read your post on Carcosa recently, i can see that showing through this in a really exciting way. i think this is good work towards integration. but being so anchored real world rhetorics/consequences of violence left me wishing venus had been more alien, or more subversive. she was exactly what the men wanted.
something i was thinking a lot about is the dichotomy of financial freedom whilst renting out your body/identity in the context of (traditional*) sex work, and how the act of selling is identity creation/curation. the venus form is, to me anyway, a literalisation of this - all the power and no ability to wield it. in my mind, something like this done deliberately could have provided far more positive results. instead, the now-nameless woman had this status inflicted upon her. for a more positive version, this might be something she learnt to control over the coming months. i'm loathe to suggest a unified mythology for my violence adventures, but given what has been established i don't think that would have gelled.
in any case, thank you for taking the time to write this out and think about the work deeply - it's much appreciated!
*from some of the research i did for this, there's a far more positive vision of what the pornography industry could be, worker owned and inherently less exploitative. of course, it's much less popular than the meat grinder mainstream industry.
I had this reaction initially too. But I think there are levels to it—
Taking something to its extreme— porn actor becoming a literal totem, a plastic Venus of Willendorf— feels like it articulates/clarifies the dynamics in a way that subversion would not.
The work triples down in the last line: "Captured, those mediating access would wield immense power." Is this not a porn producer with an exclusive contract with a "star"?
It is super messy to tackle any of these topics as a writer, especially while maintaining such an open tone. Basically, the works trusts the reader to think "this is fucked up" without the work ever saying "this is fucked up". Reminds me of Blood Meridian. You could walk away from that book thinking McCarthy is OK with genocide. He is brave enough to let you think that.