March 8, 2012

"Keith Haring's Men's Room Mural Is As NSFW As You'd Imagine."

"Penises grow human heads with mouths that suck the toes of other human shapes that in turn contort into Mobius-strips of sucking, performing Escher-like convolutions as one body part morphs into another."

Excellent!

44 comments:

KCFleming said...

Gay porn cartoons fall somewhat short of excelent and far short of art.

Standard men's room graffiti, made larger and even coarser.

Beldar said...

Juvenile and banal.

Ann Althouse said...

Oh, don't be so stuffy.

These drawings are utterly charming.

edutcher said...

No, most guys are nowhere near this obsessed.

Mark O said...

Titus? Did you get Ann's passwords?

Hagar said...

But I am this stuffy!

John Burgess said...

Never liked Haring. This piece doesn't change my mind.

I just find him infantile, not even juvenile.

Palladian said...

Apocalyptic wallpaper.

Ann Althouse said...

I used to ride the NYC subways back when Haring was doing those chalk drawings on the black papered spaces where ads would be if the city had more advertisers. He was anonymous. That was when Jean-Michel Basquiat was doing graffiti signed "Samo."

I must say they really annoyed me. I felt anger at what they were doing. But I was young and envious. I don't feel like that anymore, and not just because both of them are dead. I don't feel like that anymore because I'm a lot older than I was then, and I don't have that irrational, competitive, nagging feeling that whatever anyone else is getting should be mine.

Palladian said...

What both of them got was an early death. Perhaps that tempered your envy?

Ann Althouse said...

I already said "and not just because both of them are dead."

traditionalguy said...

Looks like mosaics from Pompeii's wealthy beach resort villas of wealthy Roman Empire preserved in their lustful glory since Judgement Day 79AD. (ask Pat Robertson how judgement works).

ken in tx said...

Well, that's something, isn't it.

Ralph L said...

Whole lotta foreskin goin on.

Writ Small said...

An exclusive club that doesn't let just anyone in.

bagoh20 said...

It's OK Althouse. We don't think of you as uptight. You might be, but we don't think that.

There are some bar/restaurants around here that plaster the restroom walls with explicit centerfolds, usually vintage ones. That's cruel....to the janitor.

Patrick said...

Prof. Althouse-

One of us misunderstands the term "utterly charming."

Mr. Colby said...

Derb is right.

http://www.cafepress.com/nationalreview/207667

Robert said...

Professor, how do you feel about bullwhips protruding from anal sphincters?

Similarly excellent?

Or perhaps something that shouldn't be billed to the taxpayer?

FleetUSA said...

Picasso-esque

marylynn said...

Oh Ann I love ya, but ..... charming? really? My reaction to that mural was simply "ICK".
Gays OBSESSION with sex and flaunting of it is what many of us dislike about them.

Lucien said...

Pretty hilarious, but not "utterly charming". He should add a few random objects that are not expressly phalluses, just for interest. That way guests could see if they can find the hidden saxophones, bong pipes, bananas, etc.

Once you get to all cocks and nothing but, it's alittle too earnest.

Moose said...

God I hated the 80's and keith haring.

Moose said...

...and Ann - its not charming. Its stylishly drawn porn.

Tim said...

Most excellent, indeed.

I don't know if a cartoon on a bathroom's walls has ever fully captured the reasons behind a self-induced epidemic that killed off 25 million or more since 1981, including the artist, like this one does.

If he were Barack Obama, he'd have gotten the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, posthumously, for sure.

Cartoons like these are totally charming, just like the first decade of the AIDS epidemic was totally charming. More cartoons of rampant, unprotected sex, please?

Some people need graphic warnings.

Good, er, charming times.

YoungHegelian said...

Hey, people, lay off the good professor!

She's not the only straight chick in the world to have a soft spot for gay male porn.

As one female acquaintance told me, the male "actors" in hetero porn have "grooming issues".

Tim said...

Moose said...

"God I hated the 80's and keith haring."

So, I take it you're not seeing the charm in cartoons of butt-fuc, er, anal intercourse, oral sex and erect, ejaculating penises, one of which, somewhere, killed off the artist?

That is, uh, something about you.

Not charming, I'm sure.

Hagar said...

Has Madame read George Jean nathan's piece "Sweet Faces and Foul Minds"?

bagoh20 said...

I think a good penis is an awesome thing, and I'm not even gay, yet, but these are pathetic sad little dicks. They're like the dicks that will be future characters on Sesame Street. I'm guessing there will be a Daddy dick, a Mommy dick and little baby dicks that sing and dance and get into lots of mischief.

Wince said...

This month The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center is opening up Haring's well-known (and quite dirty) bathroom mural for public viewing.

If a person opposed to gay rights drew those very same pictures on the bathroom walls of the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center", I suspect the the images would be deemed hurtful and that he or she might be charged with a hate crime.

Carnifex said...

Err "stuffy"? Really? Freudian slip no doubt.

And nothing sez commitment to stable relationships than people fornicating on bathroom walls. This isn't smart, it isn't charming, and it isn't art. It's a fist to your heterosexual face. It's chanting "we're here and we're queer" while in a church. It's everything offensive about queer liberation theology, as with black liberation theology.

I get it. some queers are upset. That doesn't make them special. I've spent my life upset about somethings. No one here is special.

Get over yourselves.

MadisonMan said...

I don't know.

I go into a bathroom for one primary reason. To empty either bladder, bowels, or both.

Viewing art is pretty low on the priority list. Certainly it is below clean toilets and soft toilet paper and an orderly sink.

Hoosier Daddy said...

"... Oh, don't be so stuffy.

These drawings are utterly charming..."

Huh? I don't think you're drifting left as much as maybe senile.

Sorry but drawing dicks was something most guys quit doing in fourth grade.

YMMV

Chip Ahoy said...

Points off for failure to fully use water pipes. Points off for the use of a single uncircumcised cock because it seems variety was the object and bell ends are hilarious.

MayBee said...


I must say they really annoyed me. I felt anger at what they were doing. But I was young and envious. I don't feel like that anymore, and not just because both of them are dead. I don't feel like that anymore because I'm a lot older than I was then, and I don't have that irrational, competitive, nagging feeling that whatever anyone else is getting should be mine.


That's how the audience to "easy listening" radio stations thinks.
"20 years ago, this certain song was edgy and made me uncomfortable. Now the kids are listening to other things, and I find myself quite comfortable and charmed by this rock music from my own era."

Tibore said...

If this is charming, I'm scared to see what you think would be adorable. :-S

Rusty said...

Ann Althouse said...
Oh, don't be so stuffy.

These drawings are utterly charming.



Would you want him to do your bathroom?

Renee said...

Offensive, not because of sexuality, but because it's flat out creepy. Looks like somone is drawing a mural of hell, not heaven or earth. Was that's the artist's intent?

Sofa King said...

Haha gross.

TMink said...

I mean, it is whimsical, but there is no there there besides penises. And, on some levels, isn't that what killed him?

I don't mean being gay, I mean being a bathroom slut. If the art is a glimpse into his mind, his obsession with sex and the resulting multi exposure to the virus, isn't that what killed him?

RIP bro, I am so sad you died, but the bathroom aspect of gay life is just not healthy.

Bomb away, I know I touched a third rail here. But that kind of uber-promiscuous lifestyle is not good for anyone.

Trey

george said...

There is at least one newly post pubescent boy in every 9th grade class who draws as well as whoever this guy is and has the same level of understanding of, and appreciation for, his subject matter.

I appreciate sex and pornography as well or more than most people but this stuff is not even remotely interesting. Couldn't they have gotten a Japanese Manga artist?

I guess the fun comes when the patrons step forward to improve the effort. That could be a blast. And it will certainly save on having to police the bathroom for graffiti.

SGT Ted said...

Oh it's a gay guys penis obsession? So it isn't a threat to womyn and thus worthy of a museum display.

"peepee!" "poopoo!" "penis!"

Are we still tittering over that and thinking it's transgressive?

Can I get a museum display too?

Renee said...

Trey, Yes, you touched the third rail. Thanks for touching it. No matter the orientation, being a 'bathroom slut' is unhealthy. It's not about being stuffy or a prude, but sometimes an act of love means to say no. Starting having some respect for yourself.

Where in this mural is there any reference to love or respect? How are those virtues expressed by human figures munching on penis dinosaurs?

A year and a half ago, I remember the media shredding to pieces what the Pope actually said.

" He states that the AIDS epidemic has resulted in large measure from the irresponsible and selfish use of sexuality. Then he expresses hope for the conversion of a sinner by suggesting that the use of a condom MIGHT be an expression of his concern for the "other". This might be seen therefore a first step toward loving and respecting the "other" so that he would eventually embrace a life of either fidelity or abstinence, the only approaches which have truly proven to be successful."

TMink said...

Thanks Renee. You made the point much better than I.

Trey