To Drink, To Wear, To Lust - Extra Extra Magazine

IF I FIND YOU, I’LL LOVE YOU THERE

I moved to Milan twelve years ago. It was September, and the city was completely covered in fog. The atmosphere was intimate and enveloped by a profound silence. At that time, I was passionate about horror movies and the ambience reminded me of The Fog (1980) directed by John Carpenter. In the film, the uncanny mist hides disturbing, mysterious figures that materialise into revenants ready to kill unfortunate villagers. While at first the white Milanese haze seemed to move me away from reality, I soon became convinced that it was doing the opposite, bringing people closer. The fog made the world disappear only to have it resurface again in a disorienting but familiar form. In the fog, the city became opaque and permeable.
It was in the midst of the fog that I went to the Gattullo bakery and tasted my first ever artisanal panettone. It must have been that tangible opacity that brought out the opulent flavours of butter, raisins, candied fruit and honey, which joined together in a deliciously erotic tangle.
I discovered that its voluptuous taste corresponds to the panettone’s history, born out of a young man’s attempt to seduce the palate and heart of a baker’s daughter. Needless to say, the dessert conquered both the girl and her father.
As always when I think about two lovers, Roberto Vecchioni’s song ‘Lights at San Siro’ comes to mind, about a couple who plays in the mist, intentionally getting lost only to find each other again: ‘Do you remember the game, inside the fog? You hide and if I find you I’ll love you there.’ At the end of the game of hide-and-seek, the two lovers make love, hidden by that magical grey blanket that camouflages their naked bodies.

THE SNAKE AND THE SOW

Milan is a city with high erotic charge, and its historical emblem is a testament to this. Legend has it that in 6^th century BCE the sighting of a fluffy sow – then a sacred animal and therefore a divine signal – led the Celts to found the first settlement. A half-woollen boar (scrofa semi-lanuta) became the city’s emblem. Over the centuries, the pig covered with hair seemed like less of a symbol of authority and one that did not suit a city in search of glory and expansion. It was replaced by the grass snake (biscione) after the Visconti family sanctioned the sow’s farewell.
Among the best-known stories in the snake’s heraldic history is that of the lord of Pavia Bonifacio whose son was swallowed by a huge snake. After returning from war against the Saracens, Bonifacio found the giant reptile and killed it, discovering his son miraculously alive within. Today, the snake is a symbol of power featured in the emblem of Milan-based auto manufacturer Alfa Romeo, the city’s inter-football team and television channel Canale5. In psychoanalysis the snake is associated with the phallus (Freud considered it to be an expression of masculine sexuality). It is not surprising then that a representation of the biscione can be found on the lawn of Silvio Berlusconi’s villa in Arcore.

WE LIVE IN THE CITY OF MEN

As Leslie Kern writes in her book Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man Made Word: ‘[W]e live in the city of men. Our public spaces are not designed for female bodies.’¹According to the author, cities are full of memories of male power that are particularly visible in monumental and architectural symbolism. This reflection can also be applied to Milan, which recently entered the centre of the debate due to its lack of monuments dedicated to women.
One of the most iconic contemporary buildings in Milan is the Pirellone: a huge penis that is located near the railway station and that is today the seat of the Regional Council of Lombardy. Described by Pier Paolo Pasolini as ‘a colossal, petrified ghost’ in his 1959 screenplay dedicated to Milan, La Nebbiosa, the phallic skyscraper resembles a phosphorescent dildo. In its basement are four horns that wind and intersect giving life to an underground network of subway lines that extend like four lively grass snakes, each with a corresponding colour: red, yellow, green and lilac. Guido Crepax, the well-known Italian author of erotic comics, made a graphic novel starring Valentina, a female figure inspired by his wife, who is involved in unexpected erotic adventures on the subway. While in a state of semi-wakefulness in her train carriage seat, she encounters a profusion of human and animal characters who attempt to seduce her. The comic, albeit a depiction that panders to the male gaze, forms an unlikely commentary on the unwanted attention that female passengers often encounter on public transportation.

1. Leslie Kern, Feminist City. Claiming Space in a Man Made Word, Verso Books, New York, 2020, p. 32.

Guido Crepax’s comic strip series Valentina (1965–1995) explored bisexuality, autoerotic ecstasy, super-sensual abandon and sadomasochism. Courtesy: Lambiek

DESIGN IS SEXY

In 1961, the Milan Furniture Fair was born – the largest trade event of its kind – which made the city world famous. With its integral approach, Italian design rethought the relationship between design and production. The object became sexy, desirable and desired by the customer/consumer.
Among the most erotic works by Italian designers are two masterpieces. The first is the result of the brilliant Ettore Sottsass who, in 1973, designed the Shiva Vase: a vase in glazed ceramic with the shape of an erect penis measuring 23cm, manufactured by BD Barcelona Design. The designer fell madly in love with Eulàlia Grau, an artist from Barcelona who was thirty years younger than him. It was a passionate, difficult, turbulent love affair that pushed Sottsass to commute between Italy and Spain every week in a sort of affective-existential pilgrimage. He shared her nomadic lifestyle, nearly bringing himself to the brink of ruin. He later recalled: ‘I was madly happy, I spent three years in ecstasy.’² Together with Grau, his Leica and his many notes contained in his inseparable notebooks, he explored the Cantabrigian, Catalan and Murcian deserts of a still Francoist Spain. Also, in this period he made trips to India, which led him to baptise the vase in honour of the Hindu deity Shiva. According to the tradition, Shiva has the task of destroying in order to renew, regenerating life forms and facilitating the transformation, evolution and modifications of nature. The vase is ‘a little like monuments, a little like tombs, a little like the abandoned temples of the gods, a little like the ruins of the ancient and unknown civilization in which something – they say – was known,’ wrote Sottsass.³The second work arrived a few years later, made by Gaetano Pesce for the Italian company Cassina & Busnelli. It was the iconic UP5, a chair with the sinuous shape of a woman’s body that would become one of an icon of Italian design. Nicknamed ‘Big Mama’ or ‘Woman,’ the UP5 recalls a mother’s body, with a sense of protection emanates from the voluptuousness of its seat. According to Pesce, he had a revelation to make the chair during a shower and, taken by fancy, he grasped a sponge to test its flexibility. This spongy consistency is found in polyurethane, which, over the years became his favourite material.

2. ‘Oh Ettore, put it away!’, Phaidon, 2017, www.phaidon.com/ agenda/design/ articles/2014/ december/05/ oh-ettore-put-it-away accessed 15 December 2020.

3. Ibid.

Ettore Sottsass’s Shiva Vase is ceramic and glazed pink or gold. He designed the iconic penis vase when travelling to Barcelona to meet a beautiful woman with whom he had fallen in love. Courtesy: Barcelona Design

The configuration of Gaetano Pesce’s armchair makes use of unmissable anthropomorphous features. The chair is a metaphor for a large comfortable womb and recalls ancient statues of fertility goddesses. Courtesy: Bebitalia

MILANO DA BERE

In the 1970s Milan began to experience widespread prosperity under the aegis of Prime Minister Bettino Craxi. The factories – once symbols of the economic boom – were struggling and in their place, the tertiary sector grew exponentially. The city was populated by different figures as a consequence of deregulation and rising consumerism. The United States saw the emergence of the Yuppie, a professional eager to achieve a high social position. In Milan, the paninaro subculture – to which the Pet Shop Boys dedicated the homonymous song – brought together young people with a passion for fast food, pop music and above all an obsession with brands, demonstrating the city’s tight link with the fashion industry. Milan’s nightlife was nicknamed Milano da Bere (drinkable Milan) after a famous Amaro Ramazzotti liquor advertisement. Sex scandals were high on the public agenda with Craxi himself involved. As Luca Scarlini recounts in his book Il sesso al potere (2013), the prime minister asked various figures for advice regarding his impropriety. Among his entourage was the TV presenter Sandra Milo, the porn star Moana Pozzi and Adelina Tattilo who invented erotic publications such as Playmen as well as the first Italian gay magazine Adam. Tattilo believed that women’s emancipation began in thinking more freely and breaking sexual taboos. Indeed, together with erotic photoshoots, the soft-porn magazine Playmen also presented content dedicated to sexual liberation, divorce and abortion, but also the writings of Ernest Hemingway, Alberto Moravia and Henri Marcuse. As Scarlini writes: ‘[I]t was the Craxian menagerie who cleared [away] customs for a kind of clothing that had hitherto been favoured by the world of prostitution.’⁴ Gossip exploded and politics became a show on the world stage that glorified excesses paving the way for an era in which politics, entertainment and mass media were refined into a new kind of partnership.

4. Il sesso al potere, Modena, Guanda, 2013, p. 45.

First published in 1967 by Adelina Tattilo, Playmen was the more intellectual, softcore counterpart to Hugh Hefner’s Playboy. A staunch believer in sexual liberation, Tattilo is credited with challenging the prudish mores of the era. Courtesy: Dagospia

HOUSE OF BORDELLO

The hedonism of the 1980s overflowed into the Berlusconian culture of the 1990s and 2000s. Breaking the most elementary rules of pluralism the multi-millionaire media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, a former cruise ship crooner, entered into politics by manipulating the press. In Milan, the myth of the entrepreneur was consolidated. Fashion underwent a baroque turn when designer Roberto Cavalli introduced his signature leopard skin print. The city’s nightlife and dance music scene exploded, with one club standing out from the rest: Plastic.
The first time I visited Plastic I was twenty and had recently moved to Milan. The mythos of the club preceded it: I knew that it had hosted the likes of Andy Warhol, Freddie Mercury, Madonna, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Keith Haring and Grace Jones. Founded in 1980 by patron Lucio Nisi and DJ , Plastic quickly gained a reputation as the club of wonders – the den where everyone wanted to be. My inaugural visit was on a Saturday night when the theme of the evening was House of Bordello, a trashy Italo-pop revival. The Plastic’s entrance was discreet; you could have almost passed by without noticing it if it weren’t for the people standing in the queue. In the corridor, there was a UV light capable of detecting traces of cocaine on people’s faces and clothes. Inside the club, I remember that a world of magic opened up before my eyes: old crystal teardrop chandeliers, délabré damask sofas, mosaic mirrors, pulsating lights and laser beams. I had attempted to cover up all trace of my provincial self with heavy makeup, fishnet stockings, stilettos and an electric blue fur coat with python leather inserts (inherited from my mum). But once I got on the dancefloor, it didn’t matter that wasn’t particularly pretty or that I or that I hadn’t travelled, or read, or watched enough of the right things. I was in the right place at that moment, and that was enough.

SUSHI & COCA

Released in 2016, ‘MILANO SUSHI & COCA’ is a track by the Italian rapper Myss Keta. The song that proved pivotal to her career, is configured as a truthful portrait of Milan, embodying the topoi of the city: from the great popularity of Japanese food, to the use of drugs, especially cocaine – the drug of capitalism and hyper-competition.
But who is Myss Keta? Myss Keta is the queen and undisputed aedo of Milan. In the background of her music, there is a city without inhibitions and unafraid of excess, the Milan of luxury, parties, success and decadence.
Keta lays claim to having launched the face mask as an accessory before it became an essential item in our dress code. Indeed, Keta’s identity is a secret. To ensure her unique anonymity, she always wears a mask and sunglasses to hide her face, yet, at the same time, her look is endlessly replicable – we can all be Myss Keta.
Myss Keta’s distinctive vocals are inspired by dubs of erotic films and her whispered timbre has become a distinctive feature of her music that mixes pop, techno and hardcore.
If I had to find an adjective to describe her it would be pazzeska, meaning both amazing and extraordinary. Myss Keta is also an icon of sexual freedom and gender equality, addressing the issue of sexuality without censorship. Myss Keta breaks the rules, going beyond the limits of acceptability and is unafraid of being blasphemous and irreverent.

RED LIGHT CINEMA

On 15 November 1977, Luigi De Pedys installed a red flashing light (inherited from an old fire engine) to the entrance of the Majestic cinema located on Via Lambro. For the next thirty years, the red light was a signpost for members of the public searching for images to feed their sexual fantasies at any hour of the day or night. At the entrance, there were no posters or advertisements, only a message stating that the screening was not suitable for a sensitive audience. ‘It was enough to tell people, “it is a sin to enter this cinema.”’ That made everyone want to come inside,’ declared De Pedys.⁵ Born out of provocation, the Majestic was the first cinema with a programme exclusively dedicated to pornography, but it acted as a forerunner for many other venues of its type. At the peak of the hype, Milan saw a flourishing of about thirty adult cinemas, transforming the city into the Italian capital of pornography. Scattered between the city centre and its suburbs, these hot halls inhabited the streets with their sexy signposting and opulent names. The introduction of film programmes dedicated entirely to porn was a revolution, but it turned out to be short-lived. The advent of VHS marked the slow decline of their presence in Milan, until the internet and porn websites resulted in a total blackout for red light cinemas.
Once, I tried to enter Pussycat, one of the last remaining porn theatres, but a woman at the entrance chased me away. Outside, I paused to admire its sign: round, tapered, red font on a black background and a drawing of a naked woman with four Italian flags flying above her. Now Pussycat has also shut its doors. Apparently, an evangelical congregation wants to buy the building and turn it into a church. From the profane to the sacred.

THE PLANET TRANSEXUAL

We’re all very familiar with the story of the middle-class couple Brad and Janet who, due to a series of circumstances, end up at the castle of Doctor Frank-N-Furter, a transvestite alien from the planet Transexual. The two catch the doctor dressed in a waist clincher, fishnet stockings and high heels, at work on ‘the creature,’ a blonde jock and incarnation of the perfect lover called Rocky. The night is full of grotesque adventures that will lead Brad and Janet to the discover themselves and their innermost desires, hitherto silenced by social conventions. Released in 1975, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was refused a rating almost everywhere and was therefore forced to circulate in the underground scene, quickly becoming a symbol of resistance. The film encapsulates liberation from the rules imposed by society, monogamy and heteronormative relationships in favour of a more emancipated approach to sex and bodily autonomy. For those looking for their own planet Transexual, I highly recommend going to Cinema Mexico, one of the five cinemas worldwide to be elected to the status of an official ‘Rocky Horror House.’ Every Friday since 1981, actors on stage interpret the scenes on the screen, while the audience is called upon to interact by applauding, singing and playing parts using gadgets gifted upon entrance. In the darkness of the Cinema Mexico, a community is created whose manifesto is freedom. ‘Don’t dream it, be it,’ Frank-N-Furter sings, underlining the essential right to live by one’s own truth.

THE LIONS’ DEN

In 1970 Mario Mieli, a leading figure in the Italian gay movement of the era, romantically spoke of his experiences in the Lions’ Den (Fossa dei Leoni): ‘During the day I went to school wearing makeup [and] participated in occupations, at night I went to have sex under the bridge of the den…. the heart of Milan… when it rains there, it looks like the Venetian Lagoon.’⁶ The Lions’ Den is a historical cruising site. It consists of an outdoor meeting place, which, since the early 19^th century, has been frequented by homosexuals of all ages and social backgrounds. The centrally located yet secluded green area, close on one side to the Cadorna train station and on the other to Sempione Park, ensures a continuous flow of commuters. I’ve crossed this notorious strip of land countless times on my way to the Triennale Design Museum.
Once, the Lions’ Den was the only place in Milan operating seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. People went in search of sex in the bushes, under the bridge, behind a tree or a wall, cloaked in invisibility and often anonymity. But it was also a place to go and chat, a way to avoid the clubs or just pass the time. Over the years, with the growth of the internet and then dating apps like Grindr, the Lions’ Den has seen a drastic drop in its cruising population. Currently, it is just a flooded path when it rains, full of garbage and mud all year round except for a few summer days when it turns into a dusty expanse of land.

6. Il Risveglio dei Faraoni, Milan, Colibrì Editore, 1994, p. 49.

DESCENT INTO HELL

Just behind the Lions’ Den, there is Via Saterna, a fictional address depicted by Dino Buzzati in his graphic novel Poema A Fumetti (1969). In Buzzati’s narrative, the imaginary location of Via Saterna hides a secret: it is the gateway to the erotic afterlife.
Set in Milan in the swinging sixties, Poema A Fumetti is a modern retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The protagonist is the songwriter Orfi who, after learning of the death of his girlfriend Eura, enters the kingdom of the dead to reclaim her. He manages to resist innumerable carnal temptations but fails his mission and is swept back to the realm of the living, to Via Saterna.
How can we begin to interpret a story that depicts Orpheus as a pop singer, in search of his Eurydice in Milan’s underground that teems with erotic witches? Undoubtedly, Buzzati’s secular approach to the epic poem’s theme of death is sharply innovative.
The macabre tone of Poema A Fumetti is interwoven with passages that remind the reader of erotic ghost stories. We are invited to journey with Orfi, encountering haunted, naked women who coyly flirt with him. Poema A Fumetti is a masterpiece in 208 volumes full of lyrical visions and choirs of lonely souls, set in a transgressively fashionable Milan, the gateway to the unknown and custodian of daily mysteries.

THE WITCHES OF PIAZZA VETRA

Piazza della Vetra is believed to be one of the most haunted places in Milan. It is said that the suffering souls of alleged witches who were burnt at the stake wander around the Piazza’s corners and nearby lanes, in search of their final resting place. The horrifying public execution of hundreds of women charged of witchcraft is part of Milan’s shameful past. Accusations often concerned the adoption of profane magical rites, such as ‘Diana’s Game,’ where a procession of witches, sorcerers and infernal spirits were said to partake in orgiastic rites. At the end of the 18^th century, nearly all the records relating to the Inquisition of Milan were destroyed in a fire. But among the few surviving documents is the confession of Sibilla Zanni and Pierina Bugatis. At first, their confessions were considered to be figments of their imagination and the two women were condemned to public repentance. However, in a second trial, Pierina said that she did not regret what she had done and that she had never stopped participating in Diana’s Game, adding that she had joined carnally with a spirit named Lucifello, having given him some of her blood to seal a pact. This revelation sentenced both women to death. Remaining wary of romanticisation, it is pivotal to demythologise these figures and acknowledge that witches were women who stepped outside their prescribed roles – innocent victims of a campaign of terror.

IO SONO L’AMORE

In 2009, Luca Guadagnino’s film Io sono l’amore (I Am Love) was released. A story of seduction, the film depicts the simultaneous boredom and melodrama of a rich Milanese family; it is a portrait of the Italian industrial bourgeoisie in all their elegance. Io sono l’amore is set in the Villa Necchi Campiglio, an architectural gem built by Piero Portaluppi around the 1930s. Emma Delbono, played by the iconic Tilda Swinton, dresses in Raf Simons and Jil Sander and is adorned in sumptuous jewellery by Delfina Delettrez.
Guadagnino’s focus on the ritual of small gestures is comparable to the magnificence of calligraphic writing. Intoxicated by smells, colours, sounds and shapes, Guadagnino composes a carnal symphony of insurrectional emotions, where feelings and sexual desire are capable of overwhelming even the most stable of situations. These details are also found in the banquets of the bourgeois family, where we see masterfully composed dishes made by the Italian celebrity chef Carlo Cracco, who was invited on set as a consultant. In one scene, the love interest Antonio is filmed passionately preparing his famous caramelised Russian salad with a blowtorch. Io sono l’amore captures the contradictions of Milan. On one hand, there is a lustful pretense related to upper-class ideals. Decadent luxury and beauty that arouses admiration and envy. On the other, there is an implosion of these ideals triggered by a primal sexual drive and its uncontrollability.

MASSES OF SWEATY FLESH

After ten years, having moved home five times, completed two degrees, a postgraduate course and a series of internships and underpaid jobs, I left Milan in the midst of a heatwave. During the month of August in the city, you can barely breathe.
The temperature begins to rise in the morning and by lunchtime, the humidity is suffocating. When evening arrives, the asphalt of the pavement melts under your feet as the streets release the heat absorbed during the day.
I walked around the house in my underwear, packing my life into boxes marked: important, to open first, nice books, shitty books, magazines. I wondered how I managed to accumulate so much stuff. An instinct rose in me to throw it all away, but this would have required going out into the scorching sun.
The heat does not make me lucid. Instead, I was exhausted, my thoughts flashing by like hallucinations. Who wrote a song about summer in Milan? Lucio Battisti? Perhaps. He once said that Milan in the summer is ‘more friendly, more human, more romantic.’ I think it is just more explicit. Bodies walking down the street become masses of sweaty flesh. Thighs, armpits and navels that are hidden away during the winter peek out from the hems of skirts and skimpy T-shirts, showing themselves in moist grandeur – although there are very few people around during the summer because Milan is a place to escape from, not a place to take refuge in. It seems like the city itself is only still here because it has to be.
August is the only time that Milan slows down. It all gets less intense because, in the heat, everything is already too intense. There is no room for more drama, but there is, suddenly, room for all of us. Like the fog, the heat embraces you, enters your lungs, enveloping you in a shared experience.

16 Milan: To Drink, To Wear, To Lust

by Giulia Gregnanin