MADONNA WITH THE LONG NECK by PARMIGIANINO 2

In a book I have on sex in art, the beginning is mostly pictures of Greek vases depicting enjoyable blowjobs, Roman statues with proud extra large dicks, and Hindu temples covered in gods fucking each other's brains out. Then you hit Christianity, a painting of a man and woman hanging naked in Hell for their sins (sexual sins we assume because one is hanging by his genitals, The Last  Judement by Giotto), and so the eroticism of Western art begins. There is nothing like the repression of Christian morality to make things really erotic. The impossible taboo on healthy sex and the erect dick dumped the job of supplying sexual stimuli to a furiously masturbating public into the lap of art. On and on Western art went educating its rapt audience into new ways of gazing on sex and her dark sister, Death, with the church was its biggest patron.

In an effort to attract errant Protestants, the church made the first corporate advertising decision, to use the attraction of sex in its religious paintings. Before sex was just a simple common urge and the lofty term love was reserved for God alone, but this changed when sexual ecstasy appeared in religious painting. The unholy union of sex and love, which has been feverishly entertaining us ever since, was an artistic brainstorm and I am proud when I see this machination of the Western mind so flawlessly accomplished in Mannerist painting, known for it's artifice and conceits.

My favorite Artist for sheer sexual insanity is Parmigianino, a Mannerist painter of beautiful elongated distortions. Sex is more alluring when she treads on forbidden ground so what could be more jarringly exciting than a sexy Mother of God? Well, how about a sexually active Baby Jesus, the guy who went through the entire Bible without having sex. In Madonna with the long neck, painted in the most elegant terms, our Baby languorously exposes himself to a bevy of excited angelic creatures, (I see thousands of Protestants flocking to the mother church for more) while his mother gracefully touches herself. But it's OK because Mary can do no wrong, her finger only lingers above her breast which is centrally located, the erect nipple emphasized by the drapery of her robe. Jesus on the other hand is having such a good time he is practically sliding off mom's lap. Sex with mom, another erotic no-no. Can it get any better? Yes, she's a virgin and he's underage, (perhaps they thought all Protestants were perverts).

Whether the artist meant it or not, (he died a mad man at 37) his exquisite artificiality is sexy - her too small head, her long semi erect neck.  But it is not pornography, it is more complicated; one is aroused without being able to admit it, and since a sin of this nature is incomprehensible - suddenly we are floating, safely lost in the beauty of the painting - the moment of panic is gone. The little perverted thrill swims back under the ocean of subconscious with its belly full and a smile on its dangerous little face. But just in case you didn't get the message, there is that stiff line of erect Viagra-like columns behind her, and just to throw you off again there's that tiny man reading in the corner.

I could go on and on, in Madonna after Madonna, (the Madonna De La Rosa, our favorite virgin, is holding the naked Baby Jesus in one arm while she fingers a rose that looks very similar to his little set of family jewels) but these Madonnas are not the first goddesses to dabble in the sexual pool. Heathen Greeks did it all the time along with homosexuality, but their gods were lessons in the subconscious terrain, while Catholic Gods are such boring moralistic pillars of goodness that it's good to see them having a little agony and ecstasy