Everyday Eroticism

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It's the theme of all my art (well, all my recent art from the past year or two). I see it everywhere, the thread of creation and reproduction, sexuality. Understand: by sexuality I don't mean merely a man and a woman having missionary intercourse. No, I refer here to sex in its far reaching sense, from hermaphrodite nudibranches to the kelp they cling to...waving sensuosly in the ocean currents...to the pine trees showering the air and earth with their grains of pollen...I could go on in this way for a long time.....

Now, consider this: the custom of a man giving a flower to the girl he wants or loves. What kind of a flower? A rose. What sort of a rose? Longstemmed...no thorns, and very few leaves, if any. Color? Red...dark, passionate, blood infused red. Lastly, the profile of the flower: full blown, fragrant, with the beautiful shape we associate with a rose bush? No sir...a tight, pert rosebud. The contours of it should be fairly clean. OK: now picture this, all these factors, in your mind. In hand: a flower, held upright, with a long stem, culminating in the most important part, the dark red bud. Think, think, think.....what else could this represent? Hmmmm.....is it any wonder that this is the symbol used as an emblem of acceptance or rejection? Could anything be more heartening to a man than to see his girl clasp his rose lovingly and bring it to her lips?

Now, don't go blaming this on me. I didn't come up with the custom. I don't even like red roses much. All I did was to observe what should have been obvious anyway!