If a sexually explicit novel is exploitative one can say so, and say
why, without resorting to the use of a puritan vocabulary overladen
with emotional connotations. If a picture is stimulating one can call
it stimulating, and explain in what ways it stimulates, without
needlessly coloring the argument by labelling it
"pornographic" or "obscene." Obscenity — like
beauty, truth, and contact lenses — rests in the eye of the
beholder.
Even one of the most liberal advocates of the freedom to read and see
sexually explicit art, Peter Webb, author of The Erotic
Arts (1975), completely loses his case when he accepts
one definition of "pornography" by saying that it is linked
to "obscenity" rather than to "eroticism." As I see
it, the adjective "erotic" is simply used to describe an
obscenity more than a hundred years old. It is very much a matter of
the hallowed past, and a game with words that operates on the principle
by which "second-hand" furniture eventually becomes
"antique." At least in popular usage.
In Webb's more metaphysical approach — and all attempts to define
"pornography" become murky — he introduces a "vital
distinction" between these terms by claiming that the former is
masturbatory while the latter is "celebratory." What kind of
sentimental mush is he trying to set before us? Masturbation is as
"celebratory" as anything else: it celebrates the pleasures
of one's own body. Masturbation for Webb is apparently as much a vice
as it was for the Victorian quacks.
Attempts to define "pornography" ultimately founder upon the
difficulty of determining the reader's or viewer's reaction (in fact
they all seem to rest upon whether or not a male reader achieves an
erection when confronted with such material). The difficulty with this
is the immense variability of human response: one person may be
"turned on" by a perfectly "harmless" and
"innocent" description of horses, while another may require
lengthy descriptions of black shiny boots before he can achieve orgasm;
nor can we discount the fact that sexually explicit material of the
coarsest "pornographic" nature turns many people
off.
The other difficulty of defining "pornography" — besides
the fact that it really does not get us anywhere — is that the
term does not exist in a vacuum, but is invariably part of a puritan
complex which always concludes its argument thus: "therefore, it
must be banned." Now, censorship is a serious issue, and I am not
so simpleminded as to advocate the total abolition of all forms of
censorship — which would mean, for example, that newspaper editors
have the right to refer to black people as "niggers."
However, I refuse to wholeheartedly enter this debate as long as
censorship is aimed almost exclusively at sexual matters. This
obsessive concern with cocks and cunts (I apologize for being coarse,
but that is what it boils down to) seems to be fundamentally misguided,
and founded upon the principle that the greatest source of pleasure is
essentially and inherently evil. That simply will not do.
I do not wish to obscure the fact that there are many important issues
to consider before one comes out either for or against the full
legalization of "pornography," its production and
distribution.
First and foremost is the charge that "pornography" degrades
women. My impression is that, in general, this seems to be true; but
when hard pressed I am utterly unable to define "degrading"
any more clearly that I can define "obscene": it
also rests in the eye of the beholder. For
example, the placing of women upon a pedestal of purity often denies
them their sexual rights — which to my mind is far more degrading
than showing them to be actively interested in sex. If I were a censor,
I would be far more likely to discourage writing which teaches women to
be subservient to men and their family role, than writing which
demonstrates that women desire sex as much as do men and can dominate
in sexual decision-making (the fact that they may wear spiked boots and
wield whips is really irrelevant). In other words, I would censor
women's magazines and religious tracts far more readily than so-called
"pornography." Nor should we forget that a basic assumption
of some "pornography" is that all human beings are
animalistic in their lusts: this goes for men as well as women, and in
this respect the "degradation" of the sexes is about equal.
A second important charge is that "pornography" degrades the
very quality of the erotic life. Much sexually explicit writing is
admittedly unattractive: sloppy drawings, crude vocabularies, vulgar
humor. Dirty books tend to leave a foul taste in the mouth, and to
reinforce feelings of guilt. But I do not see that this is any concern
for courts of law.
A third charge is that the reading of "pornography" results
in harmful behavior. But merely to assert that smut is bad for you is
not nearly enough: each person has the right to go to hell in his or
her own fashion. One dare not underestimate the intellect or
commonsense of the people: they do not need to be protected from things
which they can decide for themselves. Censorship laws are nothing if
not patronizing. They assume that we haven't sufficient mental powers
to realize that some scenes in "pornography" are fantasies
and ought not to be carried into practice (for example, hanging oneself
to achieve erection, which indeed some men regularly try to do, and
sometimes fail to release themselves in time).
There is the danger that mutual masturbatory rituals in a sex club can
lead to wilder and wilder experiments and dangerous games — but
this happens with or without the aid of bizarre sex manuals. Surely I
have the right to inform you that some people insert their fists into
the rectums of their partners. I need not tell you that this can be
dangerous in order to exculpate myself from a charge of being
"pornographic." If my matter-of-fact observation cannot be
prosecuted, why, then, should sexually explicit descriptions of such
acts be banned? Surely it is not because such "stimulating"
descriptions make the acts seem desirable. This is simply not true: the
description may well end up showing the death of the partner — as
in the concluding pages of Teleny, doubtfully
attributed to Oscar Wilde, in which a man inserts a large bottle or
vase into his rectum, the glass breaks, and he bleeds to death, unable
to get out the broken fragment. This tale has a moral.
Well, enough of my random thoughts for now. Let us turn from the
question "What makes a good book dirty?" to a more
interesting question: "What makes a good dirty book?"
Good porn — often like good sex — is gradual, slow and
methodic. The very word "slowly" renders more exciting any
description of rubbing, thrusting, stroking, whipping or whatever. The
one exception is ejaculation, which is best described as
"spasmodic jerks." But if the sexual narrative itself is
spasmodic and jerky, it generally fails to produce the physical tension
necessary for a good erotic read. One of the rhetorical techniques of
portraying erotic gradualness is the repetition of degree-terms, the
most common being "lower and lower," "harder and
harder," or "deeper and deeper." The best anatomical
descriptions are lovingly detailed, and proceed at the snail's pace of
a large-scale geographic survey. As John Donne wrote in the seventeenth
century: "Licence my roving hands, that they may go before,
behind, between, above, below — Oh my America! My New-found-land!"
One of the reasons for this slow charting is obvious: each scene in a
wicked work should be directly linked to the
actual amount of time a reader requires to be
aroused, to achieve climax, to sink happily into lethargy: the longer
the narrative, the more stimulating the foreplay with oneself. Too-abrupt shifts to new scenes of debauchery result in a slackening of
physical tension, and perhaps its loss rather than release.
Journalistic heterosexual porn is usually much too abrupt and swift to
leave any time for arousal, as in the following, from
Esquire:
Unfortunately even many "unexpurgated" editions are not
complete, and have omitted a homoerotic passage in the interests of
heterosexual propriety. Now this is manifestly discriminatory —
particularly since even the lesbian passages have remained
unexpurgated. The gay passage did not appear in the very first edition,
and it is possible that it was inserted into a later edition by the
bookseller Samuel Drybutter, who according to tradition (possibly
erroneous) was pilloried in 1757 for selling copies of
Fanny Hill. In 1770 and again in 1774
Drybutter was arrested for attempted sodomy. He was satirized as a
sodomite in pamphlets such as Sodom and Onan
(1776), and there are contemporary prints illustrating the hangman
trying to lead him to the gallows, but he escaped execution by fleeing
abroad.
The missing passage concerns two men whom Miss Hill secretly observed
during her trip to Hampton Court. The reader will note that Cleland (or
is the author here Drybutter?) describes the event with the utmost
delicacy and refinement — and no little coy humor — and uses
the technique of methodical slowness described above. The diction is
sometimes over-eloquent, but not devoid of literary excellence:
Slipping, then, aside the young lad's shirt, and tucking it up
under his cloaths behind, he shewed to the open air those
globular fleshy eminences that compose the Mount Pleasants of
Rome, and which now, with all the narrow vale that intersects
them, stood displayed and exposed to his attack, nor could I
without a shudder behold the dispositions he made for it. First,
then, moistening well with spittle his instrument, obviously to
make it glib; he pointed, he introduced it, as I could plainly
discern, not only from its direction, and my losing sight of it,
but by the writhing, twisting, and soft murmured complaints of
the young sufferer; but at length, the first straights of
entrance being pretty well got through, everything seemed to move
and go pretty currently on, as on a carpet road, without much rub
or resistance; and now, passing one hand round his minion's hips,
he got hold of his red-topped ivory toy, that stood perfectly
stiff, and shewed, that if he was like his mother behind, he was
like his father before; this he diverted himself with, whilst
with the other he wantoned with his hair, and leaning forward
over his back, drew his face, from which the boy shook the loose
curls that fell over it, in the posture he stood him in, and
brought him towards his, so as to receive a long breathed kiss;
after which, renewing his driving, and thus continuing to harass
his rear, the height of the fit came on with its usual symptoms,
and dismissed the action.
Copyright © 1977, 1998 Rictor Norton.
CITATION: Rictor Norton, "Problems of Pornography", Gay History and Literature, 1 October 2003 <http://rictornorton.co.uk/pornogra.htm>
"Pornography is any matter or thing exhibiting or
visually representing persons or animals performing the sexual act,
whether normal or abnormal." — Ernst & Seagle,
To the Pure, 1929
However narrow, quaint and prudish the above definition seems to be
today, I don't think our modern definitions, however permissive, are
any less narrow, quaint and prudish. This is because the term
"pornography" is without exception a
pejorative description of something that is
sexually explicit. Those who do not automatically regard sexual
explicitness as A Bad Thing will be unable to use the word
"pornography" in intelligent discourse.
"NOW I'll show you what kind of organ player I
am!" he panted.
As a far more satisfying example of loose literature, let us conclude
this essay with an examination of the most famous example of all erotic
fiction, John Cleland's Fanny Hill, or the Memoirs of a
Woman of Pleasure, published around 1747-48. It is too
well known to merit a lengthy analysis, but most commentators agree
that it is one of the finest products of the erotic imagination —
indeed they take pains to free it from the stigma of
"pornography." This need not concern us overmuch, though we
will appreciate that the book is written with taste, style, elegance
and wit, and that its suppression as an "immoral" work is
today unthinkable.
"No, oh no!" she screamed.
He stopped his violent thrusting for an instant, and wadded the bottom
of her choir robes into her gaping mouth.
"Gwamph! oh gwoomph!" she cried.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!" he answered, shuddering as he
released his pent-up load. "Amen," he breathed as the police
arrived.
For presently the eldest unbuttoned the other's breeches,
and removing the linen barrier, brought out to view a white
shaft, middle sized, and scarce fledged, when after
handling and playing with it a little, with other
dalliance, all received by the boy without other opposition
than certain wayward coynesses, ten times more alluring
than repulsive, he got him to turn round, with his face
from him, to a chair that stood hard by, when knowing, I
suppose, his office, the Ganymede now obsequiously leaned
his head against the back of it, and projecting his body,
made a fair mark, still covered with his shirt, as he thus
stood in a side view to me, but fronting his companion,
who, presently unmasking his battery, produced an engine
that certainly deserved to be put to a better use, and very
fit to confirm me in my disbelief of the possibility of
things being pushed to odious extremities, which I had
built on the disproportion of parts; but this disbelief I
was now to be cured of, as by my consent all young men
should likewise be, that their innocence may not be
betrayed into such snares, for want of knowing the extent
of their danger, for nothing is more certain than that
ignorance of a vice is by no means a guard against it.
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