Man and Matter
Old and dusty books emit a set of pheromones that haven’t been successfully characterized, let alone replicated. At least a dozen German chemists are reamed out annually for the continued failures. And to be clear, we are talking about a proper German chemist shouting that hits you like the entire Brockhaus Encyclopedia landing in your head. Therefore, committing this story to a digital-only format means that something is lost in the process. The reader must draw on past recollections of majestic libraries and antique bookshops to fully appreciate the next story element.
Closeness to physicality helps as we seek to empathize with Karl’s actions. Lacking that physicality would be like asking a blind person who has never laid eyes on a twink in his prime to understand the story of Narcissus. Not happening. Because Karl finds himself in Monsieur Dumont’s office, which, true to form, is packed full of old and dusty printed pages. So feel the heft of that book, stroke it, and suck in its aroma.
“You did well. True understanding was attained that night. You’ve recovered in the days since,” declared Dumont.
“True. Alejandro asked for some follow-up studies. But I enjoy a bodily challenge, a bit of friction is only good, and my recovery is quick,” replied Karl.
“Once I read your essay on the excavation of the cultural mimetic origins of the thong, I knew I could let you become the embodied portal to ancient knowledge,” said Dumont. “Your skill set was the most advanced, your sense of method the least corrupted, so you would not miss out too much by becoming flesh that night.”
Far too often, we are told the skimpy lace, silk or polyester garment of the thong was a recent creation to wrap around the female body, later also adopted in modified form by men in the stripper profession or otherwise engaged in seductive praxis. It is one of the most brazen efforts of concealment by the forces of modernity. By also making the garment a topic of conflict in the Gender Wars, concealment aligns both the advocate and critic to its ultimate cause of obfuscation and enfeeblement.
The thong was derived from the vibrant boy brothels in the Rhine Valley of the 15th and 16th centuries. The codpiece of that time is nowadays falsely understood as a garment used in the Renaissance to augment the trousers of its era, which were wanting in crotch support. Through subsequent ridicule in the discourse, the history of the codpiece became distorted and reduced to jokes and, at best, camp appropriation.
A careful mimetic analysis of contemporaneous art, diaries, and judicial records, alongside the embodied explorations of the codpiece at riverside beaches and cliffs, reveals a different, critical fact of the matter. The codpiece was the only clothing worn by a selection of the most attractive and fit young men of the Black Forest tribes to trap approaching knights crossing the Rhine and thus divert their attentions. The act of trap and sap (infahan-uzsugen in the Old German records) was perfected, and thus the smooth, seductive buttocks revealed when a mere codpiece was worn, granted safety to the Black Forest dwellers from invading armies.
A codpiece-wearing handsome man at the Rhine riverside is a proven defence (see further below). Its success meant the codpiece could not be fully suppressed; it had to be concealed instead. The minimal and evocative piece therefore echoed as distorted memes to eventually reemerge in less potent form as the thong we know today, devoid of its rich sexual-power origins.
Karl had rather enjoyed his excursions near riverside beaches and boulders at Strasbourg and Breisach, where he had conclusively proven that no more than fifty handsome men in nothing but a codpiece, strutting around and strategically stretching their muscles and bending over, could easily have defended the Black Forest from attacks from the west. Battles over territory were indeed the cauldron of innovation.
Next time a thong is put on, or more so, roughly pulled off, show some gratitude and flex your intellect and send your thanks to the Renaissance pleasure boys of the Rhine Valley.
“I am assembling a research team, and you are a God-send for it,” said Dumont as he scrutinized Karl. “It involves travel to the Alps and beyond. It may get rough and rugged, but I have grant money to support the expedition. Five of my best students would go on that particular exploration.”
“You are not going yourself?” asked Karl.
“The curse and luxury of academic seniority is that I am confined to the halls of learning and its elevated challenges and friction. The games that are played here make the Roman Senate seem tame. And I of course mean that in both favourable and unfavourable ways.”
“Naturally. Words not dripping with multiple meanings are a waste of altered pixel voltage,” replied Karl with requisite blasé. He was slowly getting the hang of the French attitude.
“Field research is not without dangers. As a mentor, in the proper sense of that word, I need to ensure you can, as it were, handle yourself. The embodied-erotic methods are potent, but can also attract violent reaction. You are a Swede, and I am less familiar with your systems of male maturation, both formal and informal ones. So in short, what is your grasp of potent male assertions in all their forms?”
“Two points on my resume on that matter,” replied Karl with raised fingers.
“First, I have navigated a space full of randy moose bulls. When those horned beasts get their juices flowing, they can kill. The top three killers in the far north: squashed by falling lumber, falling drunk in a pile of snow, and ravaged by a raging, dick-swinging bull moose. The fact that I stand here, unsquashed, warm blooded and unravaged by moose limb means I know how to deal with the most dangerous horny beasts.”
“Reasonable,” muttered Dumont and nodded. “The animal natures are part of being.”
“Second, I was the preferred source of warmth and comfort for about seven men doing their military service. So, navigating the deep yearnings of men learning to wield command and great power is well within my bodily technologies, as the philosophers might say.”
“Seems like a point worth expanding on in our current context,” said Dumont as he began gently stroking a pen on his desk.
“I grew up not far from Boden, an insignificant little town, except that there is an army regiment there. It gets lonesome up there. A truly deep boreal forest can inflict trauma the likes of which even Prussian nannies consider a bit much. So when some southern guy in his early twenties or so is doing basic training in the north, he is face to face with peril.”
“At regular intervals, the men in basic training are given a day or so of free time, which they usually spend running around foolishly on town, getting drunk, being loud, and manspreading wherever they can. I am sure you know the type,” said Karl.
“Top to toe,” answered Dumont.
“So one time in that summer before coming south here, I walked in the forest along the river, deep in thought, contemplating the equestrian logistics of river crossings in the Ancient era.”
“As any well-adjusted young man ought,” added Dumont.
“That was when one of these basic training guys showed up. Good southern guy, but a bit lonely and troubled. For some reason, he started chatting with me. I suppose I seemed like a friendly enough local, as far from a middle-aged shouty corporal as one can get. And soon enough he was complaining about the mosquitoes, how much it itched on his lower back, how can you locals stand them, what is your trick to survive, look at how red the bite marks are… and you guessed it, in short order he strips off his shirt to show me where the mosquitoes had left their mark. His pecs were right in my face.”
“It is not in my nature to boast, but…”
“Go on,” interjected Dumont with a performative raised eyebrow. There is no boast as good as those prefixed by saying they are not boasts. A philosopher worth his salt should be able to write a barely comprehensible exegesis on this fact of the universal grammar.
“…I had his dick in my mouth in less than five minutes after that. It is a question of applying that delicate touch, not too forward, not too timid, jiggle a bit, work that tongue. And that’s just the coy prelude to make him unzip and get his pants off. Once the pants are down by the ankles, and that inadequately serviced military dick is out, it is just artistry,” concluded Karl with a few dismissive hand gestures that he had picked up during his time among the French.
“You should read Martin’s essay on the hoplites of Ancient Greece and his finding that the phalanx they formed in battle was mirrored by their very rhythmic fuck trains between battles. Inadequately serviced military dick has been a national security problem for millennia. Again, battle over turf is the cauldron of innovation,” remarked Dumont in passing.
“Quite right,” said Karl and nodded. “The realists, the liberal internationalists, constructivists, not to mention Kissinger, are all off by a lot. Strong and steady dick logistics govern world affairs.”
“Putting the geopolitics of dick aside for now, I took great pleasure in playing that seductive local boy by the river. My reputation spread within the barracks. The guys like to think they are the hunters. They need to think so, and I want them to think so, I need them to be so, and around and around it goes. It is constraint, freedom and inauthenticity all the way down. One might doubt it at first, but riverside fucking by hot and heavy soldier boys is one of the richest sources of understanding, a wellspring of philosophical insight, to put a poetic twist to it.”
“Please, Karl, I know you are trying to fit in with us French, but it can be overdone. The simple question that needs to be answered without flourishes is: were you the grunting-happy bottom to an all-night, heavy-dick logistics, riverside gangbang by military recruits or not?” asked Dumont.
“Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in a more gradual approach. I was only spit-roasted last winter, so the epic-scale group fucks are still in my future. Back then, up in the remote north, I was guided by intuition, or something, and I understood that what these recruits and I were tasked to do was warmth and conquest. Penetration is a delicate balancing act that men must understand at the deepest level. To be trained how to kill must be balanced with a tender care of and attachment to pliable flesh. A shortage of fuckable ass has doomed many military efforts. My hunch is that there is a fourteenth and missing chapter in The Art of War, which, if found, would no doubt make the Kama Sutra look tame in comparison. We historians have no shortage of work to do.”
“Anyway, we flirted, raced, swam, wrestled, fucked and cuddled under the midnight sun,” said Karl and concluded. “It was great. A bit romantic, even, so I let the sexual details live in the subtext, I hope you understand. And of course, beyond the romantics of it all, the Nordics are better defended by strong men now than in at least a century. I deserve a medal.”
“Well then, Karl, your ability to navigate the perilous terrain of man and beast is beyond doubt. You are the full package. I will sleep soundly when you are out in the field, knowing that whatever the hurdle may be, you and your fellow explorers will, as it were, man up and overcome. I considered conducting a thorough physical examination before approving you for your new position. In the interest of forward momentum, however, I will preserve my stock of rubber gloves and lubricant and let speech be the only medium for today’s probe.”
“Monsieur Dumont… your words made my dick move…”
