PLEASURE AND PAIN: SUMMER GAMES (various M+/M+) [SEASON 2 FINALE!]
Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2023 11:43 am
PLEASURE AND PAIN IN THE CITY OF KINK
An article series by Elvic Mengi.
For those in the know, the city of ——— needs no introduction. The city most friendly to "alternative lifestyles" in the country, perhaps the world, and a city especially friendly to people of color participating in these lifestyles.
What shaped this city has been written about to exhaustion, but little has been written about how it ticked, and continues to tick; and so the Times has sent yours truly to investigate, interview, and bring you a series of articles on the people, past and present, that make it what it is.
#1
THE ARTIST
Of course, we can't talk about the city without talking about its perhaps most notorious resident: the mononymous extreme artist Kenneth. Very little is known about him: he is known to be the son of Nigerian immigrants, both deceased, and now around 40 years of age.
Kenneth entered the scene with a bang almost twenty years ago when he presented his first art installation: naked, hands cuffed behind him, eyes and mouth covered in tape, he stood on a tiny platform bolted into the wall of an industrial hall at a perilous height. Two large spotlights illuminated him, placed close enough that their heat made him sweat from head to toe. A moment of inattention would have made him fall unprotected to the ground below, probably shattering every bone in his body.
Six hours in, the fire department dispersed the crowd and brought him back down to Earth. He spent the night in jail before being released, and his notoriety was established.
He went from there with other installations that always involved himself in one form of extreme restraint or another. "Hunger Strike", in which visitors could force feed him with the press of a button while he was crucified to a metal contraption, landed him in hospital. "Pigs", in which he hung upside down, mummified and wearing a gas mask, inviting the public to deprive him of air via, again, a button press, famously ended after one day when the venue intervened, ejecting a visitor who - in their view - was actively trying to murder the artist; Kenneth disagreed violently and stormed off, refusing to work with the venue ever again.
He released his greatest - and currently final - work ten years ago: a film simply named a particularly vile racial slur. Numerous legends and myths have grown around the film since its release - that it was fake; that it was not only real but nonconsensual; that there exist hundreds of hours of unedited, unreleased footage of the ordeal; that his real-life brother is in it; that the uncredited actor playing his brother did not know what would happen to him at the end.
Kenneth, now living at an undisclosed location, will not answer any questions about the film, except to someone who is willing to undergo the same torment as him, as documented in it. Nobody has been brave or stupid enough to take him up on this, and so the details will likely remain a mystery.
The reasons are obvious. The film was shown only once; tickets were $500, but any viewers agreeing to be restrained to their seats, with no way to leave early, were allowed free entry. Most of those who did still regret it.
The film starts with two white men, dressed as police, carrying a large sack into a remote house. They take it downstairs into a BDSM dungeon right out of a nightmare and shake Kenneth from the sack. He is brutally bound and gagged, and the two waste no time in restraining him to a chair, where he will spend the next seven days being tortured.
The footage shows date and time in one corner at all times, and while there are obviously a large number of cuts to reach its 3-hour length, it seems clear that the film is 100% real or had some of the best make-up, special effects, and especially continuity possible at the time.
Much of the view is obscured or silhouetted when the torture gets sexual in nature, but the audio always lets the viewer know what is going on. When the footage is not obscured, we see Kenneth suffer. We hear him scream (or grunt) in an ever-hoarser voice as his tormentors have their way with him. Even when they deign to give him food or drink, they do so in cruel ways. Each day ends with the increasingly unresisting artist being unceremoniously shoved into a cage; the camera runs through the night, and we see a rapid time-lapse before it cuts to the next day and the horror begins anew.
In the second most infamous scene of the film, the tormentors place a "hot chip" (from the idiotic, viral challenges on social media) directly on the artist's tongue while his mouth is forced open with a dental gag. There are no cuts for the next thirty minutes as deafening, screeching music drowns out the real audio, but the suffering is real and hard to watch. I will admit to the reader that I fast-forwarded through this scene, imagining my reaction if I'd been one of those original viewers, chained to my chair while everyone else had already left in disgust.
The most infamous scene, of course, is at the end, and if you have any desire to see this film yourself then 1) why? and 2) spoiler warning.
Kenneth's tormentors decide that they are bored and that it's time to "end it". The plastic bag they've used on him repeatedly makes another appearance. Kenneth barely reacts as his eyes and mouth are duct-taped shut, and they tie it closed around his neck. A few seconds in, the door bell of the house rings, and one of the men goes up to investigate.
This is the only other point where the cameras are outside the house. We see a young black man from behind, holding up a photo to the man and asking whether he's seen his brother. The man lifts his walkie-talkie and says "stop" into it before tackling the confused young man.
The scene then cuts to Kenneth, the bag no longer on his head. We see him reacting to the noise - muffled shouting and begging, the camera lingering on him, making us imagine what is going on. Then one of the man unwinds the tape from his eyes, which go wide. The camera whips around and we see the younger man, bound to another chair, gagged and blindfolded, and the second man grins as he pulls the plastic bag over the man's head. The camera holds on him, bucking and screaming in terror, Kenneth begging from off-camera, before the film cuts to black and ends.
(spoilers end)
The beginning and end of the film are the only reminders that it is a work of fiction, and it's easy to forget throughout. It's extremely hard to watch, and has never been shown in public again, although a paid download is available from the artist's website.
The film has been regarded as vile torture porn, and it has been academically discussed as an indictment of police culture. But anyone who wants to know the true intentions will have to find them out themselves.
I don't think I'd recommend it.
***
Next time: I visit a trio of Black entrepeneurs and learn about their inclusive services.
An article series by Elvic Mengi.
For those in the know, the city of ——— needs no introduction. The city most friendly to "alternative lifestyles" in the country, perhaps the world, and a city especially friendly to people of color participating in these lifestyles.
What shaped this city has been written about to exhaustion, but little has been written about how it ticked, and continues to tick; and so the Times has sent yours truly to investigate, interview, and bring you a series of articles on the people, past and present, that make it what it is.
#1
THE ARTIST
Of course, we can't talk about the city without talking about its perhaps most notorious resident: the mononymous extreme artist Kenneth. Very little is known about him: he is known to be the son of Nigerian immigrants, both deceased, and now around 40 years of age.
Kenneth entered the scene with a bang almost twenty years ago when he presented his first art installation: naked, hands cuffed behind him, eyes and mouth covered in tape, he stood on a tiny platform bolted into the wall of an industrial hall at a perilous height. Two large spotlights illuminated him, placed close enough that their heat made him sweat from head to toe. A moment of inattention would have made him fall unprotected to the ground below, probably shattering every bone in his body.
Six hours in, the fire department dispersed the crowd and brought him back down to Earth. He spent the night in jail before being released, and his notoriety was established.
He went from there with other installations that always involved himself in one form of extreme restraint or another. "Hunger Strike", in which visitors could force feed him with the press of a button while he was crucified to a metal contraption, landed him in hospital. "Pigs", in which he hung upside down, mummified and wearing a gas mask, inviting the public to deprive him of air via, again, a button press, famously ended after one day when the venue intervened, ejecting a visitor who - in their view - was actively trying to murder the artist; Kenneth disagreed violently and stormed off, refusing to work with the venue ever again.
He released his greatest - and currently final - work ten years ago: a film simply named a particularly vile racial slur. Numerous legends and myths have grown around the film since its release - that it was fake; that it was not only real but nonconsensual; that there exist hundreds of hours of unedited, unreleased footage of the ordeal; that his real-life brother is in it; that the uncredited actor playing his brother did not know what would happen to him at the end.
Kenneth, now living at an undisclosed location, will not answer any questions about the film, except to someone who is willing to undergo the same torment as him, as documented in it. Nobody has been brave or stupid enough to take him up on this, and so the details will likely remain a mystery.
The reasons are obvious. The film was shown only once; tickets were $500, but any viewers agreeing to be restrained to their seats, with no way to leave early, were allowed free entry. Most of those who did still regret it.
The film starts with two white men, dressed as police, carrying a large sack into a remote house. They take it downstairs into a BDSM dungeon right out of a nightmare and shake Kenneth from the sack. He is brutally bound and gagged, and the two waste no time in restraining him to a chair, where he will spend the next seven days being tortured.
The footage shows date and time in one corner at all times, and while there are obviously a large number of cuts to reach its 3-hour length, it seems clear that the film is 100% real or had some of the best make-up, special effects, and especially continuity possible at the time.
Much of the view is obscured or silhouetted when the torture gets sexual in nature, but the audio always lets the viewer know what is going on. When the footage is not obscured, we see Kenneth suffer. We hear him scream (or grunt) in an ever-hoarser voice as his tormentors have their way with him. Even when they deign to give him food or drink, they do so in cruel ways. Each day ends with the increasingly unresisting artist being unceremoniously shoved into a cage; the camera runs through the night, and we see a rapid time-lapse before it cuts to the next day and the horror begins anew.
In the second most infamous scene of the film, the tormentors place a "hot chip" (from the idiotic, viral challenges on social media) directly on the artist's tongue while his mouth is forced open with a dental gag. There are no cuts for the next thirty minutes as deafening, screeching music drowns out the real audio, but the suffering is real and hard to watch. I will admit to the reader that I fast-forwarded through this scene, imagining my reaction if I'd been one of those original viewers, chained to my chair while everyone else had already left in disgust.
The most infamous scene, of course, is at the end, and if you have any desire to see this film yourself then 1) why? and 2) spoiler warning.
Kenneth's tormentors decide that they are bored and that it's time to "end it". The plastic bag they've used on him repeatedly makes another appearance. Kenneth barely reacts as his eyes and mouth are duct-taped shut, and they tie it closed around his neck. A few seconds in, the door bell of the house rings, and one of the men goes up to investigate.
This is the only other point where the cameras are outside the house. We see a young black man from behind, holding up a photo to the man and asking whether he's seen his brother. The man lifts his walkie-talkie and says "stop" into it before tackling the confused young man.
The scene then cuts to Kenneth, the bag no longer on his head. We see him reacting to the noise - muffled shouting and begging, the camera lingering on him, making us imagine what is going on. Then one of the man unwinds the tape from his eyes, which go wide. The camera whips around and we see the younger man, bound to another chair, gagged and blindfolded, and the second man grins as he pulls the plastic bag over the man's head. The camera holds on him, bucking and screaming in terror, Kenneth begging from off-camera, before the film cuts to black and ends.
(spoilers end)
The beginning and end of the film are the only reminders that it is a work of fiction, and it's easy to forget throughout. It's extremely hard to watch, and has never been shown in public again, although a paid download is available from the artist's website.
The film has been regarded as vile torture porn, and it has been academically discussed as an indictment of police culture. But anyone who wants to know the true intentions will have to find them out themselves.
I don't think I'd recommend it.
***
Next time: I visit a trio of Black entrepeneurs and learn about their inclusive services.