The Time Warp - #RockyHorror #SexualInitiation #CultClassic

By Lisabet Sarai

Do you think I’m twisted? A polymorphously-perverse seeker of erotic thrills, fascinated by novel and forbidden conjunctions of continuously fluid gender? Do you ever wonder why my characters have so few limits, why they’re always open to sexual experimentation, why they usually allow their salacious fantasies free rein?

Blame it on Dr. Frank N. Furter.

I was twenty four or twenty five years old, a relentlessly over-achieving grad student, when I first saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The first night, I went with my then-boyfriend and his best friend. We returned the night after that, with more friends. When we shelled out a dollar fifty for the third night in a row, to watch Tim Curry purse his painted lips and prance around the screen and to participate in the audience rituals that had grown up around the film, I knew I was hooked.

Let’s do the time warp again...

Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh...

Don’t dream it. Be it.

For those of you too young to remember, The Rocky Horror Picture is a musical, originally a play, then a cult classic movie released in 1975, that parodies the science fiction and horror films of the thirties and later. It’s clever and funny, irreverent and outrageous, occasionally touching. What resonated most for me, though, were its sexual themes.

The plot follows a newly engaged, virginal couple, Janet and Brad, apparently not long out of high school, who suffer a flat tire on a lonely back road in the Midwest. Through the streaming rain of the dark November night, they glimpse the lights of a Gothic-style mansion which turns out to be inhabited by transvestite mad scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry) and his peculiar compatriots. Invited in, Brad and Janet are soon enmeshed in Frank’s schemes to create a horny male body builder (Rocky) for his own entertainment (“he’s good for relieving my tension”).

Frank is deliciously androgynous (“I’m not much of a man/by the light of day/but by night I’m one hell of a lover.”) In separate scenes, he seduces both Brad and Janet, who react in very different ways. Brad retreats into terrified infantilism (“Help me, Mommy!”), while Janet embraces her new-found sexual confidence.

The game has been disbanded.

My mind has been expanded.

It’s a gas that Frankie’s landed.

His lust is so sincere.

Frank turns out to be an alien from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy Transylvania. His minions revolt, killing him and his Creature, ejecting the human couple, and blasting off in the mansion-cum-spaceship for their home planet. The ending is actually very dark (unlike most of the horror flicks on which Rocky Horror is based). Brad and Janet are left crawling in the dirt; it’s not clear what will happen to them, but one suspects they’ll never be the same.

I really don’t know why this film had such a strong effect on me, but I can’t deny that it did. I found Brad’s and Janet’s sexual initiations incredibly erotic.

Brad (alarmed): I’ve never....

Frank: Yes... But isn’t it nice?

Despite the camp accent and exaggerated make-up, Tim Curry manages to be sexy in his corset, garter belt and high heels. I didn’t find it difficult to believe he’d be “one hell of a lover”. In some sense, he’s the villain, but I couldn’t help but appreciate his “sincere lust”.

Erotic nightmares beyond any measure

And sensual daydreams to treasure forever.

I strongly identified with Janet. My own sexuality was blossoming at that point. I was in a supposedly monogamous relationship with my boyfriend, but often found myself attracted to other men, and women, in my circle. I was constantly aroused. (Honestly, I don’t know how I managed to finish my PhD.) Within a year or so after first seeing Rocky Horror, my boyfriend and I had broken up and I’d entered what I sometimes call my “sex goddess phase”, when I had many lovers and indulged in many experiments.

I think the gender-fluid themes in the movie had a special impact. I hadn’t had any same-sex experiences at that point, but I knew I desired women as well as men. Rocky Horror thoroughly blurs gender lines in a way that felt comfortable and right to me.

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the film (though I have not watched it for a while). I do know the entire score by heart. And I know Frank has left his mark on many of my stories.

Speaking of stories, in recent years I’ve thought about writing one featuring Janet. I’ve never done any fan fiction, and strictly speaking I don’t think this would qualify, but I’d love to explore what her life was like after that fateful night in the mansion. Having been touched by alien lust, would she ever be able to find satisfaction? Would she wander the world, burning through partners, perhaps kindling in them the same unquenchable longing she feels herself?

I have too many other projects on my plate to work on this idea right now, but here’s a flasher to give you a taste of my imaginings.

Floor Show

By Lisabet Sarai

Another city. Another bar. Another crowd of beautiful young people, ripe for the picking. She crosses one shapely leg over the other, baring some thigh above her seamed hold-ups (the classic look, still). That cute couple in the corner —her mouth waters. He resembles Brad, though. Better find someone else.

She’s sixty but looks thirty, thanks to that night’s immersion in alien lust—the night that corrupted her, defined her, sent her off on this endless quest through the party capitals of the world.

The band plays timeless rock from her youth. Kids gyrate to the beat, randiness palpable. The atmosphere crackles with sexual energy. She could have any of them. Though she yearns, premonitions of disappointment hold her back.

“Let’s dance.” The girl—or is it a boy?—extends a hand. Lightning bridges the gap to Janet’s fingers. Wild black curls, exaggerated make-up, scarlet lips made for kisses. The brazen creature pulls her into a lewd embrace on the dance floor. Soft breasts, hardness below—Janet melts, eager, hopeful.

“Where...?” she gasps, humping his (her?) leg.

Red, red mouth. White teeth. Clever fingers opening her, freeing her, turning her inside out. At last.

“If I told you, baby, you wouldn’t believe me.”

* * * *

With a bit of a mind flip

You’re into the time slip,

And nothing

Will ever be the same...

Janet and me—both changed forever.

Three from the Vaults

By Lisabet Sarai

When you've been around as long as I have, you have to work hard not to repeat yourself.

Our topic for the next fortnight is movies - something of a relief from the relatively heavy issues we've been discussing over the past month. I've been blogging here at the Grip since 2009, and I've written a number of posts on this topic:

“Beauty and the Bizarre” (http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2011/08/beauty-and-bizarre.html)

“Just for Fun” (http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2010/12/just-for-fun.html)

“Anatomy of a Blockbuster” (http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2010/04/anatomy-of-blockbuster.html)

Furthermore, I have a list of my favorite movies on my website (http://www.lisabetsarai.com/aboutlisabet.html), though it desperately needs to be updated.

Anyway, I thought that for this post, I'd take a trip back in time and talk about three memorable films that strongly influenced my sexuality.

Cabaret (1972)

I've seen this classic, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minelli and Michael York, at least three times, but the first was when I was in college. At the time I was painfully shy and socially inept, with little sexual experience. I was fascinated, nevertheless, by anything with an erotic theme.

In case you're not familiar with the story, Cabaret takes place in Weimar-era Berlin, famous for its decadence and hedonistic excess. American wild child Sally Bowles (Minelli) performs risqué song and dance routines in the seedy Kit Kat Club, sometimes accompanied by the disturbingly crude Emcee (Joel Grey). A bookish young Englishman, Brian Roberts (York), moves into Sally's boarding house and eventually the two become lovers. Sally befriends Maximilian, a rich playboy baron who whisks both her and Brian away to his lavish country estate where he showers them with luxury.

Although lively and funny, Cabaret is a serious movie about the ascent of the Nazis. It does not end happily. In later viewings, I tended to be more aware of the ominous backdrop of rising fascism and anti-Semitism. The first time I saw the film, though, I was mesmerized by the hints of Brian's bisexuality and the implication that Sally, Brian and Maximilian were involved in a carnal ménage. The movie is suggestive rather than explicit, which only heightened the emotional impact for me.

I had no knowledge about or experience with homoeroticism at that point. Sally and Brian have a quarrel, after Maximilian has tired of their company and left for Argentina.

Sally harps on Maximilian's generosity, his good looks, his wealth. Brian becomes increasingly impatient with her apparent obsession.

Brian: Oh, fuck Maximilian!

Sally: (after a pause, with a triumphant smile) I do.

Brian: (with quiet intensity) Well, so do I.

It's hard to convey, now, how thrilling I found this interchange. In fact it's a sign that the lovers' connection is unraveling, but that aspect was secondary to me at the time. I was overwhelmed by their bold admission of sexual transgression, especially the notion that Brian could have had both female and male sexual partners.

When I remember that scene now, eons later, I still get goosebumps.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

I didn't see this rock horror musical - written by Richard O'Brien, directed by Jim Sharman, and starring (among others) Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon and Meatloaf - until 1976, when it achieved almost overnight fame as a midnight cult classic. A lot had changed in my life by then. I was in grad school and my first long term sexual relationship. Under the influence of my boyfriend and his cohorts (and maybe my own inner nature), I'd become less timid and a good deal more adventurous.

Someone in our circle told us about the movie and the outrageous crowd scenes that had come to accompany it. I saw it three nights in a row, as I recall, each time bringing additional friends to the cinematic party. However, the crazy interactions within the audience were not really what drew me to the film. No, once again it was the theme of polymorphously perverse sexuality, on a far grander scale than in Cabaret.

Just in case there's anyone who does not know the plot of RHPS, I'll summarize it here. Innocent, newly-engaged young couple Brad and Janet (Sarandon) are stranded by a flat tire and forced to seek assistance at the creepy mansion of Dr. Frankenfurter (Curry), a “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania”, who parades around in full make-up, corset, garters and high heels. “I'm not much of a man by the light of day,” he sings, “but by night I'm one hell of a lover.” And indeed he is, seducing both Brad and Janet. The latter also finds herself seeking physical solace with the creature the mad doctor has constructed in his lab, a handsome body builder named Rocky who Frankenfurter claims “is good for relieving my tension”. Things begin to fall apart, however, as the cross-dressing evil genius becomes jealous, with Frankenfurter compelling everyone involved to participate in a sexy floor show and then an orgy.

“Give yourself over to absolute pleasure.

Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh.

Erotic nightmares beyond any measure

And sensual daydreams to treasure forever.

…

Don't dream it, be it...”

Yes, I know it sounds silly now, but these lyrics spoke to me. Over the next few years, one might say that I adopted them as my personal anthem. I followed my fantasies, eager to make my dreams real.

RHPS doesn't end well either. Frankenfurter is overpowered by his servants, who tell him “his mission is a failure” and that he “lost out to extremes”. The creature is executed and the mansion is revealed to be a space ship, which blasts off taking the inhabitants back to the planet Transexual in the galaxy of Transylvania. Frank and Janet escape, but are, one suspects, irrevocably damaged.

Actually, I've been toying with the notion of writing an erotic story featuring Janet as a character, thirty five years later. Brad is terrified by the sensuality of Frankenfurter's world, but Janet embraces it (“It's a gas that Frankie's landed – his lust is so sincere”, she sings.) What would it be like to have one's “mind expanded”, as she puts it, through a night of intense sexual pleasure, and then to lose it all? I picture her as a cougar, seducing young men in an attempt to recapture the thrill of that night, but incapable of satisfaction with a human lover after experiencing the extraterrestrial mojo of both Frank and Rocky.

Unfortunately, I haven't got beyond this initial premise. All the ideas I've had so far have been either ridiculous or utterly depressing. I do identify with Janet, though, especially as I age and look back upon my out-of-this-world experiences as a young woman.

9½Weeks (1986)

I suspect that there's no reader of the Oh Get a Grip blog who has not at least heard of 9 ½ Weeks. This somewhat infamous erotic drama. directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger, was panned by critics and received three Golden Raspberry nominations the year it was released, including Worst Actress and Worst Screenplay. Nevertheless, the film has a place in my personal erotic history, because it was the first time I'd seen a BDSM relationship played out on the screen.

As far as I can recall, I saw the movie not long after it had been released, and I believe I'd already read (with highly mixed feelings) Elizabeth McNeill's memoir of the same title, on which the film is based. I was only a few years married at this point, and my own experiences with D/s prior to my marriage were still fresh and almost painfully arousing. I must have dragged my husband to the movie too – we rarely engaged in separate recreation. I strongly suspect he hated it, but he endured it for my sake.

In a recent post on the ERWA blog (http://erotica-readers.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-inner-eye.html), I suggest that reading allows more room for the play of imagination, and thus provides a deeper and more satisfying experience than watching a film or video. While I believe this is true, actually seeing forbidden acts can be more exciting and disturbing than reading about them, especially before one becomes jaded. I had little patience with Kim Basinger's character, but I found Mickey Rourke compelling and plausible in his role of the dominant John Gray. (What is it about these Doms, that they all have the same surname?) He's not really all that physically attractive, which for me made him more real and more exciting. The fact that some of the trials he set for Elizabeth mirrored challenges from my own lost master only made the effects stronger.

I fantasized for weeks about the film, inserting myself into Basinger's place - and changing the ending. In both the book and the film, the relationship is portrayed as unhealthy and abusive. Eventually the submissive heroine manages to break away from the dominant's influence. The implication is that she has “escaped” back to a normal sexual existence. This interpretation really bothered me, perpetuating as it does the popular myth that people who engage in kinky sex are somehow sick or damaged, or that a vanilla relationship is intrinsically healthier.

Looking at the success of FSOG, it appears that this mistaken notion is still prevalent.

Zalman King co-produced 9 ½ Weeks. Perhaps if he had been more intimately involved, the film would have been a bigger success, both commercially and artistically. He's a master at portraying passion on the screen, as witnessed by such works as Wild Orchid, The Red Shoe Diaries, and Two Moon Junction.

But those titles will have to wait for another post.

Let's Do The Time Warp Again!

It's December 9th, 1990, and the place is Apartment 1 in Blacksburg, Virginia. What's that? You've never heard of Apartment 1? It's only the spot where all the truly great geeks hang out - the members of VTSFC (VA Tech Science Fiction Club), VTAS (VA Tech Animation Society), Ron's Women, the Patowski Twins, Whoman and Rueben the Boy Blunder, Fred, Derf (the anti-Fred), and a whole slew of guys named 'Michael.' I spent a lot of time with that gang, in that apartment. Back in those days I was their official Goddess of War (can you guess how I earned that title?), and I knew how to shake 'em down.

But back to Decemenber 9th, 1990, in Apartment 1. The hot chica in the football jersey and spandex leggings was yours truly, and the spry young stud dancing with her might have had a girl friend, but he was going to be mine before the night was out. Yeah, I was a home wrecker, a devastator, a woman with her sights set on a very specific prey. He was a hot Latin lover, one of the few boys who could actually dance, and you couldn't get a crow bar between us that night if you tried. And believe me, no one was trying. They didn't dare.

It was the last party of the year for Apartment 1. Winter finals were coming up, followed by Christmas break, and we were determined to dance until we fell through the floor into the apartment below up. Even the local stray cat, Mushroom, was doing his jive thing out on the porch, all hopped up on catnip and L'il Friskies. We played all our favorite songs that night - Paradise By The Dashboard Lights; Rocky Horror's Time Warp; a heavy metal dance mix of Carmina Burana's O Fortuna (I'd give my eye teeth to hear that song again); and a very naughty, outright nasty mash up of the Speed Racer theme song. Some genius had taken a bunch of sound clips of Trixie and Speed and mixed them with an electronica version of the theme. In the midst of the song was a high charged interlude of 'uhs' and 'ahs' that built until the song suddenly exploded into "Here he comes! Here comes Speed Racer!" and ended with Trixie giggling, "Oh Speed, you were WONDERFUL!" Another song I'd give my eye teeth to have.

Through it all, I danced with a boy I would one day marry. Kim called dancing a vertical expression of horizontal intent. I have never heard truer words. My future husband and I were as vertical and close as we could get when someone spun up "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" by the Police. When we kissed, the room exploded in applause. Like the Speed Racer mash up, we'd been going through our own little interlude, weeks of public flirting and promises of what might happen at the dance. People had been waiting for that moment for some time.

That was 1990. Now it's 2009, going on 19 years together. I wish I could say we still dance, but we left Blacksburg a few years later, after we got married, and moved to the suburbs where wild parties are few and far between. There are no good clubs that I know of, and even if there were, the cost of a babysitter these days and my bad knees kind of prohibits dancing. Even Apartment 1, that bastion of youth, will soon be gone. Developers are bulldozing it over to make way for new condos. It's the end of an era.

But I still feel that longing to dance, and I've done what I can to satisfy it. No longer a svelte twenty-something, I've turned to work out DVDs and Wii Dance Dance Revolution, trying to prove I can still get my groove on. We've got two mats for the DDR. Maybe tonight I'll put the kids to bed early and invite my husband to come join me in a dance.