Full Exposure: Opening Up to Sexual Creativity and Erotic Expression by Susie Bright Read Free Book Online Page A

reproach you; I’ll build up the big expectation and then laugh at your wish for more. It’s that big tit, that winky-blinky bulge in the pants, that substitutes a carnival act for an erotic performance. What, you actually thought we were going to deliver on this choice little thrill? Sucker!
    It’s not just erotica that’s favored when it’s dipped in gold and made into a sales pitch—it’s every controversial sensation. The free-speech debate in the arts and media over violence and drugs is similar to the argument over sex. Each is a highly emotional issue that has become a tug-of-war over the power and privilege to decide who gets to see what—and how much they’ll pay for it.
    The greatest censorship we see today doesn’t come from moral standard-bearers yearning for simpler times—rather, it’s the all-out competition for information, an elite display of privilege and access. The debate isn’t anymore about what will be banned. Rather, the contest now is about who will be allowed to “see all,” and who will be kept in the dark. Puritans used to be more old-fashioned, wishing to keep their minds pure and uncluttered. Now they’ve been replaced by political opportunists, just as greedy as anyone else to get their hands on the information first.
    The business of titillation actually operates both high and low, on the one hand with big budgets and industry trophies, and on the other hand in the freak shows and unapologetic tabloids. What holds them together is their notion of the cachet of the forbidden and elusive.
    No one actually wants to eliminate all appearances of eroticism.
    The arguments that rage on are over their aesthetics, the

    message and the accessibility of the subject to the audience. Those debates aren’t stupid to consider, but their meaning has been degraded. Is aesthetics just a matter of how much satin and sheen you put on your product? The packaging may be gilt, but the insides can still be a big bag of hair.
    If we were honest with ourselves about our desire to touch and be touched by our most sensitive emotions, we’d put away the high-status perfume, and we’d concentrate on the most basic merits of what’s in front of us. I used to have quite earnest debates with people about what they thought was excessive sex in popular culture. I’d try in vain to solicit their artistic alternatives; I’d argue for the opportunities and insist that we need to express our most passionate emotions. But now I hesitate before I ask people if they’re willing to discuss erotic possibilities. Sometimes I just feel like reaching for my wallet instead. How much would I have to fork over before the choice of our own bodies and imaginations would seem more appealing than extravagance, phoniness, and exclusivity? People’s aesthetics are quickly turned by the color of money. How green is your bouquet?
    I suppose I’m bitter because I, too, was snookered. I’ve made the same discriminations, held the same prejudices, and wasted so much time. I was nearly thirty years old before I discovered a world of erotica that I had been afraid of and had felt excluded from without really knowing why. I just obeyed the “No Girls Allowed” sign without reading the fine print. I was afraid to look at anything sexual unless it got a four-star review and was produced by a highly credentialed cast. I never thought about how watching cinema verité and low-budget representations of sex made me feel squeamish; the realness or coarseness of it seemed to make my emotions feel too full, exposed, without any

    relief. I would read tons of fashion magazines without blinking an eye at the high-toned advertising, but I would be embarrassed by a soft-core men’s magazine whose models did not enjoy the buff and polish of haute couture.
    I scorned those nudie models for their imperfect complexions and shopping mall outfits not because I was a moral conservative, but because I found them “tasteless.” It never occurred to