Remember When Jacking Off Caused Insanity?

Medical books are fun, especially the really dusty ones no one reads anymore with information no one believes anymore, like this 1845 tome describing mental illness, the main cause of which, of course, was widely believed to be masturbation — or should we say, self-pollution?

This is an engraving from The Secret Companion, a medical work on onanism or self-pollution, with the best mode of treatment in all cases of nervous and sexual debility, impotency, etc., by R. J. Brodie, 1845, Plate 2.
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What a long way we’ve come — well, all of us except maybe for Christine O’Donnell.

Via MorbidAnatomy.

Woman Attacks Gauguin Painting, Issues Homophobic Remarks

Why would someone attack a painting? Last week in Washington DC, a visitor to the National Gallery’s “Gauguin: Maker of Myth” exhibition took hold of the frame of the post impressionist’s artist’s Two Tahitian Women, then began to pound her fist against the plexiglas protecting the painting.

A by-stander tackled the woman, enabling museum officers to step in. The woman, later identified as Susan Burns, a 53-year-old from Arlington, VA, was told her rights, then asked by an investigator why she had attacked the painting. She responded:

I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is bad for the children. He has two women in the painting and it’s very homosexual. I am trying to remove it. I think it should be burned. I am from the American CIA and I have a radio in my head. I am going to kill you.

… Continue Reading

The Penis as Art

Meet Jack Davis. In the sixties, while in grad school, Davis was coming out. Asked how he came to the idea of penises, he recalls how many of his classmates in his weaving and textile classes were making wall hangings reminiscent of vulvae.

The imagery inspired him to focus on making something that would feel men feel empowered as well. Thus, he crocheted his first penis. In 1975, his graduate show included these penises, and he’s continued making and exhibiting them since. … Continue Reading

The Real Doll Maker

Meet Matt McMullen, the creator of the Real Doll, those wondrous masterpieces of workmanship that are part sex toy, part work of art. In this video from California is a Place, McMullen describes how the first doll came to be. … Continue Reading

Painting With Boobs

Meet Kira Ayn Varszegi, a bodacious blonde who’s uses her DDs to paint abstracts.

That got your attention. Good. We here at Sex and the 405 are lovers of fine art and we’ll do whatever it takes to get you to pause long enough to consider the work of artists worth their salt. … Continue Reading

The Savage Girls

Devon Savage isn’t just in porn, he also enjoys being on the other side of the camera lens. He’s been in the business for six years, and now runs several of his own sites with his partner Ariella, herself an adult star. We asked him to give us some background and share some eye candy with us.

“I was just kinda a hack at it, never thinking it would one day lead to running three websites and doing it for a living,” Savage told us laughing when we asked about how he got started. “I got into the porn business as talent and one thing led to another.” … Continue Reading

Jonathan Yeo: Porn as Art

Lazarides galleries are known for their love of provocateurs, and there’s no better way to describe the work of Jonathan Yeo, who’s show “Porn in the USA” opened there on Friday.

We hit the exhibit over the weekend, taking in the figure studies, portraits and a gorgeous wall paper design that turns vulvas into leaves, completely changing the way that we view pornography. … Continue Reading

Robert Neil’s Nude Girls

Unlike most people who come into their craft later in life, the Los Angeles-based Robert Neil knew what he wanted to do the second he opened one of his father’s Penthouse magazines at the age of 13.

“Seeing the beauty of these women touched my creative soul,” he told us. “For the next few years, all I could think about was how I would shoot a beautiful woman if I got the chance. Then, when I was 18, I got that chance.” … Continue Reading

An Eyeful of Vulva

How many of us have heard (or, God forbid, uttered) the expression “it’s not the size of the boat, it’s the motion of the ocean”? The conversation about penis size never ceases skips a generation. Male genitals are out there, easy to gauge, and understand. But the female body is more mysterious. We can’t count the number of women we’ve encountered in our lives who have never really sat and explored their vulvae and vaginae.

Even if those of us who do, if we don’t have much experience exploring other female bodies, we can only assume they’re not all the same. There must be some differences — penises are not all the same, after all. … Continue Reading

Culver City Kink

One look at the sign on the door told us that Koplin del Rio was the gallery to hit during Culver City Art Walk over the weekend. … Continue Reading