On Kira Argounova's kisses

Aesthetics Ayn Rand Book Club
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I have been reading We The Living for the third time now. I came across a quote that to me is striking, seeing how I was into Doll Culture for good while:

“She climbed to the pedestals of statues in the parks to kiss the cold lips of Greek gods”

Why did she do that?

I see her preferring them over any man around her. May even have been her first kiss. Now what if someone was to take that even further, sexually speaking? What are your thoughts on that? Say someone who can’t bring themselves to being with the women around him, decides to buy a high end sex doll like:

American: RealDoll, Boy Toy Dolls, Sinthetics, Ruby13, Private Island Beauties, et al.

Anatomical Dolls (Russian)

Japanese: 4Woods, Make Pure, Orient Industies Candy Girls, Honey Dolls, et al.

(Anyone that wants links to such doll manufacturers and can’t find them on their own, let me know, worth looking at to see how real they look)

As I have said I was in the online doll communities for some time and had been a doll owner myself. I owned 7, and 3 mannequins. I don’t now though. I felt and thought it was a rational alternative to women around me. Safer than say making it with a prostitute, or casual sex, because I just couldn’t bring myself to doing that casual sex thing again. So for years I was single, alone, then in my writing I wrote in a way that I had wondered if anyone had ever written like that before, so I did some online research and came upon the story of Pygmalion and Galatea. Then I found doll culture and became fascinated by it, so much so I got really into it. But this is really about why Kira did that, but also if she would have done more… there are male high end sex dolls, too. But I guess such a hypothetical is irrelevant to her, but what about a real person buying them, dressing them, buying wigs, clothes, perfume, jewelry for, much like Pygmalion did, what are your thoughts?

Objectivism and homosexuality?
2

I have been reading We The Living for the third time now.

 

If that’s all you can come up with. - why bother?

3

She kissed cold lips of Greek Gods because they are a concrete expression of everything she admired-a physical beauty, a great work of art, endless abilities which these Gods allegedly possessed and most importantly- the life of bliss and joy, that is -a supreme happiness. You see, Kira was a great believer in happiness, she thought that life is worth living. haven’t you notice another quotation from this book " I know what i want, and to know how to want -isn’t it life itself?"

4

I saw a documentary about women who were only attracted to (and had sexual relations with…) inanimate objects. I remember that one woman was ‘in love’ with the brooklyn bridge, and made smaller models of it to ‘use’ at home because she lived in across the country. These women imagined the objects talking to them, pleasing them, etc. In other words, they personified objects to replace real people.. which is exactly what buying a sex doll entails. But these women didn’t go so far as to dress up their objects and make them look like real people- because they understood that objects are not people.

 

Many people buy sex toys (vibrators, etc) to use alone or with a partner. But that’s different than buying sex dolls, because they understand that the sex toy is just that: a toy. They don’t use them to replace real people or prevent themselves from entering into real relationships. They’re merely used as tools to increase pleasure.

 

I believe that anything that prevents you from entering into real relationships, or causes you to be isolated and lonely, is not good for your health. 

 

Anyways, getting to the line about Kira- if you read the paragraph that it’s in, you’ll understand what the symbollism means. Kira valued true heroism- passion, labor, and effort. In a world that didn’t care about any of these traits, she yearned for glimpses of true greatness. She found just that in ‘symphony concerts,’ ‘skyscrapers,’ and statues of greek gods. Kira’s kiss was a symbol of respect and admiration for greatness- it was not a sexually motivated act.

 

Edit: From the ARL, here is Rand’s view on sex:

 

“Sex is one of the most important aspects of man’s life and, therefore, must never be approached lightly or casually. A sexual relationship is proper only on the ground of the highest values one can find in a human being. Sex must not be anything other than a response to values. . . . [sex should] involve . . . a very serious relationship.”

 

I would edit the first line to say ‘Fufilling sex is,’ because of course you can have sex with random people, those who you despise (James & Mrs. Rearden), those you don’t care about, or even inanimate objects. But how can that be fufilling? How can that make you anything other than lonely?

5

Are you sure the line isn’t a metaphor? “Kira climbed the statues to become emotionally invested in their meaning” is quite awkward, better to say “kiss” which can imply that emotional investment. If you were climbing statues, you’d be able to kiss them in a metaphorical sense. I need the context to say anything else.

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Mdegges wrote:

I believe that anything that prevents you from entering into real relationships, or causes you to be isolated and lonely, is not good for your health.

For me it’s entirely contextual.

I am unable to enter relationships with women that do not meet rational requirements, like ones I can’t admire, or where there isn’t much mutual value affinity, etc. My relationships, how few I was in, were unhealthy, and almost all had some degree of toxicity even. For me, when I see a 4Woods high end sex doll, I’ll take her over any real woman around me right now. To me, she’s good for my health, not the selection that is around me, which would not, and has not, been. What has been most problematic in my relationships, are the very things, foundational things, they lacked, so they crumbled. If I am unable to build such a foundation with another, then naturally one is single, isolated, and lonely perhaps.

Are you sure the line isn’t a metaphor? “Kira climbed the statues to become emotionally invested in their meaning” is quite awkward, better to say “kiss” which can imply that emotional investment. If you were climbing statues, you’d be able to kiss them in a metaphorical sense. I need the context to say anything else.

See page 34. (75th anniversary edition)

1 Like
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You brought up sex toys. For me, I can’t use them alone, as in use an artificial vag. To me, like with artificial dick, I see them like a dismembered dick, where’s the rest of the person? Only way I can use the vag is like cutting a hole in a mannequin and inserting it into the hole a certain way. Or buy a doll that already has a built in vag or area for a vag. I want the whole package, a whole person, not just pussy. Then you can kiss, touch, scent, dress, make them into artificial human companions. Kira didn’t kiss just artificial lips, she kissed lips on them. What those statues meant to her. One can project/fantasize with sex dolls, but I can’t with a real woman, because I can’t get past who they are as a woman, woman, you know, you can’t fake or ignore that, at least I can’t. I can go so far as to try to fantasize that I am in a happy loving relationship, etc. with the doll.

8

One can project/fantasize with sex dolls, but I can’t with a real woman, because I can’t get past who they are as a woman, woman, you know, you can’t fake or ignore that, at least I can’t. I can go so far as to try to fantasize that I am in a happy loving relationship, etc. with the doll.

 

I guess the goal is to find a person you want to be with that has all (or to be realistic, some of the most important) traits you desire. If you want the ‘whole person,’ a sex doll is not going to cut it- because no matter what scent you spray on it, or what kind of clothes you put on it, it’s not a real person. It can’t talk to you, or make you feel special, or respond to you in any way. And no matter what you do to it, it won’t become a real person. If you’re trying to create the perfect woman with a doll, that’s not going to happen.. because dolls don’t have brains, desires, ambitions, or goals (ie: the traits that many people value in others). So then what can you value about it? What attracts you to it? The way I see it, it can only be the physical aspect, because that’s all there is to a doll. Just that and the fantasy you create in your mind.

9

I guess the goal is to find a person you want to be with that has all (or to be realistic, some of the most important) traits you desire

Exactly. And when one cannot find ANY such thing with the ones around one, whether it be because of those others, or because of something about themselves that they cannot be in a relationship, then you have to take matters into your own hands. Artificial body parts don’t cut it for me. A whole artificial human, does very nicely. One can go buy a doll, or toy, or choose to settle with the women or men around one, sex for hire, “fuck buddy”, etc. For me, dolls are the best alternative. People get them for various reasons, one can see that in online doll communities, many take pics (I have over a thousand up online), and it becomes a lifestyle for some. I had so much more fun with dolls than simply trying it with a toy. A Fleshlight does nothing forme, unless in a mannequin. A Cobra Libre would do nothing for me. I want a whole artificial human, as I want a whole woman, not just pussy. Lips, ass, etc.

10

No wonder to me that Kira is in love with Leo, think of the statues in the parks:

“The tutors, and the servants, and the guests looked at Leo as they looked at the statue of Apollo in the Admiral’ s study, with the same reverent hopelessness they felt for the white marble of a distant age.” P.121-22.

Kira: “His body was white as marble and as hard and straight; the body of a god”

So you don’t hear of her kissing statues again in the novel, but we do her kissing Leo. So seemingly whatever drove her to go to parks to kiss their lips, since its no longer mentioned, I get the impression that this may be satisfied enough because of being with Leo and she very well may not even be going to the parks to kiss statues any more.

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Nevertheless Leo is not a statue and kissing him represents different type of emotion altogether. Have you even heard about Pygmalion? 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(mythology)

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Yes, I know all about him and Galatea. Recall I already mentioned him in this thread. I also read an expensive scholarly work on the story of Pygmalion that tracked it through the years, years in various forms, interpretation, recontextualizations, etc. I wanted to see if what I had written, any writer had written that way before. They didn’t. I was a writer who had fallen in love with his own character. And entered the story just to be with her. But I’m getting off topic…

Have you heard of agalmatophilia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agalmatophilia

It is unclear exactly why she kisses statues in parks, but my impression is that it was out of reverence, love even, but sexual desire, too? I would argue that it’s all three and use Leo as support for that.

13

Speaking of Pygmalion, this thread reminds me of a line from the play of the same name (and the musical My Fair Lady): “You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll.”

Earlier, Leonid said, “She kissed cold lips of Greek Gods because they are a concrete expression of everything she admired.”

 

Some people do the same with real people. They allow their aesthetic interpretations of a person’s physical appearance to distort their judgments of who and what he or she actually is. They then make them into a “live doll.” Occassionally they succeed in changing or fixing the live doll, but usually it ends in failure. And then they often move on to another live doll.

J

14

“It is unclear exactly why she kisses statues in parks,”-she didn’t. She is a fiction. That was Ayn Rand’s  way to demonstrate admiration  akin to the religious exaltation.

 

““Exaltation” is usually taken to mean an emotional state evoked by contemplating the supernatural. “Worship” means the emotional experience of loyalty and dedication to something higher than man. “Reverence” means the emotion of a sacred respect, to be experienced on one’s knees. “Sacred” means superior to and not-to-be-touched-by any concerns of man or of this earth. But such concepts do name actual emotions, even though no supernatural dimension exists; and these emotions are experienced as uplifting or ennobling, without the self-abasement required by religious definitions…It is this highest level of man’s emotions that has to be redeemed from the murk of mysticism and redirected at its proper object: man…The man-worshipers, in my sense of the term, are those who see man’s highest potential and strive to actualize it. . . . [Man-worshipers are] those dedicated to the exaltation of man’s self-esteem and the sacredness of his happiness on earth.” The Objectivist, March 1968, 4

 

Kira is a man-worshiper. She kisses statutes of Gods because for her  they are an embodiment of the man’s highest values, not because she is sexually attracted to them. After all nobody accuses a believer in fetishism when he kisses the cross.

15

I have been reading We The Living for the third time now. I came across a quote that to me is striking, seeing how I was into Doll Culture for good while:

“She climbed to the pedestals of statues in the parks to kiss the cold lips of Greek gods”

Why did she do that?

I see her preferring them over any man around her. May even have been her first kiss. Now what if someone was to take that even further, sexually speaking? What are your thoughts on that? Say someone who can’t bring themselves to being with the women around him, decides to buy a high end sex doll like:

 

You’re reading in something that isn’t there.  The kiss was not sexual, it was symbolic.

16

Leonard wrote:

“It is unclear exactly why she kisses statues in parks,”-she didn’t. She is a fiction."

She did so. It’s not metaphor, but matter of factly in the story. She is fiction, of course, the story is fiction, and in that fictional story a fictional character DOES kiss statues in parks.

And she KISSES them, not kneeling before them in reverence, like in your quote.

She kisses likeagod-Leo, she has sexual desire for him, reverence for him, love for him. My argument is weak for the sexual aspect granted, but still. Now people do kiss trophies and things like that, not necessarily having a sexual desire for them. What brings her repeatedly to parks to kiss them? Reverence/admiration only? She has sexual desire for Leo, she described him and it sounded like he was a statue come to life, almost, at least in my quote. So it’s weak, but it does have some support at least.

Kira: “His body was white as marble and as hard and straight; the body of a god”

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What brings her repeatedly to parks to kiss them? Reverence/admiration only?

Yes.

She has sexual desire for Leo, she described him and it sounded like he was a statue come to life, almost, at least in my quote. So it’s weak, but it does have some support at least.

Kira: “His body was white as marble and as hard and straight; the body of a god”

He’s a real person in addition to symbolizing something for her.

18

I have been reading We The Living for the third time now.

 

If that’s all you can come up with. - why bother?

My are we snippy.

 

Kira Argounova is probably the sexiest woman ive encountered in literature, and I have always wanted a woman like her. Of course I probably dont fit her qualifications :smiley:

19

Leonard wrote:

“It is unclear exactly why she kisses statues in parks,”-she didn’t. She is a fiction."

She did so. It’s not metaphor, but matter of factly in the story. She is fiction, of course, the story is fiction, and in that fictional story a fictional character DOES kiss statues in parks.

And she KISSES them, not kneeling before them in reverence, like in your quote.

She kisses likeagod-Leo, she has sexual desire for him, reverence for him, love for him. My argument is weak for the sexual aspect granted, but still. Now people do kiss trophies and things like that, not necessarily having a sexual desire for them. What brings her repeatedly to parks to kiss them? Reverence/admiration only? She has sexual desire for Leo, she described him and it sounded like he was a statue come to life, almost, at least in my quote. So it’s weak, but it does have some support at least.

Kira: “His body was white as marble and as hard and straight; the body of a god”

 

Kira Argounova is a recreation of Ayn Rand  and represents what is metaphysically important to her, that is-man’s worship, a reverence for physical beauty and heroic character in  both statues and Leo.  Hence is an analogy between them. Kiss could be an expression of reverence as well as a sexual desire.  A believers who kiss the cross with Jesus or icon of saints don’t necessary sexually attracted to them, in spite they repeatedly do that every time they visit church. For Kira to visit statutes is almost religious experience of exaltation. Ayn Rand wanted to remove the exclusive ownership of religion on this emotion. Your theory doesn’t hold water.

20

Dr. Peikoff in a podcast answers my question to him about why Kira kisses statues in parks, but I can’t seem to be able to view his site well on my Fire HD, I did just fine before. What the fuck? Anyways, if you search ‘Kira’ you will find it. Please tell me what he has to say on this. :slight_smile:

I think it’s dated June 17th, 2013 and 41sec long.