The Sexual / Creative
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Penthouse: Do you jerk off?
Patti: Only when I’m working. It’s such an intense procedure for me. It’s like a ritual ‘cause I take it real seriously. I try to eat some hashish and then I read a little. It doesn’t have to be dirty, just so long as it’s well written.
I think masturbating is a really important function in art. People don’t like to hear that kind of stuff, but it’s true. That’s what Genet did to create. I can always tell when somebody’s been jerking off. All the great writers, Alexander Trochi, William Burroughs, and Arthur Rimbaud. To me, fucking and masturbation and art is all the same because all it is is total concentration. And that’s what performing is, too. When I’m doing a long piece, a ten- minute “Gloria” or a really long “Land of a Thousand Dances,” I have to concentrate just like I’m trying to come with a guy or just like when I’m masturbating. A good artist’s always got his hand in his zipper.
Penthouse Interviews Patti Smith, 1976
http://www.oceanstar.com/patti/intervus/760400ph.htm
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I mostly never masturbate or have sex before a show; I must save that energy for the performance. It’s not a rule I have, but I do believe that when you come you release your chi and you need that chi to sustain an electric performance. In the tarot, the sexual and creative are intertwined. In this way I do think they can cultivate each other, a feedback loop. I identify with this passage for that reason. And furthermore they are both very intellectual for me. In tarot that would mean the wands and the swords. In astrology, fire and air. Patti Smith also says women are real intellectual in bed. And that men are more emotional. “I just think that women need help in getting their minds out of bed. It’s the plight of women.” Interesting to think about. We do find that men come more easily than women in general and I wonder if it’s because women are so much in their heads about it. I also identify with this passage because reading turns me on as well. She says it has to be well-written. I find I get horny when reading tedious, technical books.
Right now I’m reading Just Kids by Patti Smith. It’s crazy to read this interview with her in Penthouse because she hasn’t addressed sex so personally and descriptively in the book. Surely quotes will come up here; it’s been very inspiring thus far.
