Joan Smith and the Faint Aroma of Performing Seals

I’ve just heard that Joan Smith is augmenting her brilliant early broadside, Misogynies (Faber 1996) with her new The Public Woman (Westbourne Press), a compelling examination of male hostility towards women.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Public-Woman-Joan-Smith/dp/1908906049 

The news of her latest work reminds me of my citing of her earlier title in a little essay of mine in 2004 (Ambit Spring Issue 176), Faint Aroma of Performing Seals.
 

There was a piquant flavour to my piece, and this is how I began ...

‘When love congeals it soon reveals the faint aroma of performing seals,’ wrote Lorenz Hart, which raises the fascinating question as to whether there exists a distinct fishiness, released by pheromonally-induced alterations, permeating the ups and downs of the love-life of the female hominid.

A question of questionable taste, you may say, but reassuringly I am in the distinguished company of Joan Smith in raising it.

If you haven’t read her landmark collection Misogynies then really it’s time you did – and in particular – her marvellous essay, Patum Peperium (‘Gentleman’s Relish’), especially in the context of the continuing debate surrounding the ordination of women priests.

What, then, is the connection between ‘performing seals’, an ‘anchovy paste’ and ‘pheromones’?

First, Joan Smith on the subject:  ‘An Anglican curate, interviewed in the Independent, “said that you might as well ordain a pot of anchovy paste as a woman.” ’
 
Smith then goes on to develop her powerfully persuasive theory of a misogynistic conspiracy, fomented by a male hominidal cabal, revealed by the curate’s aforesaid put-down remark.

‘The sexual imagery is irresistible: the paste is made of fish, a smell strongly and pejoratively associated with the female genitals; it is famously spicy and strong, for use only in small quantities ... our clever curate has boiled down thousands of years of hostility to women into one telling phrase.'

From Tertullian to St Augustine to St Jerome the misogynic theologians are castigated by Smith in her essay but, in the process, her rather fascinating topic of the fishy aphrodisiac qualities of ‘Gentleman’s Relish’ is abandoned.

With my reader’s indulgence, I wrote, it was a topic I was quite eager to return to.

Neglected in her essay, I regretted, was a passage from Huysmans’ Against Nature (À Rebours) which chimes very well with her original theme. From Chapter Nine we learn that the ‘carnal nature’ of the dissolute, epicene dilettante Des Esseintes has ‘lain dormant for months’ and his thoughts return to ‘a box full of purple bonbons’. (Shades of Lolita and ‘Papa's Purple Pills’* or ‘purpills’ of Humbert Humbert.)

‘These bonbons ... known by the ridiculous name of Pearls of the Pyrenees, consisted of a drop of schoenanthus scent or female essence crystallized in pieces of sugar; they stimulated the papillæ of the mouth, evoking memories of water opalescent with rare vinegars and lingering kisses fragrant with perfume.’

Here we can catch the wave of that arch-sensualist’s Proustian stream of consciousness.
 
Pearls evoke oysters, of course, and ever since Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, arose from the foam on an oyster shell, fresh oysters have been regarded as an aphrodisiac.      

Oysters are famous for their aphrodisiac qualities due to their high mineral salt and glycogen content, an essential element in muscle contraction (ingredients of little consequence for Des Esseintes, however, whose ‘impotency had been established beyond doubt’). 

And what of Des Esseintes’ ‘schoenanthus’ scent? That hint of lemongrass (schoenanthus) would have compounded his blend of stimulants. After all, for the most intimate tête-à-tête oysters are best served on a bed of crushed ice on a silver platter with two lemons cut in quarters.

So far, our literary aphrodisiac recipe to pep up the sex life of jaded homidæ is looking promising ...

And so on, for two-and-half pages of pretty conclusive aphrodisiacal formulæ ... ‘Cosmeticians please note.’

Yes, I was quite pleased with my little essay, and I am today very grateful in acknowledging Joan Smith as its inciter. Thank you. And may I wish every success for The Public Woman, a necessary continuing polemic, and a sequel long overdue.

Postscriptum.

I just had the thought today that maybe the feminist slogan, ‘A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle’, has, after all, an unintended anchovy-like aphrodisiacal sublimation embedded in it.

*Another thought (16-07-13): has the Annotated Lolita (I don’t have a copy) observed that Papa’s sinister purple pill refers to a papaveraceous sedative ... in other words, an opiate?

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Catherine Eisner believes passionately in plot-driven suspense fiction, a devotion to literary craft that draws on studies in psychoanalytical criminology and psychoactive pharmacology to explore the dark side of motivation, and ignite plot twists with unexpected outcomes. Within these disciplines Eisner’s fictions seek to explore variant literary forms derived from psychotherapy and criminology to trace the traumas of characters in extremis. Compulsive recurring sub-themes in her narratives examine sibling rivalry, rivalrous cousinhood, pathological imposture, financial chicanery, and the effects of non-familial male pheromones on pubescence, 
see Eisner’s Sister Morphine (2008)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/sister-morphine.html

and Listen Close to Me (2011)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/published-this-autumn-listen-close-to.html  

and A Bad Case (2015)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/a-bad-case-and-other-adventures-of.html