cliterature

From satire site NewsBiscuit:  “The BBC entered a new era this weekend with the launch of ‘BBC Hardcore’ – a free to air pornography channel intended to compete with the fastest growing area of digital broadcasting.”

I would have found the idea more clever if it really said something about our attitudes towards pornography.  The contrast between the anti-pornography stereotypes and the BBC’s staid but reliable image could be instructive.  However, by defining porn, even tongue in cheek, as: “large breasted women having sex with unlikely strangers” the writer reveals their attitudes are even more conventional than the modern (Torchwood producing) BBC.

Is the point actually to ridicule the BBC for no longer being as scared of sex or mired in the ‘oh, nursey’ school of bawdy humor?  Because, if so, we are not amused.  Perhaps it has been too long since I read ‘Private Eye’ and I am missing the point.

 p.s.: As for ‘The XXX Factor’ with Bruce Forsythe –I’d watch it.

Email received by me: September 17

Hello Emily Veinglory,

If you’re already using your real name and a real photo of you on your Red Room profile, thank you! If not, we’d like you to log into the site and update your name and photo before September 20th.

Red Room is a community of real writers and readers, like you. You are or want to be a writer in real life, so showcase that real life on Red Room by using your full real name and photo. We’d like you to build authentic relationships with your colleagues, new friends, and maybe even your heroes.

By being yourself, people will be more likely to click on your profile, want to establish a relationship with you, and read or buy your writing. You can feel more at home with your Red Room friends when you know who they really are, too.
Starting September 20th, 2008, real names and real photos will be required for all members (they are already required for authors). Here’s how to do it now:

[…various technical instruction redacted…]

If you have any trouble, we’re happy to help. Just email support@redroom.com and I, or another real person, will email or call to assist you.

Thank you for giving people the chance to be inspired by the real you. Please let me know what else we can do to make Red Room your favorite community.

Email sent by me, September 17th.

Dear Support

Could you please clarify.  I read this as saying that Red Room does not allow authors to by listed by pen name only.  That being the case I doubt I will be the only one who will simply delete my account. Could you tell me the easiest way to do this or perhaps do it for me as I will be unable to comply.

Since opening my account I have not noticed any (0) traffic from this account I am not seeing a clear benefit to conflating the writing I do under my given name with the writing I did under my pen name (which includes erotic content) in order to maintain this account.  Not to mention that doing so would likely make public elements of my sexual orientation which may still be used in the US as a basis for terminating employment.

Emily

 September 20th: Policy presumably takes effect

 September 29th: Still no reply or phone call.  My account still seems to be in place under my pen name.

The Jewel of Medina is a novel about A’isha, a wife of the prophet Mohamed.  It was precipitously dropped by Random House (due to the topic potentially offending some Muslim groups) and picked up for distribution in the US bu Beaufort Books and in the UK by small press Gibson House.  Today Gibson House was subject to an arson attack, thwarted by some apparently very effective monitoring and law enforcement efforts.

Personally I am not overly interested in Sherry Jones’ novel, but I would certainly strenuously defend the right of the author to write it and the publisher’s right to produce and distribute it.   And I am pleased to see, at least int he UK, those rights under the law are being given active support by the authorities.

I also think that is is interesting that the commentator who started this kerfuffle, American Professor Denise Spellberg, used as the ultimate basis for her objections that the book was pornography–a claim I rather doubt but I wonder why it holds such power to insult? Spellberg reportedly said: “You can’t play with a sacred history and turn it into softcore pornography”. To which I feel I must answer, in a society governed by secular law and ethics: why can we not?  Even if this was the case, and in poor taste, on what basis should it be suppressed?  Because art must abide by the edicts of every faith pracrised between its borders?  Because Jones and the poor reader shall go to hell for their unladylike temerity? 

Jones is quoted as responding: “I feel that the people who resorted to violence are responsible, but [Spellberg’s] use of the word ‘pornography’ has done nothing to help the situation.”  Which is no doubt true but uses as her defence that the book is not pornographic, rather than the equally valid: what would it matter if it was?

Some clerics are warning that more deliberately lethal attacks may be in the works–apparently some consider it appropriate to defend the honor of the prophet by killing women. And that the very idea of describing the prophet loving his wife is seen as an offense to this honor–or is it just depicting him at all?  I wonder if any of them have actually even laid eyes on the book which has yet to be released to the public.

Beaufort Books is still planning for an October 15th release.  I may buy a copy, just to show support. 

I was attending a dinner at the National Academy of Science.  It was a mixed crowd and I had some fascinating discussions.  But after a few glasses of wine it was time to step out discreetly and find a bathroom.  I made a beeline for the most likely place, to one side of the entrance.  But peering around the pillar I saw it was for MEN… no WO.  It seemed logical to go to the symmetrically positioned location on the other side of the door.  But I stood there, bemused to find only what looked like a small reading room or waiting area. 

After a lap around the foyer revealed no other bathrooms I went up the stairs.  I fairly quickly located another bathroom, also for men.  At which point a security guard appeared and said dolefully, “you’re not meant to be here.”

No shit.  Literally.

He took me back downstairs, across the foyer to an unmarked, closed door.  We crossed a room with a meeting table and chairs, through another door and down a corridor were a women’s facility with three stalls could finally be found–oh, and another one for men.

The days of overt sexism are finally beginning to recede.  But it remains embedded in our institutions, right down to the architecture and we will never truly be free of it until we have not only the intention to be unbigoted, but also (with apologies to the bard) all of the trappings and the en suites of ‘wo’.*

* But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe. [Hamlet]

What do you think is the last sexual taboo?  A sexual orientation or lifestyle nobody would believe it was normal or permanent, so that almost everyone would advise you to seek treatment, ask if you had a traumatic sexual experience or just hadn’t had ‘proper’ sex yet and seen the light?

How about asexuality?  Have you seen an asexual pride floats?  Do you know of any asexuality symbols (shown here)?  Can you name a celebrity that has come out as asexual?  Be honest here… if a friend or family member told you they were asexual, what would you think?  Would you even be sure what they meant by it?

It is a sign of the times that the last sexual demographic group of people still feel to openly say is just a disorder is the sexual ‘aberration’ of not wanting to have sex.  For more information visit AVEN: the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network.

I am reminded of my time in highschool durung the ‘girls can do anything’ campaign.  Some teachers seemed to interpret any girl’s ability to do math and science as a reason why they shold elect to learn those subjects even if it did not interest them. 

 There only a problem is if you are not happy and comfortable with what comes naturally to you.  A normal woman can be sexual, any kind of sexuality, and that includes none at all. 

Commentators seems to be constantly surprised and dismayed by the interest straight people have in gay and lesbian erotica.  It seems we are all meant to inhabit a tidy world where each person only lusts after one gender and the other gender is about as exciting as a coat-stand (notwithstanding that there are no doubt a few coat-stand fetishists out there)

 For example, Ashlye Tellis writes: “One of the most infuriating things about straight men is their professed interest in lesbian porn. Straight men are so assured of their place in the world, they think the frame of the lesbian porn scene is merely waiting for their entry … All these women need is a d**k, is what they argue. “

Straw man argument aside, there is a leap here from the bemusing fact that men watch women together to a very gendered all-encompassing interpretation as to why they do it.  How is it gendered?  Well, women show an equal and opposite interest in gay male erotica (e.g. slash, MM, yaoi), albeit more often in written rather than visual forms.

Does this mean they are so assured of their place in the world that they think gay men are just waiting for them and their magic c**t?  To be honest this interpretation is probably right on for a small minority who prefer voyeurism scenarios leading to MFM.  But actually the MM fandom is very diverse.  There are many explanations and most of them are probably correct for some people, but none apply universally.

And whatever the motivation might be, what is acheived by denying the legitmacy of the response (”professed interest”) or somehow denying its logic, legitimacy or moral standing.

This kind of regulation of desire didn’t play when it was done to women (e.g. Freud’s theory at clitoral arousal was ‘infantile’ and vaginal stimulation alone should suffice, not to mention all those charming theories about hysteria, frigidity and nymphomania).  Women have fought very hard to be free to have their own desires, as diverse and perverse as they please so long as nobody gets hurt.  It seems only fair that what is good for the goose should also be permitted for the gander: the freedom to choose erotica we like, without fear of slander.

Well, you can start by being as famous as Sharon Osbourne. She has reportedly been offered a deal for her next novel, which is to say her first novel. Well… of course it will be no such thing.

Both of Osborne’s two memoirs (also published by Little Brown) were ghost written and when it comes to the novel “Osbourne will work with a ghostwriter, but will come up with many of the ideas herself” according Little Brown’s publishing director.  Now doesn’t that sound arduous?  But wait, there’s more, there are plans for this an Osborne novel to become an annual event.

Mainstream publishers increasingly depend on blockbusters and the quickest way to hit the best seller list is on the coat tails of a well-branded celebrity.  So, no doubt Ms. Osbourne will be laughing all the way to the bank and more power to her.  Meanwhile those suckers out there putting in the time to develop their skills as novelists can only grind their teeth as they paddle around in the slush pile… or start looking for lucrative ghostwriting gigs.

The debate about whether nudes shown in art are erotic or not, is a bit about the debate about whether men and women can just be friends.  That is, it is stupid.  I don’t even understand what kind of life you would have to live to not have ever had an opposite sex friend you didn’t bonk.   Either very sheltered or very busy I guess.

Of course people can be depicted naked in a way that is not erotic.  The stacked bodies at death camps were not sexy.  Breast feeding mothers, nudist beaches, saunas.  Being naked is not just about sex.  Although many of us now do in fact lead lives where we see very little nudity other than our own or prior to sex.  That, I think, is rather sad.  Perhaps it does condition some people to get turned on even by a naked table leg.

But yes, there are non-erotic nudes. Spencer Turnick, for example, bypasses the libido with sheer numbers and inert, headless poses. My main reaction to his extensive and repetitive use of mass nude crowd scenes around the world is that is suggests a peculiar fixation, but not a fetish.

But I find it interesting that many artists promoting their creation or viewing of nude art as non-erotic focus on depicting one or a few conventionally attractive models or the opposite sex in their child-bearing years.  The insistence of a lack of erotic content arises generally from religious morality or a disdain for producing low genre ‘porn’–not from the depiction being intrinsically non-sexual.

In fact, the angst that comes up over and over is most often a debate about whether the work is art or erotica (a.k.a. porn).  This is also a stupid question.  A picture can cause a person to be aroused without ceasing to be art.  And human diversity being what it is almost any depiction of anything will arouse someone.  (a.k.a.it is a false dichotomy)

Now it seems we are trying to obliterate any picture anyone might be aroused by in a way we don’t approve of.  Most obviously in the case of children and teens, not matter what the artistic merit might otherwise be.  People variously argue that whether something is erotica depends on the artist’s intent, or the viewer’s reaction (which ones?), or simply something you know when you see it.

The real question is: why do we care so much?  What is the big deal with some people getting turned on by pictures, whether we approve of that response or not.  Anything they might subsequently do remains entirely their own responsibility.

Queen Elizabeth I once famously defended freedom of religion by saying she had ‘no desire to make windows into men’s souls’ (even though she believed their eternal souls to be at stake).  So why do we keep trying to draw the curtains on their libidos?

This cover was withdrawn from the shelves of Lifetime Christian Bookstores. It is an event that helps me remember that people are deeply offended by women for reasons other than sexuality, Sometime it can just be that a fully-clothed, responsible woman is not in her ‘place’–these women are female pastors.

“We have removed the September/October issue of Gospel Today from our shelves because the cover story, featuring female pastors, clearly advocates a position contrary to our denomination’s statement of faith, the Baptist Faith & Message,” Chris Turner, a spokesman for Lifeway Resources, told The Christian Post. [quoted from The Christian Post]

 “It is contrary to what we believe.” [Same speaker qoted from RightWingWatch]

It seem perculiar to me that just seeing the traditions of other denominations should be considered so unacceptable as to be considered visually obscene.  A window into another word, I suppose.  I mean what would cause a similar level of disapproval in me?  Perhaps a magazine actively promoting violence and hate crimes?

 Which leaves me wondering if representative of the book chain feel about female pastors like I feel about people who commit hate crimes.  To be honest I am having a little trouble wrapping my mind around it.  I am further confused by the fact the magazine is not on display but is still being sold under the counter–very much like explicit pornography in a mainstream store.

It seems that everyone is a little bit lesbian these days.  And its not that I doubt it, really.  I just don’t beleive it either. 

Every since Madonna and Britney (and I still have nightmares about that) it seems like very actress is frenching their female co-star on the red carpet (Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson), disclosing their secret lesbian crush (Megan Fox) or love of girl on girl porn (Aubrey O’Day)–with Kate Perry singing I Kissed A Girl in the background.

 I think acting lesbian for the ‘thrill’ of it really isn’t all that modern and free-spirited.  The message is not so much that being lesbian is okay–but that it is and remains transgressive rather than a perfectly normal romantic orientation.