Pornography or Literature?

[Haltickling]

Following a rather interesting debate on a German forum of sex stories, I'd like your opinion on this topic:

What makes an erotic story "literature", and what makes it "pornography"? I find the differences quite puzzling sometimes. Henry Miller wrote about sex with a goat, Marquis de Sade described rather brutal S&M scenes in his "Justine" and "Juliette", Nabokov's "Lolita" even spoke openly about his lust for a 12-year old girl. This year's Literature Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jellinek is famous for her obscene theater plays and novels. Yet, any minor can order these books on amazon.com quite openly.

Yet, even the most sophisticated high-quality writing of amateurs are considered porn as soon as they deal with sexual matters. In our case, I'd think of the stories of Max Speer, Dave2112, Greenfeather, and several others; they undoubtedly deserve the "literature" label.

So, what makes a story "literature"? The author's fame? But didn't these authors mostly become famous as a result of their erotic stories? Some say that the "pornography" label wears off when the stories become older, after 30 years or so. But do they lose their pornographic content with age? I don't think so. Yet they are available for minors.

Please help me solve this puzzle! 😕

 

[milagros317]

Here is my definition of pornography, Hal, for what it's worth. Note that it requires knowing what was in the author's mind when she or he wrote the work.


Pornography is material created with the intention that people will use it to inspire themselves to masturbate.

At the age of 12, I used the women's underwear advertisements in the NY Times Sunday Magazine to inspire myself, but they were not pornography because the people who created those ads had the intention of selling bras and panties.

As to the intentions of Nabokov or de Sade, make your own judgement. 😀

PS: It is worth noting that pornography can be very well written, and supposed great literature (including some I was obliged to read in high school and was told was great) can be very poorly written.

 

[Knox The Hatter]

A very ill-defined difference between the two. A pedophile finds fully clothed children in ads out of magazines for department stores, and uses his imagination, does the material really constitute porn? Most of the people to whom this ad was targeted for are only looking at clothing that the retailer wants them to purchase.
Milagros has come up with the only definition that seems to truly make sense...

 

[Haltickling]

Hmm, I can't agree completely. Sure, this definition applies to some material, but not all. I can't speak for other authors of course, but my stories weren't written with the intent to provide masturbation material. I wrote them to express my erotic emotions. That's more in the definition of "art". Presumably, many erotic works were written with the same intent, to find an artistic expression for erotic emotions and fantasies. Nabokov and deSade are most definitely in that category. So, this explanation doesn't really satisfy me, sorry.

 

[steph]

I don't think there iS a right answer~the only answer lies in the eyes of the beholder, IMHO...

XOXO

 

[Knox The Hatter]

And, Steph, I believe the Supreme Court decision tried to rule along lines like that, which made many puritanical, tight assed people unhappy. Not up on the details...


PS: It is worth noting that pornography can be very well written, and supposed great literature (including some I was obliged to read in high school and was told was great) can be very poorly written.

As far as THIS is concerned, Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun" comes to mind, the most painful read I've ever had. William Faulkner's post WW2 material falls into the same category

 

[CuriousBunny]

If critics like it and no one buys it, then it's literature. If people like it and buy it in droves, it's pornography. Maybe not in all cases, but I would think in many.

 

[steph]

God, I KNOW honey~I used to be a free lance writer~Remember that pig Ed Meese and the millions OUR tax dolars went to having his jerkoffs sit around and well, jerk off, to hundreds of hours of it?
And people ask me why I always vote democrat. 🙄

XOXO

And, Steph, I believe the Supreme Court decision tried to rule along lines like that, which made many puritanical, tight assed people unhappy. Not up on the details...

 

[giantfan121262]

My definition which pretty much parellels to what Milagros said is that it depends on the intention of what the writer intends to do with his "audience". There are some other grey areas which IMHO can be interpreted by the reader and not the writer.

 

[Texas_Tickle]

Porn is really hard to define, because porn can be different things to different people. There is no one "cut and dry" definition.

 

[desdemona]

Well, personally, I think there is overlap. About a decade ago, there was huge controversy in this city about an exhibit for Robert Mapplethorpe's photos. I didn't get to see the display, but I did get to see the same pictures when I was overseas. There were several that I knew offended the bible-belt nay-sayers back home. It didn't take much imagination to determine that those photos involving children or homosexuals or tortured genitalia were "offensive" to many. So...to me, what is erotic probably describes something that doesn't offend my sensibilities...while to another, it is pornography. We each have our own moral definition of what we find offensive - some are more tolerant than others. To me, one of the most "pornographic" of the photographs involved a sword embedded into a watermelon - as I told a friend, that's the the most phallic symbol I've seen all day - he told me I read way too much into things 😛 I enjoyed the exhibit and had no problems with it at all - and since it was under a separate cover charge at the museum in Cincinnati, I don't understand why so many adults flew into such a tizzy. But that's the conservative midwest for you (and perhaps that's part of your answer Hal...whether we take a conservative or a liberal view of art of any kind...). Just my thoughts.

 

[steph]

I remembered seeing those shots (Mapplethorpe) to him it was "art."

Remember the Woody Harrelson movie where he played Larry Flynt? Some people thought he was a pervert hiding behind The Constitution, others thought he was the greatest champion of free speech whoever lived.
I'm not really into the porno thing but I have an odd sense of respect for the man.


XOXO

 

[desdemona]

Ah, another celebrated Cincinnatian...well, he remains a bit of a joke, but he still has his store downtown. And another out in Monroe. But his merchandise I would tend to call pornographic....shrugs. Doesn't mean he can't sell it to adults. Erotica in the form of literature or photographs...well, how do you think I learned about the facts of life? This is bible belt, all we got were pictures from an old health book and a talk about our monthly cycles. Not exactly informative stuff. But we've changed the focus of Hal's question...my apologies Hal.

 

[Amnesiac]

Hooo-boy

The definition of pornography changes with certain time periods so it's hard to nail down. At one time, it meant "any story or body of written or illustrative work involving characters who solicit the services of a prostitute" (as though that was the ONLY situation where sex can take place) but now the meaning seems to be applied broadly to any material that is sexually explicit or which can, through content provoke sexual thoughts...and this you can tie to just about any argument about WHY the hell sexual thoughts are bad. Pick a culture and its geodetic origin and you can fill a bookshelf the size of Canada with the discussion transcripts.

Personally, I think literature is a category where writing onvolves style, intelligence and creativity with deft and clever precision. Therefore, Joyce is literature...Dean Koontz is not. So therefore, if a story with sexual overtones has those qualities, it's literature. The criteria depends on who or what body you consult; thereis such a thing as classic literature where throwaway stories that survive today fall into, but they were not necessarily without talent.

That said, let me reveal a little truth about sexual material...

YOU CAN BEAT OFF TO ANYTHING...A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G

The case was already made on this thread...a pedophile can jerk off to the kids clothing section of a mail-order catalog, when CLEARLY that kind of material is not intended for such use. Anything can be made sexual to somebody with the right kind of experience or orientation. If Charlize Theron was on a billboard showing off a new line of high heels, most people wouldn't think ofit as sexual...whereas plenty of people here would practically veer off the freeway to not miss a glimpse of it. Antything can be fetishized, as most people here will attest.

Sexuality is subject to so many variables it LITERALLY is impossible to analyze outside of clinical categories relating to sexual dysfunction or mental illness. Unlike violence, you can't program people to respond to it universally; there are so many permutations concerning what can be sexual to someone that if you tried to get rid of them all there'd be nothing left...and then nothing would start feeling sexy too. I think that's a big reason about why sexuality is so frightening for people...it's too grey and variable; it appeals to individuals, not groups, and is therefore harder to control or regulate.

I think the only actual reason pornography is still attacked in the way it is is because of children. People with abberrant sexual behavior can be triggered by the slightest thing and then someone's life is ruined; the fact that these people can be provoked so easily is grounds for watching out.

On top of that, a less altruistic issue is that parents, ever the insecure and anxious worrywarts, are always always always uncomfortable with the concept of their children growing up into sexual beings. As a few of us can personally vouch, some of us get interested early, and sometimes withOUT the help of a perverted adult. Granted, most kids can sympathize (they don't like to see their PARENTS as sexual creatures) but on the flipside, kids can easily put that image out of their head while parents usually can't. I'm pretty sure that while the surface reason for cracking down on pornography is to prevent mental damage from premature exposure to porn...I'm equally certain that a more unconcious motive is to somehow "mold" the sexuality of children so that their sexuality will be tame and vanilla by the time they reach adulthood. The funny thing is that we all can realate to sexual misadventures in youth, why the hell do we keep thinking "THIS time we can make it different!"? And why would we WANT to? Doesn't that strike some people as sinister and weird?

Anyway, in conclusion, my thoughts on the matter are...above before my ranting...all ancillary reasons...they're below it and above this, LOL. Long story short, if you like porn, get it, if you don't, leave it.

There, done.