LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Gay 'n Gray: Porn Problems |
by John Siegfried |
In the months preceding my retirement from working in DC, friends and colleagues would frequently ask, "What do you plan to do in retirement?" I gave a standard, somewhat facetious, response aimed at detouring the conversation away from my non-existent plans. "Well," I said, "I'm seriously considering writing pornography for senior citizens. Seniors are a growing part of the market and, besides, after a certain age anything in a plain brown wrapper looks good." Like many retirees I found so much to do in retirement that I now wonder how I ever had time to work. The plans for writing pornography vanished until recently, as part of a writing seminar I participate in, I was challenged by other members of the group to join them in an evening of porn sponsored by the Stonewall Library at the South Florida Gay and Lesbian Community Center. The evening was billed, even in the local newspaper, the Sun-Sentinel, as "Not Your Average Bedtime Story." It was an accurate billing. Ten lesbian authors and ten gay authors shared original porno writings with an audience of approximately one hundred men and women, including a smattering of straights. My entry was as good as any otherat least in my judgment. And I guess that was one of the important lessons of the evening. Like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," so listening to readings of sexual fantasy is good or bad, exciting or boring, only in the ear, or experience, of the listener. When my turn to read came I explained to the audience that, although I'm gray and wrinkled, I'm really a virginI've never written porn before and I've never read anything I've written in public. I provided that explanation only so that those present would appreciate the context when, at the conclusion of my porn piece, I asked them, "Was it as good for you as it was for me?" For most of the evening I was sitting in the rear of the auditorium and had a good view of audience reaction. It intrigued me that, since this was a mixed gender presentation and a mixed gender audience, gay porn presentations had the women rolling their eyes and yawning while the lesbian readings produced the same response in the men. Candlelight and floating rose petals are interesting, but they're no turn on for me. They certainly were for a lot of the women. By the same token the grease monkey with his coveralls unzipped drew snickers from the gals and had some of the guys salivating. After one or two porn stories, however, I was bored. While the readings had varying degrees of creativityif you call having sex while hanging from the ceiling creativethey ended up being boring largely because the English language is limited in its ability to describe sex. How many terms are there for the male sex organ? I can immediately come up (no pun intended) with five or six, but when you hear them repeated all evening they lose their impact. "Familiarity breeds contempt" applies to the overuse of any phrase or term. I decided what we really need is new language that suggests anatomy and sexual function and that will offer porn authors more choice. Then we can give the old terminology a rest. For instance, instead of describing the male genitalia in terms of the current worn out terminology, let's say "girder"as in steel. That certainly suggests length, strength, hardness, etc. The girder's external attachments could be described as tires, and, of course, tire sizes vary. And instead of the girder being surrounded by hair that's soft, or kinky, or flaxen, use "tumbleweed." That has an earthy, erotic, vegetarian sound to it. The emphasis on the male chest with its well-defined pectoral muscles, could be redirected to the cleavage between the pecs as a definition of size. And depending on how the size and shape of the pecs was obtained, the cleavage might even be referred to as "silicone valley." The six-pack abdomen was probably popularized by Budweiser and, in a sense, is just another type of beer belly. So, call it what it is, a well-defined beer belly. That presents a problem, however. Soda pop comes in six packs and "soda belly" instead of six-pack abs changes the image from firm to fizz. The porn description of the male, using my newly proposed terminology, would then read something like this: "There he was in the shower. It was lust at first sight. I could hardly take my eyes off his silicone valley tapering tastefully into his well-defined beer belly. Gradually elevating from his pelvic patch of tumbleweed was a girder of steel and tractor tires to die for." Oh well, you get the point. We need new language, but somehow, what I've just written, doesn't quite do it. Noah Webster and I have work to do. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 12, No. 14, October 18, 2002 |