Sensory Overload

You couldn’t be a teenager in the mid-80s and not be aware of the Brigitte Nielsen phenomenon. At just 22, she starred as the titular character in RED SONJA (1985) alongside genre-veteran Arnold Schwarzenegger, married his real-life main competitor Sylvester Stallone and went on to star in two of his actioneers, cult-fave ROCKY IV (1985) and macho ego-booster COBRA (1986). In 1987 she broke up with hubby Sly, starred on BEVERLY HILLS COP II and then went under the radar for the target-audience of her films.

I confess I was not a big fan of Mrs, Stallone. She was a sexy presence on-screen – that I can not deny – but somehow her Nordic androgynous looks and clearly enhanced breasts didn’t exert a strong attraction over me. I didn’t particularly enjoy RED SONJA - being a huge fan of the Roy Thomas’s version from the comics I couldn’t sympathize with her portrayal of the iconic character, and the confused politics of the film (that seemed unsure towards what kind of demographics, or what kind of feminist demographics, it wanted to please) didn’t help matters much. I enjoyed her wet t-shirt scene in COBRA and the way her long legs drew the camera when she first appears on-screen on BEVERLY HILLS COP II coming out of her stretch-limo, but it was her portrayal of the icily beautiful Ludmilla in ROCKY IV, sporting a Soviet uniform, that most pleased my feverish adolescent mind.

Not even her nude photos on the French magazine PHOTO (“La Femme Rambo Pose Nue”, January 1988) made me change my mind. Naked, she seemed more awe-inspiring than truly erotic or arousing, and I couldn’t help but think that there was something mannish in her strong, tall, athletic body.

It was only Ivana Massetti’s demented and pretentiously surrealist opus DOMINO (1988) that opened my eyes to the depths of sensuality that Nielsen did harbor. The film is a jumble of vacuous dialogue, with a kind of sub-Zalman King musing on the nature of life and love spurting at every moment from the characters’ mouths, but presents itself in a striking palette of vivid colors, strange tableaux and boner inducing erotic scenes. One such scene burned itself into my mind, never to be forgotten. That’s when young Domino (Nielsen), convinced that she is being spied from a window on the building from across the street, wants to confront the anonymous voyeur that she sees only as a silhouette backlit on the window of the otherwise dark facade. Donning a ravishing but simple white dress with white gloves, and bearing an auburn wig – intimations of a desire for anonymity on her part as well, or just a mask, another persona to help fulfill her empty nights? – she ends up meeting the upstairs blind neighbor (veteran actor David Warbeck) who tells her that the couple that used to live on the now empty apartment where she is sure she saw the peeping tom had passed away on a car accident about a month before.

When we first meet the Blind neighbor (Warbeck) he is cutting a magazine with a pair of scissors. The interior of his darkened apartment is lit with a diffuse blue light whose source is not apparent on-screen, and is cluttered by a hanging forest of wind-chimes, which doesn’t seem very practical for a blind man. But then again, he doesn’t seem like an ordinary blind man – he is something more akin to Matt Murdock or any other of the plethora of blind masters that plagues pulp fiction in general. His movements are measured, slow and deliberate, like those of a spider moving softly over her thread as not to give any intimation of its nature to the eventual prey. Domino, our unsuspecting fly – or is she? – hears on his (fatuous and unctuous) words an echo of her own loneliness. The dialogue is awkward – some would say boring, ridiculous and unreal – and for no reason other than aesthetic, the Blind Man complains about the heat and – easily, with the supernatural ability that’s born out of blind habit – turns on an electric fan, thus raising a storm of sound and paper as the swiftly moving blades send the chimes into a frenetic dance and throws all the confetti-like paper clippings into a frenzy of festive proportions.

Caught in this sensory web, Domino unwittingly uncovers an old standing mirror that draws her in as some kind of window into her personal demons. She looks like a deer caught on the headlights of her own self, as she – and us – see her reflected in the twilight-y umber of the room, the Blind Man explores her face and hair with is fingers, building is own image, an utterly sensorial one… a vision of touch, smell and sound. Only her (and us, the voyeur audience) have sight.

He unzips her dress, send his hands roaming down her sensuous arching back, and it’s only in the mirror that we see them closing like spidery shapes over her breasts, underneath the white – so purely white – dress. It’s a mesmerizing moment, an hypnotic ritual, as we are caught by the erotic dance on the screen, on the mirror, caressed by the wind chimes, a soft tingling rhythm interspersed from time to time with the staccato, final, banging of a door or a window disturbed by the wind.

The storm is internal and external as we are drawn into that fury of sound and image, bereft of touch, another point on the sensorial triangle we close with them. The hands slide under her dress, over her breasts, between her thighs… she arches her back, arms held up in sensual surrender, her own (gloved) hands reaching – not to him – but to her own body. She is the goddess being adored, homage. This is her ritual. Not a fly at all, but the Queen of us all.

Her moaning mingles with the wind, the myriad confetti a caressing creature with a thousand fingers; she moans, she writhes, she orgasms, overpowering the storm. She shatters the barriers; looking into the mirror, she became as much the voyeur as the one she was meaning to confront. And we, the viewers, the voyeurs, are satisfied as well.

I saw few of the movies she starred after this one. I somehow enjoyed her role as corrupt lesbian prison warden in CHAINED HEAT II (1993), but she never got to the sublime heights of this little forgotten scene in the annals of second rate erotic films. So I thank her for the memories, as the song goes.

An image can lie...

I find the film poster to 1985's MISCHIEF one of the most erotic images ever. There is something in the composition of the tableaux that speaks of innocence and joy and hints at dirty secrets. First of all, Kelly Preston was at her youthful prime (she was just 22 in that picture), and the expression on her beautiful face - surprised doe eyes, parted lips that betray the need for justification, small chin drawing our attention to the full young breasts that threaten to spill out of her blouse - is a tribute to youth, to discovery, to long summer days under clear blue skies.

The context of the scene is not clear: both boy (Doug McKeon) and girl look caught in the act; but what act is that? Were they positioning themselves for sex? Is that why she has her back turned to him? Or was she trying to escape his unwanted advances?

What does the image tell us? She is barefoot, but we don't see her shoes anywhere. Were they carefully placed on the backseat? Were they lost in the struggle? Doug McKeon's left hand is resting on the front seat, supporting the weight of both their bodies: but could that same hand been caressing her dangling breasts just a moment before? A moment before something happened: before someone opened the front door, before she pushed the door open trying to escape?

Escape what? She is kneeling inside the car: she could be fending off his hands, she could have been caught fellating him. We cannot see his lap, we don't know where her other leg is resting. But our gaze is drawn to her shapely calf, to her delicate bare foot, to the swell of her firm dangling breasts.

And, whatever is going on, who wouldn't love to be Doug McKeon and hold all the answers in an eternal moment of bliss?

The luckiest guy on Earth

Or, at least, on the Buffyverse.

Charisma Carpenter became a worldwide wet dream girl when playing Cordelia Chase, first on Buffy, The Vampire Slayer (1997-1999) and then on Angel (1999-2004). Despite starting out as the vacuous "bimbo" in the first season of Buffy, she quickly won the love of viewers everywhere, smitten by her charisma (pun, obviously intended) and her ample charms... some of which became very prominent whenever she donned a tight shirt. Indeed, as the Playboy photo shoot she did for the June 2004 issue well attested, those wonderfuly round breasts are natural fuel for male fantasies everywhere.

Well, it was on Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Angel's son Connor, that fell the burden of groping Ms. Carpenter's right breast in the episode Slouching Toward Bethlehem (episode 4 of season 4, 2002). The episode marks the return of Cordelia from the "higher plane" where she has been herself slouching for the previous three episodes of the season. Returning with a bout of amnesia, Cordelia takes refuge with Connor, who doesn't waste any time replaying the most complex Oedipus on modern TV. Sensing the presence of intruders from the evil law firm of Wolfram & Heart, and pretending to be warning her not to scream, he takes the chance of palming Cordelia's breast, in a what-the-fuck-were-they-thinking heart-stopping moment.

Lucky bastard...

I'll have to frisk you...

There’s no stronger heart-pounding moment in fiction than that in which someone says that our heroine must be frisked. It’s the horniest in breached space. It’s the use of power and authority to satisfy the most primitive of compulsions: that to explore the female anatomy. Like peeping through a keyhole (the first stage of sexual curiosity) and the tentative groping in the darkened cinema or the interior of a parked car, frisking the suspect harks back to unsatisfied desires of an adolescent mind.

To watch it on film, is to relive those days of youth, when the world was full of promise. Here we have three instances of frisking on film. The first one comes from Quick (1993), a Rick King vehicle for hottie actress Teri Polo, who plays here the role of the title character, a paid assassin hired to eliminate a mob accountant, played by nerdy actor Martin Donovan. This scene takes place when Quick (Polo) visits the lair of mob kingpin Robert Davi, and a lucky bit-player gets to frisk her with evident gusto. Unfortunately, the search is interrupted precisely when he tries to reach for miss Polo’s breasts.

It is more or less a staple (more implied than explicit) of action vehicles starring hot young female leads. In Fathom (1967) sexy spy Raquel Welch must expose her breasts to the villain (making us wish she’d do it for the audience as well) in order to assure him she’s not carrying concealed weapons. And in the Ginger series of films, Cheri Caffaro is subjected to several body searches, despite her skimpy outfits.

Let us now turn to Double Impact (1991), Sheldon Lettich’s classic double dose of Van Damme action. Here, the frisking (purred deliciously by Corinna Everson, just seconds before she pushes hot Alonna Shaw – in her first screen role – against a sceptic office wall) is pure sexual innuendo. Danielle Wild (Shaw) works for the bad guys, but she’s soon converted to the cause of good and starts helping twin brothers Alex and Chad (both Van Damme), taking advantage of her position inside the organization. She’s surprised by badass mama Kara while searching through the archive files, and gets frisked in a steamy if short scene. Kara finishes by asking: “Now, do you want to frisk me?”


In both these situations it’s well in evidence the sexual nature of the frisking. When you dwell in a lawless environment, what would be a police procedure turns into wish-fulfilling abuse. That the search for concealed weapons is in most instances no more than an excuse for groping (with all the implied relations of power) the female body (the opposite is far more unusual) is made blatantly clear in this scene, taken from Alan Robert’s Karate Cop (1991).

In this scene, all the viewers’ expectations are played with in a savvy, tongue in cheek approach. When Rachel (Carrie Chambers), the heroine of this post-apocalyptic sci-fi actioneer, is taken by Snaker’s (Michael Bristow) henchmen and held in restraint, incapable of resistance, the über villain, played with campy aplomb by Mr. Bristow, when enraged by her defiance, wants to know: “Has anyone searched her for hidden weapons?”

And gladly proceeds to do it himself. Knowing what the audience expects – confessing the fact that the “search” is merely a pretext for sexual groping – he does it theatrically, in a precise three-step rhythm, closing his paws on Ms. Chambers’ hips, waist and finally, breasts. He doesn’t even pretend to be trying to find any weapon. It’s the sexual innuendo taken into solid affirmation of power.

And the expression on Rachel's face is pure bliss for us sick viewers. («I'd rather have sex with a warthog.» « That can be arranged.»)

(I must apologise for the poor quality of the Quick and Karate Cop stills, but they were taken from some old VHS copies from my own personal collection).

Breached Space: LA COCCINELLA

La Cocinella is a short film (30’) by Nello Pepe. At a first glance, it doesn’t seem to be a part of the grand tradition of Damsels in Distress that this blog intends to enshrine. But it works as a nice exercise in breached space, as it tells the story of a young sterile wife (very sexy actress Francesca Nunzi) who needs a sperm donor (Marco di Steffano) in order to get pregnant. Her husband has invited the donor to their home while away on business, but the artsy donor doesn’t feel capable of “performing” for a plastic cup in the couples’ bathroom, to the growing despair of the anxious and uncomfortable wife.

As the time passes and the successive attempts to raise the mast of success succumb to the awkwardness of the situation, they start to try several more risqué alternatives. She dances erotically for him, while he is sitting at the toilet, peeking through the keyhole (a first breach of the personal space, through the immortal medium of voyeurism). As she is not a very capable or enticing dancer (the scene is awkward, as we watch a very sensual actress pretending she is just a shy inexperienced housewife) they try phone sex, from the bedroom to the bathroom, with identical results.

Attributing the failure to the confined and oppressive space of the bathroom, they relocate to the living room, where the donor, an artist, tells her that he usually gets excited when he’s painting, and implies that should she allow him to draw her it could work. Well, it doesn’t, but we have mounted another step on the lather of breaching space. From the visual through the keyhole, we breached the space of the imagination through the phone and are now separated by the thinness of a sheet of paper.

When it also fails, she proposes that he just do it there, looking at her. He agrees, lets the cup fall to the floor, they both make a go for it, space is breached as he grabs her breast. What are you doing?, she cries. I’m trying to make this work!

And there ensues a very hot and steaming sex scene, that goes to show that nature’s methods are still the best ones. It is worth repeating that Francesca Nunzi is a very sexy actress. Adding to her ample personal charms, the intensity of the scene is compounded by the knowledge – stitched there, in the back of the viewer’s mind – that it is not proper adultery, and that it is not fully consensual sex. There is a dimension of necessity that, in the logic inherent to the erotic fantasy, forces the wife to have sex with a stranger. A manifestation of breached space.

Ok. So you may not by my theory. But I had – I just had – to print here these sexy grabs from the film. It can be found in the second of four discs that Filmax has published in Spain under the title Tinto Brass presenta Sus Cuentos Mas Atrevidos (Vols. 1-4, 2002)

Breached Space

Let me now propose to you an unconventional idea: that one of the central elements of eroticism is that of breached space. That it is the threat of invaded personal space that spices up so many erotic thrillers as well as much of the adventure pulps. Robert Scholes, in his comprehensive essay Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision (with Eric Rabkin, 1977) has counted as many as seventy-four attempted rapes in the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Obviously, it would not do to have the main heroine being effectively raped in a bunch of novels read by kids (although one can ask how many interior fires that menace have started), but it isn’t less true that it is precisely the implied menace that is so thrilling and exciting.

And one of the most effective ways to convey that menace is through the breaching of personal space. One does so in one of two instances: when one as a relation of affection with the person whose personal space is being invaded or shared (family, friends, a lover); and when exerting an act of aggression (when you have to literally step over the virtual line separating personal spaces). It can be argued that the breaching of the heroine’s personal space as a mean of sexual thrilling has much to do with the so-called phallocracy that purports the heroine as “territory” of the hero, thus making that invasion one of the personal space of the hero. But that doesn’t hold water in the cases of independent heroines such as Red Sonja, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Modesty Blaise, Brigitte Monfort, Ginger and so on, so I won’t consider it here.

One of the most exciting examples of breached space in pulp or erotic thrillers is that of the undercover heroine that must get inside a) a strip club b) a prostitution or white slavery ring c) any other similar situation where her maidenhood is in danger (and I say maidenhood not as a literal concept). Considerer Miss Temple in The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (2006), Athena Massey in The Unspeakable (1996) or the young and naïve Clara in the most erotic novel of all times The Devil’s Advocate (1942).

In each of these cases the heroine has to infiltrate an inimical space, knowing that she may have to pay the correspondent cost of such invasion in terms of bodily currency. In the three examples above, Miss Temple (a Victorian maiden) escapes with her virginity intact, although she feels her fire stoked and is almost raped; Athena Massey is a cop, not a virgin, and must demean herself by stripping naked on the pole (her space is breached with the eyes); while Clara, almost a child in sexual matters, is progressively immersed in a web of depravation that will subject her to vaginal, oral and anal sex (and “between my breasts too”) in order to discover whatever happened to her sister Rita.

And, in each instance, whenever the personal space is breached, we know we’ll have: a) sex (the heroine will be raped or will have to forcefully consent to sexual advances); b) violence (the heroine will fight the assailant or the “hero” or some outside force will intervene).
It’s in those moments that precede the breaching, that stretch the undefined boundary between spaces, between force and consent, that we find the most sublime eroticism.