Mark Twain - Publius Cornelius Tacitus - Ovid - H L Mencken - Robert Heinlein - Francois Rabelais - Karl A Menninger - Salman Rushdie - Sigmund Freud - Benjamin Franklin - Nenia Campbell - Voltaire - Sade - Mary Beard TV -
Adam was not human – this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake; he wanted it only because it was forbidden. Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson, 1894
There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable. Mark Twain
The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become. Twain
Forbidden things have a secret charm. Publius Cornelius Tacitus
We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us. Ovid
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. H L Mencken, notebooks 1956
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives. Robert A Heinlein
We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what is denied us. Francois Rabelais
We need criminals to identify ourselves with, to secretly envy and to stoutly punish. They do for us the forbidden, illegal things we wish to do. Karl A Menninger
The glamour of being forbidden must not be underestimated. Salman Rushdie
It sounds like a fairytale, but not only that; this story of what man by his science and practical inventions has achieved on this earth, where he first appeared as a weakly member of the animal kingdom, and on which each individual of his species must ever again appear as a helpless infant ... is a direct fulfilment of all, or of most, of the dearest wishes in his fairy-tales. All these possessions he has acquired through culture. Long ago he formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. Whatever seemed unattainable to his desires – or forbidden to him – he attributed to these gods. One may say, therefore, that these gods were the ideals of his culture. Now he has himself approached very near to realizing this ideal, he has nearly become a god himself. But only, it is true, in the way that ideals are usually realized in the general experience of humanity. Not completely; in some respects not at all, in others only by halves. Man has become a god by means of artificial limbs, so to speak, quite magnificent when equipped with all his accessory organs; but they do not grow on him and they still give him trouble at times ... Future ages will produce further great advances in this realm of culture, probably inconceivable now, and will increase man’s likeness to a god still more. Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
Vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful. Benjamin Franklin
We hunger in earnest for that which we cannot consume. Nenia Campbell, Black Beast
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. Voltaire
If I tell you
If I tell you now
Will you keep on
Will you keep on loving me
If I tell you
If I tell you how I feel
Will you keep bringing out the best in me
You give me, you give me the sweetest taboo
You give me, you’re giving me the sweetest taboo
Too good for me
There’s a quiet storm
And it never felt like this before
There’s a quiet storm
That is you
There’s a quiet storm
And it never felt this hot before
Giving me something that’s taboo
(Sometimes I think you’re just too good for me)
You give me the sweetest taboo
That’s why I’m in love with you (with you)
You give me the sweetest taboo
Too good for me
(Sometimes I think you're just too good for me)
I’d do anything for you, I’d stand out in the rain
Anything you want me to do, don’t let it slip away
There’s a … Sade, The Sweetest Taboo
There’s still plenty of art that most of us for all sorts of reasons don’t get to see … There’s always been a virtual secretum. Mary Beard’s Forbidden Art I: Vile Bodies, BBC 2022
What if anything goes too far? ibid.
December 19 1966 Leeds: This was the last occasion in Britain a painter was successfully prosecuted for obscenity. ibid.
For decades after their discovery, ancient statues were kept away from the public gaze in the secretum, whether in Italy or in Britain. ibid.
However much they prefer not to look at images of dead and oozing bodies, I don’t think many people would see them as unethical. ibid.
Works that show the living body in pain take these issues a whole step further. ibid.
What we really need to be asking is where each of us draws out own boundaries and why. ibid.
We live in hazardous times for art especially for statues. A plinth is a dangerous place to be. Mary Beard’s Forbidden Art II
It’s about history and hysteria. To vision and dissent, and about art’s role in some of the greatest social, political and religion conflicts in our time or of any. ibid.
Art has been weaponised in ideological conflicts before. ibid.
‘A picture of the Moors’ murderer Myra Hindley made with children’s hand-prints has been vandalised. The painting, part of the Royal Academy’s Sensation exhibition had paint and an egg thrown at it.’ ibid. BBC news
Tens of thousands of figurative artworks right across Europe were destroyed or debased by protestants who saw this sort of sacred art as idol worship. ibid.