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SatyriasisLiterotica2

   IN SATYRIASIS Literotica2 the great god Pan invites the reader to a pastoral orgy to partake of the polymorphous fruits of a fecund, feral imagination. Pan acts as Master of Ceremonies in Ian Philips’s collection, making an appearance in its opening and closing stories. And, naturally, you’d be wise to accept his kind invitation.

   Of the 16 stories on offer, “Overexposed” is one of the most intriguing. A voyeur surreptitiously photographs other guys as he passes them in the street (face fetishists, aren’t they the freakiest?) then meets Mr. Right when a photo is handed to him, name and telephone number scrawled on the back. The story makes some telling points about the dominance of the visual in our erotic lives, and Philips has his own variation (“I’m all about the eye”) on Isherwood’s famous line (“I am a camera”).

   “Shameless Self-Promotion” is a witty and cruel tale about a man who falls in love with an arsehole:

It was delicate and yet textured - like the
creases formed when layers of silk are placed
one atop the other. And it subtly writhed when
I touched it with the tip of my tongue.

   Unfortunately for our lover, he soon realises that “to enjoy the hole I have to suffer the ass that grows around it.” Isn’t that often the way?

   Written in the form of a memoir, “Stripping Towards Gomorrah” is an exquisite fragment in which Queen Anne remembers her dalliance with a young man whom her husband James I had previously enjoyed. The Queen reflects at one point that “perhaps the most intimate differences between Adam and Eve are more subtle than our learned men would like us to believe.” And indeed this is a key theme for Philips: we are marvellous creatures, and the crass dichotomies that are our everyday currency (masculine/feminine, gay/straight, top/bottom, femme/butch) can hardly hope to do us justice. Philips’s mission is to subvert these.

   Phil Andros was a member of Gertrude Stein’s circle for a brief time, so when a story begins with “A cock is a cock is a cock,” one hopes that it might shed light on one of the big issues of our time. Is there a qualitative difference between a straight man and a gay man’s cock? “Heterodoxy” is a meditation on the sacred chalice of masculinity itself; and if no clear conclusion is reached, there is still much of interest in the direction and digression of the narrator’s thought.

   The outstanding story in the book is undoubtedly “Shrimpboat Willie,” which is yet another demonstration that the most despairing siren songs are the most beautiful. In dark Gothic prose with distinct echoes of Melville, Philips gives us weirdness (here, big toe fetishism) and a romance where love is not reciprocated. The experience of love is always real, Philips tells us, even when you’re deluded or being used.

   “Just Another Lesbian Potluck” closes the book, and it is here where Pan sets out his envoi and makes a final farewell. Before that, we get a comedy of manners, San Franciscan style. Clark and Jody attend a lesbian party with a Roman theme, slave-girls and all. There’s a love triangle in that Jody is an ex of Lezzie Beddeath’s, the hostess of the party, but this was when Jody was a woman. Amidst the sadomasochism and party games, the debauchery and mayhem, old resentments resurface. This is Mike Leigh territory, but not as we know it; someone’s queered the pitch.

   In all his stories, Philips is both erotic and subversive. Satyriasis Literotica2 is a kind of wonderful bestiary, presided over by Pan, or his fabulist- on-earth, Ian Philips.

Suspect Thoughts Press, 2004, 304 pages, £9.99