Sunday's Literary Funday With Erotica and Porn.

I was going to go outside today. But it's raining and unless I'm in a bathtub or shower I am really not one of those people who likes to dance around in the rain like it's a misty kiss from the heavens. I hate it. I like listening to it, I don't mind watching it at a distance from a safe dry spot, but I really don't understand the avid jogger or dog walker who revels in a rainy day walk. I love you, but I just don't understand you.

So, in lieu of going for a walk at the park, which is what I really wanted to do today, I started cleaning the house. Without going into the details of it all I'll just say I was sorting recycling and got a paper-cut on my nipple. (This is precisely the kind of shenanigans single people who live alone get into. Why dress when you don't have to?) So now I'm taking a break because, it hurt, and it took a lot of motivation to start cleaning in the first place and yet so little to talk myself back out of it.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about today.

I was listen to an interview on the radio with an author the other day. He was talking about a book that he'd written and he said something that I've been thinking about over most of the last couple days and that was that he liked to refer to the sexual content of his books as pornography as apposed to erotica because he felt that calling something erotica was a pussy way of labeling it and that things should be labeled for what they are and for folks to stop being chicken shit. Seriously - for CBC it was a lively and colorful conversation. He said he sees things as more black and white and that he wished erotica would become more pornographic and that pornography would become more literary. *I wish I'd had a pen in the car, I'd have written down his name and the title of the book but now it escapes me.

I thought it was an interesting way to think about the subject matter - sex and portrayal of sex - and had me thinking about my own artistic endeavors and how I personally label some things. There are definitely some illustrations I'd categorize as erotic but mostly because they don't fit my personal definition or take on pornography.

The first picture in my coloring book collection is definitely explicit - depicting a strap on blow job. But aside from it's focal phallic object - there is no nudity, no exposed "genitalia" and only an implied suggestion of a (what I hope was a lengthy) physical exchange. Exchange of power, of emotion, of energy, of sex. It's all implied. I think that implication is what makes something erotic and not necessarily pornographic. Your brain makes up the rest of the story - that's erotic. Pornography to me is a matter of "what you see is what you get" - ass and tits, crude without the art. Both have their merits.

Disclaimer **I do however feel that some things that are categorized by popular opinion AS Porn fall more into my definition of erotica**


Maybe it's because I'm a woman and my sex organ is between my ears (mostly) but I tend to enjoy that artistic and implied exchange far more then the nearly mechanical act offered in most videos. Which I guess is why there is generally a complaint that most porn movies are made strictly for men. The players are all different but the acts are all the same. Perhaps the complaint should be, most porno videos are just not that well made...

Well, whatever your turn on literary, erotica, pornography, recycling or rain - I hope you have a steamy Sunday.

Love,
Rocket