WEBZINE OF THE WEIRD
Issue #1, September 2000
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In "Bleeding Me," the vampiric associations of autofellatio are explored in imagery that substitutes blood for semen in a metaphorical obfuscation designed to protect the secret from the unitiated and the profane. Most explicit are the lines:
I am the beast that feeds the beast
I am the blood, I am the release
Come make me pure
Bleed me a cure
which does not utilize the word "come" right after the word "release" accidentally.
There are other songs which do not paint so glorifying a picture of autofellatio, which leads one to suspect that James Hetfield and possibly other members of Metallica were not just inspired by something they may have read or heard about. The deep spiritual and existential angst expressed by the lyrics of some of the songs on these two albums speaks of one who has actually experienced the mysteries whereof they tell. For example, the author reveals his fear that god would look on his experiments with condemnation in "The Thorn Within" (the thorn is a common metaphorical symbol for the erect penis, and thus the thorn within is the penis when inserted into the mouth of its owner):
Forgive me father
For I have sinned
Find me guilty of the life I feel within
And when I'm branded
This mark of shame
Should I look down disgraced
Or straight ahead
And know that you must blame
I am the secret
I am the sin
I am the guilty
And I, I am the thorn within
As if the initial tentative explorations of autofellatio had matured by the time the sequel to LOAD came out, RE-LOAD contains a great deal more references to that divine and extremely worthwhile endeavour. In fact, RE-LOAD is to LOAD as the New Testament is to the Old Testament. It fulfills and expands the original theme as presented in that first album and more freely expresses the joy that comes from sucking one's own penis in order to obtain knowledge of god. Behold the increasingly sensuous and ecstatic language in the following excerpts:
Yeah I hunger
Oooh I hunger
I eat
("Attitude")
Hungry and thirsty I wait
Holding the lion's share
Holding the key
("Better Than You")
Come squeeze and suck the day
("Carpe Diem Baby")
And yet, even further down the road to enlightenment autofellatio is not without its negative and even satanic associations. In "Bad Seed" and "Devil's Dance," Hetfield explores archetypal themes of sin and temptation, the Fall and the forbidden fruit, and of course, that well-known phallic symbol of the animal kingdom, the serpent. It is here that we may discover the significance of the "twisting" of the body in order to gain the Gnosis through the absolutely safe, completely healthy, and highly recommended act of sucking one's own penis and swallowing one's own ejaculant. For the serpent twists, and the serpent is not only a phallic symbol, it is also an ancient symbol of the wisdom that is obtained through the knowledge of god. Twisting is also a reference to the spiral which is the path to god, and the double helix, which is a variant of the spiral and the pattern of our DNA, often represented in ancient times by the caduceus, or rod of Hermes the psychopomp (a phallic god), which was in the shape of two serpents entwined about a staff. The serpent is the bringer of knowledge, the Gnosis, and therefore it is the serpent which tempts Eve, and through her, Adam, to taste of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, that they might be as gods are, knowing good and evil. When the serpent swallows its tail, it represents the spiral, or "twisting" that leads to the knowledge of one's own godhead. Also, in the ignorant eyes of the rest of the world such a misunderstood practice as autofellatio is "twisted" (and this explains the song "Poor Twisted Me").
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