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Venus Ouverte
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Death, you certainly have been a naughty boy!

Death is not always depicted in such a salacious manner but on the other hand it’s not uncommon either. I selected the above images because I think they provide an interesting counterpoint to the contemporary Zombie whose appetites have essentially been neutered. I suppose we should all be thankful that zombie porn isn’t as popular today as it was back in the sixteenth century.

Libidinous inclinations aside Death, although dreaded and loathed, plays a morally ambiguous role compared to Zombies who seem to be purely evil. In these examples, Death is unloosed to mete out justice to those who’ve transgressed against the moral codes of the day. Yet the implied punishment, the act of rape transporting the figure through the portal of death, seems more troubling than the transgressions which summoned his appearance. Furthermore he seems just as guilty of getting off on carnality as his victims. This is especially apparent in Death and the Indecent Pair where one glimpse at Death’s mid-section lets you know his “hammer of justice” is ready to strike.

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When I first starting taking this idea seriously, there wasn't much to go with. At the time, brain machines were all the rage. Interestingly not much came of those, and I'm not sure why. In doing my original research there was an unconfirmed rumor, that sometime in the early 1960's, General Electric designed and built a sonic shower. As part of a product test run they installed about a hundred of theses in a suburban Chicago neighborhood. They were allegedly pulled from the market less than 6 months later, because apparently many of the adult women using it were having spontaneous orgasms. I suppose back then the mere idea of such a possibility was so outrageous, that GE quickly and quietly buried the technology for fear of scandal. I've tried googling this rumor to see if someone has finally spilled the beans on it. No luck so far.

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For decades, Men’s Club 45, on the western edge of Monterrey, Mexico, was among the region’s most notorious “tolerance zones,” or government-permitted red-light districts. Despite it’s name, it was not a single nightclub, but a walled-in complex of strip bars, seedy hotels and brothels visible from the main highway that serves as a gateway to Mexico’s northwest. In January 2007, the zone was shut down and put up for sale following a shoot-out, according to the man who guards the now all-but abandoned property, a man who declined to give his name. Business was in decline anyway. The chaos and freedom of Mexico’s “zonas de tolerancia” has left them open to drug-related violence. Moreover, times and tastes have changed. The sex market has shifted to more secure, centrally located, US-style “executive” strip bars offering the same services. Men’s Club 45, meanwhile, remains as a curious, one-year-old ghost town where only the security guard, his fighting roosters and two dogs roam the alleys and parking lots. The once-remote property has been encroached upon by suburban and medium-density commercial development. The location of the land on which it languishes -- on the fringes of a growing city of more than three million people just hours from the US border -- may eventually make it a tantalizing site for developers.

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