He drills three holes in the bridge, then penetrates each in order to guarantee fertility

August 29, 2010 9:48 AM

Balkan sexual supersititions (NSFW)

"Balkan Erotic Epic" (2006) by Marina Abramovic (bio) - More from her

posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out (64 comments total)

I need to register and confirm my birth date to watch it?
posted by Bromius at 9:49 AM on August 29, 2010

Um.... I wasn't registered, I just clicked the "I am over 18, turn off Family Filter" button and it brought me to the video.
posted by hippybear at 9:51 AM on August 29, 2010

oh, yes, but it won't let me PLAY the video without registering. Ugh.
posted by hippybear at 9:51 AM on August 29, 2010

hint:DONT POST SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO SIGN UP FOR ESP. NSFW.
posted by clavdivs at 9:53 AM on August 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

Yeah. You can't view without signing up. Annoying.
posted by delmoi at 9:55 AM on August 29, 2010

Apparently this is one of the numerous small films which makes up the entire Balkan Erotic Epic art installation.

Here are some stills and a bit of explanation of the work.

More information about the exhibit.

There seems to be a lot of pieces from this scattered around the web, but I'm not going to do the work to pull it together for this thread.
posted by hippybear at 10:01 AM on August 29, 2010

Okay but this is serious business and super funny too!

My sister has been living in Macedonia for the last two years with the Peace Corps and has regaled us with tales of the "fear of the draft." There is a widely held believe that if a young woman is caught in a crossdraft of any kind she will be rendered immediately, and irreparably, infertile. Hosts trip over themselves hoping to shut doors and windows before afflictin young visiting women, taxi drivers forbid her from opening the back windows and the landlord regularly inspects to ensure that she is not wantonly endangering her fertility by living a fast and loose life with an open window.
posted by greekphilosophy at 10:02 AM on August 29, 2010 [18 favorites]

Wasn't it fear of the draft which drove many into the Peace Corps about 40 years ago?
posted by hippybear at 10:05 AM on August 29, 2010 [23 favorites]

[replaced the link with one not requiring registration, carry on.]
posted by jessamyn at 11:20 AM on August 29, 2010

I got as far as the goldfish.
posted by bonobothegreat at 11:30 AM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

...ooooookay.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:33 AM on August 29, 2010

Well that was... Odd.
posted by lauratheexplorer at 11:35 AM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

You know, if a woman makes a man a cup of coffee that tastes like it was made from a fish that was smothered in someone's vagina and then desiccated and ground up, and he happily guzzles it down, he is going to stay with that woman for life and there's no superstition about it.
posted by pracowity at 11:35 AM on August 29, 2010 [24 favorites]

I made the mistake of ordering that at Starbucks.
posted by found missing at 11:39 AM on August 29, 2010 [17 favorites]

I made the mistake of ordering that at Starbucks.
posted by found missing at 7:39 PM on August 29

Starbucks? Damn right that was a mistake. They do it much better at Coffee Repubic.
posted by Decani at 11:50 AM on August 29, 2010

pracowity: So there was a fish in the percolator!
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 11:53 AM on August 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

You have to be careful with the Bold Pick of the Day.
posted by pracowity at 11:53 AM on August 29, 2010

That was kind of nuts and great.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:00 PM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I got as far as the goldfish.

I believe that the agri-geo-auto-erotica is worth the cost of admission.
posted by Back to you, Jim. at 12:01 PM on August 29, 2010

I misread this as "Brazilian sexual superstitions" and was very confused for the first third of the video.
posted by Forktine at 12:05 PM on August 29, 2010

I think this was shot on the island of Mypos, one of the most beautiful places in the world.
posted by iconomy at 12:05 PM on August 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

I feel like I've been hexed or something - wow. I mean, yeah. Wow. Someone made that!
posted by smartypantz at 12:07 PM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Have anyone seen A Serbian Film/Srpski Film yet? (trailer nsfw)
posted by stifford at 12:15 PM on August 29, 2010

A Chinese national told me a secret that I must never reveal. She believes that pretty much the opposite of that fish story, without the fish, is effective if practiced by men. I think that there is some biological evidence that such things may be plausible.
posted by StickyCarpet at 12:17 PM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Man, I love Marina Abramovic, and I've wanted to see this for ages! Thanks so much for sharing!
posted by emperor.seamus at 12:21 PM on August 29, 2010

A Chinese national told me a secret that I must never reveal. She believes that pretty much the opposite of that fish story, without the fish, is effective if practiced by men. I think that there is some biological evidence that such things may be plausible.

I could be wrong about this, but I think I read that a hoodoo method for doing the same thing is to sneak your menstrual blood into a mans food. It must be a common theme in superstition.
posted by emperor.seamus at 12:24 PM on August 29, 2010

A Chinese national told me a secret that I must never reveal. She believes that pretty much the opposite of that fish story, without the fish, is effective if practiced by men. I think that there is some biological evidence that such things may be plausible.
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:17 PM on August 29

It's true. That's how I pulled my current other half. But don't spread it around, dude. We don't want them discovering the ruse. Oh no! What a giveaway!
posted by Decani at 12:24 PM on August 29, 2010

I could be wrong about this, but I think I read that a hoodoo method for doing the same thing is to sneak your menstrual blood into a mans food. It must be a common theme in superstition.

A friend of mine told me this and said that she had tried it herself (apparently without success so far.) She didn't say where the idea came from but she did have lots of Haitian friends. She grew up and lived in the Boston area and had Portuguese-speaking relatives via Cape Verde.
posted by XMLicious at 12:33 PM on August 29, 2010

I could be wrong about this, but I think I read that a hoodoo method for doing the same thing is to sneak your menstrual blood into a mans food. It must be a common theme in superstition.
posted by emperor.seamus at 3:24 PM


From what I heard, it is usually a menstrual marinara sauce. Seriously.
posted by orme at 12:51 PM on August 29, 2010

Supposedly the traditional thing in Sicily is for a newlywed woman to put blood from her first menstruation after the wedding into a soup, and feed that to her husband; thus she will always be able to control him.
posted by paisley henosis at 12:53 PM on August 29, 2010

I recommend sticking around for the Earth gangbang at 6 minutes in.
posted by graventy at 1:05 PM on August 29, 2010

Yeah, there are a lot of menstrual blood superstitions. It's usually in something strong tasting and red or dark-colored, for obvious reasons.
posted by wayland at 1:13 PM on August 29, 2010

Bloody Mary don't say you weren't warned
posted by found missing at 1:23 PM on August 29, 2010

Some pictures from this were on the blog 'Slavs of NewYork'

I lived in Bosnia for one year and they definately believe cross-drafts are very bad for everyone but especially young women.

Sitting on a cold surface or exposeing the area commonly exposed by low-rise jeans is also considered destructive directly to the ovaries. Someone will get you a cushion or folded blanket to sit on, or a sweater.
This is not all bad in the Winter or Fall, but in the Summer, which is quite hot, one could live with a little more 'chill'
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 1:32 PM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Whoa! My mother, who is not from the Balkans, used to do precisely what is described beginning around 6:55. To my knowledge, it kept me completely safe from the evil eye.

I just wish we didn't live in full view of the bus stop.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 1:32 PM on August 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

From Hippybear's link:

"Marina Abramovic, born in 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, is without question one of the seminal artists of our time."

Without question, indeed.
posted by kanewai at 2:02 PM on August 29, 2010

woah. at 6:00 thats just nuts...
posted by NotSoSiniSter at 2:30 PM on August 29, 2010

Someone is going to pass that shot of the guy humping the ground as the great lost outtake from Caddyshack.

That person will not be me, though.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:48 PM on August 29, 2010

A long distance phone call saved me during the earth humping. Whew.
posted by Xoebe at 2:49 PM on August 29, 2010

Metafilter: Nobody understands us.

(11:10)
posted by fizban at 2:57 PM on August 29, 2010

Between superstition and religion.........
posted by notreally at 3:25 PM on August 29, 2010

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.

*thunk* *thunk* *thunk*
posted by dephlogisticated at 3:36 PM on August 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

I was standing at a bus stop in Prague in February, and I sat down on a little concrete bench. An older woman came up to me, took me by the arm, and HAULED me to my feet. "You'll freeze your eggs!" she shouted. I was, at that point, a little uncertain of my Czech, and she couldn't possibly have told me that I'd freeze my eggs, right? I asked her to repeat herself, and she told me a story about when she was a young woman, and she was wearing a skirt, and kissing a boy in a doorway, and all of a sudden, "My eggs froze! It was very painful!" This incident has flummoxed me for years. And now, today, it flummoxes me slightly less. Thank you.
posted by jennyjenny at 3:46 PM on August 29, 2010 [7 favorites]

Given that she's an artist rather than a documentarian, how accurate is what she depicts in terms of current practices?
posted by Wordwoman at 3:57 PM on August 29, 2010

That was... fascinating. And strange. And, as with many superstitions, I could not help but wonder how on earth something like this gets started:
"Hey Zlatko, there's something I absolutely must tell you, you won't believe it!"
"Well, what is it, Joshka?"
"You know how I was fucking that bridge yesterday?"
"Now that you mention it... that seemed kind of odd, yes."
"Ha, it's a totally perfect and foolproof way to guarantee that you won't be impotent on your wedding night. Well, you have to watch out for splinters, but other than that it works great!"
"Oh, so you... I see. And you say... a bridge?"
"Oh, yeah. Has to be a bridge, with three holes, definitely. See, Ninko tried a barn and two holes - total failure. Oh, and don't ask Luka about his experiments with various forest weeds - poor guy got hold of poison ivy. Ouch."
"Hmm, but I saw him walk through the streets yesterday, and a falling roofing tile missed him by that much - he might be on to something there, after all!"

I also wonder how they do the casting for movies like this: "Wanted for film on Balkan folklore: 10 women in traditional dress, age irrelevant, must be willing to rub their breasts in sunshine and be able to pretend to hump ghosts in the rain. Also: we need half a dozen men, also in traditional dress, with no compunction about humping lawns or showing their slowly-deflating erections on camera."
posted by PontifexPrimus at 4:29 PM on August 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

Given that she's an artist rather than a documentarian, how accurate is what she depicts in terms of current practices?

I've read that the lawn-humping scene has moved entirely online; that bit of video must have been historical recreation. Everything else, however, is completely authentic ethnography.

------------------------------------

Please enjoy this short informative video public relations video from the South Korean company Samsung, which seeks a more intimate relationship with you, the customer.
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:34 PM on August 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

I think the lawn-humping superstition is also fairly widespread with the "seed" and all. I swear I've heard it somewhere else before.

In any case, as much as I want to have a drug free delivery when I have my baby in March, I think her methods for pain relief in childbirth would cause a lot of... confusion... in the delivery room.
posted by sonika at 4:53 PM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Uh... heh heh heh. The Balkans rule.
posted by En0rm0 at 5:58 PM on August 29, 2010

Someone is going to pass that shot of the guy humping the ground as the great lost outtake from Caddyshack.

Was the plan to scare the gopher out of his hole?

_{...ahh! A one-eyed snake! Run!...}
posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out at 8:33 PM on August 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

That earth-humping scene reminded me of the end of the Radiohead video for Just. I can just imagine that the phrase that made everyone lie down was "to make the crops grow, the man will masturbate into the earth."
posted by hotbutton at 9:20 PM on August 29, 2010

I saw an entire gallery's worth of Abramovic's work at the New York MoMA this May. Excerpts from this were on display along with a lot of her other works.

I can't say I really enjoy viewing her works, but I can definitely appreciate what she's trying to say and what she seems to think art is about. The exhibit in New York had all of the objects from Rhythm 0 on display; it sort of blew my mind when I read that people had actually pointed the gun at her head during the course of the piece. On its face, it's a hell of a statement on the commoditization of art in the modern world, and there's a lot more to unpack from it beyond that...
posted by spitefulcrow at 9:31 PM on August 29, 2010

I suspect we've all been punked.

But just to be on the safe side, I'm cancelling my trip to the Balkans.
posted by Davenhill at 12:17 AM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

And I'm booking mine.
posted by pracowity at 12:59 AM on August 30, 2010 [6 favorites]

A collection of animated gifs are in there just WAITING to be harvested.
posted by papercake at 4:19 AM on August 30, 2010

If they find themselves suddenly blessed with dozens of baby fields, it's going to be disaster for the real estate market.
posted by vanar sena at 4:24 AM on August 30, 2010

Fellas, that bridge thing - don't try it, it's a crock
posted by the noob at 4:58 AM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

I, for one, will start touching more things with my penis. Babies, bicycles, silverware, stacks of laundry, old people, street furniture.

And when people gasp in horror and look at me escandalized, I will say "IN BALKAN CULTURE..."
posted by falameufilho at 6:51 AM on August 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

Interview with Marina Abramovic
posted by XMLicious at 8:09 AM on August 30, 2010

Now you know why some men prefer their coffee black.
posted by digsrus at 8:37 AM on August 30, 2010

10:20 to 12:20 answers the question "how long can five Balkan men maintain an erection while listening to plaintive folksong about 'The war is our eternal cross'". About two minutes, although it was edited.

The Folklore journal confirms the bridge hole cure for impotence, but alas without a subscription you can only see it in a Google snippet: "when a bridegroom proved to be impotent on his wedding day, to go at night to a wooden bridge and to drill three holes in it"
posted by Nelson at 10:16 AM on August 30, 2010

Now, there's nothing wrong with loving a bridge, but three holes? That's a bit kinky.
posted by sebastienbailard at 6:45 PM on August 30, 2010

"when a bridegroom proved to be impotent on his wedding day, to go at night to a wooden bridge and to drill three holes in it"

Well, sure, if you're *proven* to be impotent, have at the bridge. I just think a newlywed should get the benefit of the doubt first.

Also, reduces the risk of STSs.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 7:18 PM on August 30, 2010

Also, reduces the risk of STSs
Sexually Transmitted Splinters?
posted by smartypantz at 1:18 PM on August 31, 2010

smartypantz: Bingo!
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 1:46 PM on August 31, 2010