Monday, July 28, 2008
Monday, April 03, 2006
Saturday, February 04, 2006
art or porn ?
Are Erotica and Porn the Same Thing?by Gary Meyer(03/07/01)
You know what they say: if it's about sex with ostrich feathers, it's erotica; if it's about sex with the whole ostrich, it's porn. Or it depends on whether it's supposed to get you off. Like we're gonna ask some dead writer what the deal was. "Hey, Henry Miller, that Trollop of Capricorn stuff -- was that art, or were you just trying to give us boners?" Human divining rod and Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wimped out trying to define porn, but he claimed, "I know it when I see it." Great. All we gotta do is dig him up and our troubles are over.
Or you gotta go back to the ancient Greeks. Sure, the archer formerly known as Eros was running around back then, and there was this pornographos thing that was like the People Magazine of its time, with life stories of famous courtesans, cause they didn't have J.Lo and Nicole and Mena, but pornographos wasn't even necessarily dirty. Not till the 1860's did the English word pornography come forth, because people really dug the Pornographic Collection at the National Museum of Naples, which had stuff like a marble statue of the god Pan making it with a she-goat. Bam! Right into Webster's 1864 edition: "Pornography: licentious painting employed to decorate the walls of rooms sacred to bacchanalian orgies."
It was the Victorians who got so uptight about all the X-rated books jumping out of the wainscoting, pulling knives, and demanding, "Read me!" that they decided to call them pornography meaning "the writing of prostitutes," the lowest sexual outcasts they could think of. They blamed all those books they didn't read -- in 1834, there were 57 porn shops on London's Holywell Street alone -- on all the harlots they never hired, and called it a job well done.
So erotica is this chubby cherub zapping you with an arrow dipped in love potion, and pornography is a prostitute lapping at your lower parts in a literary fashion. What's so awful about writing that's trying to make your blood flow south, anyway? If a cookbook makes you hungry, it's a great cookbook. If writing about sex doesn't make you feel it in your fun zone, you call that writing? Nobody complains about Stephen King trying to scare you shitless, or Dave Barry trying to crack you up.
You can read King and Barry anywhere. You can even shudder or chortle in public. But try whipping out Lady Chatterly's Lover in the waiting room. And that Fanny Hill, just try reading that out loud at a PTA meeting: Thus we spent the whole afternoon, till supper-time, in a continued circle of love delights, kissing, turtle-billing, toying, and all the rest of the feast! Turtle-billing. Whoo-hoo! Animals again.
Or people say it's porn and not erotica if it gets you off, dear reader, regardless of the author's assumed intent -- the peter-meter, the wet test; porn is in the groin of the beholder. Remember the movie Clockwork Orange, the part where Malcolm MacDowell is in the prison library grooving on Biblical verses about orgies and whipping slaves? If the Bible * gets you hot, is it porn? What if you get hot and I don't? Then which is it, porn or erotica? W.H. Auden had this hypothetical solution where twelve "normal" guys read a book, and if a majority of them spring stiffies, it's porn.
Nowadays you have to work in Canadian Customs to get a job like that.
I am a connoisseur of erotica myself, but, let's face it, if you read something to get off, you're a porn user. The fear is that all these guys with a severe depletion of cranial blood flow are going to run out and assault women, children, and the larger house pets, rather than stay indoors and assault wastebaskets with volleys of wadded tissue. And what about hordes of hot, wet, porn-crazed women? Send 'em this way!
Maybe it's all in the words -- you know, Latino versus Anglo-Saxophone. Do you osculate or kiss? Fornicate or fuck? Ejaculate or cum? Perform fellatio or suck cock? Practice cunnilingus or muff dive? Now you know whether you're an erotica collector, or a porn addict.
Maybe the difference between erotica and porn is the percentage of the time the characters are naked and busy fitting various tabs A into sundry slots B. We could impose a hard and fast limit, just like Mayor Giuliani does in New York City with the porn shops: only forty percent of their merchandise can be sex-oriented unless they want to be subject to zoning restrictions that generously allow them to relocate next to a sewage treatment plant in outer Queens.
Then there's the literary merit approach, as if we could ever agree on what that means. Porn is despised because it's poorly written, because porn writers have to pound it out because porn publishers pay peanuts because they can't market it or distribute it effectively because it's despised.
Time for some quotes from imaginary people:
Felicia Corning (linguist): "Erotica is apologetic; porn is pejorative."
Oscar Wired (cyber Goth): "Erotica is the porn that dares not speak its name."
Carla Climatize (meteorologist): "Erotica is dry; porn is wet."
Needless Sequel (film student): "Blow me! In this whole freaking editorial, you're not once gonna mention the money shot, the cum gush, the lovin' faceful, the pearl necklace, the jism jet, the spunk spasm?"
Percival Carruthers (freelance esthete): "Erotica is the tender communion of two souls embracing in the mystical void, a feast of the five senses where each moment must be savored. The sight of the beloved across the room watching TV, the heady aroma of her hairspray, the sound of her gentle remonstrances, the taste of a proffered cookie, the electric brushing of her fingertips, these sublime sensations should be enough for any man. Or so my girlfriend tells me."
Case in point: that popular destination for sticky-fingered web snurfers, Clean Shorts. Removing our shoes to climb over the puppy pile, we open the safe and pull out two tattered scraps of parchment:
1. "It's really not his fault that I am the way I am, that I fall to my knees the instant he expresses a desire that I suck on his long, lean cock. That I spread my pussy lips wide for him the second his gaze indicates his intention to lick my always swollen clit." 2. "Imagine a dream world, if you can, one infused with a pale wash of color, pastel shades. Now imagine the softest of sounds and the most delicate of flavors, and a searing, sweating, intense heat. And now mix all that up with the smooth and sexy haze of slow motion, so that every touch, every sigh, seems to last an eternity."
It doesn't take an artistic license to figure out whether the above passages are oral, anal, nasal, vaginal, or even erotic or pornographic. So what's the booty of our investigative jugularism? Well, for an erotica site, Clean Shorts has a definite propensity toward pornic blurbishment (#1). But the weird thing is that both passages are from the very same story, Intensely Evan by Katy Terrega. That's the thing about Clean Shorts, you can't put it in a box. Maybe erotica versus porn is a false dicotyledon after all, like human versus animal, or foreplay versus going for the O. Maybe there's room for both. Maybe great writing about sex needs both. Maybe either one alone is missing something. Eroticorn! Pornotica! It's a Brave Nude Whirl and the breast is yet to come.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
its a beautiful feeling when u love somebody
A Wet Dream.....
It has been a long day full of lazy laughter after deep discussion of silly things, a lot of cold alcoholic beverages, hot summer sun that darkens our skin as we lounge beside the refreshing cool blue pool.
We are silenced only by the, aw, of a breath taking sun set. Our friendship has grown stronger this day. We have learned so much about each other. There is a mutual feeling of closeness though we do not discuss it, there is no need to, and both of us feel this from each other.
Warmer than the afternoon sun is this feeling. Night has slowly risen from the dusk, as we sit silently listening to the sounds of crickets discussing the day they have had. We both sigh with mutual contentment of the comfortable silence between us. I feel as though there is a tug to my left and I slowly look over to find your eyes.
You are lit only by the light of the glimmering pool and the reflection of the full moon that now hangs above us in the sky. As if I were star gazing, I find myself deep with in your eyes. There is a soft yet primal feel that is extremely sensual. A small smile appears on my face as if I am in approval of this feeling we are sharing in this quiet moment, just you and I, alone, together.
You then stand and express the need to take a dip to cool off. I smile widely and my eyes follow you as you walk into the water. Its light takes you over with each step. You plunge yourself under and swim to the far end of the pool. As you surface in front of the pool light I can not pull my eyes from you and your body now in silhouette.
I am so over taken by the beauty before me that I sit up from my lounge and I feel the face of want and desire over come me. I am not aware that you can see my expression and stance change, but you do. I feel your eyes locked with mine. At that moment we almost dare each other to step beyond the bond of friendship to lovers.
Slowly you swim back toward me. You are still only a vision in dark shadows as you continue to move towards me. The shape of your well defined body causes my heart to pump fast within my chest. With anticipation and question I ask "Am I dreaming or is this real?" You stay silent as your ora of sensuality flows from you like the cool water from the warm curves of your body.
As you step from the pool I now realize that you have removed your bathing suit. I feel my body shutter with little earth quakes and say "This has got to be a dream." Now close enough to touch, you place your hands on my face and lean into my ear. "This is no dream." I remove my clothing so that we may feel each others flesh and our heart begin to beat as one as you cover me with only you.
We make love under the lunar and star lit heavens, until we lovingly embrace the beauty of a majestic sunrise. We rise together to find refuge behind doors for when sweet slumber over comes us and our weakened bodies we wish that our limbs be intertwined and our hearts as close to each other as we feel in our souls core.
i stole dis from http://whisperingbluespinx.blogspot.com/
It has been a long day full of lazy laughter after deep discussion of silly things, a lot of cold alcoholic beverages, hot summer sun that darkens our skin as we lounge beside the refreshing cool blue pool.
We are silenced only by the, aw, of a breath taking sun set. Our friendship has grown stronger this day. We have learned so much about each other. There is a mutual feeling of closeness though we do not discuss it, there is no need to, and both of us feel this from each other.
Warmer than the afternoon sun is this feeling. Night has slowly risen from the dusk, as we sit silently listening to the sounds of crickets discussing the day they have had. We both sigh with mutual contentment of the comfortable silence between us. I feel as though there is a tug to my left and I slowly look over to find your eyes.
You are lit only by the light of the glimmering pool and the reflection of the full moon that now hangs above us in the sky. As if I were star gazing, I find myself deep with in your eyes. There is a soft yet primal feel that is extremely sensual. A small smile appears on my face as if I am in approval of this feeling we are sharing in this quiet moment, just you and I, alone, together.
You then stand and express the need to take a dip to cool off. I smile widely and my eyes follow you as you walk into the water. Its light takes you over with each step. You plunge yourself under and swim to the far end of the pool. As you surface in front of the pool light I can not pull my eyes from you and your body now in silhouette.
I am so over taken by the beauty before me that I sit up from my lounge and I feel the face of want and desire over come me. I am not aware that you can see my expression and stance change, but you do. I feel your eyes locked with mine. At that moment we almost dare each other to step beyond the bond of friendship to lovers.
Slowly you swim back toward me. You are still only a vision in dark shadows as you continue to move towards me. The shape of your well defined body causes my heart to pump fast within my chest. With anticipation and question I ask "Am I dreaming or is this real?" You stay silent as your ora of sensuality flows from you like the cool water from the warm curves of your body.
As you step from the pool I now realize that you have removed your bathing suit. I feel my body shutter with little earth quakes and say "This has got to be a dream." Now close enough to touch, you place your hands on my face and lean into my ear. "This is no dream." I remove my clothing so that we may feel each others flesh and our heart begin to beat as one as you cover me with only you.
We make love under the lunar and star lit heavens, until we lovingly embrace the beauty of a majestic sunrise. We rise together to find refuge behind doors for when sweet slumber over comes us and our weakened bodies we wish that our limbs be intertwined and our hearts as close to each other as we feel in our souls core.
i stole dis from http://whisperingbluespinx.blogspot.com/
Monday, January 02, 2006
Thursday, December 29, 2005
The Classics
The Perfumed garden
http://books.google.co.in/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&id=KzCwOqNTA14C&dq=the+perfumed+garden&prev=http://www.google.co.in/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dthe%2Bperfumed%2Bgarden%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch%26meta%3D&lpg=PA5&pg=PA7&printsec=4&sig=pqCX38rEuqTaIceUTrDuDxA9R88
Sexual Politics- Kate Millet
http://books.google.co.in/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0252068890&id=QyjyLeqQ1akC&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=mein+kampf&prev=http://books.google.co.in/books%3Fq%3Dmein%2Bkampf&sig=rp7Wf4hZ9X817ysOh2hpKxLwjrw
Books That Changed the World
http://print.google.co.in/print?id=E_WkyVZOn3UC&pg=PA327&lpg=PA327&dq=mein+kampf&prev=http://books.google.co.in/books%3Fq%3Dmein%2Bkampf&sig=jkj0M0f5sXqv0kKsSS6t_nVzLMQ&auth=DQAAAG8AAAB8Onx-iKYxQrrfQgrxFhw1f9XnTPNV-1bwENviuRipYN68NVvn77xLG_y2lVvqlu1u9I-XCNtcKITvrLDbtT3qpp0mAXsc2wrlWjoUG9bo0N3SKrh2uqXQe-fml9WssaNp1p7MFY7EEl-SgbO4wSFu
Books 1 - 10 with 65600 pages on books that changed the world. (0.10 seconds)
Books That Changed the Worldby Robert B Downs - Literary Criticism - 2004 - 352 pagesPage 1 - WORDS ARE WEAPONS Books have wielded an immense power for good and evil ...which foreshadowed the death and destruction of World War II • Harvey's famous ...[ More results from this book ]
How the Fender Bass Changed the World: Celebrating 50 Years of Electric Bassby Jim Roberts - Music - 2001 - 208 pagesPage 4 - Published by Backbeat Books 600 Harrison Street San Francisco, CA 94107 www. ...H.) How the Fender bass changed the world / by Jim Roberts. p.cm. ...[ More results from this book ]
How Christianity Changed the Worldby Alvin J Schmidt - Religion - 2004 - 441 pagesPage 95 - Cited in Will Durant, Caesar and Christ A History of Roman Civilization and ofChristianity from Their Beginnings to AD 325 (New York: MJF Books, 1971), ...[ More results from this book ]
Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the Worldby Chris Lowney - Religion - 2003 - 336 pagesPage 30 - Asia and the Americas had begun to appear on the world map—the European ...publishers inundated Europe with more books in a fifty-year period than had been ...[ More results from this book ]
Ten Geographic Ideas That Changed the Worldedited by Susan E Hanson - Travel - 1997Page 32 - Revolutions in the technology of reproduction have also changed the shape and... drawings, and books affordable to a significantly larger population. ...[ More results from this book ]
Five Equations That Changed the World: The Power and Poetry of Mathematicsby Michael Guillen - Nature - 1996 - 288 pagesPage 113 - Just that quickly, Orville had piloted himself and his brother right into thehistory books. It was the first time a self-powered airplane, controlled by a ...[ More results from this book ]
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terrorby Michael Scheuer - 2004 - 352 pagesPage 293 - New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1994, 92p. Magnus, Ralph H., and Eden Naby.... Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. ...[ More results from this book ]
Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander Von Humboldt and the Epic Journey of Discovery That Changed...by Brendan Cahill, Gerard Helferich - Science - 2004 - 384 pagesPage 334 - New York: Harmony Books, 2002. Greene, Mott T. Geology in the Nineteenth Century:Changing Views of a Changing World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, ...[ More results from this book ]
The Iliadby Homer - Poetry - 1991 - 683 pagesPage 6 - In the second to fifth centuries Ad)., the form and material of the books hadchanged: parchment with its longer life had replaced papyrus, and the codex ...[ More results from this book ]
The Kingfisher History Encyclopediaby Kingfisher Books - Juvenile Nonfiction - 2004 - 491 pagesPage 202 - ... the arts and sciences that eventually changed the whole world. Developed inthe 14405, Gutenberg's printing press with movable type made books available ...[ More results from this book ]
http://print.google.co.in/books?ie=UTF-8&q=books+that+changed+the+world&btnG=Search
http://books.google.co.in/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&id=KzCwOqNTA14C&dq=the+perfumed+garden&prev=http://www.google.co.in/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dthe%2Bperfumed%2Bgarden%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch%26meta%3D&lpg=PA5&pg=PA7&printsec=4&sig=pqCX38rEuqTaIceUTrDuDxA9R88
Sexual Politics- Kate Millet
http://books.google.co.in/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0252068890&id=QyjyLeqQ1akC&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=mein+kampf&prev=http://books.google.co.in/books%3Fq%3Dmein%2Bkampf&sig=rp7Wf4hZ9X817ysOh2hpKxLwjrw
Books That Changed the World
http://print.google.co.in/print?id=E_WkyVZOn3UC&pg=PA327&lpg=PA327&dq=mein+kampf&prev=http://books.google.co.in/books%3Fq%3Dmein%2Bkampf&sig=jkj0M0f5sXqv0kKsSS6t_nVzLMQ&auth=DQAAAG8AAAB8Onx-iKYxQrrfQgrxFhw1f9XnTPNV-1bwENviuRipYN68NVvn77xLG_y2lVvqlu1u9I-XCNtcKITvrLDbtT3qpp0mAXsc2wrlWjoUG9bo0N3SKrh2uqXQe-fml9WssaNp1p7MFY7EEl-SgbO4wSFu
Books 1 - 10 with 65600 pages on books that changed the world. (0.10 seconds)
Books That Changed the Worldby Robert B Downs - Literary Criticism - 2004 - 352 pagesPage 1 - WORDS ARE WEAPONS Books have wielded an immense power for good and evil ...which foreshadowed the death and destruction of World War II • Harvey's famous ...[ More results from this book ]
How the Fender Bass Changed the World: Celebrating 50 Years of Electric Bassby Jim Roberts - Music - 2001 - 208 pagesPage 4 - Published by Backbeat Books 600 Harrison Street San Francisco, CA 94107 www. ...H.) How the Fender bass changed the world / by Jim Roberts. p.cm. ...[ More results from this book ]
How Christianity Changed the Worldby Alvin J Schmidt - Religion - 2004 - 441 pagesPage 95 - Cited in Will Durant, Caesar and Christ A History of Roman Civilization and ofChristianity from Their Beginnings to AD 325 (New York: MJF Books, 1971), ...[ More results from this book ]
Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the Worldby Chris Lowney - Religion - 2003 - 336 pagesPage 30 - Asia and the Americas had begun to appear on the world map—the European ...publishers inundated Europe with more books in a fifty-year period than had been ...[ More results from this book ]
Ten Geographic Ideas That Changed the Worldedited by Susan E Hanson - Travel - 1997Page 32 - Revolutions in the technology of reproduction have also changed the shape and... drawings, and books affordable to a significantly larger population. ...[ More results from this book ]
Five Equations That Changed the World: The Power and Poetry of Mathematicsby Michael Guillen - Nature - 1996 - 288 pagesPage 113 - Just that quickly, Orville had piloted himself and his brother right into thehistory books. It was the first time a self-powered airplane, controlled by a ...[ More results from this book ]
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terrorby Michael Scheuer - 2004 - 352 pagesPage 293 - New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1994, 92p. Magnus, Ralph H., and Eden Naby.... Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. ...[ More results from this book ]
Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander Von Humboldt and the Epic Journey of Discovery That Changed...by Brendan Cahill, Gerard Helferich - Science - 2004 - 384 pagesPage 334 - New York: Harmony Books, 2002. Greene, Mott T. Geology in the Nineteenth Century:Changing Views of a Changing World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, ...[ More results from this book ]
The Iliadby Homer - Poetry - 1991 - 683 pagesPage 6 - In the second to fifth centuries Ad)., the form and material of the books hadchanged: parchment with its longer life had replaced papyrus, and the codex ...[ More results from this book ]
The Kingfisher History Encyclopediaby Kingfisher Books - Juvenile Nonfiction - 2004 - 491 pagesPage 202 - ... the arts and sciences that eventually changed the whole world. Developed inthe 14405, Gutenberg's printing press with movable type made books available ...[ More results from this book ]
http://print.google.co.in/books?ie=UTF-8&q=books+that+changed+the+world&btnG=Search