The Sexuality of the Lizard King: Jim Morrison

The Lizard King.

The King of Orgasmic Rock.

Jim Morrison.

The Doors.

When it comes to rock ‘n’ roll and sexuality, no one projected it like doomed rock ‘n’ roller Jim Morrison. Today, more than 40 years after his untimely death in Paris, France, the legacy of Jim Morrison—the image—is still as powerful and revered as it was during his brief heyday in the spotlight.

Jim Morrison lived life on the edge, challenging conformity. He was the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll wild man, who was also able to back it up with talent. At a time when the feel-good songs of the Sixties were ruling the airwaves—possibly with the exception of some of The Rolling Stones darker themes—Jim Morrison and the Doors gave the world a darker, more thoughtful rock song, Jim combining his love of poetry and vast intellect in all he did. Some have dismissed him as a hack, yet millions choose to believe differently, and more than 40 years after his death, he is still relevant.

What other rock star has ever been threatened with eviction from his very own grave? Yes, in 2001, with the lease up on his grave in Paris’s Pere Lachaise cemetery, officials at the facility wanted the rock star gone. Morrison’s grave, found amongst the resting places of such noted icons as Balzac, Moliere and Proust, is a daily destination place for fans, who decorate it with graffiti, a happening that hasn’t ceased, even to this day.

Why?

The mystique of Morrison.

The artistry of Morrison.

Or, the simple fact that Jim Morrison is sex itself.

 

Mr. Mojo Risin’

“Sex is full of lies. The body tries to tell the truth. But, it’s usually too battered with rules to be heard and bound with pretenses so it can hardly move. We cripple ourselves with lies,” said Jim Morrison, who himself, lived a life trying not to be crippled by lies.

Morrison didn’t want to live with boundaries. As he stated, “I am the lizard king. I can do anything.”

In 1965, while attending UCLA’s film school—sharing a classroom with Francis Ford Coppola—a slightly chubby Jim Morrison, high on acid, confessed to fellow classmate, Ray Manzarek that he could hear an entire concert playing in his head. This concert comprised most of what would become The Door’s first two albums.

With this meeting between Jim and Ray, The Doors were formed, and Morrison was given a platform to be Jim—a rebel, looking to challenge authority, a celebrity who didn’t want to lead, but encouraged others to set themselves free from the mental prisons they locked themelves in.

 

The beginning of ‘The End’

The Doors first album in 1967 should have been a clue to this. From Break On Through, Light My Fire and Backdoor Man, Jim sang sex, but nowhere did he challenge his audience more than in the album’s epic closer The End.

 

“He went into the room where his sister lived,

And then he paid a visit to his brother

And then he, walked on down the hall

He came to a door

And he looked inside

“Father?”

“Yes, son?”

“I want to kill you.

Mother, I want to…

 

A primal scream blocked out the words “fuck you,” but everyone knew they belonged there. “Oedipus is a Greek myth. Sophocles wrote about it. I don’t know who before that. It’s about a man who inadvertently killed his father and married his mother,” recalled Morrison in a Rolling Stone magazine article. “Yeah, I’d say there was a similarity, definitely. But to tell you the truth, every time I hear that song, it means something else to me. I really don’t know what I was trying to say. Probably just to a girl, but I could see how it could be good-bye to a kind of childhood. I really don’t know. I think it’s significantly complex and universal in its imagery that it could be almost anything you want it to be.”

In another interview, Morrison classified the song as being about three things: sex, death and travel.

 

The stage life of a lizard

Jim Morrison is a fantasy figure. An eternal sex symbol. Glorified in memory and by the passing of time. For those who knew and worked with him, he was a challenge. A tragic rock god who was arrested no fewer than ten times in his brief 27-years and the first rock artist arrested onstage during a concert performance.

At the end of his life, fleeing to Paris, Morrison was looking for rejuvenation, a new start, and to distance himself from a trial in Miami concerning his arrest for exposing himself on stage. An alcoholic, Morrison like to challenge his audience, see how far he could push them in the moment, and that night in Miami (1969) he berated the audience, accusing them of not being there to hear the music but to see his “cock.” He promised to show them, and was arrested for indecent exposure. Out of 150 photos taken that night, and shown at his trial, not one of them proves he actually did expose himself, but even if he did, Morrison didn’t see the problem.

“Six guys and girls are naked every night in Hair and nobody calls the cops,” Morrison commented about the stage play. “My audience expects me to do something freaky. If I’d been in L.A. or New York, nothing would have happened.”

Morrison died before the trial was concluded.

 

The sex life of a lizard

For all young men who worship at the memory of Jim Morrison, the thought that he could have homosexual tendencies is sacrilegious. After all, he had a long time girlfriend, Pamela Courson, and an infamous affair with Patricia Kennealy, a 22-year-old editor for Jazz & Pop magazine, who was also a self-proclaimed witch.

Nevertheless, rumours of homosexuality abound. In one infamous episode, suspecting that Jim had cheated on her, Pamela took one of Jim’s favourite on-stage vests and wrote ‘FAGGOT’ across the back of it.

“Pam would never tell me exactly what she meant by that, but I’m pretty sure Jim never had anything like a gay affair, because she would’ve found out and that would’ve really upset her,” stated Mirandi Babitz, a friend of the couple. “If that had been going on, I’m sure she would’ve told me. I think he probably had a gay experience at one time because of his experimental nature, but nothing like regular experiences. I know their sex life was weird. He tied her up all the time and sometimes he was really brutal with her. It was okay with her to a point, but then he would always go over the line. I think part of the fag stuff came from the fact that he really preferred women from the backside (anal). Pam was always very pissed off about that, but that was apparently what he was into so she stuck with it. That was part of the reason she was always snarling at him.”

While Mirandi wasn’t sure Morrison was bi-sexual, his booking agent and friend, Todd Schifman was. “I think Jim was gay.” When asked about his relationships with Pamela and Patricia, he stated, “That doesn’t mean he wasn’t gay. Those were not successful storybook relationships. And Pam always seemed like a little boy to me. I know for a fact that Jim was into being gay.”

In one instance where Jim annoyed an audience, he crawled on stage at a Jim Hendrix performance at New York’s Scene Club and wrapped himself around the guitarist, shouting, “I want to suck your cock!” While doing this, he actually attempted to remove Jimi’s velvet trousers, until Jim’s friend Paul Ferrara pulled him off the performer.

 

The legend of the lizard

There is no question that Jim loved women. His relationship with Pamela and Patricia, which resulted in the latter having to have an abortion, and no doubt numerous groupies, attests to that. There is also no doubt that based on the way he lived his life, Jim engaged in same-sex love. Jim tried to live without borders and challenge the norm. He was a free spirit, but also a philosopher of the dangerous.

Jim Morrison lived life.

As stated, Jim Morrison was sex.