Drunk Church

This is the free teaser—to get access to the whole hour and a half bonus version, go to our Patreon and sign up at "Getting Tipsy with the Lord" or higher.

Andrzej Żuławski’s fever dream “Possession”—quite certainly the most extraordinary breakup film ever made—serves as our subject for today’s bonus episode, and we invite you to join us as we are engulfed within the overwhelming tides of the mythosymbolic realm that it reveals to us. The film's dream logic defies reduction to rational understanding—indeed, such attempts would strip away its very essence, the power that renders it so profoundly affecting as it pulls us deeper and deeper into its unraveling horrors.

We ask: What does it mean to be possessed? And how do we, in turn, seek possession of others and ourselves? In horrified fascination, we witness the characters' frenzied pursuit of various forms of possession, only for them to realize the multifaceted ways in which they themselves are possessed—not merely by desires like lust and jealousy, but also by institutions such as family and state. Our unsettling revelation lies in the disconnection between self-mastery and possession, leading us to contemplate whether, under these totalizing circumstances, reclaiming a sense of self necessitates surrendering to a kind of possession. Could it be that in order for us to truly experience ourselves authentically we must let ourselves become vulnerable to a possession that un-masters us, gives ourselves over to others, and risks the very same sense of self that we are so desperately in pursuit of?

From escapades in espionage to the many tentacled eldritch horrors of the erotic unconscious, we trace the intricate anatomy of a breakup and the dissolution of the family, arriving at both terrifying and potentially liberating conclusions.

Also featured: cosima’s dog and her dog’s dog friend who demandingly took center stage throughout recording in such a way that editing them out seemed in bad taste.

Embrace the arcane journey with us as we explore these depths!

Intro/outro song by "Bless You" by The Ink Spots

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How is it that desire, when taken to its conclusion, curdles into horror? For our Halloween Special, we linger with two transgressive erotic BDSM novels—first, with Pauline Réage's classic "Story of O" and then with its provocative leatherdyke echo in Jane DeLynn's "Leash"—to see the ways that our desire has the power to undo us. We have explored before how eroticism may destabilize us, stretch the ego like an overworn condom, or even make us stare into the abyss of our own dissolution—now we will stretch those limits as far as they can go.

Will we hide from desire—repress it and hope it goes away instead of coming back someday in even more monstrous form—or do we open ourselves up to it even in all its horrific power, and take the ultimate leap of faith? In the end, the choice is yours and yours alone.

Show notes:

"Story of O" by Pauline Réage

"Leash" by Jane DeLynn

This week we asked you for things you desire but are scared of on Instagram—these are shared in place of confessions.

Intro and outro song is "Bless You" by the Ink Spots

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For today's sermon we talk about "Secretary" starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader, a film that serves as a major root for the yearnings of countless leatherqueers for its perverse romance. What does it mean for a movie to be "problematic"? How does Mary Gaitskill's original much darker short story inform our understanding of the film? What does it mean to want something that everyone says is bad for you? How does desire open up ways outside of the well trod narrative paths of the family? What is "good representation" anyway? We discuss all of these things rolled up in the ooey gooey romance of it all, for your patreon-subscribing pleasure.

As always, thank you so much for your support—we couldn't do this without you.

Intro and outro song is "Bless You" by the Ink Spots.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We push even further into our esteemed Philosopher of Holes Georges Bataille, especially in regards to how his concept of religious erotocism can be understood with and against the embodied experiences of the Christian Mystics through the work of Amy Hollywood. We talk suckling from holy wounds, the feminized Jesus, novel insertions, foundational religious experiences, horror without limit, and much more. Traumatize thought and encounter the God of the Mystics 🍷 ⛪ 👼

To support our show and get exclusive content, you can sign up for our patreon at Drunk Church You can also follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

Intro song is "Bless You" by the Ink Spots

References:

Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History by Amy Hollywood

Acute Melancholia and Other Essays: Mysticism, History, and the Study of Religion by Amy Hollywood

Georges Bataille: A Critical Introduction by Benjamin Noys

"Erotism: Death and Sensuality" by Georges Bataille

"Inner Experience" by Georges Bataille

Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939 by Georges Bataille

Young girl eating a bird (The pleasure) by Rene Magritte

Hosts:

cosima bee concordia is a submissive femme leatherdyke based in PDX. She's a writer of trans horror fiction, essays, and theory, and in past lives she was a bookseller, an English teacher, a philosophy student, and a limp-wristed sissy. Her whole thing is pushing boundaries of body and self in intimacy and art, and she is deeply in love with her wife (not married because fuck marriage) and Daddi (not her father because abolish the Family)⁠—not to mention her precious son Mandu, a dog that she did biologically birth from her womb.

Aurora Laybourn is doing her best not to become a jaded academic. She has an M.A in philosophy and is currently pursuing her PhD in the Chicago area where she works, teaches and lives. Her dissertation examines the failures of the justice system’s carceral approach to sexual violence; an approach which she argues leads to a grotesque reification of rape culture through a process of re-victimization. When she isn’t working she enjoys taking baths, watching movies that straddle the line between campy and pretentious, and drinking red wine mixed with coke.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.