The appearance of two pieces — one as op-ed, one as soft news — in the LA Times. One gives Rupert Smith added voice to the recent revelation that he wrote queer erotica when his literary career was flailing while the other profiles literary erotica via Melanie Abram’s Playing. Why? Because the LA Times did away with its book section earlier this year. Would it have covered these topics anyway or did the format change somehow free its writers to delve into the previously neglected margins of writing? Hmmm.
My own recent discovery that the Kinsey Institute provides sex awareness podcasts. I don’t know how long I managed to overlook this (“hmmm”), but the institute cuts a broad swath in answering our curiosities, for which I’m grateful because a lack of dialoge has almost always resulted in ignorance among us, the masses. Another “hmmm”: that NPR provides one of the site’s syndication feeds.
My final “hmmm” comes with a hardy congratulations to Rachel Kramer Bussel for being the object of an extensive profile of her Best Sex Writing 2008 collection. (PDF available here.) My curiosity is piqued because the profile originated in India. Quite likely, it constitutes breakthrough sexual writing of its own.
Despite being the home of the Kama Sutra, Indian society is actually rather conservative about the public portrayal of sexual expression. When Indian newspapers discuss “erotica” in Hindi films, they’re not arguing about porn in the Western sense of the definition. They’re trying to cope with the the mere act of kissing.
See now why Richard Gere got in trouble when he planted a big one on actress Shipla Shetty?
Now I don’t want to sound negative about Indian sexuality. In matters of sex, I don’t see India as a prudish state, just an intensely private one. I’ve watched enough Bollywood movies to know Indians relish love,romance, and all they infer. In fact, when I’m feeling cynical about love, romance, and marriage, a Bollywood movie always renews my spirit. But because I’ve long been aware of Indian society’s sense of privacy, I can’t help but feel that First City Magazine has drawn a new line in the sand — and then daringly stepped over it.
