It sounds like a colossal beast, and indeed much flesh is involved, except this word pertains to a person or presides over, and organises an orgy. Quite how to direct proceedings once it starts is anyone’s guess. Tell people when to start or stop, or which position to take or let nature take its course? In any case the orgiophant is party organiser who might well be highly sought after.
While the word was used on sparingly in the late 19th century, behind the scenes of very much cover-up Victorian culture, the orgy is has rich history, stretching back to at least, if not before the e ecstatic rites characteristic of the Greek and Hellenistic religions of Dionysus and the like. By definition, is requires a minimum of five (why five?) people to indulge in uninhibited sexual activity or group sex. In books and film, the best known recent examples are Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (dark underworld of the powerful) and Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (indulgent dodgy financial traders). But more offbeat is Lars Von Trier’s The Idiots, in which a group of middle-class Danes indulge in released inhibitions by pretending to have mental disabilities, culminating in one naked scene where desires run wild.
However perhaps the greatest orgy scene in literature, and to some extent film, is Perfume: The Story of a Murderer , by Patrick Süskind. The anti-hero, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, is a genius of the olfactory, who becomes a social outcast, and creates a series of perfect perfumes by murdering young women with the perfect odour. Before he is finally caught, he creates the ultimate fusion, which he wafts into the crowd just before his execution. It drives the mob wild, causing mass ecstasy, a massive orgy that descends ultimately into something beyond the carnal …
But the most intimate question is, does ogiophant come up in song lyrics? First up, Beck's song Devil's Haircut, from his acclaimed 1996 album Odelay, makes a passing reference:
Love machines on the sympathy crutches
Discount orgies on the dropout buses
Hitchin' a ride with the bleedin' noses
Comin' to town with the briefcase blues
They pop in all kinds of places. There’s even an orgy in Leonard Cohen song, Last Year's Man from 1971's Songs Of Love and Hate, though it us more metaphorical:
I came upon a wedding that old families had contrived;
Bethlehem the bridegroom,
Babylon the bride.
Great Babylon was naked, oh she stood there trembling for me,
And Bethlehem inflamed us both
Like the shy one at some orgy.
And when we fell together all our flesh was like a veil
That I had to draw aside to see
The serpent eat its tail.
But far more specifically in 1977's Death of A Ladies' Man:
She beckoned to the sentry of his high religious mood
She said, "I'll make a place between my legs,
I'll show you solitude."
He offered her an orgy in a many mirrored room
He promised her protection for the issue of her womb
She moved her body hard against a sharpened metal spoon
She stopped the bloody rituals of passage to the moon
Orgies are everywhere. There’s more frisson going on in Sheffield in the mind of Jarvis Cocker and Pulp (from The Gift Recordings released in 1993). But is it real or imagined?
We were living in a big block of flats with a central courtyard.
All the bedroom windows opened onto this court,
And sometimes in the middle of the night,
In that building it sounded like a mass orgy.
I may have only been eleven,
But no-one had to tell me what all that moaning and yelling was about.
I'd lie there mesmerised, listening to the first couple.
Invariably, they'd wake up other couples,
And like some kind of chain reaction,
Within minutes the whole building was fucking.
Harry Chapin wasn't averse to a passing orgy mention, particularly in his On The Way To Kingdom Come - a song full of characters and innuendo:
Grampa swung into the orgy
It was his last hope
He was dressed to the nines
In deodorant and scope
And they found him a woman
She brought vaseline and soap
Well it started out exciting
But it ended up ho hum
She said, "I thought that you could take me
All the way to Kingdom Come"
When all is said and done
He's just another one
The momentum, and the ecstasy really picks up meanwhile on Stereolab's Orgiastic, from the 1992 Peng! album, something to really lose yourself in:
Confuse forms, unleashing of passions
Confuse forms, by means of inversion
Emotions carried to the extremes
Orgiastic of chaos of supreme
Has to bring the world's dissolution
In a momentary disruption
Although the moment seems definitive
The urge to escape from time into pas-time
Opposites in juxtaposition
While the orgy lasts ultimate fulfilment
Timelessness of eternal moment
The beginning, the end transmutation
Simon & Garfunkel meanwhile depict an ironic picture of the ideal, thrill-seeking life of Richard Cory:
Paper's print his pictures
Almost everywhere he go
Richard Cory at the opera
Richard Cory at the show
And the rumours of his a-parties
And orgies on his yacht
Heart and soul he must be happy
With everything that he has got
There are many references to orgies in hip hop, but one of the offbeat is Digital Underground's Sex Packet Man, in which special fantasy pills allow the user to have a virtual sexual experience:
Well it depends, let's see
These cheap ones here are ten minutes
But these are extra power, they last about a half an hour
And these here sell for bout 40
'Cause you get two girls [Yeah it says orgy]
OK, I want these two boxes of three
And give my blondy here, and that one that says orgy.
Most orgies are indeed a fantasy, and to end here's the comedy song by Ninja Sex Party, from their 2018 album Cool Patrol, which turns out to be less of an orgy, more of an onanism party.
So then, any other orgiophant-related songs come to mind that can ‘flesh out’ this entry? Please feel free to share any further examples in songs, instrumentals, on albums, film, art or other contexts in comments below.
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