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From: turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: does healthy, mutual erotica exist?
Summary: That's a loaded question.
Message-ID: <18603@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 20 Mar 91 18:26:08 GMT
References: <9103191737.AA01224@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
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In article <9103191737.AA01224@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> albert_lunde@plato.nwu.EDU (Albert Lunde) writes:
> "Yellow Silk: Journal of Erotic Arts"
>
> (As near to "ideological" purity as anything I've seen, but not
> heavy handed about it.)

But is it erotic?  I asked this question here (or perhaps in another
newsgroup) about a year ago.  Does *anyone* find that the stories in
this magazine makes their pulse quicken, their juices flow, and their
desire turn to something sweaty and fun?  Does anyone find that they
cannot read it through without interruption so that their fingers turn
to more concrete lasciviousness?  Last time I asked this, not a single
person anwered in the positive.  However literate and ideologically
pure, unless it turns someone on, in a sexual not merely intellectual
fashion, then it is *not* erotica, regardless of how it advertises
itself.

> "On Our Backs: Entertainment for the Adventurous Lesbian"
> 526 Castro, San Francisco, CA 94114
> USA $28 / for six issues a year
>
> This is in part a reaction to the lesbian-feminist "political-
> correctness" on sexuality. ...

But without a doubt, it is erotic.  The original poster will not
like it, because it does not shy away from S&M.

> Without speaking for or against the larger issues, it is
> certianly possible to make a case that stuff like "Playboy"
> is suffering from a sort of erotic tunnel vision. ...

A tunnel more difficult to navigate than a nun's ...  Well,
you get the picture.

I suspect that mostly it is teenage boys who actually find
Playboy erotic.  Its adult readership is maintained, I suspect,
by the fact that it is *safe* erotica.  Playboy is to the average
man what Yellow Silk is to the liberal who thinks that leather is
a sign of evil.  In the crowds in which they run, neither will
have their politics nor their sexuality questioned by such a
choice.

Russell