DrSuzy.Tv Engineer Abraham, Zombie Trixie Plenty, Dr. Suzy, @RadioSUZY1 Tweeter Jade Song. Photo: Gonzo Bonobo

Length 1:15:13      Date: Nov. 02, 2013

Halloween may be long gone, but the monsters are still out there, and they’re coming after us! At least, they’re coming after me. A seething horde of technical snafus made this DrSuzy.Tv broadcast over a half hour late (apologies to our beloved subscribers for the delay, but better late than never!). Were there gremlins in the machines? Was it all Time-Warner’s fault? Or had zombies arisen from that awful LAX shooting and lurched down La Cienega to peace-through-pleasure-loving Bonoboville and eaten my crew’s brains?

Before I could say Night of the Fornicating Dead, there was Trixie Zombie, stalking me, her fangs dripping with gangrene, blood and brain-hunger, her pretty face grinning maniacally behind all that oozing red and green paint and latex.

Are zombies invading Bonoboville? Sort of. Thanks to my dear stiff friend Corpsy, the crew of Doc of the Dead will be coming to visit the Institute and eat—I mean pick my brain—about zombie sex. Doc of the Dead is a new film about the “zombie invasion of pop culture,” directed by Alexandre O. Philippe (The People vs George Lucas), that has been picked up by EPIX channel and will air in March 2014 as part of the content surrounding the cable premier of Brad Pitt‘s World War Z.

Zombie sex? Isn’t that the ultimate, foaming-at-the-mouth moron of oxymorons? Talking about sex that kills you dead… or undead. But with the ongoing perma-war, the lousy and lousier economy, apocalyptic talk and terrorist action from the looniest wings of various religions, drone strikes, riots, revolutions, mass shootings, madness and mayhem, many people look to zombies, the zombie apocalypse and zombie fantasies as a way to relate and cope with their very real fears of the breakdown of society.

Of course, this huge interest in zombies would turn some people on sexually. And yes, there is such a thing as a zombie fetish. There is even a whole sector of zombie porn with almost 50 million people googling it to find hundreds of clips and feature-length films. There are zombie rooms at fetish balls and Zombie Walks that look like lurching orgies of fake blood, gaping mouths and groping hands.

So most definitely, there is such a thing as “zombie sex,” especially in fantasy. And as I see it, there are four different kinds, with some overlap.

1)      Having sex with a zombie

A vampire seduces you. A zombie feeds on you. Having sex literally screws your brains out. A vampire tricks and entices you. A zombie is up front about its hunger, going after you slowly but relentlessly or, if it’s a “fast zombie,” quickly and ferociously. Some people are sexually aroused by the idea of being pursued and attacked by a powerful force of pure desire that completely overwhelms their resistance. Though nobody really wants to be raped, many people have rape fantasies, and a sexualized zombie attack might be the ultimate rape.

It’s certainly very scary sex and, as we discussed on last Saturday’s Scary Sex and Troma show, fear can be a tremendous aphrodisiac, even stronger than drugs.  Fear acts like a drug on our system, throwing us into each other’s arms, craving oxytocin, comfort and protection, even as our bloodstreams are racing with adrenaline. This potent chemical combination can turn into orgasms with the flick of a tongue.

But aren’t zombies gross? Without doubt. And gross is the opposite of sexy… or is it? One of the great erotic philosophers of the mid-20^th century, Georges Bataille, said transgression was one of the cornerstones of human eroticism. That is, sometimes we’re turned on by that which we find gross, disgusting, shameful or evil.

But what about infection? In this era of STDs, a zombie virus is worse than HIV. A lot worse. Even Condomania doesn’t make a condom to protect you against zombies. And that’s part of the transgressive appeal. There are, in fact, zombie sex guides that seriously (or semi-seriously) tell you how to have sex with zombies without getting infected; that is cover yourself completely, not just in latex, but in armor.

Sex is the essence of life, the trick we play on death, and eros is the opposite of thanatos. But sex and death have long had a complex, intertwined relationship. The French call the orgasm “Le Petit Mort,” a marvelous explosion of pleasure, and always preferable to Le Grand Mort. But what do orgasms have to do with death? No one knows what happens to our consciousness when we die, but according to the evidence, it appears to disappear or, at least, transmute into something quite different from what it is when we’re alive. In a sense, when we orgasm, our day-to-day consciousness “disappears” or “dies” along with our feeling of being separate from the rest of the universe. It turns into that cosmic feeling of undifferentiated ecstasy, when we feel that we are one with all of life and beyond. On that level, a really good climax is, indeed, a “little death.”  And just as “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” lots of “little deaths” tend to keep the Big One away—i.e., a healthy sex life keeps you healthy–for a while. Then again, if you have your petit mort with a zombie, it will probably lead to le grand mort pretty quickly.

Of course, having sex with someone who’s just dressed up as a zombie is a lot safer and more fun. In fact, as you remove their costume and the ugly, bloody make-up melts off, you discover this wonderful, naked, human beauty pulsating with aliveness that’s so thrilling in contrast to the festering, zombie undeadness that existed before.

Having sex with a real zombie without protection would be, of course, a bit of a death wish, or a wish to become a zombie yourself, which brings us to…

2)      Having sex as a zombie

You have to be cool to be a vampire. But anyone can be a zombie. They’re very egalitarian. Unlike those elitist vampires, zombies are “the people’s monster.” Group Zombie Walks are monstrous parades of collective ecstasy, everyone relishing their individual and communal monstrousness. In many films that make socio-political statements, like George Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead, zombies seem to be a swarm of starving masses, the 99% run amok.

A zombie apocalypse is a terrible twist on the meek inheriting the earth. However, in a way, the powerless become powerful once they’re turned into zombies. And as Henry Kissinger, Madonna and many others have pointed out, power is a major aphrodisiac, right up there with fear.

But why would anyone feel sexy—or more sexual—as an oozing, awful zombie? Our society puts so much pressure on us to look good, especially if we want to attract sexual partners. Being a zombie really takes that pressure off. You’re supposed to look terrible. What a relief! What transgressive, naughty fun!

If you aren’t conventionally attractive, one way for you to possibly get some action is to go out as a zombie. Cover up your natural repulsiveness with zombie repulsiveness! It also gives you an excuse to be obnoxious, grope people (“sorry, but I’m a zombie”) and generally let your id out.

If you are naturally good-looking, you might find that it’s oddly liberating to be ugly. You can hide behind a major mask and let your wild side out like you never can when you’re at your attractive best.

So much for the body. What about the zombie mind? What mind? Zombies are pretty mindless, which is a big part of what makes them really scary.  You can’t reason with a zombie. But really hot sex is also kind of mindless. Many of us are driven crazy by our overworked, worried, stressed out, nitpicking, deceitful, depressed and neurotic minds. So often, our minds seem to betray our very souls. We crave a kind of mindlessness and a dreamy, pure, primal sex, uninhibited by the petty grievances of the mind.

Many of my clients love erotic hypnosis because it puts them into a serene, mindless, sleep-walking, trance-like state that allows them to let go. Long before Night of the Living Dead redefined zombies as lurching feeding Lazaruses, ancient African Kikongo and Haitian voodoo tradition held that sorcerers could transform the living or the dead into zombies, total slaves under their master or mistress’ complete control. This wasn’t so much about biting and eating people’s brains as it was about the zombie being brainless, his or her will entirely bent to the will of the master or mistress. It is this kind of zombification that some of my erotic hypnosis clients crave and often achieve, at least temporarily, as I guide them into deep relaxation and mind-opening exploration. Blood drains from their brains as it circulates through their groins, the power of suggestion stripping their mental resistance, spinning fantasies that seem more vivid than reality, often resulting in unusually profound orgasms and sometimes even eroto-spiritual revelation.

Across traditions, the slow zombie walk is kind of like the sleep-walk of the hypnotized. It’s pretty easy to do. Just lurch like a dork. If you stumble and fall or otherwise make a mess of yourself, it’s no problem; in fact, it’s great—you’re a zombie! Same goes for the sex act. Bye-bye performance anxiety!

And then there’s the feeding. There’s no doubt that the modern zombies’ preoccupation with feeding calls to mind a kind of cannibalism which can be a very gruesome fetish when taken to its literal barbequed conclusion. But when we passionately kiss, lick, suck and love-bite each other, it’s kind of like we’re devouring each other. As Drs. Lynn Marguelis and Dorion Sagan so eloquently suggest in Origins of Sex: Three Billion Years of Genetic Recombination, the first “meiotic” sex acts were a kind of cannibalism on the cellular level. Consuming led to reproducing which led to more consuming and here we are now reenacting that primal cellular scene, just eating each other up with love.

When you put it that way, zombie sex sounds almost beautiful. On the other hand, when a zombie attacks a human, especially an attractive human, it’s the complete desecration of beauty. In the popular bukkake fetish, a beautiful “victim” is desecrated by body fluids, mostly semen, but sometimes urine and spit and/or penetrating any and all orifices. Zombie sex desecrates the body of the victim even more. This is what a lot of zombie porn focuses on for the delectation of the sadism-savoring zombie porn watcher: the desecration and zombification of one beautiful porn star after another.

And let us not forget that the fear of the beautiful, vulnerable zombie sex-victim, her mouth stretched into a gaping hole of fright turns on a lot of sadists out there. That’s the appeal of all kinds of horror, from psychos to zombies: frightened beauty.

Bad as it is, zombie sex doesn’t actually kill the beauty. It just turns your beauty into ugliness (which some might call a different kind of beauty). Like Lazarus or even Jesus himself, you rise from the dead, allowing yourself the triumphant, intoxicating joy of beating death, the great nothingness. Being a zombie may be mindless, but it’s not nothingness. For some, undead feels a lot better than dead. And that’s part of the turn-on.

Among the zombies with Corpsy at Melt-Down Comics. Photo: Andy Martin

3)      Killing zombies with sexual passion

The movies make killing zombies look and sound like coming buckets of creamy hot life. Of course, many movies make any kind of killing look and sound like coming. Joyous killing is pretty primal, connected to the side of humanity that is closer to the violent common chimpanzees as opposed to our other close ape relatives, the peace-through-pleasure-loving bonobos. Though the NRA doesn’t mention it, there’s a deep erotic reason that gun-lovers love their guns, and that’s because shooting a gun feels like the sexual kind of shooting. Though the orgasmic joy of blasting somebody’s head off tends to be accompanied by guilt and pain, at least if you’re not a psychopath.

Usually, I say make love, not war and shoot the gun between your legs. But with zombies (meaning the modern type of flesh and brain-munching zombies), its different. There’s absolutely no guilt. It’s not like you’re killing living people. They’re all dead or undead. They’re worthless and extremely dangerous. They want to eat you. You can’t reason with them. So you can kill them with passion, lust and guilt-free joy. The sickest spin on this type of zombie sex (also zombie porn) is when the lead actor dispatches his zombie grandmother with more lustful glee than seems right.

Of course, when I say kill, I mean putting the zombies out of commission—usually by blowing them up or lopping off their heads—since they’re already dead, or undead.

Killing zombies taps into many people’s desire to feel superior. Some do this through racism or xenophobia, which are losing steam in our growing global village. But everybody can feel superior to zombies. That’s tough to do with vampires. Vampires and a lot of those fancy monsters out there are superhuman. Zombies are subhuman. They make us feel the sexy power of our own aliveness. This feeling of sexual superiority leads to the final form of zombie sex…

4)      Having sex with another SMOKING HOT human in between killing zombies while more zombies pound the walls outside your compound.

Fear being a huge aphrodisiac, many people might imagine sex with the object of their erotic fantasies—whether Brad Pitt, Joanna Angel or their real-life lover—in the midst of some kind of zombie apocalypse, as society breaks down all around you. The apocalyptic-ness of it all makes the sex super intense and special if it’s your real-life lover. It’s especially hot in a romantic, soap-operatic way if you thought your lover had been eaten by zombies, you both go through hell, and then you discover that he/she is alive and not a zombie. Time to celebrate! Or maybe it’s your neighbor that you’ve always coveted, and now that your respective spouses are dead or zombified, it’s your big your chance to have mad, passionate sex. And if it’s Brad or Joanna, well, how would an average zombie fetishist like you get to do a superstar like that except by being the other last living person on earth?

This is also why zombie movies are so popular among couples. Sex after a zombie movie can be incredibly hot, as you and your honey hump on, surrounded by hungry mouths and fists banging to be let in through the door of your erotic imagination.

Sex Addiction: What’s It Got to Do With Zombie Sex?

So back to the show. I was talking about the show, wasn’t I? Since I don’t have any guests for this one, I just hang out with Capt’n Max who is fuming about the technical snafus (Will anyone walk the plank for this? Stay tuned…), all charged up over the LAX shooting, not too turned on by zombie sex, but VERY excited by Reggae Night Wednesdays at the Green Horse.

And Trixie. Not only is Trixie a pretty freaky-looking zombie who loves zombie sex, she is also a self-proclaimed sex addict. When I asked her what she means by that, she replies, “Since I’ve come to Bonoboville, I’m having more sex than ever!” Is that sex addiction? Just having a lot of sex? This brings me to another subject that’s on the show and on my mind this week. Yes, the modern Scarlet Letter doesn’t stand for simple Adultery anymore, but for Addiction—Sex Addiction. In this case, a company who works with the mainstream networks like CBS and NBC is doing a show on sex addiction, and called me to see if I might be one of their experts, the “left-liberal, fun” one, as they put it, on a panel of three experts. I’m betting the other two will be more dour than Dr. Drew. But hey, as long as I can be me, I’m game.

As those of you who know me know, though I’ll occasionally use the term tongue-in-cheek, I’m not keen on seriously labeling folks as “sex addicts.” Not that the pain and suffering that some people call “sex addiction”—sometimes called “hypersexual disorder”—is just a joke.  But is it a real disease?  It is not a clearly defined psychological disorder, nor is it listed in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), the psychiatrists’ handbook for these sorts of things. I tend to agree with Drs. Marty Klein and David Ley (Myth of Sex Addiction) that the “sex addictionologists” are using the term to try to regulate, criticize and make a profit off of many men with high libidos just as the word “nymphomaniac” was once used to try to regulate, criticize and make a profit off of “oversexed” women.

Despite this lack of scientific backing, sex addiction is a huge industry. The media, Hollywood and the masses are in love with using the term “sex addiction” to mean almost any kind of sex or relationship problem, obsession, even passion or just good clean kinky fun, like Trixie’s having here in Bonoboville.

So, if you masturbate regularly, enjoy pornography, have an affair, go to swing parties, dance in strip clubs, like phone sex, see a dominatrix, work as a dominatrix, wear panties under your clothes (if you’re a guy) or over your clothes (if you’re a gal), own more than three pairs of stiletto heels (if you’re a guy or a gal) or if you fantasize about anyone or anything other than your beloved, you are at risk of being branded a sex addict. I guess if you host a show about sex in a bed wearing lingerie surrounded by dildos under a giant photo of a bonobo, you might as well have “Sex Addict” tattooed across your cleavage.

The pseudo-confession “I’m a sex addict” is used as an excuse for sexual harassment, cheating, watching “too much” porn (such as zombie porn!), going to strip clubs, obsessive-compulsive or even for criminal behavior. Celebrities caught with their pants down like Tiger Woods, David Duchovny, Kanye West, Charlie Sheen and many more have resurrected themselves (like zombies?) and gained public absolution by calling themselves “sex addicts” and checking themselves into expensive clinics in remote areas. To his credit, Anthony Weiner has not.

The accusation “You’re a sex addict” is used as a weapon by angry or concerned spouses and lovers of the supposed sex addicts. It’s also used by the sex addictionologists, most of whom rush to call anyone whose sexuality they find objectionable a “sex addict.” Anything outside of monogamous, vanilla sex–or “sex without emotional attachment”–could be some kind of sex addiction. Some don’t seem to know the difference between a serious sex problem and a big, healthy erotic appetite that overflows the standard model of what sex should be. Much of what passes for “sex addiction treatment” is moralizing, judgmental, unscientific, extremely vague and even sometimes harmful.

The sex addiction meme is rampant. Just about every horny person who calls me for sex therapy these days—male or female—asks me if I think they’re a “sex addict.” And anyone can be! Often they come up with the notion they suffer from sex addiction while researching their favorite fetish online. All roads lead to Rome in this case, and almost all sexual or fetishistic search words eventually take the seeker to articles deploring an interest in that fetish as a form of sex addiction. Then again, perhaps someone they know has called them a “sex addict” in a fit of righteous fury or out of caring confusion. Or maybe they identify with sexy but star-crossed superstars like Woods or West or powerful former Presidents like Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, all of whom have been branded by the media and various “experts” with this most exciting, perverse, shame-riddled and downright sinful of labels.

Or, as Trixie says, maybe they just have “poor time management skills.”

Or just generally poor personal management skills.

What folks call “sex addiction” takes many forms and can involve any sexual practice. It’s not the activity that makes the so-called addict, it’s the attitude:  compulsively engaging in unwanted behaviors that make your life seem chronically “unmanageable.” We all, on occasion, have bad sex or do sexual things we’re not so proud of. Chronic unmanageability could involve anything from failing college exams because Internet porn overtook studying, to spending the family savings on a blackmailing dominatrix, to engaging in bareback sex in public restrooms while your wife and kids sit at the dinner table watching the roast get cold.

Despite and partially because of its vagueness, many people grab the term like a designer label on sale, because even though it’s embarrassing and demeaning, calling yourself a “sex addict” is, well, sexy. Some long to wear a glittering Scarlet Letter “A” for Addict on their breast, and seem disappointed when I say “um, just because you masturbate three times a week does not make you a sex addict.”

Some people who call themselves “sex addicts” are downright intoxicated with the idea of being utterly, unmanageably “out of control,“ ruled by their addicted, entranced, transgressive, libidinous desires, or by a hypnotic seductress who takes advantage of their vulnerable, addictive sensibilities.

I think some people like to call themselves “sex addicts,” kind of like some people get turned on by pretending to be zombies, and no, I’m not just saying this to tie these two rather disparate topics together.

Both “zombie sex” and “sex addiction” are about sex out of control, sex for which you don’t have to take responsibility. Just because you feel out of control doesn’t mean you are out of control. But being a sex addict or a zombie appears to give you a pass for taboo behavior.

Of course, they don’t. Not in reality. Though both zombie sex and sex addiction have staked large claims on the popular imagination, neither are very scientific. They simply distract you from your real problems (which is not always bad, but not usually very constructive) and make a lot of money for the sex addictionology and zombie industries.