Between Erotica and a Hard Place
I recently heard that there
are 10,000 pornography sites on the Web. Sex is one of the few things people
are consistently willing to pay for online (sports and stocks are among the
others), and there are obvious reasons for this--say, privacy and convenience.
You may be able to find the same stuff as what's online at any decently stocked
porn shop, but to do so you have to go to that neighborhood, physically enter
that store, and then worry about what the clerk thinks of your interest in
dominant transvestites. Browsing at home, it's just you and your modem, and
using the mouse only takes one hand.
The
recently launched "literate smut" Webzine Nerve might be Sex Site No. 10,001, but don't call it
porno. In a letter to the readers, the site's twentysomething editors declare,
"Nerve intends to be more graphic, forthright, and topical than
'erotica,' but less blockheadedly masculine than 'pornography.' " If
pornography encompasses all those hot 'n' hunky sites out there, and erotica is
that safe and boring territory of romance novels and scented candles, then
Nerve wants it both ways: rough sex and soft lighting, meaningful talk
and meaningless orgasm.
You wonder why no one has ever tried this before. Go to
Yahoo! and type in "literature & sex," and you get sites such as Madeline's Sex Offerings,
which contains articles such as "Some
Philosophical Thoughts on Giving Head," by Madeline herself. And this is
the high end. More typical are sites such as Pussy Vision and Blow Job of the
Day. Search for "erotica" (thousands of matches) and get sites such as Yellow
Silk, the online version of the Berkeley-based journal the Utne
Reader called a "tasteful celebration of the sensuality of every day life."
Or the Web site of Mary Anne
Mohanraj, whose most recent book, Torn Shapes of Desire , is touted
as "eminently literary, well-written and tasteful" (there's that word
again).
The
editors of Nerve feel no need to be tasteful, God bless 'em. What you
find here are actual writers holding forth on subjects near and dear to their
hearts, and other organs; writing that generally seems to know the difference
between the precious and the precise. And they do it without sacrificing lust
and the promise of sexual possibility. As Ruth Shalit says in her review of
two books about predator women (Candace Bushnel's Sex and the City and
Anka Radakovich's Sexplorations ), "When staging a literary revolution,
it never hurts to be sans-culottes ."
In its architecture, Nerve is not
especially revolutionary: There are seven distinct sections within the site,
each with its de rigueur icon in the margin. In "Smut Cut," the reviews
section, you will find pieces like Shalit's; "Roles" features essays on sex,
gender, and relationships; "Pedantry" presents pieces by public figures such as
former Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders on favorite subjects (take a guess);
"Ex Libris" comprises "favorite erotic passages from our writers' libraries";
"Skin" is photos of flesh; "Threads" is occasionally interactive erotic
fiction; and "The Bar" is a yet-to-be-launched chat area. Nerve wants to
provide something for everybody: there's homeless sex, prison sex--there's even
Norman Mailer, who says in a 17-year-old interview (published here
simply because it's Mailer) that he draws the line at child porn. (Everyone has
his limits.) Though the author of Advertisements for Myself has always
liked his sex the way a schoolboy likes his pie--any way he can get it--he was
never the hippest cat in the pack (witness "The White Negro," his attempt to
grapple with the Beats, which proved the adage that those who had to ask what
hip was, weren't). In the interview, Mailer recalls reading a line from William
S. Burroughs in 1959 that flat out cleaned his clock: "I see God in my asshole
in the flashbulb of orgasm."
"I
remember reading it and thinking, I can't believe I just read those words,"
recalls Mailer. "I can't tell you the number of taboos it violated. First of
all, you weren't supposed to connect God with sex. Second of all, you never
spoke of the asshole, certainly not in relation to sex. If you did, you were
the lowest form of pervert. Third of all, there was obvious homosexuality in
the remark. In those days nobody was accustomed to seeing that in print. And
fourth, there was an ugly technological edge--why'd he have to bring in
flashbulbs?"
While Nerve hasn't violated many taboos yet, the
site does betray some expectations. "Skin," the photography area, is doubtless
heavily trafficked. The pictures are quick to download-- Nerve is very
user friendly: good navigation, great design, and an intelligent use of icons.
Some images, like Richard Kern's New York Girls , are as soft-porn as a
Playboy calendar. But Greg
Friedler's black-and-white photos from his book Naked New York are
slightly disturbing: New Yorkers (who answered an ad in the Village
Voice ) are photographed twice--clothed and naked--and the pictures
juxtaposed side by side, before-and-after fashion. Their change of expression
(or lack thereof) is itself a comment on the meaning of nakedness--many appear
more defensive unclothed, as if to counteract any vulnerability--and the effect
is almost anti-erotic.
Equally
un-arousing are Barbara Nitke's pictures from the sets of porno films,
where she worked as a still photographer. There is a sad, Felliniesque quality
to these images: bored and exhausted women lying on a king-size bed, surrounded
by dildos of towering dimensions; an actress being eaten out while the director
casually talks to her about the scene. "Once I got focused on their underlying
sadness," says Nitke of her subjects, "it was all I would see for years."
So far, Nerve has avoided most
sentimental, you-gotta-have-heart reminders that people need more than just
sex. The attitude seems more carnivorous and unapologetic: We need sex, let's
indulge, and save talk about those other important things for Nightline .
True, there are lapses. Fiona
Giles, editor of a book called Dick for a Day: What Would You Do If You
Had One? (surprise! most women would have sex with themselves), has a
moment of sadness when, having gone dickless for months, she finds herself
"walking down the street, thinking I should ask someone for a hug." Barbara
Nitke also recalls a porn star saying all he wanted was a hug. (The moral:
Whether getting laid consistently or not, people need hugs.) For the most part,
though, Nerve is a hug-free zone.
It will be interesting to
see if Nerve can keep it up. The editors seem to know good writing when
they see it: Novelist John Hawkes makes an unexpected appearance with a new
introduction to The Passion Artist , and Poppy Z.
Brite has a touching fantasy of John Lennon and Paul McCartney holding
more than each other's hands. (Co-editor of Nerve Genevieve Field was
executive editor of MTV Books--words that, linked together, look about as
strange to my eyes as "God" and "asshole" did to Norman Mailer's.) "Piss
Christ" creator Andres Serrano is to be featured in "Skin" soon, so we know
Jesse Helms will be bookmarking this page. And if the editors are ever tempted
to take themselves too seriously, they can always refer to Lisa
Carver's hilarious essay on the differences between "sensualists" and
"sexualists"--those who like talking about it and those who like doing it.
"Sensualists have sex without orgasm on purpose," she writes of all those
candle-loving, body-oil-bearing himbos. "They call it tantric sex. I'd call it
a bad date."
