🔞🖼️ Pervy Art Inspector: Death of the Penis
Once in a while, you stumble across a painting that makes you spit out that ramen and say, “What in the world is this monstrous…ly magnificent painting?” I thought the same thing when I came across this masterpiece.
At first glance, it looks like a big penis with arms and legs lying in a mightily suggestive pose, like he’s declaring to the world, “Here I am, feast your eyes on my throbbing beauty!” I’m assuming it’s a he. Surrounding him are women with…what is that on their faces??
Is it a satire of how women are forced to worship the patriarchy? A celebration of the masculine form? Or some sort of twisted fantasy?
Lucky for you, if there’s anything I like more than looking at lewd art, it’s researching lewd art. And I’ve found the answer. It has to do with Buddhism.
In Buddhism, if you’ve achieved enough to become enlightened, you enter a state called parinirvana upon death, where you are freed from the cycle of death and rebirth. A common theme in Buddhist art is the parinirvana of important enlightened beings, most often the Buddha Shakyamuni.
_-_2005.58.1a-b_-_Yale_University_Art_Gallery.jpg){kind=link}
A typical parinirvana scene shows the enlightened one lying on his side on a dais like he’s posing for his Vogue cover photo, with followers mourning around him. At some point, a cheeky artist said, “Okay, hear me out. What if we did that…but with a carrot?” and birthed vegetable parinirvana.
He wasn’t alone. Other artists did all kinds of parodies of the parinirvana image. In the Edo period (1603 - 1868), we started seeing parinirvana art of famous kabuki actors.
Instead of a crowd of followers, these actors had a crowd of fangirls weeping over their bodies. In the image of Ichikawa Danjūrō VIII’s parinirvana, you can see children and even a poor cat crying.
Kabuki actors were huge sex symbols, so it’s not surprising that an artist would take it to the next level and draw a big ol’ penis there surrounded by a bunch of women with vulvas for faces holding sex toys instead of ceremonial objects.
Also in the penis parinirvana print are two phallic men who represent Buddhist guardian kings. Around them are eggs, bamboo shoots, burdock, bracket fungus, eels, and a loach fish, all foods that were supposed to arouse your sexual energy.
Erotic art often parodies famous classical works, and this is just another example.
The painting in the background shows two divine beings with multiple vulva heads and a bunch of arms holding sex toys. One of the toys is very interesting and quite versatile, and you can read all about it here.
Japanese erotic art is wild! I once stumbled upon a woodblock print series called The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, showing a woman and octopuses, that was both obscene and fascinating 🤣