Leda and the gosling

[oggbashan]

This week I bought an old plaster casting supposedly of Leda and The Swan.

Either Leda is a giantess or the swan has delusions of grandeur and is actually a goose. The 'swan' is too small to do much to Leda and is lost between her legs.

How would you retell the story of Leda and the Swan on Literotica and get it past the prohibition on animal sex?

Any ideas?

Og

PS. I can't get my digital camera to take a reasonable picture of the couple. Its flash gets confused (or I do) and the result looks like a badly treated running shoe.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Damn, I wanted to see it.
The swan can be a metaphor.

 

[oggbashan]

Sorry about the pictures.

Both Leda and the Swan are chocolate brown.

Og

 

[Guest]

I can't imagine any other but W.B. Yeats'--

LEDA AND THE SWAN

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

 

[BlackShanglan]

I'm with Perdita - WBY's is the definitive.

There's an issue of "Yeats Annual" out there (academic journal on Yeats) that includes lengthy discussions of said work PLUS (extra added bonus!) a whole series of plates of different paintings attempting to depict the moment. Most fail to grasp the basics of avian biology; at least one is hysterical in its combination of a determination to be explicit and a transparent ignorance of basic *human* female anatomy. If memory serves, the woman's vagine is depicted as an open black circular portal facing straight out of the front of her body. If I ever see that in a potential sexual partner, I plan to run like hell.

The size of the bird ... no, this is not going by way of "size of the dog in the fight / size of fight in the dog." Ahem. Let us rid ourselves of such platitudes. The basic issue is:

If the swan wished to "do much to Leda" as a seducer, at least from the traditional male perspective, it would have to start by overcoming an inherent weakness in avian physiology. A male swan (or any other bird for that matter) has no external phallic organ. Sort of takes some of the fun out of it, especially when the next best substitutes - fingers, sizeable and pliable tongue - are also missing.

But if I was going for a fictional representation, and wanted something more "strokey" than WBY's ... I would lean on the "it's really a god" aspect and use that to take whatever poetic liberties I wanted. I imagine that if Zeus can make himself into a swan, he can probably also manage to make himself into an anatomically incorrect but rather more interesting version of a swan.

Shanglan

 

[Guest]

Download Leda

Edited to add: There are many images of Leda throughout the history of art (painting and sculpture esp.), but this classical Greek piece is a favourite. I like the simplicity of the sketch, and esp. Leda's sandaled feet hanging down. - Perdita
http://www.uwm.edu/Course/mythology/1100/1801.jpg

Another (a copy of Michaelangelo's, artist unknown):
http://www.uwm.edu/Course/mythology/1100/1808.jpg

 

[cantdog]

Evidently yours is Zeus the goose, Og...

 

[snooper]

... How would you retell the story of Leda and the Swan on Literotica and get it past the prohibition on animal sex? ...

It isn't an animal, it's a god, so it is a supernatural being. Point that out in the Notes box, and have Zeus talking to her while in disguise. Put it in "non-human".

Oh, and post a link in this thread when it's up, please.

 

[oggbashan]

I think the statuette is a crude attempt to reproduce Perdita's second picture, the copy of the one by Michelangelo.

If the sculptor had seen a swan he had forgotten what a swan looks like, apart from the disparity in scale.

Leda and the fake Gosling would be a better description.

Og

 

[Sabledrake]

Hey, they let me post Pasiphae and the great white bull ... I'd try a Leda one but I don't know much about swans, geese, or poultry sex in general

Sabledrake

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

This week I bought an old plaster casting...

Og! I never though that YOU would be a plaster caster!