Tags
Alessia Brio, Charles McGrath, Donna George Storey, Emerald, Janine Ashbless, Jeremy Edwards, Kristina Lloyd, Margaret Killjoy, Nicholson Baker, Nobilis Reed, Smut Writer, T. Harrison, Times
Oh no! My color is bad! And my gaze is not direct!
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The Times, how you break my bloody heart. You promise me a delicious, interesting article with a title like, “The Mad Scientist of Smut,” and then you deliver… this?
Nicholson Baker does not look like a dirty-book writer. His color is good. His gaze is direct, with none of the sidelong furtiveness of the compulsive masturbator.
Seriously?! Author Charles McGrath couldn’t come up with a better opening line that something that is clearly derogatory, insulting, condescending and perhaps worst of all, uninformed?
Premise 1: In order to be a sex writer, your color must be bad.
Premise 2: In order to be a sex writer, you cannot have good eye contact.
Premise 3: In order to be a sex writer, you must be a compulsive masturbator.
Premise 4: Being a compulsive masturbator is bad.
Premise 5: Being a compulsive masturbator makes you look at everything with sidelong, furtive glances.
Oh, the sidelong, furtive glance! There is it!
The amount of anger and disappointment I feel over something like this bypassing any editorial stopgaps and actually being published is immeasurable for the moment. So, in the meantime, I say let’s compile a group of sex-writers, erotica-penners, smut-peddlers who have color in their faces and directness in their gazes. If you post a blog with a photo (or even a reaction to this post/the article), let me know and I’ll add the link below.
Kiss kiss bang bang, s.
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For Your Viewing Pleasure: The Mad Scientists of Smut!
- The pale- and paper-faced Jeremy Edwards!
- The cocked brow of Nobilis Reed!
- The gorgeous-eyed Donna George Storey!
- The straight forward sorta sidelong glance of T. Harrison!
- Darth Vader sandwiches with Alessio Brio!
- The greenish glow of Kristina Lloyd!
- The glacier-glow glare of Janine Ashbless!
- Emerald’s nuanced gaze!
- Margaret Killjoy with a furtive glance!
That made me actually (maybe) try to read VOX, which I have a copy of around here in the store somewhere and I’ve glanced at a time or two.
It’s kind of sad, actually. Because he’s probably a very interesting guy, but I can’t see past the red mist of fury that opening paragraph created
I love Vox! I think it influenced my style. (Of writing, that is, not my style of compulsive masturbation.)
Oh, does this mean I have to read it?
I took a picture! It looks terrible but it DOES have a direct gaze and good color.
I’m an unabashed masturbater with a wholesome tan who will look you straight in the eye while doing so. I’m so up-in-the-radar that I can’t even SPELL furtive. And I haven’t even read Vox!
“Comments are no longer being accepted.”
Cowards.
Oh, Shanna, I totally agree with you on this and it’s absolutely infuriating! The McGrath article is a perfect illustration of our culture’s sadly Puritanical attitude toward sex all dressed up in intellectual snobbery. I’m going to put up a straight-gaze picture on my blog forthwith. Robin, you probably should read Vox for a general education in what the literary-industrial machine has allowed as sexy writing. I found a few passages spoke to me, but to be honest I’ve enjoyed the stories of all the writers here much more for their intelligence, lovely prose and sexual honesty. McGrath acts like Baker is the only smart person who’s ever written about sex with any element of genuine desire. We have a long road to liberation, fellow smut writers!
While I am extremely pale, I wouldn’t say it’s a bad color.
I read the whole article, but everything I needed to know about the author is in that first paragraph. He’s not my kind of people. He’s not someone I’d typically have coffee with, nor would I expect him to buy my book. And that’s fine by me. It’s a shame he has already made up his mind about the qualities a person must have to write (and probably in his opinion, read) erotica, but I assume that is partially a closet reflection of himself – a mask fitted roughly over a stock character, how he would see himself as an erotica author/reader. Ashamed. Worried someone might know he’s had a secret “dirty” thought or two. And yet, when I read through his ramblings about the author’s works, I get the vibe he is curious. There is a tone of awe in what he has written about the author’s books and the subject matter. It doesn’t make me angry to read this article, it makes me sad for the article writer. He seems interested in the subject of erotica, but has too tight a reign on himself to ever explore it beyond surface value.
Drat, I don’t have a pic of myself on my blog because I don’t want to distract from the book covers, but I do have one on my Facebook. I suspect the image of a smut-writing grandmother would push him right over the edge.
I think the Times’ opening was very tongue in cheek and I love Nicholson Baker. I definitely wouldn’t miss any fiction he writes, whether or not about sex.
I actually have to admit that I’ve never read anything by Baker that I can remember, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try it. And it’s even more infuriating if he is a good writer, and this is the kind of treatment that he received.
I have had a couple of other people mention that it might be tongue-in-cheek, but the whole tone feels so passively condescending that I would be hard-pressed to find the humor in it. I think you have to have at least some respect for your subject (matter) before you can attempt something humorous or tongue-in-cheek. But that might be just me.
All I’ve read by Baker is *The Anthologist*, his latest, which I thought was (in all the best ways) enchanting. Very sweet, very smart, very right.
I would love to think the remarks were tongue in cheek. But if they were, McGrath used poor judgment, imo, given his audience. As Donna points out, the sad truth is those are exactly the hidebound stereotypes that persist, even among the supposedly enlightened intelligentsia. I would bet that most Times readers, even if McGrath intended the comments as ironic, had their prejudices reinforced rather than chuckling along with him at how silly the prejudices are. A writer using subtle irony needs to be sure of his/her audience, lest the ironically intended words be taken at face value. (And the fact that a group of us sophisticated readers aren’t sure whether or not it was tongue in cheek suggests to me that if it was, it wasn’t done very effectively.)
Here ya go: http://alessiabrio.blogspot.com/2011/08/mad-scientists-of-smut.html
Nicholson Baker is a wonderful writer. I totally stole the premise of Vox for a chapter in Asking For Trouble. The Fermata and Mezzanine are also superb and I love the sound of the new book.
I’m sure Baker is rolling his eyes in despair at the intro to this piece. He must get this kind of crap all the time, and I do think he should be applauded for pushing at the limits of what is generally acceptable in lit fic.
I don’t think the intro is tongue-in-cheek either. I think it’s cheap, lazy journalism aiming to gain a readership by reinforcing prejudices rather than risk a challenge.
If my profile pic is greenish, it’s cos I can’t stop wanking. Great piece Shanna. Here’s looking at ya!
Kristina, I’m not sure you know what tongue in cheek means. There is no way that McGrath meant his opening to be taken at face value, even though he probably believes (and he’s probably right in believing) that most people are inclined to see sex story writers much as he’s described them. I also doubt that Baker takes offense at the piece. But I don’t know any of this. How would you begin the article?
In any case, I don’t think he’s going to gain readership by reinforcing prejudices. If anything he’s making fun of those prejudices. But most everyone here takes offense because everyone here write sex stories and doesn’t like being portrayed, even in jest, according to McGrath’s formula.
“There is no way that McGrath meant his opening to be taken at face value…”
This is interesting, Mat, but I don’t know if I agree. Fro me, there is a certain tone in the rest of the piece that would belie any attempt at being tongue-in-cheek in the opening. If he meant it to be t-i-c, then I think he did a very poor job of following through with that tone and/or making it clear that the opener was not to be taken as seriously as the rest of the piece.
Of course, unless we hear from McGrath himself, we may never know what his intentions were.
Hey Mat,
I know what tongue in cheek means, thanks! I think McGrath is intending to be humorous, sure. But if he thinks that most people think etc, if I were him, maybe I’d start by saying ‘Nicholson Baker does not look like most people’s idea of/a stereotypical dirty-book writer’
But if I were me, I’d start the piece by saying, ‘I sashay across the room to meet my interviewee, my ass swaying beneath my short tight skirt, my cleavage thrusting up from my low-plunge neckline. I lick my lips as I approach…’
But hey, what do I know? I write in a genre that’s as ‘tired and monotonous as a train schedule’
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/08/house-of-holes-by-nicholson-baker-bad-pornography.html
“But if I were me, I’d start the piece by saying, ‘I sashay across the room to meet my interviewee, my ass swaying beneath my short tight skirt, my cleavage thrusting up from my low-plunge neckline. I lick my lips as I approach…’”
I do like your opening better. Much better. Was your next line going to be something about tongue in cheek or somewhere?
“But most everyone here takes offense because everyone here write sex stories and doesn’t like being portrayed, even in jest, according to McGrath’s formula.”
To concur with Shanna, I think one has to differentiate between an ironic “I’m really on the side of the people I’m pretending to idiotically disparage” jest (think Colbert?) and a “joke” that’s truly a negative judgment cloaked in humor. World of difference! Speaking for myself, I would not take offense at the former (though I might question its wisdom if I thought its ironic nature was unclear or its context/audience ill chosen). On the contrary, I would feel validated by the ironic speaker’s implied support.
P.S. I happen to have a list on my desk of the people I know who are *least* likely to use terminology without first being sure they understand it. The very first name on the list, by coincidence, is Kristina Lloyd. : )
Oops, should be a colon after “To concur with Shanna.” In other words, what I say after that is my way of concurring with Shanna.
Argh! It’s five in the morning and I woke up! But instead of compulsively fiddling with myself I thought I’d post you a piccie, Shanna
Because you’re great.
http://janineashbless.blogspot.com/2011/08/this-is-for-shanna.html
This is so much fun! Even if the Times couldn’t care less about erotica authors, I am LOVING the chance to see all your smiling, furtive, fresh, glowing, dirty faces!
Hey Shanna –
I read this all yesterday, but I’m in my hometown for a visit and so busy I’m just getting my post in response to your request up now.
It is here:
http://thegreenlightdistrict.org/wordpress/2011/08/as-i-see-it/
Thanks for bringing this to my attention—I hadn’t seen the article before you mentioned it. As I mention in my post, there are things about the tone, as I interpreted it, that I found unfortunate. That said, I did find the bulk of the article’s information on Nicholson Baker interesting. I have not read his work either, and from what I read as well as some of the comments here, I feel intrigued enough now to want to.
“Was your next line going to be something about tongue in cheek or somewhere?” Haha – I missed that one, damn!
And thanks Jeremy.
While staring through his slitted drapes at the shadows on the curtains across the way, the intrepid pornographer contemplates his magnum opus and curses the brightness of the moon.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6150/6028757727_c98f5141c7_o.jpg
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Here you are: http://www.birdsbeforethestorm.net/2011/08/color-in-your-cheeks-also-smut/