Sunday 16 January 2011

Why are many pornographic novels written as if by a woman?

Warning: the material below may disturb some.

Angela Carter (1878 1978)  in The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History answers:
Many pornographic novels are written in the first person as if by a woman, or use a woman as the focus of the narrative; but this device only reinforces the male orientation of the fiction. John Cleland’s Fanny Hill and the anonymous The Story of O,1 both classics of the genre, appear in this way to describe a woman’s mind through the fiction of her sexuality. This technique ensures that the gap left in the text is of just the right size for the reader to insert his prick into, the exact dimensions, in fact, of Fanny’s vagina or of O’s anus. Pornography engages the reader in a most intimate fashion before it leaves him to his own resources. (pp. 15-16)
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Also read Kristine Ong Muslim's "Preface to a Pornographer's Dirty Book"

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4 comments:

  1. 1878?! Really? Hmm.

    Wonder what she'd say regarding Jin Ping Mei.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I read too many Victorian things.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Betty told me her thoughts: "I haven't read a pornographic novel but my take is that the female narrative point of view in this case would have greater credibility simply because women tend to talk more openly on just about any topic, including matters of intimacy and even sex."

    ReplyDelete

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