Just to end on a humorous note, pornographers justify pronography by saying that it is educational, not artistic. It teaches people how to have sex.
I was also thinking about the fact that pornography leaves nothing to the imagination, and in doing so, it is a more complete art than any other genres of art. But then, art may be about cutting, editing rather than letting the scene run through.
Michaelangelo Antonioni's films, at times, reminded me of pornography, except that I was watching something intensely painful, just like a Bergman film. Perhaps in showing us the totality, it purges us of our fears and desires regarding the sexual act, and enacts a catharsis... *joking around*...
No Liana. Alina Reyes, yeah? I'll look out for her. Behind Closed Doors. O.K. it is now burned into my flu-ridden skull. Want to read a lot more erotica as research for a novella I've been writing on and off for a while. There was also something else you recommended a while back.. Cafe Europa? Who was the author again?
Reyes is also the surname of a character in a novel I've just finished (Matt Ruff's 'Set This House in Order'courtesy of the wonderful Peter Wild) which makes about three coincidences in the same number of days. I wonder if Matt Ruff has read her?? 'Set This House in Order' is effing marvellous, by the way. But that's another story...
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aha.. on my list for amazon, cheers. Although need to buy warm sweaters first. I wonder if Korea does some kind of rent-an-auntie scheme? Ply an old korean woman with hot chocolate for a week or so and she turns out some rather fetching jumpers for the winter months, ..kind of thing. It's an idea. But perhaps I'm asking a little much..
Anyway.. drifted wildly off-topic.. unless your idea of porn/erotica involves knitting and ovaltine.
Ahem.. back to the debate..
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Surely sex itself is artistic? I think when the follow the mass media perception of sex - we miss so much. The curve of a woman's leg...that is art, no?
Not read "Story Of O", Andrew, but one of my boys accidentally recorded the film one night (honest!) and I watched it the next night when they had gone to bed - I was not impressed, it was most unconvincing. I'll put it down to "research".
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You've completely hit the nail on the head there, Neil. Research for this particular novella may, in fact, be what is stalling it(!) What's the film like? I'm thinking early seventies, ..that early seventies kind of sheen to it ..misty, basically. Kind of a bad 'Women in Love' with lots more full frontal nudity.
Phillip- I'd say there's a difference between art and artistic. All art is representation is it not? Sex might be a 'creative' act but it can't be, in itself, artistic.. that's for the artist to decide(?) Otherwise it would be quite fine to display two people having sex in an art gallery, for example. But even then you would have lost the actual representative act.
In fact.. that's not actually a bad idea..
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I suppose I was meaning to imply in a very vague and clumsy way that sex is usually charged with meaning. There is something about the way erotic thoughts stick in one's head which is aesthetically pleasing in it's own way. I'm not at all sure about how 'art' should be defined. Perhaps my motivation is that life itself should be a work of art, in a kind of 'will to power' Nietzschean sense.
Interestingly in the 'early 'seventies an installation by the Italian performance artist Vito Acconci consisted of the artist concealed under a ramp, masturbating while vocalizing his fantasies (about visitors walking over the ramp!) into a microphone. Maybe we are not too far from your idea!
Would like to get hold of it neil.. might well prove to be an interesting addition to the research for this story (!) Really want to see Pasolini's movie version of De Sade's '120 Days of Sodom'. Anyone seen it? Pasolini was murdered shortly after it's release from what I can gather (don't know if this was connected, however)
I gave up on the book.. I like a bit of the old erotica as much as the next man but when you get to about page three hundred and some nymphet is still farting in a drunken lord's face it gets a bit tiresome. It reads much like an erotic shopping list.. but, as much as I like De Sade, I think it's really only good in small doses (a toilet book maybe? well, stands to reason I s'pose) or for quoting in front of jehovah's witnesses/relatives.
What do you lot think of De Sade? Do you think he was just a porn merchant for his own time or is there more to him than that? Although it's a bit naive to think porn is really a 20th Century thing. I'm sure they were just as randy back then as now. And, if so, what made De Sade so shocking?? France was obviously a lot more fervently religious.. so that may have more to do with it.
Phillip- It's been a while since I've read any Friedrich but how does The Will to Power come into his thoughts on art/aesthetics etc? You'll have to refresh my memory.
This Acconci bloke, wanking under a ramp, sounds interesting.. but I'm sure there are more comfortable places to have a rather intense one-to-one with the old man. Italians eh? I wouldn't want to see the state of their multi-story car parks if this is any way indicative.
(However I still think there's a bit of mileage in my 'sex in an art gallery' idea. The Tate Modern's a bit draughty though)
Have to say, this thread is becoming odder and odder.. We seem to be balancing carry-on style lewdness with God knows what else. Keep surprising each other, by all means..
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havent seen 'the story of o' as a film (i would probably fall asleep as is my wont during most films) but i have read the book, though admittedly a few years ago, and found it to be interesting.
That said, i read xaveria hollanders happy hooker exploits many years ago, and found those to be interesting too...
I recently picked up a 1950's paperback "not for sale to under 18's" book in a 2nd hand bookshop and found myself to be fascinated by the standard of what was considered to be corrupting to minors in the '50's. the section i read was indeed like a carry on film, lots of grappling with a corset on a sofa.
Well I haven't really read much of Nietzsche specifically about aesthetics, but upon consulting a few books it transpires that he wrote of artists as 'glorifiers' of 'all things (I actually typed thongs at first, oddly enough) which have the reputation of making man feel for once good or great or intoxicated or merry or wise'. There is in his writing on aesthetics a great sense of 'striving' to overcome the humdrum and the mediocre - the bourgeois material world.
He defined art as the '(good) will to appearance' which I think has a wonderful ring to it. Art as an emodiment of primordial energy which strives to make itself appear! I think if done correctly 'erotica' can become a glorification of human beauty and of making love with the entire body and soul, rather than simply the genitalia. Perhaps 'porn' is merely an embodiment of the latter. 'Erotica' is thus the sex of relationships - this I like as it reinforces monogamy, whereas possibly porn has the opposite effect.
When I said earlier that what is significant in erotica is 'what is not done', I meant that an entire scene could be written with the protagonists skirting around the act, without actually doing anything. That would be 'erotic' - if done effectively - but not 'pornographic'.
I think that's a bit of a high view of erotica that even its proponents would hesitate to claim, but it's sweet nonetheless. I don't like to see writers expounding purple prose to describe genitalia which is why a lot of erotica's very poor. Having said that, I've now written one or two things in the erotica category which I'll reveal when the site's back up fully - I'll show you mine if you show me yours!
Andrew; I haven't read De Sade but I don't think I'd like him - it's another form of exploitation of the powerless according to the articles I've seen about him.
* goes to work with indelible images of Liana grappling with a corset *
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happy hooker exploits.. sounds interesting..
oh, another question for you ..why, whenever I access my amazon uk account, am I bombarded with loads of cheapie erotica?? And should I start buying some of it?? As someone mentioned.. I wonder if the quality of some of this 'Anonymous stuff' is as good as Reage, for example.
I can understand you further clarifying that point about the erotic not being based on actual sex acts, Phillip.. I think it has something to do with what is described etc. All in the detail, maybe.. it's a very English thing isn't it?.. giving sexual context to something not specifically sexual.. symptoms of a repressed nation. But I'm sure we're not as stuffy as we used to be (anyone read any good english 'erotica'?)
I don't know how to really clarify my thoughts on how you categorize erotica and porn. I think I'd agree with what bosch and Liana were talking about earlier.. but, more than anything porn seems to exist only in order to 'get you off' (although that phrase might not clarify it very well, maybe) whereas with erotica your being-got-off is always attached to some other idea or concept. Maybe I'm on the wrong track but that's how I see it, I s'pose..
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What concerns me as a writer is how to write scenes of sexual activity in a way that's neither a turn on nor a turn off but simply a part of the action, equal with any other. It's a question that I've sidestepped until recently by not writing sex scenes at all, but now I've decided that a writer worth his or her salt should be prepared to write anything that is essential to a story - and since sex is an important part of life and crucial in many stories, I see no inherent reason to leave it out. In principle. The trouble is that a combination of the porn industry on the one hand and conventional social embarrassment on the other has hijacked much of the language available for describing sex. It's difficult not to make a fool of oneself, either by being too vile or too prissy.
One reason why I would not wish to deliberately titillate is that it would surely defeat my purpose to distract the reader from the overall story. I remember once I was watching a gritty political play at the Royal Court and was enjoying it very much; and then out of the blue came the horniest, sexiest, most erotic, most pornographic scene I have ever seen on the stage. The result upon my concentration was as you can imagine; the rest of the play went by in a blur.
By making itself putdownable the successful erotic story soils itself with its own seed.
d.beswetherick.
Just been rereading "Abigail And The Man" and "Breeding Pair"; Bes can do filthy and coarse sex or tender loving sex as the situation demands, which in both cases it does. I agree with you, you shouldn't stick sex scenes into a poor story to spice it up but there's no longer any reason to be unduly coy as nothing's taboo any more in literature at least.
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Andrew - yes that it what I am generally getting at. A stare can be erotic, or a casual comment. One of the most erotic pieces of writing I have read came from Salvador Dali's autobiography, and consisted of him holding his woman, pulling her hair back and shouting 'now what is it you want me to do to you?' - this was not violence in an oppressive sense, as she was enthralled and excited by him.
I think we need to be honest in our treatment of sex. There is a great sense of shame, particularly among more educated men, in finding certain things erotic. I'm getting a little sick of being a hypocrite. I sensed this a little in you, d beswetherick. Why anguish over whether you turn people on? It is not your concern - it is in the eye of the beholder. What if you simply describe a woman's dress, or how tall a man is, and people get turned on? How can you help it.
Look at a lot of sports - many women watch football and rugby solely for the male thighs - that was never the intention of Sky Sports was it? And can any man honestly say he doesn't get a little aroused watching women's athletics or tennis? Just go with it, the sex scenes - write what comes from your head, even if it is sordid and filthy!
Just to go back to De Sade for a sec.. I think one of the main feelings I got from what I read of the '120 Days..' was that he was trying to cram in as many perhaps random things as possible and sexualise them.. by putting them in an erotic context.. you definitely got the feeling that it was possible for human beings to be turned on by absolutely anything (if a person were to be wholly honest.. and laying all thoughts of morality aside) and, in such a way, assert their own humanity more powerfully in the process.
In fiction I wouldn't say we discover MORE about characters in an erotic context, as opposed to other perhaps more everyday situations.. but it seems that it definitely CAN'T be left out. I think we also learn a lot more about what morality is when there seems to be none at the surface.. in putting characters in situations where there particular sexual preferences are given absolute free reign.. to the point where they are not aware of them until they are actualised.
Genet is heralded as one of the great moralists in french literature (He was described as 'a moralist in the true sense' in that he, at no point, 'moralised') but his books are generally quite fragmented and open ended and not very conventionally plot driven. I think if a writer brings their whole self to the writing.. there's no story that can't be told.
Having said all that I'm not advocating what De Sade writes about.. particularly scenes of incest, paedophilia (I think what people find difficult to deal with about him is that his relish increases as the acts become more criminal ..in the eyes of the general populous) But we have to be very careful when it comes to censoring these things also.
In terms of writing about it ..I'd say it depends what you're particularly interested in saying ..or are good at saying. A friend of mine said that I should try writing childrens stories but, at the moment, I can't see any subject further from my own literary interests. I'm not ruling it out, however, half the battle of finding out what you want to say ..is finding out what you're shite at saying.
I think there is something quite painful about a writer 'finding his/her' voice, as they say. All those voices that you've tried on for size and found they don't quite fit.. where will they go?
I'd instinctually agree with you, as well, neil.. there is nothing taboo in literature anymore.. what I still am fascinated by is.. is there anything more taboo than taboo?? And would it be possible to have a modern day De Sade?? I'm rambling now, but there you go..
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I take your point, Phil, but the reason I don't wish *deliberately* to turn the reader on (as you say, what happens incidentally is beyond the writer's control), is that it would harm my artistic purpose. Brecht is an influence on me, though I don't suppose its obvious; like him, I wish to keep the reader's (audience's) heads clear - in the case of sex scenes, that to me means clear of interpretations to do with preconceived notions of pornography or prudishness. Of course, this intention is doomed. The great failure of Brecht's verfremdungseffekt was that people responded to his plays as they felt like responding, not as he would have liked them to. However, at least he tried to avoid the obvious - and for me, the porny scene is the obvious.
Neil, what I meant by saying that I'd avoided writing sex scenes was that I'd avoided writing straight sex scenes; the scenes you refer to had a comic or a romantic intention, which is easier to manage than a realistic one. What I'm concerned about at the moment is how to write a realistic sex scene, pure and simple. It's a big question, I think.
Oh, on your other point, Phil about educated men feeling shame about finding certain things erotic, I know what you mean.
In the first place, if other men are at all like me, they find some pretty inadmissable things erotic. But I don't believe they feel shame about that; it's just that they're necessarily careful about making it public, or, in our case, writing about it. Perhaps that's only prudent. I read a critic who said, "It's strangely creepy to explore how straight men feel about sex". We know that this response waits for us out there, which is why, on the whole, men who do not wish to revolt people leave writing about nitty gritty sex, as they leave primary teaching, to women.
But there is a way, I think. If the writer, male or female, sets out to write about sex in a way that takes male and female aspects of the experience equally into account, then I don't see why it should seem to be excluding or to reveal dark secrets. In principle, the task equates to the challenge of any other type of writing: tell a story, show empathy for characters, bring them alive, understand what it's like to be someone who's not you. Men are supposed to be poor at representing the female experience of sex in fiction, but I don't see why that need be forever the case. Ask women, talk, discuss, get women to read your drafts. Should we not fight this stereotype, if we are worth our salt?
Easier to duck the issue, though, I admit.
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