Bataille and Bukkake
Georges Bataille’s philosophical system constantly emphasizes the human need to return
to a continuous existence, a one-ness with universal being, which was achieved through the
production of the sacred in an act of transgression. The highest form of transgression, in being
the ultimate act of unproductive v******e, for Bataille, came in the form of highly ritualistic
human sacrifice. Human sacrifice, however, need not remain in one distinct form, and could
morph into symbolic versions unknown to Bataille, even to the point of no longer requiring any
physical death, so long as it still acts as a means to escape the survivalism, production, and
societal demands of the profane world. At its most basic form, Bataille writes that “To sacrifice
is not to kill but to relinquish and to give.”1 One such adaptation, I will argue, is a type of group
sex originating in Japan and Japanese pornography known asbukkake. Though non-existent
during Bataille’s lifetime (1897 – 1962), the practice ofbukkake (defined below) contains nearly
all the essential elements of human sacrifice according to Bataille’s model, in being an erotic
transgression that indeed produces the sacred through a violation of a societal prohibition in this
intensely sexual act, as well as attempting to cease discontinuous existence, and can even reveals
an inner experience for the participants.
It is thus an immediate necessity to define what constitutesbukkake as a practice to be
studied. As before, this is a form of group sex, but is highly distinct in that it generally contains
no actual intercourse, vaginal or anal. In the most literal terms, what occurs inbukkake is a
procession, methodic, orderly and ritualistic, of men ejaculating on the face, body, and into the
mouth of a single, usually female, target. This procession, in a paradox appropriate to Bataille, is
also very chaotic, and forceful in their act. The number of men participating rarely goes below
twenty, and it is not uncommon for the number to be ten times that. The practice is defined by its excessiveness, and the degree to which a whole congregation of men share communion with
their sacrificial victim. According to a myth of unknown origin, and almost universally disputed
authenticity,bukka ke was a form of punishment in feudal Japan intended to punish women
caught in adulterous affairs, such that every man in the community or village would then
consecutively ejaculate on her.
2 However, most sources point to bukkake as emerging in
Japanese pornography at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s. Nonetheless, the purpose is still
ostensibly humiliation, punishing minor adultery with what can only be perceived as extreme
adultery. Yet, perhaps there is more to the practice than simple humiliation, as erotic humiliation
need not involve such a large, and importantly, communal effort.
The actual process of bukkake can be related to ‘The Sacrifice of the Gibbon’ in Bataille’s ‘The Pineal Eye’ and Bataille’s other fiction. When taken at the base level, the actions occurring in both, the near-drowning in semen inbukkake and live burial in ‘The Sacrifice of the Gibbon,’ reach a level of absurdity, and yet more and more people feel compelled to join the activity. At the zenith of these two events we see a clear representation of Bataille’s conception of contagion and communal self-loss. In ‘The Story of the Eye,’ the characters are obsessed with bodily fluids, with liquids such as semen and urine seen as a means of returning to the oceanic continuity, and indeed the narrator even comes on Simone’s face in one scene.
3 Bataille also notes in one non- fiction piece, ‘Use-Value of D.A.F. de Sade,’ that a primary means to rupture the world of things is through appropriation via oral consumption. In addition, this consumption can even be
sacrificial so long as the ‘food’ (he is writing in terms of human excrements such as sperm,
menstrual blood, etc.) retains its ritual quality.
4 Japan’s obscenity laws dictate very strict allowances for nudity, such that even in that
which is explicitly pornographic the pubis and genitalia of both sexes must be obscured.5 As
such, with the showing of pubic hair being considered obscene, the boundaries of what
constitutes transgression are set very tight. The basic obscenity law was first instituted in 1907,
but was reaffirmed in 1964, even after the 1947 Constitution abolished state-censorship. What is
obscene, by technical definition, is that which purposely arouses feelings of ‘shame and disgust.’
The reaffirmed law was used in 1969 to prosecute the publisher of a translated work by the
Marquis de Sade, thereby showing the dedication the Japanese elite have for enforcement of
societal norms. Along with eliciting shame and disgust, anything held to be ‘counter to good
moral concepts regarding sex,’ or at least what the judges believe the morality of the masses to
be towards such, is obscene. As Chin Kim states, this establishes societal norms in which
“freedom of expression is preempted by the concept of maintaining sexual order for public
welfare.”6 In the cases brought before Japan’s high courts, it has been the letter of the law which
has won out over ideas of free expression, with the judges being given the explicit duty of curing
society of obscenity, as “The public welfare standard is the supreme judicial consideration.”7
When it comes to daily life in the profane world of the Japanese, the position of the judges may
not even be entirely off base, as according to the Institute of Statistical Mathematics in Tokyo based on quinquennial studies of ‘Japanese national character,’ there has been no appreciable change to the desire to maintain traditional values since 1953, clearly establishing a system of entrenched and supported prohibitions.8
That bukkake qualifies as a perversion is nearly self-evident; as Linda Williams has
argued, the need for a visual spectacle has been the cause for the ultimate pornographic
perversion, ‘the money shot,’ or the image of a male ejaculating in a place other than the genitals
of the sexual partner. As Williams states, this act is given the position of being the climactic
finale of a sexual conquest, and yet, “this aim quite literally miss[es] its mark.”9 The ‘money
shot’ is thus ultimately perverse in deflecting the natural final-end of sex, and as bukkak e is often
nothing more than a series of money shots, its perceived perversion and nausea eliciting effect
grows exponentially.
Therefore, whilebukkake is unavoidably a transgression of Japanese obscenity law,
Bataille writes, “The sacred world depends on limited acts of transgression.”10 Further, human
societies are blind to that which transcends survival, we pursue a continued discontinuous
existence, and thus have a profane world which values work. To maintain such, there are
prohibitions on acts of v******e and sexuality that might threaten the ‘reason’ of society. But,
according to Joseph Libertson, in the Bataillan system, on the day of the festival, “that which
was prohibited is permitted or even demanded,”11 in a haste to create loss through transgression.
Libertson posits that the prohibitions of human societies prepare, invoke, and even ‘participate
in’ the v******e that they overtly seek to render inaccessible. As Bataille writes, “There exists no prohibition that cannot be transgressed … The taboo is there in order to be violated.”12 Later, in
‘The Tears of Eros’ Bataille wrote, “Prohibition gives to what it proscribes a meaning that in
itself the prohibited action never had. A prohibited act invites transgression, without which the
act would not have the wicked glow which is so seductive.”13 As such, prohibition is seen as
creating the ultimate grounding of the sacred world in Bataillan thought.14 The explosion of
transgression at the time of the festival need not even be entirely spontaneous, certainly the
outcome is not rationally calculated, but transgressions likebukkake, such as war, orgy, and
sacrifice, according to Bataille, are still ‘organized explosions.’15
In Richard McGregor’s book, Japan Swings, the effect of the economic collapse in Japan
during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the same timeframe as the appearance ofbukkake, is
explored as a cultural catalyst. While not dealing withbukkake itself, McGregor notes that in the
pornography Japan made in the last fifteen years there has been a reversion to women taking
very passive roles, as men take to reasserting their position in a time when economic instability
had usurped their masculinity. As McGregor notes of recent Japanese pornography, “The two
lines used by most AV [adult video] actresses areyamat e (stop it), anditai (it hurts), and in
acting them out, the women appear more ensnared and impaired than empowered.”16
Interestingly, Bataille notes that many classical examples of extreme transgression occurred in
the context of societal decay, such as in the death of a Fiji Islands chief.17 The intrinsic
inauthenticity of bukkake, in the sense that its origins are a recent fabrication, may be
unimportant to our understanding of it. As Bataille writes on the inherently fake ceremonies of religion, “In all religion dramatization is essential … If we didn’t know how to dramatize, we
wouldn’t be able to leave ourselves.”18 Moreover, Paul Hegarty argues, “for Bataille all we have
are myths, and myths are superior to truth, in that they are not statements of fact but statements
of community.”19
All this is not to say thatbukkake does not occur in North America and Europe, in fact it
has been imported quite successfully thus far, though with some notable modifications. Most
importantly is the lack of the element of humiliation, withbukkake portrayed as enjoyable even
for the ‘victim,’ though it must be remembered that humiliation is not a primary characteristic of
Bataillan sacrifice. Exemplifying the ability for a woman to take pleasure in such obvious
degradation is Catherine Millet, who in her sexual autobiography shows no humiliation in
wanting to be the sexual object for numerous men simultaneously.20 Jean-Luc Nancy notes that
the primary characteristic of sacrifice in the Western tradition is that it is self-sacrifice, which he
illustrates through the examples of Jesus and Socrates.21 Thus there is a parallel here seen with
Western bukkake as a more voluntary act on the part of the object, as can be seen in Anthony
Petkovich’s interview withbukkake newcomer, Sabrina Jayde.22 In the same article, Petkovich
reveals something of an inner experience among the participants in thebukkake, paraphrasing the
late Sid Vicious in the case of Vinnie, abukkake participant who performed oral sex on Sabrina
Jayde during filming even after some amount of semen had dripped onto her vagina, saying that
“A bukkake like this one’s the only place where he can truly be himself – without any hassles.”
Nietzsche, in one fragment, equated the great and sublime feelings of the loss of self, Bataille’s
inner experience, to an ocean, and most importantly, instructed us to “be that ocean.”23 As
Bataille wrtes on the experience of the sacrificer during the ritual, “The sacrificer needs the
sacrifice in order to separate himself from the world of things…,”24 with such need evident in the
above case of Vinnie.
According to Freud, all men feel their sexual potency hampered by the women they
respect, such as the mother or a wife of high culture. As such, full sexual expression, especially
sexual aims defined as perverse, require a sexual object inferior to the man, a woman to whom
he owes no respect, and who cannot criticize him for his practices. A ‘well-brought-up’ wife will
simply not suffice.25 Interestingly, this plays entirely into thebukkake origins myth concerning
adulterous women. Bataille writes, “Sacrifice restores to the sacred world that which servile use
has degraded, rendered profane.”26 Thebukkake can thus be seen as a form of penance, as the
woman who lives in the profane world loses her purity to due this existence, and thus can be
restored to a sacred status of preserved feminine sexuality in what is in essence a sacrificial ritual.
A sacrifice, even a human sacrifice, according to Bataille, need not literally destroy the sacrificed
thing; all that need be accomplished is a removal of the object from the profane world of things.
In fact, as Bataille writes, “it [sacrifice] rarely goes to the point of holocaust.”27
The sacrificial ritual is described by Bataille in terms of a circle, in both the literal ritual
circle in which the sacrifice occurs and a return to the circle of continuous existence, which is
like unto thebukkake, which also transpires in a circle. In this destruction of thebukkake circle the woman is the only figure constantly seen, the only memorable character; she is the sacred.
The men involved are the profane, their orderly households equally profane. Richard McGregor
thus notes that men in Japanese pornography merit even less credit than is given to men in North
American pornography (see Figure 1 below). Bataille also writes that, in general, women are
given a position in the erotic as the privileged objects of desire, as the man pursues the woman
more commonly than vice versa.
8
the woman is the only figure constantly seen, the only memorable character; she is the sacred.
The men involved are the profane, their orderly households equally profane. Richard McGregor
thus notes that men in Japanese pornography merit even less credit than is given to men in North
American pornography (see Figure 1 below). Bataille also writes that, in general, women are
given a position in the erotic as the privileged objects of desire, as the man pursues the woman
more commonly than vice versa.2 8
Michel Foucault’s ‘Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la Prison’ spares no details in
purposefully evoking disgust and nausea in its readers through the description of acts of ritual cruelty, yet as James Miller notes, there concurrently exists a ‘perverse fascination’ with the
details. Similarly, Miller writes that in Nietzsche’s ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra,’ Nietzsche posits
that man is not only the cruelest a****l, but also that the highest gratification comes from the
practice of cruelty; power enjoyed is cruelty practiced. Cruelty, according to Nietzsche, is among
the oldest ‘festive joys.’ The practice of torture, in Foucault’s view, is not blind savagery, but in
fact a practice that obeys strict rules to achieve its full splendor. As withbukkake, Foucault
presents torture as a situation in which the victim became sacred to the crowd, a hero who
because of his imminent destruction was free to transgress any profane norm of the society. The
creation of prohibitions on torture, according to Miller’s reading of Foucault, creates a society
that is overtly docile, but latently constituted by bodies that lacking any outlet for their cruelty
embrace a ‘proliferation of perversions.’ Thus when literal torture is no longer displayed publicly
it manifests in individuals as violent sexual obsessions, such asbukkake.2 9
From Bataille’s perspective on cruelty, he states that everyone is capable on inflicting
cruelty, pain defines us as human, and while ‘a thousand obstacles’ may impede one’s desire to
harm, it is never beyond possibility. According to Bataille, humanity’s mode of existence is
characterized by the extremes of order and v******e. The same men who are kind and concerned
for their society can be bought to “practice pillage and arson, murder, v******e, and torture.
Excess contrasts with reason.”30 As such, labels like civilization and barbarism are invalid to the
extent that it is assumed that one can not be both. Bataille recognizes the attempt, perhaps
unintentional, to dissolve the barrier between these terms in the writings of de Sade, in which,
v******e is reflected upon as the product of a ‘rationalized will to v******e.’ Bataille’s argument is that in being conscious of our v******e, we cannot engage the frenzy and senselessness that
epitomizes v******e, and as “v******e is the core of eroticism,”31 the erotic must be both beyond
conscious consideration and infused with v******e, violation and transgression. The profane men
inbu kkake are average men; average men engaging their v******e as echoed by Bataille’s writing
that “Now the average man knows that he must become aware of the things which repel him
most violently – those things … are part of our nature.”32 Finally, the inclusion, and primacy
even, of commoners inbukkake can be compared to the description of the Dionysian orgies in
the thought of Bataille and Nietzsche, orgies that, according to Bataille, often included large
numbers of slaves and lower plebians.33
In Bataillan human sacrifice the useful thing removed from the profane world is most
commonly the slave, not the luxurious king (being useless a priori) or master. Likewise, in
bukkake the victim is one who would be useful to society in biological as well as ideological
reproduction, and as a woman, is like unto a slave in Japanese society. In fact, it may be her
sacrifice that provides for the ideological reproduction of the social order. This profitless
destruction of a useful person, Bataille writes, “is the most radical contestation of the primacy of
utility. It is at the same time the highest degree of an unleashing of internal v******e.”34 Bataille
wrote that the fascination we have with sacrifice comes because of our persistent desire from
c***dhood to see the ubiquitous and suffocating social order upset, if only temporarily. While
sacrifice andbukkake do indeed upset the social order, at the same time they entrench it even
firmer in profane life by discriminating the profane from the sacred.35
In Bataille’s rendition of the Aztec story of the creation of the sun and the moon, the gods
who were sacrificed did so because of the demand of the divine community. Thus the sacrifice is
contingent upon the necessity of the community for a sacrifice, and as inbuk kake, the sacrificed
only becomes passive and gives herself to the ritual at the behest of the community.36 Again, like
the human sacrifices of the Aztecs, the object of thebukkake gains reverence among the
community performing the sacrifice. However, it must be noted that the sacrifices of the Aztecs,
largely, were not insiders to the sacrificing community before the sacrifice, like the adulterous
girls in thebukkake myth, these victims had become enemies of the community in various
wars.37
The actual event ofbukkake mirrors Bataille’s portrayal of the festival, in which men are
assembled for the consumption of the sacrificial communion, during which there is ‘an aspiration
for destruction.’ According to Joseph Libertson, Bataille’s ontological meaning for sacrifice is “a
direct, total destruction of the ‘discontinuity’ of a victim in the context of a sacred ritual.”38 In
striking similarity to Sabrina Jayde’s comments to Anthony Petkovich in his interview with her
before undergoing thebukkake, that she is excited by the prospect of being the sole focus of
ninety one men, Bataille wrote that in the sacrifice, “Nothing is more striking than the attention
that is lavished on him[the victim].”39 Yet, there is only a permanent change in the mode of
being for the sacrificed; those performing the sacrifice are left without true resolution. The
sacrifice destroys only one instance of discontinuity, not discontinuity itself, and thus the
survivors must return to the profane world at the end of the festival.40 While bukkake may be a simulacrum of sacrifice, as even the sacrificed returns to the profane world, she does so with the knowledge of an experience of continuity in being the sacred object in a communion dedicated to her heterogeneity.
According to Paul Hegarty, “The endpoint of Bataille’s idea of community is a coming
together … and the paradigm for this community is sacrifice, and all that surrounds it.”41 Hegarty
goes on to state that Bataille’s conception of a genuine community is that which overrides
profane society in the moment of sacrifice. Moreover, the communities that are most thriving are
those capable of creating a binding sense of the sacred through their sacrifices. Community is
thus established in a communal transgression in which individual identity becomes obscured.42
In fact, one of the most unique aspects of thebukkake community noted by Anthony Petkovich
was the tolerance and non-judgmental attitude of the participants.43 In terms of community,
bukkake works as a sacrifice that operates as a vicarious means for a return to continuity for the
community’s members. The sacrifice is a communal crime, a transgression, and thereby binds
the community into understanding itself as such. However, as above, as with human sacrifice,
those witnessing the sacrifice cannot achieve the final-end of their own destruction, as they only
swim in the ocean of continuous existence, they do not become it.
In conclusion, a practice as graphic and excessive asbukkake does not lend itself well to
verbalization, let alone serious academic study of its nature and the extent of its transgression.
However, it is my hope that an understanding ofbukkake as a transgression capable of producing
the sacred for a community has been established, as unlike other acts of eroticism, humiliation,
sadism, and masochism,bukkake can not be performed without the communal element and
would have no meaning if not for the presence of so many witnesses and participants. This is not
to say thatbukkake fits Bataille’s paradigm for human sacrifice entirely, indeed there is an
inversion in the direction of communion, with the victim consuming the essence of her
sacrificers, as well as the possibility of a return to the profane world for the victim. Nonetheless,
this is a thoroughly communal transgression, symbolic as it may be, and has been shown to
indeed produce an inner experience. We are left to wonder what Bataille would have reflected
had he been given the opportunity to witness abukkake. I posit that Bataille would have
recognized that the circle of the human sacrifice and the circle ofbukkake are not so entirely
dissimilar, both are violently erotic, and unlike the pleasure of the individual taken in the
destruction of many in the eroticism of the Marquis de Sade,bukkake shows the sacrifice of the
one for the joy of an entire community.
to a continuous existence, a one-ness with universal being, which was achieved through the
production of the sacred in an act of transgression. The highest form of transgression, in being
the ultimate act of unproductive v******e, for Bataille, came in the form of highly ritualistic
human sacrifice. Human sacrifice, however, need not remain in one distinct form, and could
morph into symbolic versions unknown to Bataille, even to the point of no longer requiring any
physical death, so long as it still acts as a means to escape the survivalism, production, and
societal demands of the profane world. At its most basic form, Bataille writes that “To sacrifice
is not to kill but to relinquish and to give.”1 One such adaptation, I will argue, is a type of group
sex originating in Japan and Japanese pornography known asbukkake. Though non-existent
during Bataille’s lifetime (1897 – 1962), the practice ofbukkake (defined below) contains nearly
all the essential elements of human sacrifice according to Bataille’s model, in being an erotic
transgression that indeed produces the sacred through a violation of a societal prohibition in this
intensely sexual act, as well as attempting to cease discontinuous existence, and can even reveals
an inner experience for the participants.
It is thus an immediate necessity to define what constitutesbukkake as a practice to be
studied. As before, this is a form of group sex, but is highly distinct in that it generally contains
no actual intercourse, vaginal or anal. In the most literal terms, what occurs inbukkake is a
procession, methodic, orderly and ritualistic, of men ejaculating on the face, body, and into the
mouth of a single, usually female, target. This procession, in a paradox appropriate to Bataille, is
also very chaotic, and forceful in their act. The number of men participating rarely goes below
twenty, and it is not uncommon for the number to be ten times that. The practice is defined by its excessiveness, and the degree to which a whole congregation of men share communion with
their sacrificial victim. According to a myth of unknown origin, and almost universally disputed
authenticity,bukka ke was a form of punishment in feudal Japan intended to punish women
caught in adulterous affairs, such that every man in the community or village would then
consecutively ejaculate on her.
2 However, most sources point to bukkake as emerging in
Japanese pornography at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s. Nonetheless, the purpose is still
ostensibly humiliation, punishing minor adultery with what can only be perceived as extreme
adultery. Yet, perhaps there is more to the practice than simple humiliation, as erotic humiliation
need not involve such a large, and importantly, communal effort.
The actual process of bukkake can be related to ‘The Sacrifice of the Gibbon’ in Bataille’s ‘The Pineal Eye’ and Bataille’s other fiction. When taken at the base level, the actions occurring in both, the near-drowning in semen inbukkake and live burial in ‘The Sacrifice of the Gibbon,’ reach a level of absurdity, and yet more and more people feel compelled to join the activity. At the zenith of these two events we see a clear representation of Bataille’s conception of contagion and communal self-loss. In ‘The Story of the Eye,’ the characters are obsessed with bodily fluids, with liquids such as semen and urine seen as a means of returning to the oceanic continuity, and indeed the narrator even comes on Simone’s face in one scene.
3 Bataille also notes in one non- fiction piece, ‘Use-Value of D.A.F. de Sade,’ that a primary means to rupture the world of things is through appropriation via oral consumption. In addition, this consumption can even be
sacrificial so long as the ‘food’ (he is writing in terms of human excrements such as sperm,
menstrual blood, etc.) retains its ritual quality.
4 Japan’s obscenity laws dictate very strict allowances for nudity, such that even in that
which is explicitly pornographic the pubis and genitalia of both sexes must be obscured.5 As
such, with the showing of pubic hair being considered obscene, the boundaries of what
constitutes transgression are set very tight. The basic obscenity law was first instituted in 1907,
but was reaffirmed in 1964, even after the 1947 Constitution abolished state-censorship. What is
obscene, by technical definition, is that which purposely arouses feelings of ‘shame and disgust.’
The reaffirmed law was used in 1969 to prosecute the publisher of a translated work by the
Marquis de Sade, thereby showing the dedication the Japanese elite have for enforcement of
societal norms. Along with eliciting shame and disgust, anything held to be ‘counter to good
moral concepts regarding sex,’ or at least what the judges believe the morality of the masses to
be towards such, is obscene. As Chin Kim states, this establishes societal norms in which
“freedom of expression is preempted by the concept of maintaining sexual order for public
welfare.”6 In the cases brought before Japan’s high courts, it has been the letter of the law which
has won out over ideas of free expression, with the judges being given the explicit duty of curing
society of obscenity, as “The public welfare standard is the supreme judicial consideration.”7
When it comes to daily life in the profane world of the Japanese, the position of the judges may
not even be entirely off base, as according to the Institute of Statistical Mathematics in Tokyo based on quinquennial studies of ‘Japanese national character,’ there has been no appreciable change to the desire to maintain traditional values since 1953, clearly establishing a system of entrenched and supported prohibitions.8
That bukkake qualifies as a perversion is nearly self-evident; as Linda Williams has
argued, the need for a visual spectacle has been the cause for the ultimate pornographic
perversion, ‘the money shot,’ or the image of a male ejaculating in a place other than the genitals
of the sexual partner. As Williams states, this act is given the position of being the climactic
finale of a sexual conquest, and yet, “this aim quite literally miss[es] its mark.”9 The ‘money
shot’ is thus ultimately perverse in deflecting the natural final-end of sex, and as bukkak e is often
nothing more than a series of money shots, its perceived perversion and nausea eliciting effect
grows exponentially.
Therefore, whilebukkake is unavoidably a transgression of Japanese obscenity law,
Bataille writes, “The sacred world depends on limited acts of transgression.”10 Further, human
societies are blind to that which transcends survival, we pursue a continued discontinuous
existence, and thus have a profane world which values work. To maintain such, there are
prohibitions on acts of v******e and sexuality that might threaten the ‘reason’ of society. But,
according to Joseph Libertson, in the Bataillan system, on the day of the festival, “that which
was prohibited is permitted or even demanded,”11 in a haste to create loss through transgression.
Libertson posits that the prohibitions of human societies prepare, invoke, and even ‘participate
in’ the v******e that they overtly seek to render inaccessible. As Bataille writes, “There exists no prohibition that cannot be transgressed … The taboo is there in order to be violated.”12 Later, in
‘The Tears of Eros’ Bataille wrote, “Prohibition gives to what it proscribes a meaning that in
itself the prohibited action never had. A prohibited act invites transgression, without which the
act would not have the wicked glow which is so seductive.”13 As such, prohibition is seen as
creating the ultimate grounding of the sacred world in Bataillan thought.14 The explosion of
transgression at the time of the festival need not even be entirely spontaneous, certainly the
outcome is not rationally calculated, but transgressions likebukkake, such as war, orgy, and
sacrifice, according to Bataille, are still ‘organized explosions.’15
In Richard McGregor’s book, Japan Swings, the effect of the economic collapse in Japan
during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the same timeframe as the appearance ofbukkake, is
explored as a cultural catalyst. While not dealing withbukkake itself, McGregor notes that in the
pornography Japan made in the last fifteen years there has been a reversion to women taking
very passive roles, as men take to reasserting their position in a time when economic instability
had usurped their masculinity. As McGregor notes of recent Japanese pornography, “The two
lines used by most AV [adult video] actresses areyamat e (stop it), anditai (it hurts), and in
acting them out, the women appear more ensnared and impaired than empowered.”16
Interestingly, Bataille notes that many classical examples of extreme transgression occurred in
the context of societal decay, such as in the death of a Fiji Islands chief.17 The intrinsic
inauthenticity of bukkake, in the sense that its origins are a recent fabrication, may be
unimportant to our understanding of it. As Bataille writes on the inherently fake ceremonies of religion, “In all religion dramatization is essential … If we didn’t know how to dramatize, we
wouldn’t be able to leave ourselves.”18 Moreover, Paul Hegarty argues, “for Bataille all we have
are myths, and myths are superior to truth, in that they are not statements of fact but statements
of community.”19
All this is not to say thatbukkake does not occur in North America and Europe, in fact it
has been imported quite successfully thus far, though with some notable modifications. Most
importantly is the lack of the element of humiliation, withbukkake portrayed as enjoyable even
for the ‘victim,’ though it must be remembered that humiliation is not a primary characteristic of
Bataillan sacrifice. Exemplifying the ability for a woman to take pleasure in such obvious
degradation is Catherine Millet, who in her sexual autobiography shows no humiliation in
wanting to be the sexual object for numerous men simultaneously.20 Jean-Luc Nancy notes that
the primary characteristic of sacrifice in the Western tradition is that it is self-sacrifice, which he
illustrates through the examples of Jesus and Socrates.21 Thus there is a parallel here seen with
Western bukkake as a more voluntary act on the part of the object, as can be seen in Anthony
Petkovich’s interview withbukkake newcomer, Sabrina Jayde.22 In the same article, Petkovich
reveals something of an inner experience among the participants in thebukkake, paraphrasing the
late Sid Vicious in the case of Vinnie, abukkake participant who performed oral sex on Sabrina
Jayde during filming even after some amount of semen had dripped onto her vagina, saying that
“A bukkake like this one’s the only place where he can truly be himself – without any hassles.”
Nietzsche, in one fragment, equated the great and sublime feelings of the loss of self, Bataille’s
inner experience, to an ocean, and most importantly, instructed us to “be that ocean.”23 As
Bataille wrtes on the experience of the sacrificer during the ritual, “The sacrificer needs the
sacrifice in order to separate himself from the world of things…,”24 with such need evident in the
above case of Vinnie.
According to Freud, all men feel their sexual potency hampered by the women they
respect, such as the mother or a wife of high culture. As such, full sexual expression, especially
sexual aims defined as perverse, require a sexual object inferior to the man, a woman to whom
he owes no respect, and who cannot criticize him for his practices. A ‘well-brought-up’ wife will
simply not suffice.25 Interestingly, this plays entirely into thebukkake origins myth concerning
adulterous women. Bataille writes, “Sacrifice restores to the sacred world that which servile use
has degraded, rendered profane.”26 Thebukkake can thus be seen as a form of penance, as the
woman who lives in the profane world loses her purity to due this existence, and thus can be
restored to a sacred status of preserved feminine sexuality in what is in essence a sacrificial ritual.
A sacrifice, even a human sacrifice, according to Bataille, need not literally destroy the sacrificed
thing; all that need be accomplished is a removal of the object from the profane world of things.
In fact, as Bataille writes, “it [sacrifice] rarely goes to the point of holocaust.”27
The sacrificial ritual is described by Bataille in terms of a circle, in both the literal ritual
circle in which the sacrifice occurs and a return to the circle of continuous existence, which is
like unto thebukkake, which also transpires in a circle. In this destruction of thebukkake circle the woman is the only figure constantly seen, the only memorable character; she is the sacred.
The men involved are the profane, their orderly households equally profane. Richard McGregor
thus notes that men in Japanese pornography merit even less credit than is given to men in North
American pornography (see Figure 1 below). Bataille also writes that, in general, women are
given a position in the erotic as the privileged objects of desire, as the man pursues the woman
more commonly than vice versa.
8
the woman is the only figure constantly seen, the only memorable character; she is the sacred.
The men involved are the profane, their orderly households equally profane. Richard McGregor
thus notes that men in Japanese pornography merit even less credit than is given to men in North
American pornography (see Figure 1 below). Bataille also writes that, in general, women are
given a position in the erotic as the privileged objects of desire, as the man pursues the woman
more commonly than vice versa.2 8
Michel Foucault’s ‘Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la Prison’ spares no details in
purposefully evoking disgust and nausea in its readers through the description of acts of ritual cruelty, yet as James Miller notes, there concurrently exists a ‘perverse fascination’ with the
details. Similarly, Miller writes that in Nietzsche’s ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra,’ Nietzsche posits
that man is not only the cruelest a****l, but also that the highest gratification comes from the
practice of cruelty; power enjoyed is cruelty practiced. Cruelty, according to Nietzsche, is among
the oldest ‘festive joys.’ The practice of torture, in Foucault’s view, is not blind savagery, but in
fact a practice that obeys strict rules to achieve its full splendor. As withbukkake, Foucault
presents torture as a situation in which the victim became sacred to the crowd, a hero who
because of his imminent destruction was free to transgress any profane norm of the society. The
creation of prohibitions on torture, according to Miller’s reading of Foucault, creates a society
that is overtly docile, but latently constituted by bodies that lacking any outlet for their cruelty
embrace a ‘proliferation of perversions.’ Thus when literal torture is no longer displayed publicly
it manifests in individuals as violent sexual obsessions, such asbukkake.2 9
From Bataille’s perspective on cruelty, he states that everyone is capable on inflicting
cruelty, pain defines us as human, and while ‘a thousand obstacles’ may impede one’s desire to
harm, it is never beyond possibility. According to Bataille, humanity’s mode of existence is
characterized by the extremes of order and v******e. The same men who are kind and concerned
for their society can be bought to “practice pillage and arson, murder, v******e, and torture.
Excess contrasts with reason.”30 As such, labels like civilization and barbarism are invalid to the
extent that it is assumed that one can not be both. Bataille recognizes the attempt, perhaps
unintentional, to dissolve the barrier between these terms in the writings of de Sade, in which,
v******e is reflected upon as the product of a ‘rationalized will to v******e.’ Bataille’s argument is that in being conscious of our v******e, we cannot engage the frenzy and senselessness that
epitomizes v******e, and as “v******e is the core of eroticism,”31 the erotic must be both beyond
conscious consideration and infused with v******e, violation and transgression. The profane men
inbu kkake are average men; average men engaging their v******e as echoed by Bataille’s writing
that “Now the average man knows that he must become aware of the things which repel him
most violently – those things … are part of our nature.”32 Finally, the inclusion, and primacy
even, of commoners inbukkake can be compared to the description of the Dionysian orgies in
the thought of Bataille and Nietzsche, orgies that, according to Bataille, often included large
numbers of slaves and lower plebians.33
In Bataillan human sacrifice the useful thing removed from the profane world is most
commonly the slave, not the luxurious king (being useless a priori) or master. Likewise, in
bukkake the victim is one who would be useful to society in biological as well as ideological
reproduction, and as a woman, is like unto a slave in Japanese society. In fact, it may be her
sacrifice that provides for the ideological reproduction of the social order. This profitless
destruction of a useful person, Bataille writes, “is the most radical contestation of the primacy of
utility. It is at the same time the highest degree of an unleashing of internal v******e.”34 Bataille
wrote that the fascination we have with sacrifice comes because of our persistent desire from
c***dhood to see the ubiquitous and suffocating social order upset, if only temporarily. While
sacrifice andbukkake do indeed upset the social order, at the same time they entrench it even
firmer in profane life by discriminating the profane from the sacred.35
In Bataille’s rendition of the Aztec story of the creation of the sun and the moon, the gods
who were sacrificed did so because of the demand of the divine community. Thus the sacrifice is
contingent upon the necessity of the community for a sacrifice, and as inbuk kake, the sacrificed
only becomes passive and gives herself to the ritual at the behest of the community.36 Again, like
the human sacrifices of the Aztecs, the object of thebukkake gains reverence among the
community performing the sacrifice. However, it must be noted that the sacrifices of the Aztecs,
largely, were not insiders to the sacrificing community before the sacrifice, like the adulterous
girls in thebukkake myth, these victims had become enemies of the community in various
wars.37
The actual event ofbukkake mirrors Bataille’s portrayal of the festival, in which men are
assembled for the consumption of the sacrificial communion, during which there is ‘an aspiration
for destruction.’ According to Joseph Libertson, Bataille’s ontological meaning for sacrifice is “a
direct, total destruction of the ‘discontinuity’ of a victim in the context of a sacred ritual.”38 In
striking similarity to Sabrina Jayde’s comments to Anthony Petkovich in his interview with her
before undergoing thebukkake, that she is excited by the prospect of being the sole focus of
ninety one men, Bataille wrote that in the sacrifice, “Nothing is more striking than the attention
that is lavished on him[the victim].”39 Yet, there is only a permanent change in the mode of
being for the sacrificed; those performing the sacrifice are left without true resolution. The
sacrifice destroys only one instance of discontinuity, not discontinuity itself, and thus the
survivors must return to the profane world at the end of the festival.40 While bukkake may be a simulacrum of sacrifice, as even the sacrificed returns to the profane world, she does so with the knowledge of an experience of continuity in being the sacred object in a communion dedicated to her heterogeneity.
According to Paul Hegarty, “The endpoint of Bataille’s idea of community is a coming
together … and the paradigm for this community is sacrifice, and all that surrounds it.”41 Hegarty
goes on to state that Bataille’s conception of a genuine community is that which overrides
profane society in the moment of sacrifice. Moreover, the communities that are most thriving are
those capable of creating a binding sense of the sacred through their sacrifices. Community is
thus established in a communal transgression in which individual identity becomes obscured.42
In fact, one of the most unique aspects of thebukkake community noted by Anthony Petkovich
was the tolerance and non-judgmental attitude of the participants.43 In terms of community,
bukkake works as a sacrifice that operates as a vicarious means for a return to continuity for the
community’s members. The sacrifice is a communal crime, a transgression, and thereby binds
the community into understanding itself as such. However, as above, as with human sacrifice,
those witnessing the sacrifice cannot achieve the final-end of their own destruction, as they only
swim in the ocean of continuous existence, they do not become it.
In conclusion, a practice as graphic and excessive asbukkake does not lend itself well to
verbalization, let alone serious academic study of its nature and the extent of its transgression.
However, it is my hope that an understanding ofbukkake as a transgression capable of producing
the sacred for a community has been established, as unlike other acts of eroticism, humiliation,
sadism, and masochism,bukkake can not be performed without the communal element and
would have no meaning if not for the presence of so many witnesses and participants. This is not
to say thatbukkake fits Bataille’s paradigm for human sacrifice entirely, indeed there is an
inversion in the direction of communion, with the victim consuming the essence of her
sacrificers, as well as the possibility of a return to the profane world for the victim. Nonetheless,
this is a thoroughly communal transgression, symbolic as it may be, and has been shown to
indeed produce an inner experience. We are left to wonder what Bataille would have reflected
had he been given the opportunity to witness abukkake. I posit that Bataille would have
recognized that the circle of the human sacrifice and the circle ofbukkake are not so entirely
dissimilar, both are violently erotic, and unlike the pleasure of the individual taken in the
destruction of many in the eroticism of the Marquis de Sade,bukkake shows the sacrifice of the
one for the joy of an entire community.
13 年 前
