Website review from Lady Cyrrh's Site (current link)
Site Name: The Hall of Statuary
Address [as of 2012]: http://www.p-synd.com/hos/
Owner: ArgoForg
Reviewed 9/19/98
There's a special subgenre of sex stories dedicated to the concept of sex with statues or, more accurately, people turned into statues as a result of sex or even as a substitute for sex. This site, owned by statuephile (or agalmatophiliac) ArgoForg, is dedicated exclusively to this concept and features pictures, stories, a message board, a shared story called "Golden Paradise," links, a guide to freeze scenes in comics and cartoons, and comments from Argo assuring perusers they're really not as weird as they think they are.
As a concept, it's sort of hard to explain the appeal of statuephication as a fetish, but I'm going to take a stab of it and say that, in most of these stories, being statuephied is an analog for orgasm because you're held motionless, helpless, and sometimes mindless in the grip of a pleasurable sensation greater than yourself. Since statuephication most often happens to beautiful women, there's the added plus of having people admire you as an art object. If you've been preserved contorted in the throes of orgasm (as in many of the stories) you have an added value as a piece of sculptural porn that arouses others, so there is an exhibitionistic aspect as well.
On the other hand, some of these stories were quite grim in the manner of horror fiction. Instead of being admired objects of art, the poor victims are sexually frustrated for eternity or smelted down into slag. As most of these writers seem to be men, there's a sadistic "Perils of Penelope Pitstop" factor at work here as well in that the female victim is made into a helpless object to be owned and abused/treasured by the male. Her personhood is taken away but not her looks, so she is not as hurt as, say, she would be as if beaten or disfigured. (On another statue site--not this one--there was a survey about this very question, in which the male webmaster asked his male readers the appeal of "freezing" the gal they love. Surprisingly, most would do it simply to see the shocked/surprised/frightened expressions on the gal's faces as they were rendered motionless. Oh, those naughty little boy games of freeze tag!)
That said, there were about 100 stories here spread over five well-organized pages from a variety of authors. Statue stories lend themselves to cross-breeding quite well, so there were science fiction statue stories, fantasy statue stories, gothic horror statue stories, historical statue stories, mind control statue stories, and superhero statue stories, with the said transformations occurring by science, magic, supernatural curses, or nefarious supervillains armed with strange devices. All of this added to the creative fun. Likewise, the medium of the statues varies too, from the ever-popular stone (marble and granite being the perennial favorites) to metal (gold and chrome, for the chic high-tech look) to plaster (shades of Dr. Frank N. Furter and the Medusa Ray) to wax, glass, plastic, and even, in one story, peppermint candy. Argoforg has coded the stories by different color diamonds to represent the substance involved (yellow for gold, icy blue for ice, etc.) and arranged them in neat tables preceded by sage advice to readers and writers. The site is attractively laid out on a black background with touches of brighter colors for text and the buttons and gifs are high-quality too.
The overall writing ranged from amateurish to excellent, averaging out to an A in spite of not a few clunkers (which I'll be polite by not mentioning). Seasoned writers like Dmuk and Nova can be considered the Cadillac and Mercedes Benz of the statuephile world, each contributing a number of stories, while prolific upcomers like Fool and Cobalt Jade may correspond to Lexus and Acura.
Though you knew what you would get in each story--someone becoming a statue--the means were quite different. Many stories have the victims being models, as befits their final art object status. In Fool's "Merchandise" (A+) for example, the victims are transformed at the height of orgasm into works of art by G. Limited for auction to the highest bidder. In the "Perils of Penelope T. Hose" series by Vincent Jarrod (A-) the paralyzed heroine is first almost coated with a pearlizing shellac, then is imprisoned in a giant nylon stocking, revealing a fine pantyhose fetish as well. "Video Manipulation" by Gangnet (B+) has a claw-her-way-to-the-top model transformed into stone by being hypnotized into watching video footage of herself being transformed into stone, via the magic of special effects. The latter story, though excellently written, had about the longest transformation scene on the site, which led me to lower the grade as it made the story drag; but it is recommended nonetheless.
In other stories the victims are superheroines. CMQ has written a whole series (A/A-) about the plucky gals of Fem-Fantastique who, amazingly, always wind up being transformed into something else in the course of their adventures, with wit and luck saving the day, of course. This series is particularly interesting because the stories started out in a light, cartoony mode and turned progressively darker and more sexual, culminating in "Overexposed" in which one Fem-Fantastique gal (who has been gradually "coming out" as a lesbian) is mind-controlled by a villain's "erotica ray" to stimulate her partners-in-crimefighting to orgasm, then transform them into various substances, again through the agency of the story's villain. Things eventually turn out all right, but the errant superheroine and her partner need heavy counseling to deal with their subsequent emotional problems.
Other stories have historic and mythic roots. Not surprising considering the distinguished lineage of statue stories, which stretches back to ancient Greece and the legend of Pygmalion and Galatea. In "The Touch" by ASL and Dmuk (A+) King Midas reveals what it was really like having the "golden touch": when applied to women, it causes them to become eternally orgasming golden statues. Cobalt Jade's "The Gorgon's Kiss" (A+) also set in ancient Greece, depicts the encounter between a world-weary Amazon and a girl who may or may not be Medusa, with tragic consequences.
The artwork on the site, mostly stone and metal female nudes, varied in quality. Some of it clearly came from fashion magazine spreads or high-tech advertisements. On the other hand, some of it was embarrassingly amateurish. A few appear to be the work of a Photoshop neophyte who used various filters on scanned porno-mag cuties to simulate their transformation into plastic, silver, or concrete. The captions on these were teeth-gritting as well: "When Bob told Anna he wanted her to be his golden doll, she didn't understand he meant for real!" I don't know who made these monstrosities, but they really don't belong with the higher caliber artwork.
If you get sexually stimulated hearing the old song "Freeze Frame" by the J. Geils band, this site is for you.
Interface: A+
Content: A+
Will I visit again: Yes.