a l a m u t

Some Poetic-Terrorist Ideas Still Sadly Languishing in the Realm of "Conceptual Art":
Paste up in public places a xerox flyer, photo of a beautiful twelve-year-old boy, naked and masturbating, clearly titled: THE FACE OF GOD.

sexual personae

It is perhaps unsuprising that Bey's ideas about sex are unconventional. Homosexuality--including the erotic rendering of boys--is used for imagery in TAZ and his other works. His notions of piracy and Islam both make use their depiction as "sexually transgressive" spaces. Anne Bonney and Mary Reade, the pirate women-as-men, or the smooth-skinned boys of Burton's Thousand and One Nights are clearly not participating in normative gender roles.

In one of his discussions on art, Bey cites Willhelm Reich: "Wilhelm Reich was driven half mad & killed by agents of the Emotional Plague; maybe half his work derived from sheer paranoia (UFO conspiracies, homophobia, even his orgasm theory), BUT on one point we agree wholeheartedly--sexpol: sexual repression breeds death obsession, which leads to bad politics." This suggests that sex is part & parcel of Bey's entire ideology; sexual play is neither superior to nor less than any other form of play.

On the other hand, maybe he does it for shock value. "Chaos Theory & the Nuclear Family," from TAZ attacks the nuclear family for being oppressive--pro-boredom/anti-fun. His suggestion of the picture of a naked & masturbating boy, postered in a public place, as an act of poetic terrorism seems a bit, well, adolescent. Demolishing the nuclear family and suggesting pedophilia as a replacement for standard Western sexual relations as one big sophomoric prank? I wouldn't put it past him.