Investigating Sex

Surrealist Discussions

José Pierre, Malcolm Imrie

• Publisher: Verso
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781844677122
• eBook ISBN:
  9781781689547
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: History of Modern Art

Are women's orgasms more intense than men's? What did Andr? Breton think of homosexuality? Can love be separated from physical desire?
In 1928 a group of surrealist writers and artists held twelve round table discussions to address these questions. Calling them "researches into sexuality," their bizarre and humorous conversations are now made available in this new edition in all their surreal and salacious detail. Their research spanned the most critical period for surrealism, a time of bitter political disputes, echoed in the intensity of these meetings and in the range of participants, including Andr? Breton, Paul Eluard, Yves Tanguy, Benjamin P?ret and Pierre Naville.
Well before the so-called sexual revolution, their erotic exchanges broke sexual taboos and encouraged surrealists to openly share the libidinal themes they explored in their writing and art. In doing so, JoAnn Wypijewski writes in the new introduction, they are revealed as "lovers and prigs, fantasists and humanists, adventurers in mind if not always in flesh-flawed, foolish, brilliant, clangingly sexual human beings."

First Session*

27 JANUARY 1928

André Breton

Max Morise

Pierre Naville

Benjamin Péret

Jacques Prévert

Raymond Queneau

Yves Tanguy

Pierre Unik

ANDRÉ BRETON A man and a woman make love. To what extent is the man aware of the woman’s orgasm? Tanguy?

YVES TANGUY Hardly at all.¹

ANDRÉ BRETON Do you have any objective ways of telling?

YVES TANGUY Yes.

We are not told what these are.

ANDRÉ BRETON What does Queneau think?

RAYMOND QUENEAU There are no ways.

ANDRÉ BRETON Prévert?

JACQUES PRÉVERT It depends on the woman.

ANDRÉ BRETON Do you have objective ways of telling?

JACQUES PRÉVERT Yes, yes, yes, yes.

ANDRÉ BRETON Which?

JACQUES PRÉVERT (Does not reply.)

ANDRÉ BRETON Péret?

BENJAMIN PÉRET No way. And Breton?

ANDRÉ BRETON There are only subjective ways, which one can trust to the extent that one can trust the woman in question.

BENJAMIN PÉRET I agree with Breton.

RAYMOND QUENEAU To what extent does Breton trust a woman?

ANDRÉ BRETON To the extent that I love her. Naville, to what extent, etc.?

PIERRE NAVILLE That depends on the woman.

ANDRÉ BRETON In a given case, can you be sure whether she has an orgasm?

PIERRE NAVILLE Yes, certainly.

ANDRÉ BRETON How?

PIERRE NAVILLE Thanks to various illusions of a mental nature.

MAX MORISE If they are recognised to be illusions, they are not objective signs.

PIERRE NAVILLE I do not believe in objective signs.

ANDRÉ BRETON A man and woman make love. To what extent is the woman aware of the man’s orgasm? Morise?

MAX MORISE I have absolutely no idea.

ANDRÉ BRETON How can that be?

MAX MORISE Because I have no way of telling.

PIERRE NAVILLE What ways of telling do you think one could have in such a case?

MAX MORISE There is only the woman’s testimony.

ANDRÉ BRETON Does Unik share this opinion?

PIERRE UNIK I think not in some cases. I think the woman can be aware of it.

BENJAMIN PÉRET When?

PIERRE UNIK When the woman can perceive a change in the man’s demeanour.

ANDRÉ BRETON That is entirely subjective and worthless. Is there nothing else?

PIERRE UNIK Why do you think that it is worthless because it is subjective?

ANDRÉ BRETON Because an objective answer can be substituted for that one.

PIERRE UNIK Which one?

ANDRÉ BRETON In most cases the woman can ascertain that the man’s orgasm has taken place. She can find out for herself. It is a matter of a more or less conclusive local examination after the man has finished.

BENJAMIN PÉRET That is indeed the only way of telling.

PIERRE UNIK Why do you think that is the only conclusive test for a woman?

ANDRÉ BRETON Because it is the only rational means she can use.

RAYMOND QUENEAU I agree with Breton. She can only tell in this way.

BENJAMIN PÉRET Tanguy?

YVES TANGUY I agree.

ANDRÉ BRETON Prévert?

JACQUES PRÉVERT I agree.

ANDRÉ BRETON Naville?

PIERRE NAVILLE The woman can only tell in this way, and even then she cannot always tell.

ANDRÉ BRETON Why not always?

PIERRE NAVILLE Physiological circumstances sometimes prevent her, due to the very fact of her own orgasm.

ANDRÉ BRETON Is that the only time?

PIERRE NAVILLE I cannot see any others at present.

RAYMOND QUENEAU Explain the phrase ‘due to the fact of her own orgasm’.

PIERRE NAVILLE It is self-explanatory.

ANDRÉ BRETON […]² So Naville believes that, materially, the woman’s orgasm and the man’s, if they are simultaneous, could be indicated by the emission of seminal fluids which are mixed and indistinguishable?

PIERRE NAVILLE Yes.

BENJAMIN PÉRET Have you yourself noticed such mixing?

PIERRE NAVILLE Obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be talking about it.

ANDRÉ BRETON It is impossible to tell for sure – unless one talks to the woman in a highly questionable way.³

PIERRE NAVILLE So what?

BENJAMIN PÉRET Queneau, how do you imagine love between women?

ANDRÉ BRETON Physical love?

BENJAMIN PÉRET Of course.

RAYMOND QUENEAU I imagine that one woman plays the part of the man and the other that of the woman – sixty-nine.

BENJAMIN PÉRET...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction by JoAnn Wypijewski
• Translator’s Note
• First Session
• Second Session
• Third Session
• Fourth Session
• Fifth Session
• Sixth Session
• Seventh Session
• Eighth Session
• Ninth Session
• Tenth Session
• Eleventh Session
• Twelfth Session
• Appendices
• Notes on Participants by Malcolm Imrie
• Afterword by Dawn Ades
• Notes