Whorehouses for the Biblio-nympho

I feel like a college girl sitting on the floor in the storage room, the only place I can get some peace and quiet to write lately. Behind me, stacks of furniture await their ‘keep’ or ‘discard’ fate while to my right is my book collection. Books I must confess are the weak points of my soul, the addiction derived from organic material bound into leaflets filled with human invention. And, as I rack my brain for an erotic subject to talk about this month, it is the book that stares me in the face like the weary eyes of a lover who awaits my move, my visual acknowledgement of interest that is to determine the next course of our erotic interludes.

My book collection has a bit of everything, from antiquity to modernism, religion to erotica, mysticism to science and pop culture to ancient philosophies. I’m a biblio-maniac and while I’m titling myself, I might as well call myself the biblio-nympho because books are my mind’s vibrator. I suppose I’m a rare breed in this mass media/cyber world but there’s still nothing like the pleasure of book handling. And while many publishing houses have cheapened the sensuality of book making by taking the elegance out of gilded spines and burgundy hues and replaced them with paperback qualities intended as ‘disposable’ reads, it is still the experience of unknown discoveries contained within books that burns ridges into my mind and fantasy into my body.

I scanned the titles as though I had never seen them, intrigued by covers that promise more at times than the words inside. But the titles themselves hold enough promise to dig deeper, to pick up a book and hold it in my hand, feel its hardness, its thickness, its weight. I close my eyes and wonder the stories or knowledge waiting to be discovered within the delicate folds that are encased by hardbound boards and I smell its musty wisdom or hot off the press narcissism. An open book is like an open woman, full of clues, stories, mysteries, ideas and secrets ready to become known if only patient and enthusiastic souls make the effort. A woman’s worth - as a book’s - is slowly uncovered. Read her lines and passages and take notice of the type. Is it small and petite forcing your eyes to squint in interest or is it large and bold, screaming for attention? Notice her grammar, verbal usage, and alphabetic language. Does she whisper poetry or talk out loud with confidence? What visuals does she contain and does she stimulate enough to continue or does she bore too quickly? The delicate pages that make up a story worthy of one’s time is the value only a willing participant can interpret and thus help define the beauty of individualism and self-pleasure.

I attended the Frankfurt Book Fair in October and the vastness of publishers was astounding until I noticed how few dealt with the erotica genre. In terms of photo books dominated by the visual erotic, there were a handful, each aiming for individuality within the tight knit industry. However, there wasn’t enough individuality among them for the artists who pride themselves on walking the forgotten dirt roads of a personal vision of erotic artistry that is still somewhat respectable. Classic erotic imagery is boring; avant- garde is the new fad I was told. However, as with all stylish things, fads are quick like the penis ejaculations that often disappoint and it is the classic trends which stand the test of time because their style will appeal to many generations over and over again.

In an age where visual eroticism and pornography are working toward some compromised definition, some publishers are loosing sight of the kind of power they should be focused on. I realized that while many artists and writers could be fantastically talented, it is the publishers who hold the trident and cast away possibilities and potentialities of the creators who come to them with high hopes that their work will be desired. However, as I witnessed, the power has turned into profit: “classic nudes don’t sell”, said one publisher. So how can we bridge the gap between the desired and the sellable? Is it possible that because most publishers are so focused on what will bring in money that they are compromising the very essence of the erotic genre? Are they limiting erotica because they have determined that the classic is no longer wanted therefore substituting it with more provocative photographic work incorporating women urinating in public places or sticking unintended objects into sacred orifices to turn profits? That’s selling out, not only to the companies they’re building, the consumers who may prefer the timelessness of respectable eroticism, but also to the societies they have powerful influence on.

The erotic literary genre is beginning to “harlequinize“, with new titles spitting out faster than the chocolate at the Wonka factory. It is important to concentrate on the quality of erotica because erotica is about quality and porn is really about quantity. And, if profit is the destination, publishers may wish to reconsider the repercussions of what this means for the future of society. If our body is a biochemical system, functioning on neurotransmitters, amino acid chains and hormones that can act as biochemical addictions, how much further will the pornographic or erotic community need to go before society overdoses from its horny fix? At what point does the literary and visual community need to step back and rethink the effects of extremity when mass marketed?

I may be an erotica writer and artist (and that raises eyebrows) but all in all, I’m traditional. I believe in experimentation but also in values and I believe those two can find balance. I cannot speak for the world but the West has become a superficial and pornographic culture, where a trip to the corporate bookstore is stocked by sellable material from large publishing houses who determine what is hot or not and for small independent houses who wish to contribute classical material with a modern twist are scarce. But here’s another twist: porn is no longer locked away in a windowless building. It is on newsstands, on prime time programming, in a majority of films and dominantly in music videos, where nearly naked movie stars or musicians skin down to bare minimum for the sake of a false power based on judging the book by its cover, the new industry standard.

However, we’ve all been told to look past the brilliant artwork and marketed superficiality of sellable book covers as what is inside determines its value. With such power to influence, it is unfortunate that the mass commercialization of any industry has forgotten the old philosophy of respect to their craft, its production, and its effects on society in exchange for fame and/or fortune. Yet, I must ask, are positive cultural influences even a consideration?

Like the older books upon my shelf, classically produced art and literary works - other than famous named artists - have become an out of print novelty. Perhaps it is the evolution of humankind and thus the necessity of culture to experiment with extremism and take it to its limits. But, just like a rubber band, things can only be stretched so far before they split in two or snap back with a sting. In order to understand that classic and classy go hand in hand and that most classics hold respectability, something desperately missing from today’s mass market entertainment, it may be necessary for culture to create its own demise before it begins to realize the damage it has done, leaving the new generation responsible for fixing the mess their predecessors made.

So, biblio-nympho is what I’ll be and what I’ll instill into my girls because if I’m going to enjoy smut (as surely will they), I’d rather it be the kind that is intended for the book nerds who get off from the pleasures of classic mental vibrators and the “whorehouses” which store them.

* If you happen to find pleasure in bibliophile form, here is a great little blog about biblio-smut and the elegance they live in. Enjoy http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/hot_library_smut/

Namaste,
Tatiana von Tauber
www.vontauber.com