Friday, September 11, 2009

Where is Freud when you need him?

EROS and THANATOS
Reuters reports this from Zurich:

Body Worlds plans cadaver show dedicated to sex
German anatomists plan a new show dedicated solely to dead bodies having sex as part of the Body Worlds exhibitions.

Gunther von Hagens and his wife Angelina Whalley show corpses prepared using a technique invented by von Hagens called "plastination," that removes water from specimens and preserves them with silicon rubber or epoxy resin. . . .

Von Hagens has already triggered uproar with a new exhibit which shows just two copulating corpses.

German politicians called the current "Cycle of Life" show charting conception to old age "revolting" and "unacceptable" when it showed in Berlin earlier this year because it included copulating cadavers.

The way a plastinate is exhibited can vary from country to country to reflect local sensibilities. A vote of local employees decided that one of the copulating female cadavers should wear fewer clothes in Zurich than was the case in Berlin.

"Switzerland is the first country that already said from the outset that we could show whatever we wanted," said von Hagens.

"Zurich is ready ... but it's maybe not so easy in every other town," he said. "We have discussed whether it is proper to show homosexuality and in what way. This is a very delicate subject."
"Delicate subjects," perhaps you remember the term. It once meant . . . oh, never mind.

Welcome to the final manifestation of the sexual revolution. It was shamelessly irresponsible while it lasted, but now it's come full circle: Eros has turned to Thanatos for titillation. What a perfect and perfectly fitting commentary on its wildly successful attempt to uncouple (if you'll pardon the expression) sex and reproduction, leading directly to the demographic death of Europe and many of the cultures it once inspired.

Thanks to Carl Olson at Ignatius' "Inside Scoop."

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