I’m featuring
again here:a) Because I’m the boss and can do what I want
b) Because today’s hidden gem from here currently has four likes which is criminal (click the link below to help address this injustice)
c) Because I want to keep you as a reader on your toes and pleasantly surprised and
d) Because I think I messed up the submissions schedule and this is how things have panned out.
The point ultimately though- and I hope this is a point we make every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and have been making for over a year- is that this piece, like all the others, is great and you should read it.
Enjoy.
TJB
I’ve been thinking about belts lately. Specifically, unbuckled belts. This piece of apparel forced to eat its own tail, Ouroboros style. Once unclasped, it is free.
Have you ever watched someone unbuckle their belt, especially outside a sexual scenario? The mindless but deft fingering of the clasp. The hand that grasps one end in an onanistic grip. The way the belt’s tail hangs limp to one side; waiting. It is so incredibly sexy, and so casually overlooked. The mundanity of unbuckling holds sensual potential, the anticipation of flesh revealed.
But for some, an unbuckled belt holds the burden of violence - punishment and degradation. And for many I guess, the belt is neutral, holding nothing but pants.
I’d like a database of all the “belts unbuckled” scenes in cinema.
The one that comes immediately to mind is the scene in Lethal Weapon 3 where Gibson and Russo are comparing scars. Shirt off for him, shirt tucked for her. Belts buckled for both.
In an excited effort to share the healed wounds on his right thigh, he begins a swift unbuckling. It isn’t violent or sexual, it’s excited, like a kid at show and tell - full of delight and easy confidence.
The click and clack of the unclasping is so clear and memorable.
The quick energy of intimacy.
But Russo turns around immediately, sensing the sexuality - the sheer power - of a belt being unbuckled. She’s done. He’s clueless. They end up fucking on the floor anyway, but that subtle clip of cinema expresses the kinetic energy of the unbuckled belt.
The potential energy of flaccidity vs the kinetic energy of tumidity.
The potential energy of buckled vs the kinetic energy of unbuckled.
The pleasures of unbuckling aren’t exclusive to men. Women wear belts as well, clockwise to a man’s counter-clockwise. Cockwise and Cuntwise, two hard-boiled detectives shaking up Sin City.
Who first subverted the belt for pleasure? We can’t be sure, but this passage from Ornamentalism gives a clue:
“Of course, the dildo could only achieve its greatest effects when it became attached to the body as a fashionable luxury accessory. In one of the many eighteenth-century texts that reflects back on the ‘origin’ of the dildo, ‘The Sappho-an’ describes one of the most important stages of the dildo’s life as the moment it acquired a ‘new-invented belt.’” (Emphasis added) (1)
What material was used to construct that ‘new-invented belt?” Rope? Silk? A tapestry torn from the wall in a frustrated fit of passion?
I’ve never worn belts but my chosen belt would be the arms of another. A permanent embrace around my waist to keep my knickers safely up. Forearms and biceps in place of canvas and leather. Flesh and bone form the buckle. A hand to hold, fingers to fondle, an anodyne for the anxious among us.
This unbuckling of flesh would be quieter than metal. Ten fingers slowly separating in a willful release of belly and genitals.
Mirabella, Bella. Ornamentalism: The Art of Renaissance Accessories. The University of Michigan Press, 2011.
Thanks, Boss!