The Secret Scrimshaw Porn Vault
You know the legends of the vast and secret porn vault maintained beneath the impacted bowels of the Vatican? Well, for us North Americans, it turns out we’ve got a better-documented version of our own. But in ours, the porn is etched on whale ivory.
This is no shit. This is real. The Vancouver Maritime Museum triggered a local controversy (in the form of one nutcase offended local mother) when it included some pieces of scrimshaw featuring nudity and mild erotic themes in a recent exhibition:
For me the interesting part is the basement collection of hardcore scrimshaw porn they won’t show to the public:
Lust was a common theme in 19th-century scrimshaw, which is what this obscure art form – etchings on hard surfaces culled from sea creatures – is called. Scrimshaw was typically made by lonely whalers, trapped for months aboard ships that scoured the South Pacific for their prey, usually sperm whales, magnificent, 50-foot long creatures prized for their oil.
The whalers had idle hands and feverish minds. Scrimshawing was their means of expression, their release valve. Using ship-made hand tools and tobacco juice for ink, they set upon whale leftovers. Some of their work is finely detailed. Some is undeniably erotic.
…
The museum has “more graphic” examples of scrimshaw, [Museum curator Patricia Owen] says, but these remain hidden downstairs in the museum’s basement. They include depictions of creative candlestick use and what Ms. Owen cautiously describes as “the act.” They will likely never see the light of day.
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Jesus, I get so tired of the shrinking violets … ‘They will never see the light of day.’ Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, aren’t we just so scandalised. As though anyone couldn’t find stuff far more explicit in less than 15 seconds on the Internet … or in just about any grocery store. Fucking idiots.
And so the prudes steal more of our culture from us. At least this hasn’t been destroyed, so more enlightened generations may be able to appreciate it.
This is SO sad. These works are likely some of the most honestly motivated and noteworthy folk art creations that one is likely to find.
Museums are full of hidden erotica, much of it created by “blue collar”/”working class” craftsmen, and is kept from us by those who, for various reasons, wish to control what can be known about our own history.
The fact that these men were so strongly motivated as to devote the surface of such hard to find walrus tusk ivory to such images, makes this work even more important.
Scholars and any reasonably astute amateurs could get a lot of valuable information from these historic cultural recordings.
The public should be outraged that this is kept from them, and should insist on its display.