superheroes need blowjobs too!

superheroes and vampires and science fiction adventurers populated the mythic imaginary of our childhoods. for the most part, however, we tend to remember those spaces as free from sex. we never got to see robin give batman a blowjob in the front seat of the batmobile, even though we knew, at some level, that he was doing just that, at least when alfred pennyworth wasn't. sex was limited to the implied, as when stoker's count dracula chases away the female vampires about to seduce and suck jonathan harker: “how dare you touch him, any of you?” the count bellowed in fury and rage and with “cheeks blazing red with passion”: “how dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? back, I tell you all! this man belongs to me!”


it wasn’t really until the advent of pay cable television channels like hbo and showtime that sex became an overt feature of the representation of everyday life in some mainstream american media. sex is still marginalized and considered inappropriate in public spaces--especially if it isn’t heterosexual, romantic, and monogamous. janet jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” and its limitless potential to warp and corrupt the minds of america’s innocent sunday-school children is perhaps the most pressing example. calvin klein’s ability to shock supposedly cosmopolitan new yorker’s with this saucy billboard is another:


i think this is one reason why i find the work of herodotus so refreshing. as a child, i watched batman and robin get tied up and placed in the giant tea cup together, boiling water preparing to shower down upon them if they didn’t make a rapid escape. every sexual recess of my eight-year-old psyche was activated by that scene of man-to-man bondage and rubber/leather/lycra/belted bulging-muscles-and-tented-crotch eroticism. herodotus reverses an injustice, shamelessly and unapologetically placing overt man-on-man sexuality into the myths we all grew up with--changing them into the kind of myths we SHOULD have grown up with. he’s a breath of fresh air! enjoy him!

if you'd like to see more of herodotus, click here. click on any of the pictures to get a larger image.