CatalenaMara

I think most of the US is fine (the #1 state/district for internet porn purchases is Washington DC) but the church still has a stranglehold on places like South Carolina. And they keep electing people like Lindsey Graham, one of the biggest closet cases in the Senate.

I think they like sex the way it used to be ... totally secret, filled with shame and done in a rented room somewhere ... hopefully one the church owns. lol

LOL! Now that would be convenient - the bordello on one half of the property. Sin & redemption - one stop shopping.

Ha! This country will always be messed up about sex. It's the ol' Puritan thing. The Puritans were doing it a'plenty behind closed doors but put up a falsh front and there was all the religious stuff, too.

We'll use soft-core porn to sell cars and toothpaste but heaven forbid anyone actually write decent erotica!

>>>It's the ol' Puritan thing. The Puritans were doing it a'plenty behind closed doors but put up a falsh front and there was all the religious stuff, too.

When the literacy rates went up in the Victorian era, so did the publication of porn. And - this says a lot about class issues - I've read statistics that in London at the turn of the century (1900) approximately 1 in 10 women were prostitutes.

>>>We'll use soft-core porn to sell cars and toothpaste

And hamburgers (thinking of Paris Hilton and that car and the gloppy hamburger...)

When the literacy rates went up in the Victorian era, so did the publication of porn.

The Victorians had a cottage industry in porn! :)

And - this says a lot about class issues - I've read statistics that in London at the turn of the century (1900) approximately 1 in 10 women were prostitutes.

*nods*

So few respectable professions were open to women . If they were single or widowed and fell on hard times, prostitution was almost their only option if they couldn't make a good marriage.

And hamburgers (thinking of Paris Hilton and that car and the gloppy hamburger...)

Eww!!! :)

Oh sure. Make fun of those of us sweating it out down here within the worst jock itch ridden folds of the Bible belt! Are you sure you want to come visit?

Eh, I've read better, but at least her stuff is grammatically sound. An education secretary who can't make a sentence would give me a much worse bellyache.

Yes!!! As you know, South Carolina is one of the four states I've never visited. But you make it sound so *cough* appealing... Just wish I had more time off work.

Glad to hear she can write a coherent sentence - it'd be scary if she couldn't.

PS, you probably heard of the California state legislator who - not realizing he was talking in front of an open mike - described all the sex games he was playing with a lobbyist. We all know the politicians are in bed with the lobbyists, so I guess it's no surprise some of them decided to take it quite literally.

Poor woman - it's hard to believe the US is so puritanical.

Friend of mine in the UK writes erotica, even mentioned it in her job interview. She got the job, and it's in a field where people might once have looked askance at such things.

Here even writing non-erotic fanfic would get you strange looks. :)

She wasn't writing fanfic - whew!!! That was the first thing I checked, but as it turned out she was writing "mundane" erotica. It sounds like she had some menage fic posted. Don't know what sites, maybe Literotica.com.

My point exactly. I love the story about your friend. My head explodes at the idea that it would be OK to mention you write erotica in a job interview - in anything other than the adult film industry, that is. (There are so many adult film companies within a 20 mile radius of where I work that some people have suggested the area ought to be renamed "Pornadelphia".)

Victoria Woodhull! I first learned about her in 1972, when Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm was running for President and "MS." Magazine did a feature article on Woodhull. I was so intrigued I researched her and even wrote a term paper on her. :-)

I think I read the same Ms. Magazine article. :-)

Have you read "Sex Wars" by Marge Piercy? Victoria Woodhull is one of the main characters. Here's an Amazon link and a quote from a review:

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Wars-Novel-Gilded-York/dp/0060789875/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256534692&sr=1-1

Sex Wars: A Novel of Gilded Age New York by Marge Piercy

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This rich novel set in post–Civil War New York stars a true-life cast of characters that includes Victoria Woodhull, the spiritualist turned first woman to run for the U.S. presidency; passionate suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton; the aged Cornelius Vanderbilt, who sits atop a $100-million fortune as he tries to make contact with his dead son; and Anthony Comstock, a crusading moralist who dedicates his life to outlawing pornography and "obscene objects made of rubber." As they each vie for different kinds of sex-based power, the consequences of their actions echo from the halls of Congress to Manhattan's back alleys. Piercy (Gone to Soldiers) powerfully dramatizes the early feminists' zeal and the high stakes of the gender wars it set in motion, and offers a wealth of period detail, including tips on using an outdoor latrine when living in a fifth-floor walk-up and the cost to bathe (fully dressed, no soap) in the East River. Most poignant among the invented characters is Freydeh Leibowitz, a young Russian-Jewish widow, who, far from the scandalous headlines and saloon gossip of the times, makes a living for herself and her adopted children, penny by penny, as a manufacturer of reliable condoms. Stylistically, the narration and dialogue don't wow, but the people, their ways of living and the ways they are marked by sex certainly do.

This novel sounds really cool! I love novels set in Victorian times. I read a novel years ago written in 1970 that was about a time travel project, and the main character went back to 1880s New York. The author was really skillful in evoking the details of the era. I think the title was Time And Again.

And novels like The Alienist were really well done, too!