[Sex] Sorry; Must Have Been the Chemical Warfare Talking

Thanks to the Defense Tech blog, I've discovered the Sunshine Project, which is now reporting on a fascinating 1994 Air Force proposal, Harrassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals. According to the proposal non-lethal chemicals could be developed that would attract or annoy pests, such as stinging and biting bugs, as well as rodents and other larger animals. The same proposal also offered other suggestions. "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior." If scientists are unsuccessful building the Gay Bomb, they might still be able to produce a chemical that can cause bad breath — permanently!

A similar proposal was put forth by the US Army in 1997, calling for the "preparation of an 'odor index' to match known disagreeable odors to a specific culture, political/religious group or geographical region." As Defense Tech points out, reprises a 1944 project, code-named "Who Me," that provided fecal odor bombs to the French Resistenace. That project failed "when it was found that people in many areas of the world do not find 'fecal odor' to be offensive."

I'm guessing one reason for such proposals is the newly discovered Irritable Male Syndrome — think PMS, coupled with Irritable Bowel Syndrome thrown in. Jed Diamond, who has (literally) written the book on IMS, "discusses the eventual removal of men as necessary elements of society, even going as far as discussing the idea that men will someday be made biologically irrelevant by technology."

This last idea was floated back in the 1960s by Valerie Solanas, the founder and sole member of the Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM). In the SCUM Manifesto Solanas writes: "Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex ..... The male is completely egocentric, trapped inside himself, incapable of empathizing or identifying with others, or love, friendship, affection of tenderness. He is a completely isolated unit, incapable of rapport with anyone. His responses are entirely visceral, not cerebral; his intelligence is a mere tool in the services of his drives and needs; he is incapable of mental passion, mental interaction; he can't relate to anything other than his own physical sensations. He is a half-dead, unresponsive lump, incapable of giving or receiving pleasure or happiness; consequently, he is at best an utter bore, an inoffensive blob, since only those capable of absorption in others can be charming. He is trapped in a twilight zone halfway between humans and apes, and is far worse off than the apes because, unlike the apes, he is capable of a large array of negative feelings -- hate, jealousy, contempt, disgust, guilt, shame, doubt -- and moreover, he is aware of what he is and what he isn't."

Solanas is today most famous for having shot Andy Warhol in 1968, after he refused to produce her play, Up Your Ass, which he deemed "too dirty." Solanas died in San Francisco in 1988, of emphysema and pneumonia. In 1991 Solanas' mother said in an interview: "She fancied herself as a writer, and I think she did have some talent. For years, she even lived with a man. . . . She had a terrific sense of humor." In 1996 Mary Harron released a biopic, "I Shot Andy Warhol, starring one of the US's greatest actors, Lili Taylor. (And don't miss Stephen Dorff's turn as Candy Darling!) Harron also directed American Psycho in 2000.