How large a leg, and what a lusty thigh? To leave the rest, all liked me passing well; I clinged her naked body, down she fell. Judge you the rest. Being tired, she bade me kiss. Jove send me more such afternoons as this. 5. John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester Getty Images Despite being a courtier of King Charles II in the 17th century, John Wilmot was one of the most notorious rakes in British history. He spent some time in the Tower of London for plotting to kidnap a young countess who refused his hand in marriage, impersonated a gynecologist in order to examine young women without provoking their husbands’ suspicions, and produced poetic works of such depravity that they were all virtually banned during the Victorian era. Here are a couple of selections from his poem about a lovely little walk in the park called A Ramble in St. James’ Park: Much wine had passed, with grave discourse Of who f**ks who, and who does worse (Such as you usually do hear From those that diet at the Bear), When I, who still take care to see Drunkenness relieved by lechery, Went out into St. James’ Park To cool my head and fire my heart. But though St. James has th’honour on ‘t, ‘Tis consecrate to pr**k and c**t. There, by most incestuous birth, Strange woods spring from the teeming earth. And: And nightly now beneath their shade Are buggeries, rapes, and incests made. Unto this all-sin-sheltering grove Whores of the bulk and the alcove, Great ladies, chambermaids and drudges, The ragpicker, and heiress trudges. Carmen, divines, great lords, and tailors, Prentices, poets, pimps, and jailers, Footmen, fine fops, do here arrive, And here promiscuously swive. 6. Jonathan Swift Getty Images The Irish writer of Gulliver’s Travels is perhaps the greatest satirist ever. He is, after all, the man who mockingly suggested that the poor Irish population might ease their troubles by selling their children as food for upper class English ladies and gentlemen in A Modest Proposal. His poem The Lady’s Dressing-Room is also ingeniously hyperbolic, and tells of a man named Strephon who sneaks into his mistress Celia’s empty dressing room to fawn over his ideal image of her only to find himself repulsed by what he finds. Here are a couple of stanzas: To stinking smoke it turns the flame, Poisoning the flesh from whence it came, And up exhales a greasy stench For which you cursed careless wench: So, things which must not be expressed When plumped into the reeking chest Send up an excremental smell To taint the parts from whence they fell: The petticoats and gown perfume And waft a stink around every room. Thus, finishing his grand survey, The swain, disgusted, slunk away, Repeating, in his amorous fits, Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia sh*ts. 7. W.H. Auden Getty Images The Funeral Blues writer’s influence was debated throughout his life among early twentieth century literary types in his native England, especially in the shadow of other poetic giants like T.S. Eliot. But the New York School of poets, including John Ashbery, later embraced him. In this section from his poem Babies in Their Mothers’ Arms, he writes about, ahem, "self-love": With the Duchy of his mind: All his lifetime he will find Swollen knee or aching tooth Hostile to his quest for truth; Never will his pr**k belong To his world of right and wrong, Nor its values comprehend Who is foe and who is friend. 8. ee cummings Wikimedia Commons Cummings embraced various avant garde styles in his poetry, and would let Dada and surrealism influence his writing after he visited Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Like many of his poems, she being Brand foregoes many rules of English syntax, but its explicit car metaphors don’t leave much to the imagination. Here's a section: (having thoroughly oiled the universal joint tested my gas felt of her radiator made sure her springs were O. K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her up,slipped the clutch (and then somehow got into reverse she kicked what the hell) next minute i was back in neutral tried and again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my lev-er Right- oh and her gears being in A 1 shape passed from low through second-in-to-high like greasedlightning) just as we turned the corner of Divinity avenue i touched the accelerator and give her the juice,good 9. Seamus Heaney Getty Images Ask any literary type who the best living poet is, and Heaney’s name will inevitably be in the mix. The winner of countless literary awards, including the 1995 Nobel Prize, he was called “the most important Irish poet since Yeats” by former Poet Laureate Robert Lowell. But Heaney is also known to sometimes write suggestively cheeky poetry as well. His poem Victorian Guitar includes the epigraph “Inscribed ‘Belonged to Louisa Catherine Coe before her marriage to John Charles Smith, March 1852’,” and features the following stanzas: Louisa Catherine Smith could not be light. Far more than a maiden name Was cancelled by him on the first night. I believe he cannot have known your touch Like this instrument – for clearly John Charles did not hold with fingering— Which is obviously a lady’s: The sound-box trim as a girl in stays, The neck right for the smallest span. Did you even keep track of it as a wife? Do you know the man who has it now Is giving it the time of its life? 10. John Berryman The Poetry Foundation Berryman won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his nebulous, semi-autobiographical collection of poems, 77 Dream Songs, which follows an unfortunate series of events in the life of a main character, who bears a resemblance to Berryman, named Henry. The ever-evolving poems are known for their unusual phrases and changes in perspective. Also, they’re sometimes dirty in an abstract way. Take, for example, Dream Song 4: Filling her compact & delicious body with chicken páprika, she glanced at me twice. Fainting with interest, I hungered back and only the fact of her husband & four other people kept me from springing on her or falling at her little feet and crying 'You are the hottest one for years of night Henry's dazed eyes have enjoyed, Brilliance.' I advanced upon (despairing) my spumoni.--Sir Bones: is stuffed, de world, wif feeding girls. -Black hair, complexion Latin, jewelled eyes downcast . . . The slob beside her feasts . . . What wonders is she sitting on, over there? The restaurant buzzes. She might as well be on Mars. Where did it all go wrong? There ought to be a law against Henry. -Mr. Bones: there is. 11. Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine Wikimedia Commons/Getty Images The absinthe-tinged love affair between Rimbaud and Verlaine is the stuff of literary legend. The 17-year-old Rimbaud wrote to the 27-year-old Verlaine—whose wife was pregnant at the time—and soon moved into their home in Paris in 1871. Shortly after, the two lovers fled to London and lived in relative squalor, spending days on end at the Reading Room in the British Museum because the pens and ink were free. Their relationship grew extremely bitter, and eventually came to an end after Verlaine was sentenced to prison for shooting Rimbaud and wounding him in the left wrist. Rimbaud would end up writing influential classics such as A Season in Hell before abandoning poetry altogether at 20. During their travels in London, the two collaborated on a sonnet called Lines on the Arsehole, a ribald tribute to, um, the anus. Verlaine contributed an octet and Rimbaud contributed a sestet. Here are some salacious sections from both poets. Verlaine: Crumpled like a carnation, mauve and dim It breathes, cowering humbly in the moss Still wet with love which trickles down across The soft slope of white buttocks to its rim. Rimbaud: My mouth mates often with this breathing-hole. While matter goes and comes, my jealous soul Makes tawny tears there in its next of sighs Sources: The Faber Book of Blue Verse, edited by John Whitworth; Inventions of the March Hare - Poems 1909-1917 by TS Eliot and edited by Christopher Ricks; Poets.org. http://mentalfloss.com/article/51028/11-poets-who-wrote-dirty-verse

HAH! Perfect. ...Speer reported that anyone visiting Hitler had to be careful not to let Hitler's dog show him too much affection, lest Der Führer get jealous and angry. Eva Braun, Hitler, Blondi, Sepp Dietrich, Speer.

A sheynem dank!!

Although their household building materials are as toxic as our cigarettes.

Inclined to order a carton of these just for the package art. Was addicted to them for several years after college. When the taste buds occasionally became too numb to register Gitanes, would switch temporarily to the one brand even more noxious...

France announces worlds toughest anti-smoking laws Tobacco lobby prepares to fight move to abolish cigarettes over four decades The Independent France, where a Gauloise once hung from the bottom lip of every actor or intellectual, plans to move to one of the toughest anti-tobacco regimes in the world. Garish colours and brand names on cigarette packets will be replaced by health warnings in large type and by prominent photographs of the diseased organs of smokers. Car drivers and passengers will be banned from lighting up in the presence of children under 12. Although these measures will not take effect until 2016, an uncompromising TV and radio campaign started today, warning that tobacco kills one in two smokers. There will also be a levy on tobacco companies to fund anti-smoking campaigns, and measures to expose the hidden lobbying of the tobacco industry. The Health Minister, Marisol Touraine, said: We can no longer accept the fact that the number of deaths caused by tobacco in France is the equivalent of an airliner crashing each day with 200 people on board. Ms Touraines long-term objective is to abolish smoking over 40 years by discouraging new generations from taking up the habit. Her medium-term objective is to reduce the French smoking rate one in three adults to the present British rate of one in five adults, by 2024 Only one other country, Australia, has outlawed cigarette branding and imposed neutral packaging. Similar measures are under consideration in Britain and Ireland. The big tobacco companies are threatening to sue the French government if it goes ahead with its plan. They say that outlawing distinctive packaging and reducing brand names to small-print, is an assault on intellectual property and contrary to European law. Tobacconists organisations are threatening street demonstrations. Some centre-right politicians plan to oppose the not in front of the children rule, which would apply to cars and playgrounds. Police officers would be better employed chasing delinquents than smokers, said Thierry Lazaro, a centre-right member of parliament. Anti-tobacco campaigners hailed Ms Touraines plans as revolutionary. Yves Martinet, of the national committee against smoking, said: For the first time in France, we have a thorough programme to attack the problem. Until the late 1960s, almost two-thirds of French men smoked but far fewer women. From 1976, a series of increasingly tough measures has been introduced, culminating in a ban on smoking in all public enclosed spaces, including bars and restaurants, from 2006. The smoking rate among French men is much reduced but the habit has spread among French women. The smoking rate is now gender-equal at just under 30 per cent. Worryingly for anti-smoking campaigners and for Ms Touraines ambitious plan to get rid of smoking over 40 years French teenagers are now smoking as much as their parents. Officially, the smoking rate among 17-year-olds is 30 per cent, for both boys and girls. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the rate is, in fact, much higher. Some anti-smoking campaigners were disappointed that Ms Touraines plan includes no further sharp rises in tobacco taxes. The price of a packet of 20 cigarettes in France has doubled in 14 years to 7 (£5.40). Tobacconists have successfully lobbied for a slowing of price increases which had led to an apparent boom in tobacco smuggling. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/france-announces-worlds-toughest-antismoking-laws-9758836.html

Could there be any question?

Then of course...