"Lying on the table, it was a banner telling the invisible legions of my triumph over the police. I was in a cell. I knew that all night long my tube of vaseline would be exposed to the scorn--the contrary of a Perpetual Adoration--of a group of strong, handsome, husky police men. So strong that if the weakest of them barely squeezed his fingers together, there would shoot forth, first with a slight fart, brief and dirty, a ribbon of gum which would continue to emerge in a ridiculous silence. Nevertheless, I was sure that this puny and most humble object would hold its own against them; by its mere presence it would be able to exasperate all the police in the world; it would draw down upon itself contempt, hatred, white and dumb rages." Jean Genet, "The Thief's Journal:" 1949 Caught in a system of confinement, surveillance, and restriction, a leather fag eludes the state by recalling his lover bathed in vaseline.
Credits
