Radical Desire
by Housk Randall and Mark Ramsden
Published by Serpent’s Tail, £16.99

Got to give Serpent’s Tail big kudos for this one. Sub-titled Exploring The Cutting Edge of Western Sexual Experience, this baby rocks! The biggest clue to the fact that Radical Desire will be a worthwhile “experience” are the names of the book’s compilers, Housk Randall and Mark Ramsden. Ramsden is the author of two novels (one of which, The Dungeon Master’s Apprentice, I’ve read and really enjoyed), plays the sax and is justly proud of his tattoos and piercings. Randall spends his days working as a sex counsellor, but is better known for his award-winning erotic photography – he’s also the man behind the very well-received books, Rituals of Love and the stunning The Customised Body. So, it really goes without saying that putting these two together is going to produce something pretty special.

Radical Desire is a large-sized, 106 page paperback that just oozes high-class production. Combining the vision and genius of Housk Randall’s photos with the wit and wisdom of Mark Ramsden’s illuminating and lucid text, it delivers a rich and gripping journey through a rich seam of extreme sexual expression. The trip – magic mushrooms, anybody? – comprehensively covers a number of so-call radical desires, including tantric sex, sex magic, fetishism, occult practices, bondage and erotic piercing and performance art. Cynics might thing, “Oh, the usual subjects then?”…maybe so, but it’s the way that the authors approach their subject matter that makes this volume so interesting. The main point being that they both know the score; they’re on “the inside” looking out, which is of great benefit when trying to present their case.

Mark Ramsden makes a very valid point of stating that as fetishism (for example) becomes more mainstream, at the same time, tolerance towards people classes as “sexual outlaws” continues to decline. A strange paradox indeed! The media, of course, is a two-edged sword. Positive press is far outweighed by the attention given to the pathetic sensation-seeking so-(self)christened moral guardians. This basically is the drive and motivation behind the book; as a healthy dose of very welcome encouragement to those people out there with the courage to defy convention. The photos depict some of these people in all their proud glory, black and white masterpieces of graphic and sensitive design which are a pleasure to absorb.

Read this book, enjoy this book – at least you’ll discover what the magic mushroom reference is all about – for it deserves your utmost attention. Over 40? Fat? The style gurus say you’re not sexy, not horny – this book says “Bollocks!” An essential reference work…and bloody good fun too.

Whispering John Carter

Editor: Harvey Fenton
Publisher: FAB Press
Price: £12.95
Pages: 208
Web site + ordering info: www.fabpress.com

I’ve had the latest issue of ‘Flesh and Blood’ lurking around for a while, but haven’t yet got round to reviewing it. This is largely because it is one BIG mother: over two hundred pages of really quite small type, accompanied by the sort of illustrations which make it “interesting”, shall we say, to read on public transport. Still, with some nifty folding, I finally managed to read it at work this lunchtime — hell, everyone there thinks I’m strange anyway…

There’s something slightly familiar about F&B: like a certain other publication I could mention, they’ve gone perfect-bound, spread out beyond the boundaries of film, and have got Lino in to do the ‘zine reviews. Fine choices in all the categories, albeit with variable success. While the format is good, and Lino is as Lino as ever, F&B is on weaker ice when it tries to cover non-film territory. There are two obvious pieces which do this, and there which are borderline: to take the latter first, there’s an okay article on Willam Burroughs, two pages of incomprehensible and unreadable text on the noise group Merzbow, and a pictorial of “Gina Velour” — aka Marne Lucas, whose “photos deal with body issues, using self-portraits as a forum to inspire women to confront their sexuality”. Yeah, whatever.

Ever further on the outer fringes, we have a rather good piece on shrunken heads and [Harvey, you KNOW what I’m going to say!] a large waste of space on ‘Rockbitch’, a Satanic collective-cum-heavy-metal-band who do moderately dodgy things on (and indeed, off) stage. Oh, and they’re women. How much space do you think they get? Four pages? Eight, maybe? Try TWENTY-SIX. Yet what’s actually interesting is the media reaction to them, which is covered perfectly adequately in a neat side-bar. Editor Harvey Fenton has tried to explain to me why he considers them so important; I remain resolutely unconvinced, and still reckon he just wants to shag ’em. 🙂

This straying into ‘Headpress’ or ‘Divinity’ territory aside, the good news is that there is easily more than enough excellent material in the remaining pages to justify its existence. From Pete Thrower’s merciless shredding of ‘Scream’ (spoiled marginally by describing ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ as “flawless” — two words, Pete: flared trousers) through to Mitch Davis reporting on the hell of the American Film Market, there is a LOT of good stuff. They’ve carried over some of the features from the magazine version i.e.the British horror filmography, which gives a sense of continuity. However, new readers need not be put off, and the interviews cover the whole spectrum of film-makers from Coffin Joe through Gerard ‘Deep Throat’ Damiano to Freddie Francis.

Plus there’s stuff on Jack the Ripper films (he operated within an entrail’s throw of where I’m typing this, by coincidence), Marco Ferreri, ‘Cafe Flesh 2’, the abortive efforts of the BBFC to legalise porn, an amusing one-pager on the erotic exploits of French President Mitterand’s astrologer, and more reviews than you can shake an engorged body part at. The sheer volume of effort that went into this would be impressive on its own, regardless of the quality. And when the quality is as generally high as this – the odd self-indulgent piece aside – it becomes even more imposing.

The major qualm will be if F&B also follows TC down the line of infrequency — worryingly, this last issue did take longer to come out than anticipated. But even if this does turn out to be the case, at least you’ll have plenty to keep you going in between times.