Darkness and pleasure

Nightmares are not always what they are meant to be, frightful and disturbing dreams that bring out the worst of our subconscious. Sometimes, they are unsatisfied needs that we may not even be aware of. Freud —not that this eye knows anything really about his work, or, in short, about anything— might possibly say that it’s a repressed and compelling sexual necessity hidden beneath.

Johann Heinrich Füssli, The Nightmare, 1781

Historically —at least from what little I’ve read on the subject— women more than men [not today] had to satisfy themselves sexually until marriage; that is, through masturbation. That doesn’t mean men didn’t practice it just as much.

The point of this entire “dissertation” is the famous Heinrich Füssli painting: The Nightmare. It has been interpreted as an incubus’ rape of the young girl in the image. In the dilettante opinion of this eye, it is more of an allegory, and at the same time, a strong criticism, of that era’s satanization of female masturbation. A theme masterfully represented by the demon and the unleashed passion of the brutal horse’s gaze, both inhabiting one of the most intimate spaces: the darkness.

Darkness and pleasure