A discussion of pornography, do not read

Today's Blog might end up being a bit NSFW, if a page of text can be regarded as Not Safe For Work that is, I mean, I can understand someone sat at the desk next to you being offended by being suddenly confronted with a picture of an oiled, pneumatic, professional female model, wearing just a natural suntan and a length of knotted string appearing on your screen, but not a page of barely legible writing.

Actually, hang on a second, thinking about that, I can't really understand. It might not be professional, it might not be what you're being paid to do, but the human body is a wonderful, beautiful thing... Well,I know mine is, I can't vouch for more than about fifteen other people's though.

I've worked in a lot of offices in my life and one thing I can say with surety is that I have seen many, many, more posters, calenders and desktop wallpapers that feature topless, oiled, zero body fat, elegantly coiffed, seductively posed, perfectly airbrushed, staring straight into the camera as if they are looking directly into your soul so that it makes you think they're in a relationship with you, MEN, than I ever have bikini clad WOMEN.

(OK, I've worked in a lot of factories and building sites where it was pretty much wall to wall boobage pictures, but that doesn't help my argument, so forget I said it, OK?)

I overheard a heated discussion between a pair of workmates once, in an office that we were upgrading. I think it was the guys birthday, and one of his mates had bought him an A2 sized poster of a Page 3 Girl, not a topless picture, she was dressed in swimwear, when a tweed clad harridan came storming across the office,

'Don't think you're putting that up in here!'

'Well, no, I was going t...'

'It's pornography, degrading to women, It's disgusting, it's against the code of conduct!'

The guy dutifully rolled up his poster and put it back in the tube, then looked at her and said, 'But what about the topless Fireman calender you have next to your desk?'

'Obviously that's different, it's just a bit of fun, you're just jealous that you don't look like that!'

OK, so she was obviously a cow, and I know that all women aren't like that, not by a long way, because I wish to remain in possession of my external sexual characteristics. Women are great... Oh yes, definately, I love me some women... Hoo yes... But, there seems to be a bit of a dichotomy where the old sexualisation is concerned, where the lines between erotica and pornography exactly are - Time for some definitions I think, via the OED:

Definition of pornography

noun



[mass noun]
printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate sexual excitement.
　
Definition of erotica

noun



[mass noun]
erotic literature or art.
Hmm... That last one wasn't a great deal of help was it? Let's see what erotic actually means then:

Definition of erotic

adjective
relating to or tending to arouse sexual desire or excitement:
Now, it might just be me, but it doesn't sound like there's any real difference between the two terms. I guess you could argue (If you were a twunt) that Pornography is actually intended to provoke a physical, sexual response by explicit, graphic, depiction, where Erotica just 'arouses the desire' as it were. Although I think that that might just be splitting hairs.

I think that a more reasonable, and easy to understand, division for the vanilla masses would be, if it's targeted at Men, it's pornography. Because men are base animals who like looking at pictures of glistening ladyparts. However, if it's targeted at women then it's erotica, because women are beautiful, cerebral, floaty creatures full of imagination, romanticism and passion.

I don't like to bring up this example because it's lazy, but it's the elephant in the room as far as this subject is concerned. E.L. James' Fifty Shades or Grey. Described by Amazon as 'An Erotic Romance', Strangely not described as 'A BDSM porno primer for the Twilight generation' The book that did more for the average birthrate of the English speaking world than anything since Kim Basinger got herself covered in Trifle in 9 1/2 Weeks.

Shouldn't it really be regarded as porn? I mean, you can't tell me that all of it's 65,000,000 copies have been purely read by people in stable relationships who have become heated whilst considering its adult themes and shown their love for each other physically after putting an interesting Guatamalan knitted bookmark carefully in the page and letting the cat out? Surely some have been read in ten minute sections by a young secretary in the disabled toilet cubicle at work with her Primark skirt up around her waist, some by students on the 08:34 from Ongar, where only one of their hands is visible above the table and the rythmic to-ing and fro-ing of the train masks any other hand movement that's being made? And still more, curled up on the sofa, with a box of chocolates, a glass of crisp chardonnay and no underwear?

But still, whaddo I know? Maybe they've all been bought by fifty-something unfulfilled people who get a kick out of thinking how naughty they're being, who am I to judge? As long as it makes you happy, and you don't do it in the crisps and snacks aisle of Sainsburys whilst there are kiddies about, more power to your elbow...

Actually, I suppose I could have put that better... Nevermind

But if you really want to read some porn that's directed at women, get yourself some Anais Nin. It'll put hairs on your palms AND it's well written, and that makes all the difference, trust me.