WHIPS & FURS: MY LIFE AS A BON-VIVANT, GAMBLER & LOVE RAT BY JESUS H. CHRIST edited and introduced by Stewart Home
Attack Books/Creation Press, London 2000. ISBN 1 84068 035 0.
A detourned 'historical' novel with the structure based on the faked fifth volume of My Life and Loves by Frank Harris. The content is lifted and adapted to the required historical setting from two out-of-copyright sources: An African Millionaire by Grant Allen and The Lustful Turk by Anonymous. Just as Alex Trocchi - who faked the final volume of My Life and Loves - satirised Frank Harris in his text, so I've used this work to burlesque Anonymous in particular (whose squib The Lustful Turk really stinks). Whips & Furs is currently out of print. Here, anyway, is the introduction:
Introduction
I dunno, maybe it was the many months I'd spent seeking mystic inspiration from the bottom of bottles of finest Springbank single malt whisky; or perhaps it was Kelly who lived next door (with, I might add, a menagerie of pet ferrets), who kept offering to jerk me off. Each time I accepted the offer of a sultry hand job, Kelly would run away after half completing the sexual favour, causing me to fall flat on my face when I jumped up and tried to give chase. I'm useless at running with my trousers around my ankles. Regardless, I knew the repeated concussions I'd suffered had aided my quest for the truth about the historical Jesus. Thus it was that I came round one night convinced that Jesus had written an autobiography which I'd find on the Internet.
After getting up gingerly and washing blood from my hands, I called down a search engine on my Mac. Since I knew intuitively that any genuine information about Jesus was bound to be disguised to prevent its suppression by self-interested parties (Ling masters, Protestant iconoclasts, short order pastry cooks etc.), I decided to look for something that appeared to be about the Victorian speculator Cecil Rhodes. It didn't take me long to come up with the goods I required. Thanks to my sophisticated knowledge of codes and word substitutions (which had been much improved through amnesia), the quest for the historical Jesus was over. Indeed, Christ stood revealed as a very human figure (which might come as a bit of a shock to docetists but offers real support for the opposed heresy of Arianism). It goes without saying that Jesus should be judged by the standards of his own time, but I would like to emphasise that rape is not something to be taken lightly. You wouldn't like it if you or your friends were subjected to a sexual assault. The fantasies that follow are clearly pathological, as well as pathetic. Fortunately, they've become less acceptable today than they were twenty-five or thirty years ago. Likewise, while their ontological status is dubious, this does not necessarily decrease the offence aroused by representations of this type (particularly in Protestant cultures with their long traditions of iconoclasm).
What follows is not only extremely distasteful, I would also question the authenticity of the sexual element within this sick narrative. Among other things, it is well known that camels have one of the highest pain thresholds of all mammals. In Whips & Furs: My life as a bon-vivant, gambler & love rat by Jesus H. Christ, the identical descriptions of a woman and a camel being flagellated indicate either a lack of knowledge on the part of the author (making it unlikely he has ever engaged in sexual relations with a camel), or else an interest in the deconstruction of Orientalised pornographic fantasies (making it unnecessary for the author to have a first-hand knowledge of camel sex). Either way, the believability of the sexual passages must be called into question. I rather suspect that these incidents have been interpolated by a writer other than Jesus H. Christ. The reader will have to make up their own mind about this. However, it should not pass unremarked that these sex scenes bear an astonishing similarity to what has been reprinted and marketed over recent years as 'Victorian erotica'. That said, the fact that there is nothing classic about this misogynist crap does not invalidate the main thrust of Jesus H. Christ's narrative. Regardless of whether what follows has any historical validity whatsoever, if the sex scenes are ignored it is undoubtedly a rollicking good read. It is also more credible than The Bible, which is blatantly contradictory and was standardised years after the event by a bunch of bureaucrats known as the Council of Nicaea. The Bible also includes a great deal more rape, murder and general unpleasantness than the present tome (no wonder it is an international bestseller). By way of conclusion, please send me your love offerings (c/o Attack Books) in the form of cheques made payable to CASH. Linguistics is the science that puts hairs on your chest. Mine is a double. Cheers.
Stewart Home, London January 2000.
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