On latex: isolation and protection in the 21st century (Part 2)

What is beyond the look and the history of latex? Sliding into our shiny garments in the current moment in time, we get to ask the ever pressing questions: are we alone or together, are we restricted or free? The second part of journey to the core of the highly fetishised material. 

Read Part 1 here. 

Two decades into the 21st century, and the technologies and experiences which shape our sexualities have shifted massively. But we hardly think of looking for an up-to-date perspective on what we seek in latex garments. Moreover, the two integral aspects of the latex experience – isolation and protection – have acquired entirely new context in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Questions usually applied to erotic acts involving rubber can now easily be extrapolated onto our day-to-day existence: are we alone or together, are we restricted or free?

ASMR, a 2021 artwork by London-based Singaporean artist Bart Seng Wen Long, documents latex fetishism against the invisible backdrop of COVID-19. We see an anonymous latex-clad figure kneeling by the bed in a hotel room, their face buried into the soft surface, their ears covered with large white wired headphones. Looking at the image evokes an almost physical reaction – our own sense of isolation mirrored through the figure in the room, somewhere between orgasmic and claustrophobic.

“It represents an ongoing project of tableaux images focusing on the complex sexual politics operating within sterile, post-racial, hyper-capitalist Singaporean society. It is also a lyrical meditation on the invisible processes of inanimate objects and their effects on the maintenance of our intimate desires,” the artist explains. “Between the white headphones (and the music it purportedly is playing), the latex body suit, the corresponding painting, the expensive hotel room and even with that surreptitious piece of clothing the figure is clinging on to, a sort of poetry is evoked. Almost everything in the room functions as a fetish signifier which compounds the carnal joy of its enigmatic occupier. It can even be said that the person present is no longer just a person or whoever they were before the suit went on; the figure here has transformed themselves into a fetish object, immersed in and intermingling with the unseen energies circulating through the other objects in the room”.

The hotel room in which I carefully put on my latex was designed by someone for all kinds of purposes. I think of their outlines for using this space, their renderings with small humans. Within the 25 square metres, we move slowly, our warm selves poured into cyborgian latex-clad moulds. We have learnt this pleasure out of curiosity – from pornographic visuals to tactile senses, a closed circuit of pleasure and memory. Once experienced, the smell and touch will always trigger the visceral response.

I place my spiked heel on his chest. He traces his tongue on my right thigh. I stroke the back of his neck with my rubber-covered fingers. For a moment, we are completely still. Time doesn’t exist. On top of him, I squeeze his leg between my thighs. Our body heat is pulsing beneath the latex. I think of all the blood and electricity running through his body, and how somehow they power these green eyes with long lashes. I feel like I can reach and touch something honest and secluded, something beyond his conscious self. This is what I see when we fuck.

“The first time I spent a prolonged period of time in a catsuit, it was remarkably comfortable. I felt an insane level of comfort with my form, but also not being the form anymore. It was almost transcendental. At the same time, it forces you to be present and aware of every inch of your body,” dominatrix and fetishist Eva Oh once told me.

This paradox of presence and absence is a recurring theme in fetish literature. In “Bound Together: Leather, Sex, Archives, and Contemporary Art”, American author Andy Campbell talks about a particular fragment of gay rubber erotica. It centres on a main character submerged in a pool while wearing numerous layers upon layers of rubber.  “The dissociation of the rubberman from his body might not make sense given how closely rubber hews to the body’s contours,” he writes. “But while rubber describes the exact shape of the body (in a way that few materials can), it also obliterates the direct sense of connection one feels to it”.

In a way, latex remains an ultimate fetish because of its ability to combine the opposing experiences: isolation and extreme intimacy; restriction and freedom; detachment and mindfulness. It offers a possibility to transcend one’s body and return to it.

We peel the rubber off in the shower. Warm water streams gradually inside the layers. The catsuits are piled in the corner of the shower, over light blue tiles. We feel both relief and slight sadness. This is the drop — the return to human form. 

Images: 

1. ASMR by Bart Seng Wen Long,  2021. 

2. by @abnormawinters. 

3. Author Jordan Tannahill by Spyros Rennt for Interview Magazine.