He was obsessed with the design of chromium accents on fender louvres, stainless-steel body-sill mouldings, windshield-wiper cowl panels, hood locks and door latches. ibid. p170
For Vaughan the motor-car was the sexual act’s greatest and only true locus. ibid. p171
The carapace of the instrument binnacle, the inclined planes and ashtrays gleamed around me like altarpieces, their geometries reaching towards my body like the stylized embraces of some hyper-cerebral machine. ibid. p200
Flies crawled across the oil-smeared windshield, vibrating against the glass. The chains of their bodies formed a blue veil between myself and the traffic moving along the motorway. I turned on the windscreen wipers, but the blades swept through the flies without disturbing them. ibid. p204
Meanwhile, the traffic moves in an unceasing flow along the flyover. The aircraft rise from the runways of the airport, carrying the remains of Vaughan’s semen to the instrument panels and radiator grilles of a thousand crashing cars, the leg stances of a million passengers. ibid. p224
It’s almost a relief to have found myself in an actual accident. Crash 1996 starring James Spader & Deborah Kara Unger & Elias Koteas & Holly Hunter & Rosanna Arquette & Peter MacNeill & Judah Katz & Nicky Guadagni et al, director David Cronenberg, him to her
They bury the dead so quickly; they should leave them lying around for months. ibid. her to him
Here we go – the fatal crash of James Dean. ibid.
I live in my car; this is my workshop. ibid.
The reshaping of the human body by modern technology. ibid.
For the first time there’s benevolent psychopathology that beckons towards us. For example, the car crash is a fertilizing rather than a destructive event – a liberation of sexual energy mediating the sexuality of those who have died with an intensity that’s impossible in any other form. ibid.
Maybe the next one, darling. ibid. him to her
Life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open. Robert Frost, Birches 1916
R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212: Most law students are familiar with the infamous case of R v Brown, in which several homosexual men filmed themselves consenting in sadomasochistic activities. For the faint of heart, I will exclude details of the acts but they were very extreme. When this tape accidentally found its way into the hands of the police, they were all arrested and charged with Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH). Under s.20 the Offences Against the Persons Act 1861. The House of Lords eventually held that it was not in the public interest for the court to allow members of the public to wound each other ‘for no good reason’.
The attitude of the majority is best summed up, I feel, by Lord Templeman: ‘Society is entitled and bound to protect itself against a cult of violence. Pleasure derived from the infliction of pain is an evil thing. Cruelty is uncivilised.’ Though it must be mentioned that a huge amount of the judgment focused on the fact that the activities were homosexual. It being considered a ‘comfort’ that one of the ‘victims’ had ‘settled into a normal heterosexual relationship’. Lord Lowry also continually stressed that he would not allow an exception for ‘sado-masochistic homosexual activity’ throughout his judgment for no good reason. Timothy Wilson, Newcastle University, summary of R v Brown
R v Brown: The appellants belonged to a group of sadomasochistic homosexuals who over a 10-year period from 1978 willingly participated in the commission of acts of violence against each other, including genital torture, for the sexual pleasure which it engendered in the giving and receiving of pain. The passive partner or victim in each case consented to the acts being committed and suffered no permanent injury. The activities took place in private at a number of different locations, including rooms equipped as torture chambers at the homes of three of the appellants. Video cameras were used to record the activities and the resulting tapes were then copied and distributed amongst members of the group. The tapes were not sold or used other than for the delectation of members of the group. The appellants were tried on charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, contrary to s47 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, and unlawful wounding, contrary to s20 of that Act. The Crown’s case was based very largely on the contents of the video tapes. Following a ruling by the trial judge that the consent of the victim afforded no defence to the charges, the appellants pleaded guilty and were sentenced to terms of imprisonment. The appellants appealed against their convictions, contending that a person could not guilty be of assault occasioning actual bodily harm or unlawful wounding in respect of acts carried out in private with the consent of the victim. The Court of Appeal dismissed their appeals. The appellants appealed to the House of Lords. CIRP online article