May 24, 2020

I'm trying to write up one wolf story, and another wolf story pops ups. I'm beset by wolves this morning.

I express my frustration out loud like this: "Remember 'Women who Run with the Wolves'? What the hell was that?"

"I also remember Naomi Wolf," says Meade.

"May I quote you?"

"Yes," he answers, adding "I also remember Wolf Blitzer."

So the first story I'm trying very hard to process for this blog is: "A Feud in Wolf-Kink Erotica Raises a Deep Legal Question/What do copyright and authorship mean in the crowdsourced realm known as the Omegaverse?" That's in the NYT. I've had the tag open since yesterday, and this morning Meade sent me the link to it, so my blogging it is overdetermined and seemingly mandatory and pressing.

Wolf-kink erotica sounds interesting, and here it is tangled up in law — "a deep legal question." When is law deep? How about erotica? Is erotica deep? How deep is your erotica?
[A]ll Omegaverse couples engage in wolflike behavior. Alphas “rut” and Omegas go through heat cycles, releasing pheromones that drive Alphas into a lusty frenzy. One particular physiological quirk that’s ubiquitous in Omegaverse stories, called knotting, comes from a real feature of wolves’ penises, which swell during intercourse, causing the mating pair to remain physically bound to increase the chance of insemination.... In the past decade, more than 70,000 stories set in the Omegaverse have been published on the fan fiction site Archive of Our Own.... On Amazon, there are hundreds of novels for sale, including titles like “Pregnant Rock Star Omega,” “Wolf Spirit: A Reverse Harem Omegaverse Romance” and “Some Bunny to Love: An M/M MPreg Shifter Romance,” an improbable tale involving an Alpha male who can transform into a rabbit....
I'm trying to get my brain around that — my brain, which swells during blogging — and this story pops up: "Bolivian orchestra stranded at ‘haunted’ German castle surrounded by wolves" (NY Post). Come on, now.
A Bolivian pan flute orchestra has been stuck in quarantine on the grounds of a grand 15th century palace outside of Berlin for two months. Over 20 members of the Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos have been stuck on the grounds and buildings of Rheinsberg Palace, a castle, complete with moat....
Not just an orchestra — a pan flute orchestra. Not just a castle — a castle with a moat. So many elements. It's like the internet is toying with me. How can it be an "orchestra" if it's all pan flutes?

Maybe it would all make more sense to me if I were more of a woman who runs with the wolves. Here's Wikipedia on the 1992 book "Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype" by "Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D" — a book I saw and shunned hundreds of times back in those days when I used to go to bookstores all the time. The book looks at "myths, fairy tales, folk tales and stories" and extracts a "Wild Woman archetype of the feminine psyche" and purports to demonstrate that "wolves and women are relational by nature."

You never hear about that anymore — wild women and the way we're like wolves. Or, no, wait, here's a NYT piece from 2018, "The Wild Woman Awakens/The 1992 feminist sensation 'Women Who Run With the Wolves' has returned, as a new generation of artists embrace women’s bodies in all their hormonal, bloody glory." That's by Amanda Hess, who's found a copy of the old book:

When I first picked up Estés’s book, I did so warily. A review printed across the bottom says that it “venerates the female soul,” but I don’t believe in the soul, and I extra don’t believe in “the female soul.” When it was published, “Wolves” read as a retort to the 1990 book “Iron John: A Book About Men,” written by another poet and Jungian enthusiast, Robert Bly, who instructed men to harness their “Zeus energy.” But now, Estés’s premise feels in tension with feminism itself — or at least the part of it that seeks to raze the binary, clear space for trans and nonbinary experiences and cast gender as a performance merely masquerading as a natural event....

Estés tells a story about the ancient Greek goddess Baubo, who appears as a headless torso with nipples for eyes and a vulva for a mouth. In Estés’s telling, Baubo is a gleefully obscene figure, shaking her breasts and telling dirty jokes for an audience of women. Through Baubo’s face, the nipples become “psychic organs,” and the vulva is a portal to women’s stories. As Estés puts it: “A woman feels sensations that others might imagine, but only she knows.”...

One danger of any “essential” image is wearing it out, losing it to cliché.... In 2017, when “Wolves” was selected for Emma Watson’s digital feminist book club, a reader asked Estés what the book holds for trans and nonbinary people, and she replied, “There is not, as far as I know, and I have over my lifetime consulted with myriad crones, hobbits, faeries, gnomes and leprechauns, any final saying so about what is a woman.” 
You know, I have consulted with myriad crones too! And here at Meadehouse, we know all about Zeus energy.



There's running with the wolves for you.

45 comments:

David Begley said...

These people are mentally ill. The NYT is trying to create a new victim class. Identity politics.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Wait until Amanda reads about the founding of Rome! Or Arcadia. Or the Leaping Wall of Livonia. That’s a good tale.

Lucid-Ideas said...

There are two wolves inside you. One is beset by wolves, the other is in the Rheinsberg palace stuck with a Bolivian pan flute orchestra.

You must choose.

rhhardin said...

Women interpret their periods in a world of men.

Wince said...

One particular physiological quirk that’s ubiquitous in Omegaverse stories, called knotting, comes from a real feature of wolves’ penises, which swell during intercourse, causing the mating pair to remain physically bound to increase the chance of insemination.

What they leave out for literary effect is the elderly neighbor in shorts and sandals with white socks turning the garden hose on them.

Lucid-Ideas said...

Inside you there are two wolves. One wants hard shell tacos, the other wants soft shell tacos.

No, you can not have both. The one that wins is the one you feed.

gilbar said...

if it weren't for wolves, we wouldn't have had the 3 wolf moon t-shirt,
and that would mean that we would not have The Most Awesome review page on earth!

alanc709 said...

Is there any discipline less scientific than sociology?

Krumhorn said...

.....aaahhhhhhhoooooooooooooo

- Dawgknot

Gotagonow said...

From Pete (Malcolm in the Middle):

Women. They're just like the woods: mysterious... full of wolves.

Ralph L said...

Don't forget about poor Gerald Ford!
Avoid that fate.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

How deep is your erotica?

Usually about seven inches, but maybe as much as nine if I'm feeling particularly inspired.

SGT Ted said...

IS this one of those things where porn for women is empowering?

Temujin said...

Then there's the Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Wolf, who mixes small time tyranny with passive aggressive speech to get his entire state corralled and waiting for his OK to move. He has been the top dog, but there are others now growling at him and they are starting to disobey the head Wolf. The populace would love to run with the wolves in Pennsylvania, but they're being admonished for getting haircuts and encouraged to hole up in their dens instead.

What they need, I think, is for a pan flute orchestra to conduct a pan-parade down a main street in some of these towns. It would bring people of out their dens to rub up against each other, sniff each other, and follow a new pack leader. A pan flute playing pack leader.

Or maybe they can just vote out this Wolf when the time comes. By the way, the pan flute orchestra was first called the Pan Flute Band, but no one would go see a pan flute band. However, a Pan Flute Orchestra!

Fernandinande said...

I've always thought it'd be cool to be a werewolf, but only if you could turn it on and off when you wanted to.

The X-Files had an important episode about a werehuman who was actually a sort of lizard by default.

Howard said...

This type of pseudo philosophical paganism is silly. It reminds me of the 1970s fetish over reincarnation. Everybody who claimed to be reincarnated was always reincarnated from someone famous great got some nameless peon emptying chamber pots. Also like the Trumper fetishization and inflation of the alpha male in a Garrison Keillor lake Wobegon claim that all children are above average.

Everyone always picks the apex predator for their spirit animal even though lower caste spirit animals chooses them.

Iman said...

Women who run with the NYT...

gadfly said...

Have a listen to Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos La Paz-Bolivia and you will likely agree that using wolves to keep them off-stage is a good idea.

mikee said...

It isn't just wolves who experience unbreakable cojoining during mating. Regular dogs do, too. This resulted in a hilarious half hour of my miniature Aussies standing butt to butt and connected by the male's swollen member, unable to do anything other than look ridiculous. The puppies were marvelous, too.

Darkisland said...

Would that orchestra have included "Zamfir, master of the pan flute"?

John Henry

Josephbleau said...

Big dick energy and big cl*t energy. Ideas that will go away when they stop believing in them.

Nichevo said...

What they leave out for literary effect is the elderly neighbor in shorts and sandals with white socks turning the garden hose on them.


Naw, rhhardin is cool, besides, he likes to watch. Plus then he can eat their food.

Sam L. said...

NYT does weird stuff? Why am I not surprised...

Stephen Taylor said...

Into my mind popped Maritta Wolff, who wrote two of the finest novels I've ever read, "Night Shift"and Whistle Stop". Both timeless, yet evocative of the period during and right after World War 2. Both made into movies. Neither, however, involved wolves.

rcocean said...

Love the Zeus video. Yep, that's how dogs act. Chasing a tennis ball is fun, but nothing is more interesting than another dog's butt.

Kate said...

Serendipity. I was just thinking of this book out of the blue last week. I read it back in the day and liked it. Now, remembering, it seems like one of the most worthless books ever written.

Darkisland said...

Back in the day, when everything I knew about sex came from 8th graders, I heard that knotting occurred in human sex.

All sorts of odd stories including people needing to go to the er to get uncoupled.

I don't think there's any truth to this but have Alstyne been scared to find out.

John Henry

Quaestor said...

Wolf was Adolf Hitler's nickname, or more precisely, his preferred nickname among the three or four top leaders within the National Socialist party prior to the "Long Knives" purge of Ernst Röhm and his Sturmabteilung. Hilter's less preferred nicknames were Verrückter Schnurrbartmann, followed by Charlie Slewfoot.

Wolf was also a codename for Hitler, as in the wolf returns to the rocky nest, meaning Hitler will return to his headquarters. (No kidding. This one you may file away for your appearance on Jeopardy,)

Would you trust CNN if its senior reporter was called Adolf Blitzer?

Is there less trust than no trust at all?

Paul Zrimsek said...

The usual rule is if it's all wind instruments it's a band, not an orchestra.

rhhardin said...

Wolves have a lunar connection, and the moon is always female.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

who's afraid of Virginia's wolf?

Ron Winkleheimer said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQAwlxY0AaA

michaele said...

I live out in the country and once saw an incident of "knotting" between a twosome from a pack of about 7 to 8 dogs. The ruckus from the at liberty dogs was very loud and they were running in circles around the forced joined couple. I honestly didn't know what the heck I was seeing at first and I was worried about if the connected dogs were in some strange kind of trouble. I had my own pet dog with me and the one thing I knew for sure was that I didn't want her to get mixed up with the wild ones. It was a weird (although memorable) sight.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

You know, we were just going to mention that!

[Boy:] On a hot summer night
Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
[Girl:] Will he offer me his mouth?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Will he offer me his teeth?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Will he offer me his jaws?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Will he offer me his hunger?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Again, will he offer me his hunger?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:]And will he starve without me?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] And does he love me?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Yes
[Boy:] On a hot summer night
Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
[Girl:] Yes
[Boy:] I bet you say that to all the boys

Sarah Rolph said...

This is one of those books that people either love or hate. It's also easily misunderstood. I wrote a review at Amazon explaining why I like the book, in terms I hoped would be clear even to those prone to dismiss it. I see it has been 20 years since I wrote that! My how time flies. If I were writing this now, I might change the passage about "societal norms;" today it sure doesn't seem like women are given the message that they should be seen and not heard! But I think the rest of it stands up reasonably well:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RFHXWEBQ5E1Q?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

Kevin said...

Deep Snout.

Kevin said...

T-1000 impersonating Janelle: John, it's late, where are you?

The Terminator: [to John] What's the dog's name?

John Connor: Max.

The Terminator: [impersonating John's voice] Hey Janelle, what's wrong with Wolfie? I can hear him barking.

T-1000 impersonating Janelle: Wolfie's fine, honey, Wolfie's just fine. Where are you?

The Terminator: [hangs up the phone] Your foster parents are dead.

YoungHegelian said...

In my admittedly limited experience, all men are aware of the existence of pornography intended for male audiences. Men know, more or less, what are the contents of such pornography.

The audience for the various types of fan fiction erotica are almost completely women. Yet, most women seem to be entirely ignorant of the existence of this sort of erotica. How does this "product" find its way to the women who want it? What are the demographics of the women who consume it? Is the market much like the Romance novel market, which has its market segmented by just how sexually explicit the story line is?

Inquiring minds want to know.

traditionalguy said...

Wolf Packs sunk thousands of ships and killed tens of thousands of sailors. Not that there is anything wrong with that. The occult ties of Hitler were always obvious .

mezzrow said...

I'd like to recommend M.F.K. Fisher's How To Cook A Wolf, written during WW2.

I need only relay the chapter titles. You can find a copy for next to nothing.

How to be Sage Without Hemlock
How to Catch the Wolf
How to Distribute Your Virtue
How to Boil Water
How to Keep Alive
How to Rise Up Like New Bread
How to Be Cheerful Though Starving
How to Carve the Wolf
How to Be Content With a Vegetable Love
How to Have a Sleek Pelt
How to Comfort Sorrow
How Not to Be an Earthworm

Narr said...

Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia liked whippets, not wolves; he liked a flute (IYKWIM&NTTAWWT); and said his happiest times were there (1736-1740). Sorry I missed the place last year.

Narr
He was kinda quarantined too

Quaestor said...

Frederick the Great... liked a flute

It was his favorite instrument, though there's no evidence he ever actually played one, IYKWIM.

Big Mary would have loved some musical dirt on the Prussian dude. It might have kept the Russian dude on-side, but she never thought to do a Hillary on the chuck, IYKWIM. Too bad for Silesia, NTTAWWT. Big Kate was forever grateful, nonetheless. So was Po Dawg.

Quaestor said...

T-1000 impersonating Janelle: John, it's late, where are you?

I always wondered why T-1000 bothered to imitate Janelle's body (and apron) when the conversation was on an old-fashioned landline phone.

Nichevo said...

Q, do you remember the scene? Todd, the stepfather, was in the kitchen with her (T-1000 impersonating Janelle, the stepmother), swearing at the dog and drinking milk from the carton. When he disturbed her while she was talking to John, she shifted hands with the phone and stabbed him through the carton into and through his head, pinning him to the refrigerator if memory serves. At that time, she had killed and impersonated Janelle, the stepmother. But not, at that time, Todd, the stepfather. He might still have been useful to her with some fact or action.

narciso said...

Todd later became jack bauers boss on 24