Travel/Reading

First, just a quick note to say I'll be on the road for the next few days, and am not sure what my 'net access will be like. So things may progress as normal, or they may go quiet--we'll just have to wait and see.

Second, I've been wanting to point out that Playboy has created a list of "The 25 Sexiest Novels Ever Written." Go check it out and let me know what you think. Are these nominees valid? Should there have been others instead?

Personally, I think the title of the list is problematic. "Sexy" is defined as "arousing or tending to arouse sexual desire." I would agree with that definition; so I posit that a number of these books, while they talk about sex, are not sex-y. There's a difference, you know.

Actually, I often think the problem with most people is they don't know there's a difference. A frank discussion about sexuality is not the same as having sex or creating arousal--and yet many people treat it like it is; as if mere discussion of sex is taboo ("Sex education is condoning sex."), or embarassing ("How could you say that in PUBLIC?!?"), or meant to be deliberately stimulating when that is far from the point ("She's not embarassed to talk about sex, therefore she must be easy."), among other things.

Anyway, I have to say I'm surprised Playboy wouldn't differentiate. Portnoy's Complaint is a sexy book? Come ON. They say they chose it because it was the first book to talk about masturbation. But just look at the excerpt--there are plenty of ways to talk about masturbation that are FAR from sexy. Portnoy's Complaint is frank, yes. But sexy? No.

And of course, my all-time erotic lit axe to grind: Lolita. The book no one actually reads, but everyone insists is sexy. Lolita isn't sexy. Now please understand, I have nothing against seduction erotica, or May/September pairings (yes, I meant September, not December), but that is NOT what Lolita is. Read the book, people. It's about a pedophile who marries a woman in order to attain guardianship of the child he wants to fuck, then kills her mother so the child has no recourse but to rely on him and submit to his whims in order not to be entirely abandoned. It's a fascinating literary study of mental illness, but it's not sexy, and in fact hardly has any sex in it--it's primarily just Humbert's obsessive ramblings, with no actual action. In fact, even Playboy's write up of it says:

This novel has a reputation as a "dirty book" that it doesn't really deserve; its storied buzz is hotter than the text itself, which is why it doesn't even make our top 10.

So, they're naming it one of the 25 sexiest novels of all time because it's got a reputation of being dirty even though it's not actually very hot? What kind of crap logic is that? Come on Playboy editors, show a little literary cojones. Break the mold; call a non-sexy book what it is, and put an actual sexy book on the list.

I'd agree some others are certainly stimulating. I haven't read them all, so I can't judge the entire list; but Lawrence, Jong, Miller...these people made grand and often successful attempts at sexiness. And I can see how the Story of O could get some people all stirred up based on its subject matter, though personally I find the prose to be pretty simplistic and dull. No matter how many times I try, I can never finish it, and not because I need to go pleasure myself; I just get bored. And again, I love me a good non-consent story; but I need more than just a "...and then he did this and she did that and then this thing happened and then someone else said let's do that next, and they did."

So anyway, I say either change the list's name to "The 25 Best Sexually-Themed Novels Ever Written," or replace some of the non-sexy titles with ones that are sexy in the truest sense of the word (and I vote for #2). I wonder if the problem is there just aren't enough well-written, truly sexy novels out there?

Food for thought. Discuss at will.