Ass Pear La Plante Ruminations
Over my bowl of Kellogg’s Smacks this morning, I was contemplating the corporeal inspiration of Ass Pear La Plante.
In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud describes the two drives that motivate the psyche. Eros, the sex drive, which becomes our motivation for the interplay between creativity and the desire for sexual pleasure. And Thantos, the death drive, the push for the pleasure of destruction borne of the inchoate fear of our own demise. Our deaths a form of release. Like orgasm. Or watching Ryan Seacrest beaten with a shovel by angry thugs.
What then to make of Freud’s argument for the Death instinct? Where, then, can we locate the “Douche Drive?”
In the age of the simulacrum and the ascendancy of the market system, do we mark our bodies as both Eros and Thantos through product inscription? The tattoos of masculinity, the adornments of ‘bling, the name brand t-shirts, are they meant to render our skin an artistic canvass?
Canvasses do not decay. A body marked by bling and hair rendered crystalline by gel can not grow old, can not grey, can not die. The market sells us sex and eternity, with two caveats — financial replenishment and delayed gratification.
The next product will lead to sexual fulfillment. The next piece of body art will transform the human into post-human.
And all this time, Ass Pear La Plante. Calling out to me.
For a squeeze.
