"Fear of Flying" and zipless fucks

[gunhilltrain]

Wow, LuckOfTheDraw, you didn't have to go that far for us - I thought we got it. But yes, that is the whole passage.

 

[Bramblethorn]

One scenario of the zipless fuck was perhaps inspired by an Italian movie I saw years ago. As time went by, I embellished it to suit my head. It used to play over and over again as I shuttled back and forth from Heidelberg to Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to Heidelberg:

A grimy European train compartment (Second Class). The seats are leatherette and hard. There is a sliding door to the corridor outside. Olive trees rush by the window. Two Sicilian peasant women sit together on one side with a child between them. They appear to be mother and grandmother and granddaughter. Both women vie with each other to stuff the little girl’s mouth with food. Across the way (in the window seat) is a pretty young widow in a heavy black veil and tight black dress which reveals her voluptuous figure. She is sweating profusely and her eyes are puffy. The middle seat is empty. The corridor seat is occupied by an enormously fat woman with a mustache. Her huge haunches cause her to occupy almost half of the vacant center seat. She is reading a pulp romance in which the characters are photographed models and the dialogue appears in little puffs of smoke above their heads.


This fivesome bounces along for a while, the widow and the fat woman keeping silent, the mother and grandmother talking to the child and each other about the food. And then the train screeches to a halt in a town called (perhaps) Corleone. A tall languid-looking soldier, unshaven, but with a beautiful mop of hair, a cleft chin, and somewhat devilish, lazy eyes, enters the compartment, looks insolently around, sees the empty half-seat between the fat woman and the widow, and, with many flirtatious apologies, sits down. He is sweaty and disheveled but basically a gorgeous hunk of flesh, only slightly rancid from the heat. The train screeches out of the station.

Huh. I've never read Jong but this story sounded very familiar, and although I've never seen the movie either I'm pretty sure I know what the movie was.

https://www.torinofilmfest.org/en/1...soldato-(episodio-di-l'amore-difficile)/5887/

During a hot summer day, a soldier is travelling by train around Lazio. At one stop, a young and seductive lady, who was in mourning, gets on the train and sits next to him. Trying not to be seen by the other passengers, he attempts to flirt a little bit and she accepts without blinking an eye.
He is forced to get up, because an officer orders him to unload some luggage, but he loses his seat next to the widow, which is occupied by another man. But it doesn’t last long. The woman gets up and leaves the compartment. When she comes back, she sits elsewhere, allowing the soldier to sit next to her carrying on with his caresses. When the train stops in Formia, all the passengers leave except for two. While the man is pulling down the curtains, the woman lies down on the seat: the two make love without saying a word.

It was written by Italo Calvino, and he also published it as a short story. I read an English translation many years later. There's a copy here, about two-thirds of the way down: https://archive.org/stream/CALVINODifficultLoves/CALVINO Difficult Loves_djvu.txt

Not quite the same details as Jong's story, but so many similarities that it must be the one she was embellishing on.

 

[LuckOfTheDraw]

Huh. I've never read Jong but this story sounded very familiar, and although I've never seen the movie either I'm pretty sure I know what the movie was.

https://www.torinofilmfest.org/en/1-festival-internazionale-cinema-giovani/film/l'avventura-di-un-soldato-(episodio-di-l'amore-difficile)/5887/


It was written by Italo Calvino, and he also published it as a short story. I read an English translation many years later. There's a copy here, about two-thirds of the way down: https://archive.org/stream/CALVINODifficultLoves/CALVINO Difficult Loves_djvu.txt

Not quite the same details as Jong's story, but so many similarities that it must be the one she was embellishing on.

Amazing ! No one has ever pointed that out, at least in my reading, which may well be limited.

So Erica Jong also liked reading hot stuff in secret. This one clearly captured her mind, to the extent she wrote what we would call fan fiction about it.

Italo Calvino is one of my favourite writers, and the group sex scene in "If On A Winter's Night A Traveller" is very subtly and evocatively written.

Bravo, Bramblethorn ! What a memory.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Amazing ! No one has ever pointed that out, at least in my reading, which may well be limited.

So Erica Jong also liked reading hot stuff in secret. This one clearly captured her mind, to the extent she wrote what we would call fan fiction about it.

From the excerpt, sounds like she most likely saw the 1963 film adaptation. I tried a few search terms and was a little surprised not to find anybody mentioning that connection, but then if they made the link at the time it might just not be online.

Italo Calvino is one of my favourite writers, and the group sex scene in "If On A Winter's Night A Traveller" is very subtly and evocatively written.

Bravo, Bramblethorn ! What a memory.

Sometimes it works! Must be 25 years since I read that story. I haven't read "If On A Winter's Night", but I remember enjoying "The Cloven Viscount". Maybe I should revisit Calvino some time.

 

[gunhilltrain]

From the excerpt, sounds like she most likely saw the 1963 film adaptation. I tried a few search terms and was a little surprised not to find anybody mentioning that connection, but then if they made the link at the time it might just not be online.



Sometimes it works! Must be 25 years since I read that story. I haven't read "If On A Winter's Night", but I remember enjoying "The Cloven Viscount". Maybe I should revisit Calvino some time.

Jong was twenty-one in 1963 and going to colleges in New York (Barnard and then Columbia) so she sounds like the kind of person who would have seen that movie.

 

[LuckOfTheDraw]

Jong was twenty-one in 1963 and going to colleges in New York (Barnard and then Columbia) so she sounds like the kind of person who would have seen that movie.

In fairness to Erica Jong, this appears in the book - and the excerpt above of course:
--
"One scenario of the zipless fuck was perhaps inspired by an Italian movie I saw years ago. As time went by, I embellished it to suit my head. It used to play over and over again as I shuttled back and forth from Heidelberg to Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to Heidelberg:"
--

Confirms that the 1963 Italian movie L'amore difficile, which includes the cinematic version of the Italo Calvino story The Adventure of a Soldier, was indeed the inspiration for the Jong's "zipless fuck" fantasy.

By the way, I managed to watch the movie clip on YouTube. It's portrayed comedically, and both the main protagonists are less "devastatingly attractive" than in Fear of Flying, but still fun to watch.

This thread has increased my admiration for Italo Calvino - how many people he inspired !! And also my admiration for Erica Jong's erotic imagination - how much more intense her "zipless fuck" fantasy is than Calvino's story.

 

[XerXesXu]

In fairness to Erica Jong, this appears in the book - and the excerpt above of course:
--
"One scenario of the zipless fuck was perhaps inspired by an Italian movie I saw years ago. As time went by, I embellished it to suit my head. It used to play over and over again as I shuttled back and forth from Heidelberg to Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to Heidelberg:"
--

Confirms that the 1963 Italian movie L'amore difficile, which includes the cinematic version of the Italo Calvino story The Adventure of a Soldier, was indeed the inspiration for the Jong's "zipless fuck" fantasy.

By the way, I managed to watch the movie clip on YouTube. It's portrayed comedically, and both the main protagonists are less "devastatingly attractive" than in Fear of Flying, but still fun to watch.

This thread has increased my admiration for Italo Calvino - how many people he inspired !! And also my admiration for Erica Jong's erotic imagination - how much more intense her "zipless fuck" fantasy is than Calvino's story.

The last 2 minutes of Part 5 and first two of Part 6.

L'Amore difficile 1962 parte 5.Avi - YouTube

L'Amore difficile 1962 parte 6.Avi - YouTube

The Japanese do it better.

 

[gunhilltrain]

In fairness to Erica Jong, this appears in the book - and the excerpt above of course:
--
"One scenario of the zipless fuck was perhaps inspired by an Italian movie I saw years ago. As time went by, I embellished it to suit my head. It used to play over and over again as I shuttled back and forth from Heidelberg to Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to Heidelberg:"
--

Confirms that the 1963 Italian movie L'amore difficile, which includes the cinematic version of the Italo Calvino story The Adventure of a Soldier, was indeed the inspiration for the Jong's "zipless fuck" fantasy.

By the way, I managed to watch the movie clip on YouTube. It's portrayed comedically, and both the main protagonists are less "devastatingly attractive" than in Fear of Flying, but still fun to watch.

This thread has increased my admiration for Italo Calvino - how many people he inspired !! And also my admiration for Erica Jong's erotic imagination - how much more intense her "zipless fuck" fantasy is than Calvino's story.

Let's face it; most of us are less than "devastatingly attractive," and even if we are, it doesn't last forever. To be fair to Jong, most of her male protagonists (some of which are based on real people) are interesting to her for something other than, or besides, their looks.

 

[Comshaw]

Let's face it; most of us are less than "devastatingly attractive," and even if we are, it doesn't last forever. To be fair to Jong, most of her male protagonists (some of which are based on real people) are interesting to her for something other than, or besides, their looks.

Oh hell no! I am an Adonis, the optimum of male attractiveness, no matter that asshole in the mirror is trying to convince me otherwise.

Comshaw

 

[gunhilltrain]

Oh hell no! I am an Adonis, the optimum of male attractiveness, no matter that asshole in the mirror is trying to convince me otherwise.

Comshaw

Oh, so you're what one of those red-pilled guys would call a "Chad." Interesting how they all picked up the same lingo from each other. I guess I would be a "Beta" then, although at my age it's pretty moot.

 

[tenyari]

I'm working on an I/T story. "Fear of Flying" and zipless fucks comes up, and my 21-year-old American main male character in college hasn't heard of either one. Is that realistic?

Lots of people have a fear of flying. I have no idea if that is supposed to refer to something else. And I can't imagine what a zipper has to do with sex so 'zipless fuck' is baffling me.

I tried looking at a few posts but it looks like I'm not alone in not knowing these.

Generationally specific terms, and if so what generation? WWII, Boomers, X, Y, Z? Some particular ethnicity (like is this a White People thing?) or nationality?

 

[mutualpleasure_]

I'm working on an I/T story. "Fear of Flying" and zipless fucks comes up, and my 21-year-old American main male character in college hasn't heard of either one. Is that realistic?

Totally realistic. Erica Jong's book was way back when I was in college (if memory serves). So yeah, I'm old and know it, but most guys my age would have no clue, much less a young guy. Work it into the explanation though. Let the female protagonist explain it to the youngster

 

[tenyari]

Let's face it; most of us are less than "devastatingly attractive," and even if we are, it doesn't last forever.

Attractive people tend to migrate to large coastal cities which also tend to be areas with the most opportunity. It's a trend seen all around the world. As in, if you have the looks to 'fuck your way to the top' you go live where there's a top worth getting to... and over the generations the people there change. So... I think those of us who are from large coastal cities have warped senses of how common beautiful people are compared to those who are from inland, rural, or otherwise smaller communities.

I grew up just assuming the average person was semi-hot, because they were, up to somewhere just before age 60.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Attractive people tend to migrate to large coastal cities which also tend to be areas with the most opportunity. It's a trend seen all around the world. As in, if you have the looks to 'fuck your way to the top' you go live where there's a top worth getting to... and over the generations the people there change. So... I think those of us who are from large coastal cities have warped senses of how common beautiful people are compared to those who are from inland, rural, or otherwise smaller communities.

I grew up just assuming the average person was semi-hot, because they were, up to somewhere just before age 60.

New York is a large coastal city, but what you've said doesn't apply so much to Staten Island, Queens, The Bronx, Yonkers, Jersey City - let's face it, the majority of the metro area population. It does apply to Manhattan, which is the place to get the most media attention too. I know because I grew up here - just not in Manhattan.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Lots of people have a fear of flying. I have no idea if that is supposed to refer to something else. And I can't imagine what a zipper has to do with sex so 'zipless fuck' is baffling me.

Discussed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_Flying_(novel):

[protagonist's] fear of flying, both literally and metaphorically referring to a fear of freeing herself from the shackles of traditional male companionship...

Jong goes on to explain that it is "zipless" because "when you came together, zippers fell away like rose petals, underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff. For the true ultimate zipless A-1 fuck, it was necessary that you never got to know the man very well."

From what I recall, zippers of that era were a bit more cantankerous than modern-day equivalents. If you've ever had to negotiate with an uncooperative zipper at an important moment, it's not exactly the sexiest thing in the world.

AFAICT, the concept boils down to "what if it was possible to just have really hot sex without all the impediments that we're used to?"

Generationally specific terms, and if so what generation? WWII, Boomers, X, Y, Z? Some particular ethnicity (like is this a White People thing?) or nationality?

AFAIK, more of a white American thing. The book came out in 1973, a bit early for me; by the time I was reading grown-up content, people were still referring to it, but I think it was past its peak fame.

 

[tenyari]

AFAIK, more of a white American thing. The book came out in 1973, a bit early for me; by the time I was reading grown-up content, people were still referring to it, but I think it was past its peak fame.

This is where I am supposed to type 'OK Boomer'...

Yeah 1973 means more than likely anyone other than a Boomer would never have heard of it. And it sounds like it's an erotica novel? I couldn't tell from Wikipedia, though it also seems to be important in the feminist movement of the 70s - so it would likely be remembered by anyone who was into politics in the 70s? I'm Gen X, but in 73 I was still wearing a diaper so yeah.

I don't think I've heard anyone, even "Boomers"; say the term 'zipless fuck' before. I've heard the term casual sex a lot - which seems to have the same definition. What people call hookups now, I think, I'm probably too old already and a new term now exists...

 

[Bramblethorn]

This is where I am supposed to type 'OK Boomer'...

Yeah 1973 means more than likely anyone other than a Boomer would never have heard of it. And it sounds like it's an erotica novel? I couldn't tell from Wikipedia, though it also seems to be important in the feminist movement of the 70s - so it would likely be remembered by anyone who was into politics in the 70s? I'm Gen X, but in 73 I was still wearing a diaper so yeah.

Boomer? I'm probably younger than you, and I'd heard the term, though not often.

I don't think I've heard anyone, even "Boomers"; say the term 'zipless fuck' before. I've heard the term casual sex a lot - which seems to have the same definition. What people call hookups now, I think, I'm probably too old already and a new term now exists...

I think "casual sex" is a broader term; "zipless fuck" seems to be more like an idealised version, what casual sex is trying to be.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Boomer? I'm probably younger than you, and I'd heard the term, though not often.



I think "casual sex" is a broader term; "zipless fuck" seems to be more like an idealised version, what casual sex is trying to be.

Let's face it, popular culture has a short shelf-life. Or one might say that it's perishable. Fear of Flying is a decent book, but it's part of popular culture. Jane Austin and Emily Dickinson are not. Not that many people could quote them either.

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

Not a bad start for a poem.

 

[LuckOfTheDraw]

Let's face it, popular culture has a short shelf-life. Or one might say that it's perishable. Fear of Flying is a decent book, but it's part of popular culture. Jane Austin and Emily Dickinson are not. Not that many people could quote them either.

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

Not a bad start for a poem.

"Fear of Flying" has some good literary references - I think Jong majored in literature studies.

There's this nice one, in the chapter where she describes travelling in Italy with her friend Pia.

Jong writes that she was reminded of Robert Browning:

"Open my heart and you will find
Engraved upon it: Italy"

However, since their trip appears to have been a nonstop competition to fuck as many Italian men as they could, Pia paraphrases that to:

"Open my cunt and you will find
Engraved upon it: Italy"

Not a bad try, eh?