“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Earlier this year, I wrote a brief post, relaying the news of a 3D printing contest dedicated to 3D printed Internet memes. Because I was disappointed at the lack of NSFW memes in the contest, I casually mentioned, in my post, that I would personally award $100 to anyone who would model me a 3D printable Goatse, $50 to anyone that would model up Tubgirl, and $25 to anyone that would design Lemon Party, all under 30 days. Also, $25 for anyone who would model that cute husky puppy that is chewing on a stuffed animal.
To my surprise, I was contacted by an anonymous 3D modeler that I’ll refer to as DotCX. The modeler, both talented and bold, promised me Goatse and Tubgirl. It would be, however, just too hard, for $25, to design the three old men depicted in Lemon Party. Within weeks, DotCX had proof of just what s/he was capable of. I guess, I would have been happy with any 3D models of the two NSFW memes, but when DotCX delivered, the modeler didn’t disappoint. Sure, his wedding ring and her mask were missing, but, needless to say, I was ecstatic to see Goatse and Tubgirl in the 3D, digital flesh.
The next issue would be finding someone to 3D print them. As a test, I wanted to see if the three large 3D printing service bureaus would be able to print DotCX’s artwork. Perusing Shapeways and Sculpteo for anything explicit, I found countless nude women, but nothing like the models I had. And both sites had explicit policies prohibiting the printing of anything explicit.
i.materialise however did allow one bit of obscenity to pass through its printers’ doors. The work of Eric van Straaten has been hailed by many as being very realistic and as an exquisite demonstration of color 3D printing. I personally view it as tasteless child pornography, as all of his sculptures depict underage girls in revealing outfits, if not altogether naked. Knowing that they sold his work, I attempted to print Tubgirl and Goatse at i.materialise; however, my request was politely declined by the Belgian firm.
So, I turned to distributed 3D printing network, 3D Hubs, where customers like me can print models via individual owners of 3D printers all across the planet. After a brief search, I found a Zcorp machine for printing Goatse and Tubgirl in full-color sandstone at a 3D printing hub quaintly named “Lil 3D Printing”. Mark at Lil 3D Printing Hub offered prices that easily beat the large service bureaus, prints of excellent quality, and, most importantly, great customer service. He had no problem printing my NSFW memes and said that I could even mention him in this article, saying, “…I’ll be honest it’s not my type of print, but, then, nor are My Little Ponies.”
Receiving the prints, my wife Danielle and I immediately set about photographing them. Though it was in July that this whole process started, we were now approaching December. I don’t remember which one of us thought of it. Most likely, it just bubbled up from one of our subconsciousnesses, due to the surrounding winter spirit. Wherever the idea sprang from, we’d decided to make our Goatse and Tubgirl photos holiday themed. The result of this long ordeal is the 12 Days of Tubgirl and Goatse.
You can imagine how difficult it was to set up our holiday scenes. Our little Tubgirl and Goatse lost their balance repeatedly, dropped their Santa hats at inopportune times, and, at one point, found themselves covered in hot chocolate. After a couple of weeks of posing the two figurines, it began to feel as though they were our toys, little action figures imbued with life. Goatse would occasionally say to Tubgirl, in his raspy gremlin voice, “Hey, Tubgirl, we’re going to be famous!” And Tubgirl would respond with a garbled, “Grrglrlglrlrrrggg.”
In the end, Danielle and I were proud of the cheerful photo series we’d created and DotCX was very proud of the prints that he and Mark had made. All that was left was to Goatse the masses with a merry blogpost on 3DPI. It was then that the founders of 3DPI, kindly recommended that the images of Goatse and Tubgirl might be just a bit too obscene for the site.
Naturally, I was devastated. After all of the work, the blood, sweat, and tears, there was no decent way to show off our masterpieces to the world. Figuring out what to do, I couldn’t sleep. This thought kept running through my head: “What’s all this taboo surrounding a man stretching his butt farther than previously thought possible and hurting no one but himself?”
Laying awake at night, the answer revealed itself: The Goatman’s butt represents the incomprehensible – an unraveling of social constructs and mental concepts enforced by the dominant society to hold together our status quo perceptions of reality. The Goatman is a rebel performing the ultimate mooning because, once you Goatsee you can’t unsee and suddenly those views about sex and nature taught to you in health class go out the window. Sex is no longer a mundane heterosexual act performed by a man and a woman for the sole purpose of procreation. And the butt is no longer just for pooping.
And that’s why Goatse and Tubgirl are so important, on a sociological and historical level, too. They symbolize the collective loss of innocence of our species brought about by the invention of the Internet. The Pandora’s Box of the Internet spewed out a brown stream of, for all intents and purposes, infinite knowledge to be digested by our meager human faculties and, with that fountain, we were gifted with the good and the bad. On the one hand, we have access to almost every piece of literature ever recorded, but also the hatred spewed by murderers like Elliot Rodger. We have avenues for espousing human rights and justice, but we also see acts of sexual violence shared on social media by high school students. We have the open source 3D printing movement, responsible for triggering the current 3D printing revolution and spreading the technology across the globe. We also have Goatse and Tubgirl and a flood of information challenging us to question the structure of reality imposed upon us by dominant forces and our own small minds.
With all of reality staring back at you from that gaping hole of nothingness, the uncertainty about what it all means becomes clear. With the destruction of the constructs used to frame reality, the realization sinks in that we are not apes. Nor are we quite gods. Instead we are somewhere in between: just a bunch of Tubgirls and Goatmen in one big Lemon Party. But, if you don’t look away and you keep staring, you become numb to it. The world doesn’t end. It just keeps going and going and you understand that there will be plenty of shock sights in the future. In fact, some people have to deal with shocking things every day. The list of horrifying instances of human suffering taking place across the planet is so long that it’s useless to choose a single example, but no one should have trouble calling one to mind.
Yesterday, when Danielle and I were talking about people’s reactions to the 3D printing of Goatse and Tubgirl, bewildered she would ask, “Why are people so afraid of these little figurines? Cops aren’t going to trial for killing people and everyone’s scared of lil’ Goatse and Tubgirl?”
She was absolutely right. I decided to ask the founders again and they met me with one condition: that I censor the photos. I’ve done it, handing the choice over to you, the reader. If you wish to see 12 Days of Tubgirl and Goatse (NSFW), click the link. But beware, you will see holiday-themed photos of cartoon figurines performing explicit acts and maybe a little more than you bargained for. And, stay tuned, there are still eight NSFW days left.
All Photos and styling by Danielle Matich. All models by DotCX. Printed via Lil 3D Printing Hub.
Update: For those concerned about certain elements missing from the models (i.e., ring, mask), DotCX will be adding said elements to the next iteration. Life is an incomprehensible mess, please bear with us.
