THE BANG-BANG BEAUTIES
Jumping-off point was a super-stripper called Ophelia Tietz (“Pronounce it, you’ll like it”). Next came the girls in a guerilla band (“Make love and war!”). They were followed by a buxom black voodoo queen (“Rise my little snake, rise!”). But the greatest challenge for Steve Victor was a jungle tribe of man-eating Amazons who licked their lustful lips when he fell into their hands. The man from O.R.G.Y. was on another great trip into action and adventure – and at every stop he tried his best to get off…
THE NINE-MONTH CAPER
Ted Mark
1965
(Dell reprinting 1973)
PROLOGUE
EROTICISM VERSUS PORNOGRAPHY
And what about Ted Mark?
A discussion about the difference between eroticism and pornography is continually hampered by the fact that both art forms1 are part of the same spectrum. A very simple though totally inadequate definition is that pornography is obscene while eroticism is not. This rejects the definition to that of “obscene”, which is just as challenging a problem.
A rather frequently found definition is this: Eroticism and pornography deal with the use of erotic stimuli to enhance sexual feelings and expression in the beholder. However, the deeper nuances of these two areas tend to be significantly different. Eroticism is seen as an artful expression of sexuality; it is considered “vanilla,” nonviolent, and sensual. Pornography, on the other hand, seems to correlate sexuality with some form of aggression and/or imbalance of male–female power relationships. The latter observation is frequently augmented by: pornography is excessive, emotion-less, without causality for the act, describing or showing genitalia very explicitly, often dealing in perversions.
This again bears the bears for defining such terms as “excessive”, “perversion”.
Possibly, the difference is one of degree. Thus Erotica is any depiction (visual, tactile, aural, olfactory, etc.) that elicits - or is intended to elicit - sexual response. Of course intention is in the mind of the perceiver; thus, what is banal to one person (eg a sculpture of a mermaid) may elicit sexual response in others. Generally, the more suggestive and explicit the stimulus the greater the possibility of the material being perceived either as erotic (stimulating and in good taste) or pornographic (crude, dirty, immoral, or obscene). In reality, this distinction is unhelpful and inaccurate, as extremely explicit descriptions and depictions can be at the same time both erotic and pornographic, or perhaps neither, despite the artist's intentions.
When scholars reflect on eroticism in the fine arts, they're frequently considering the human form as the artist has more or less idealized it, in other words they consider the intention of the artist. Whether the visual medium is drawing, engraving, lithography, painting, sculpture, photography, or film, they view the creator as striving to capture a certain almost inexpressible beauty about the human anatomy, or the act of love (as different from the act of sex). And since the very perception of beauty--or that which is aesthetic--is ultimately subjective, they're generally aware that one artist's sense of the beautiful might actually be another's plain or homely. Further, they can appreciate that an artist's perception of beauty might have as much to do with inner attractiveness, charm, or loveliness than with any outward glamour or seductiveness. What is laudable may not be "skin-deep" at all. The key element here isn't whether the composition of the face or figure is anatomically correct, or whether the art object's style is realistic, impressionistic, expressionistic, or anything else. If the work has been executed erotically, it's generally assumed that the creator viewed the subject matter as praiseworthy. Something to take pleasure in, celebrate, exalt, glorify. . . . And in this sense, the erotic and the aesthetic merge.
Not to say that the artist's work isn't also evocative. But, unlike pornography, it doesn't appeal exclusively to our senses or carnal appetites. It also engages our aesthetic sense, our judgment about how this or that figure illustrates an ideal of human beauty. The rendering may border on the abstract, or be as real as an untouched photograph. It may be black and white, or in color. Male or female. The humans portrayed may be contemporary and real, ancient or mythic. What finally determines the work's eroticism is how the artist (or, for that matter, author or composer) approaches their subject.
All art is interpretive, just as what's perceived as erotic is interpretive. And if eroticism represents a kind of beauty--though of a more alluring, provocative sort, and one that can engender a certain longing or desire--then erotic works actually can be seen as a "subset" of art in general. And if artists don't view their subjects as erotically beautiful--don't in some way betray their love (even lustful adoration) for them--it's unlikely that the beholder be so moved either.
Quite often pornography is defined as erotic art having a simple and unique purpose, depicted using extremely simplified formal structures, being one-dimensional in its effect on the audience and devoid of any complexity.
However, is this so?
(1) A simple purpose? It is tempting to think of pornography as having only one, very rudimentary purpose: sexual arousal of the audience. But a look at very early pornographic works, those that were produced in France and England between 1500 and 1800, shows how misleading that conception is. Almost all pornographic works of that era deliberately used the shock of sex to criticize religious and political authorities. With their truth-telling trope they were meant to function as a powerful antidote to the many forms of repression in society and often had the explicit aim to educate people about politics, religion, society, and of course, sex. It is not a coincidence that these books were known in 18th century France as “livres philosophiques” (they were considered just as dangerous to society as philosophical treatises) and that the rise in pornography around 1740 coincided with the hey-day of the Enlightenment. Quite a few of the pornographic novels of that time even carried the term “philosophy” in the title (think of Sade's La Philosophie dans le Boudoir, 1795) and some of them were actually written by prominent philosophers who were keen to use this extremely popular genre to divulge some of their ideas to the masses (think of Diderot's Les Bijoux Indiscrets, 1748).
In one of the most notorious examples of the genre, Thérèse Philosophe (1748), written by the philosopher Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, a great variety of copulations is used to communicate what is in essence a materialist and mechanistic metaphysics. In anonymous bedrooms, bodies brought together by individual need and interest collide and the bodies themselves are described as machines powered by the relentless motion inherent in matter, by passions they cannot controclass="underline"
The arrangement of our organs, the disposition of our fibers, a certain movement of our fluids, all determine the type of passions which work upon us, directing our reason and our will in the smallest as well as the greatest actions we perform. (Thérèse Philosophe)
Or, as the main character herself observes: