Bordello

Beautiful, edgy, yet lush images by Austrian photographer Vee Speers appear in her book "Bordello: The Art Of Seduction". She has lived near the notorious Rue St. Denis in Paris for many years and used her photographs to create her own interpretation of the Paris red-light district from the 1920s and 1930s within the former bordellos, whose elegant interiors have survived.

“From my window I can see the girls waiting downstairs in the doorways, and it has always fascinated me how these women display their bodies up and down the street like gaudy trinkets in a second-hand shop.“

These photographs had been reproduced with Fresson, a unique 19th century hand-worked technique using a charcoal process, creating a sumptuous quality.

Speers' work recalls the decadence of Paris nightlife of the 1920s and 1930s as exemplified by this hauntingly beautiful photograph of a Parisian prostitute from Brassaï (1933):

Alluring, sensuous, feminine...the art of seduction...

Scarlet Street: Femme Fatale of Film Noir

The femme fatale is an alluring woman of great seductive charm who leads men into compromising or dangerous situations. No other film genre better captures her essence than the dark, brooding, gritty world of film noir. "Scarlet Street" (1945) tells the story of a sexy, tough-talking prostitute named Kitty and her scheming pimp who take advantage of a shy bank clerk and aspiring painter; her pimp urges her to bilk money from this man, whom they mistakenly believe to be a wealthy artist. He embezzles money from his employer in order to finance a lavish lifestyle for Kitty. Tragedy ensues for all involved.

Femme fatale: the fatal woman...

The Siren

Siren: an enticing yet dangerous woman...

"What potions have I drunk of Siren tears..."

(Shakespeare, Sonnet 119)

In Greek mythology, sirens were sea nymphs with voices so sweet that mariners who heard their songs were lured into grounding their boats on the rocks on which the beautiful nymphs sang.

In myth and folklore, similarities frequently exist between the stories about mermaids and sirens.

The naiad was a nymph presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks. Naiads could be dangerous: according to Greek mythology, Hylas of the Argo's crew was lost when he was taken by naiads.

Beware the siren's song of the temptress: bewitching, alluring, dangerous...

Sekhmet: The Great Harlot

Sekhmet, goddess of ancient Egypt: although she is a goddess of untamed violence, death, and blood, she is also a goddess associated with the wild ecstasy of love and sexuality. Hers is the unleashed feminine sexuality, powerful and intensely passionate, which can frighten many people.

It is this untamed female sexuality which has frightened the christian church; within the book of revelation, she is denounced as the Great Harlot, and called “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and of Abominations of the earth.”