<\/p>\n
Porn Politics, Norwegian Style<\/b><\/p>\n
Ralph Ginzburg learned a difficult lesson in the politics of porn, back in 1966, when he was sentenced to five years in prison for engaging in the most artful erotic publishing venture of that time, Eros<\/em> magazine.\u00a0 Eros<\/em> was a distinctly classy, if irreverent erotic magazine, “devoted to the joys of love and sex.”\u00a0 It was an elegant, hardcover quarterly; subscriptions were $25 a year, a lot of money in 1966.\u00a0 It was incredibly tame by today\u2019s standards, and even by the standards of 1966.\u00a0 The most controversial photos were some elegant nudes of Marilyn Monroe by photographer Bert Stern, and a portfolio of beautiful color photos of a black man and a white woman embracing and kissing.\u00a0 Eros published the work of such well-known pornographers as Rembrandt, Picasso, Dali, Michelangelo, Rubens, Titian, Ray Bradbury, William Shakespeare, and D. H. Lawrence.<\/p>\n The response was so positive that 150,000 people subscribed.\u00a0 Four issues were published before Ginzburg was charged with obscenity, prosecuted, and convicted.<\/p>\n The hard lesson Ginzburg learned was that it\u2019s ok to publish erotic material that knows its place — loosely speaking, the gutter — but if you try to erotic material that claims some kind of social legitimacy, you\u2019re in deep trouble.<\/p>\n Now, it seems, Cupido<\/em> magazine, the wonderfully sexy, intelligent, artful, and progressive Norwegian erotic magazine that (sadly) has no real parallel in this country, is coming up against some of the same sort of controversy.\u00a0 Cupido<\/em> editor Terje Gammelsrud recently found himself called to appear before the Norwegian police, answering questions about the age of a woman model in a photograph by Ralph Steinmeier.\u00a0 In the photograph, a near silhouette, a woman kneels before a man, holding his erect cock in her hand, about to take it into her mouth.\u00a0 Because of the lack of detail in the photo, the woman\u2019s age is unclear.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, she was 19 at the time the photograph was taken (well above the Norwegian age of consent of 16).\u00a0 The man in the photo is her husband.<\/p>\n Now, I can\u2019t claim to be totally objective about Cupido<\/em>, since I work for them.\u00a0 I\u2019m their U.S. photo representative.\u00a0 I have the delightful job of helping to supply them with the kind of beautiful, moving, imaginative erotic and sexual imagery they publish each month.\u00a0 I\u2019ve also become good friends with the editors there — chief editor Terje Gammelsrud, and past editors Olav Andr\u00e9 Manum and Hanne Grasmo — over the seven years we\u2019ve known each other.<\/p>\n But my warm feelings about Cupido<\/em> are more than just personal bias.\u00a0 Everyone I know feels the same way I do about this magazine:\u00a0 that it is beautiful, unique, a venture founded on real heart, social consciousness, and sex-positive vision.\u00a0 What\u2019s more, Cupido<\/em> is a magazine that treats the people who work for and with it with honesty, real integrity, and respect — as rare a find in the world of sex magazine publishing as Cupido<\/em>\u2019s erotic quality and artfulness.<\/p>\n Well, strange as it might seem (though I suppose, sadly, that it\u2019s really not so strange at all), not everybody in the world loves Cupido<\/em> for these admirable characteristics.\u00a0 For some years, a group of Norwegian Marxist-Leninist feminists has been troubled by Cupido<\/em> in much the same way that the U.S. Justice Department was once concerned with Eros<\/em>.\u00a0 Precisely because Cupido<\/em> is intelligent, because it is artfully conceived and produced, and because it has therefore gained wide popularity and respect (Cupido<\/em>\u2019s circulation is 60,000 in a country of 4.3 million people — equivalent to a U.S. circulation of 3,000,000), these women have criticized Cupido<\/em> as the most dangerous pornography of all.\u00a0 According to editor\/publisher Gammelsrud, they have missed no opportunity to raise trouble for the magazine, all part of the good fight against pornography, prostitution, and the degradation of women, of course.\u00a0 Perhaps they believe that sexual depiction in a patriarchal culture is necessarily equivalent to the sexual objectification of women.\u00a0 Telling me the story of his troubles, Terje wearily refers to these women as “sentimentalists.”<\/p>\n Even these women, however, have come to respect Cupido<\/em>\u2019s sex-friendly and specifically woman-friendly perspective.\u00a0 After years of criticism, they recently decided that Cupido<\/em> is not the enemy of women\u2019s progress after all.\u00a0 A small group of dissidents, however — eight or ten women, according to Terje — still stalks the magazine, calling to the attention of the authorities anything Cupido<\/em> does that they consider questionable.\u00a0 It is this group, Terje believes, that is the source of the uproar about the Steinmeier photograph.<\/p>\n Now, sexual politics in Norway are a good deal more civilized than they are in this country, but the antisexual underpinnings of Norway\u2019s staunchly Calvinist culture are strong nevertheless.\u00a0 Called in for questioning about the Steinmeier photograph, Terje initially treated the incident as an annoyance, confident that once the authorities were shown the breadth and quality of Steinmeier\u2019s work, and were made aware of the age and circumstance of the model, there would be no further problem.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the matter has not been so simple.<\/p>\n Generally speaking, Norwegian law is clearer than U.S. law as to what is permitted and what is prohibited in terms of publication of sexual images.\u00a0 Norwegian obscenity standards have nothing to do with subjectively determined criteria, such as whether or not an image has redeeming artistic merit, or whether it violates vague and changing local community standards.\u00a0 Photos showing sexual penetration are against the law.\u00a0 So are photos showing actual oral-genital contact, sex with animals, or sex with children under the age of 16.<\/p>\n Aside from that, you can publish what you want.\u00a0 Erections are fine.\u00a0 Bodily fluids are fine.\u00a0 Hands on cocks and cunts are fine.\u00a0 Hot sexual energy is fine.\u00a0 Men with men is fine; women with women is fine.\u00a0 What you see is what you get.\u00a0 A photograph of a woman\u2019s mouth an inch away from a man\u2019s erect penis is legal; if her mouth touches the penis, no dice.\u00a0 Norwegian obscenity law basically lets publishers know where they stand.\u00a0 How different this is from U.S. obscenity law, which is designed to keep sex publishers perennially guessing.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if we could have such clear guidelines in this country?<\/p>\n There is, however, one gray area in Norwegian obscenity law, and that is precisely the area that Terje and Cupido<\/em> find themselves tangling with the Norwegian authorities.\u00a0 Originally the police were claiming that the woman in the photograph was under 16.\u00a0 They even called in a doctor to testify that the model looked underage to him.\u00a0 (Step right up folks!\u00a0 If I can\u2019t guess your age within 18 months you win a kewpie doll!\u00a0 Step right up!)\u00a0 When Cupido<\/em> demonstrated that the woman was in fact 19 when the photo was taken, the police changed their tack to claiming that Steinmeier\u2019s use of detail-obscuring silhouette was for the purpose of making the model look younger than she was.\u00a0 In Norway, you see, it is illegal to publish erotic photos, even if the models are older than 16, if the intent of the photo is to make them appear as if they are under 16<\/em>.\u00a0 Try arguing about something as subtle as artistic intent in a court of law!<\/p>\n At this point, the matter is pending in the early stages.\u00a0 Meanwhile, of course, it hangs over Terje\u2019s head as the proceedings drag on month after month, as legal matters do the world over.\u00a0 Fortunately for Cupido<\/em>, there is the huge body of stunningly beautiful, unimpeachably artistic work by Steinmeier to give credence to Cupido<\/em>\u2019s insistence that using underage youthfulness as a sexual come-on is simply not what Steinmeier does.\u00a0 The repeated appearance of Steinmeier\u2019s work in the intelligent and far-from-sleazy U.S. erotic quarterly Libido (including the offending photograph itself), should also help attest to the quality and aesthetic integrity of Steinmeier\u2019s work.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, trumpeting the invective “underage” inevitably sends a chill through any publisher\u2019s bones, and serves as a reminder to all of us of how easy it is to taint even the most conscientious of sex publishers with unethical intent.\u00a0 As Terje says, “If the authorities decide to bring charges in this case I could plead guilty, pay a fine, and be done with the matter.\u00a0 But then, of course, I would officially be labeled a criminal, and I am not<\/em> a criminal.”<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n Daughter of Cyborgasm<\/em><\/b><\/p>\n Cyborgasm<\/em> is back.\u00a0 Lisa Palac and Ron Gompertz\u2019s initial venture into the realm of audio turn-on was so popular that no lesser producer than Time Warner Audio Books signed them up for the sequels, and the first return volume is now out and available for your sexual pleasure and listening enjoyment.<\/p>\n As I said in my review of the original Cyborgasm<\/em> CD, I find intimate audio an interesting concept.\u00a0 So many possibilities to play with, especially once you put the headphones on and the sound comes inside your head.\u00a0 We all know how delicious the sound is that a performer makes when s\/he has his or her mouth right on top of the mike, breathing and whispering so subtly that you\u2019d have to be inches away for it to mean anything at all in unamplified reality — the sound nonetheless projected outward in concert settings, projected hundreds of feet into the cavernous spaces of huge auditoriums, ironically reaching as many as tens of thousands of witnessing strangers.\u00a0 Thousands of people inches away from the most intimate and personal of sounds:\u00a0 an exhibitionist\u2019s fantasy; a voyeur\u2019s delight.<\/p>\n This breathy closeness, this unexpected and incongruous instant connection with the intimate stranger, is precisely what Palac and Gompertz explore so thoroughly with their Cyborgasm<\/em> discs.\u00a0 An audience of thousands, but also an audience of just one person at a time, lying comfortably somewhere with headphones and senses tuned, bringing the sound up close, bringing the sound inside.<\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s listening in as lovers talk intimately and personally to each other, being talked to directly as if we are one of the lovers ourselves, or being breathfully told a story of some sexual encounter, Cyborgasm<\/em>\u2019s sound offers listeners the sense of physical closeness and immediacy usually reserved for the most private of moments with a lover.\u00a0 If listening in on that kind of privacy turns you on, Cyborgasm<\/em> may well be a medium for you.<\/p>\n Ideally, of course, an audio sex scene would start with some kind of hot, imaginative circumstance, add some skillful writing to translate the sexual heat from concept to words and sounds, and then have talented actors transport the script across that tricky suspension of disbelief into a sustainable sense of engaging sexual pulsation.\u00a0 Ideally, a video sex scene would have these elements as well.\u00a0 As we know so well from the experience of watching sex videos, however, the world we live in is far from ideal when it comes to sexual matters.\u00a0 Even mainstream Hollywood only occasionally manages such multiple transformations.\u00a0 When you step outside the world of multimillion-dollar budgets, and step across the line of sexual respectability as well, you\u2019ve got your work cut out for you.<\/p>\n It\u2019s within that kind of awareness that I found myself enjoying The Edge of the Bed: Cyborgasm 2,<\/em> even though I can\u2019t really say that this CD\u00a0 knocked me for any kind of erotic loop.\u00a0 Sometimes I liked the premise of a cut, only to be less than thrilled with the verbal delivery.\u00a0 Sometimes it was the language seemed clumsy or forced.\u00a0 Nonetheless, for all the flaws, there is something compelling about the imagination and the open erotic desire that rolls just beneath the surface for most of this disc, and when the various elements simultaneously click into place, some moments of delightfully sexy magic result.<\/p>\n Perhaps part of my ambivalence about The Edge of the Bed has to do with it not affecting me as strongly as the original Cyborgasm<\/em> disc.\u00a0 None of the cuts on The Edge of the Bed grabbed me as powerfully as Susie Bright\u2019s Circus Whore or Jon Bailiff\u2019s Dirty Fare on Cyborgasm\u00a0 1<\/em>.\u00a0 While the sound editing is more professional, the use of specific audio techniques more developed, and the erotic impact of the music more effective than before, there was a delightfully dark nastiness on the first Cyborgasm<\/em> disc that I missed on this sequel, perhaps the result of pleasing the marketing moguls at Time Warner.\u00a0 Nevertheless, there were definitely times when all else dropped away and I was left simply swimming in the erotic soup, just me and the headphones floating in a sea of seductive voices and compelling moans that seemed to emerge from the center of my head, from the right, from the left, from somewhere just across the room.<\/p>\n Laura Albert and Jeffrey Kaos\u2019, “Vicious Panties” — a tale of a woman who discovers her boyfriend dressed in her panties and proceeds to pull him, kicking and creaming, through his own fantasy — is playful, hot, believable, even a little nasty.\u00a0 Dennis Matthews\u2019 “Mardi Gras” and Lisa Palac\u2019s own “Puppy,” while slipping into exaggeration more than a couple times, both have real sexual juice, the feel of being with a lover who has real sexual magic even if s\/he might be trying just a little too hard. \u00a0“Daddy Don\u2019t Go\u2019s Down” is, for me, the most sexually compelling cut, combining music, rhythmic talk, and rich sexual innuendo in a powerful mix that went beyond storytelling to something more visceral, more primal.\u00a0 Josh Kornbluth\u2019s stunningly honest, funny, vulnerable, and innocently sexy “Inside Marcie\u2019s Bedroom”, not really a piece intended specifically as a turn-on, brings real literary depth to the collection.\u00a0 I find Kornbluth\u2019s easy, magical movement into the subtleties of sexual\/sensual wonder as deeply moving as any rendition of more explicitly prurient material.\u00a0 And Kornbluth\u2019s extended imitation — dare I say enactment? — of a woman moving into and through orgasm is one of the great dramatic nuggets of all time.<\/p>\n I was pleased that Palac thought to include a piece like Kornbluth\u2019s, taking The Edge of the Bed<\/em> beyond the heart-thumping world of the breathy turn-on.\u00a0 Their inclusion of cuts that move even further outside the realm of the specifically erotic, however, is unfortunately more distracting than broadening.\u00a0 Voice Farm\u2019s “The Housewife and the Businessman” and “Dueling Hoosiers” by Jana Goerlitz and Rebecca Klinger, two pieces that would be delightfully amusing in another context, seem out of place in this particular program.<\/p>\n The combining of verbal sexual description with sexually evocative music is one of the strongest successes of The Edge of the Bed<\/em>.\u00a0 Joe Gore\u2019s dark, moody accompaniments add powerful, non-verbal sexual charge to each of the cuts on which he appears.\u00a0 And the sexually charged musical magic of Daddy Don\u2019t Go is a bonus discovery itself worth the price of the disc.<\/p>\n Intimate audio sex still has a long way to go, but Cyborgasm<\/em> and The Edge of the Bed<\/em> are strong first steps in what may well develop into a fascinating new form of erotic entertainment.\u00a0 There are so many possibilities presented by the new medium, most significantly the chance to go far beyond the form of linear, literary narrative.\u00a0 For my money, the more imaginative freedom the better, as long as the material stays within the cast magical transformation of the erotic circle.\u00a0 There could be more sounds; fewer words.\u00a0 Language that speaks directly to the right (intuitive, somatic, feminine) brain, that allows the left (rational, conceptual, masculine) brain to go to sleep for a while, for the boys as well as the girls.\u00a0 (Leave the multisyllables and clever references at the door — they take too much cognitive attention to decipher.)\u00a0 There could be collages of wordless sounds, or of sounds mixed with non-sentence-bound words, phrases, and images; recordings of real-time sounds of people being sexual (and not bothering to sportscast what\u2019s going on); the sound of a sex party when several audible scenes happen in the same room at the same time; foreground\/background mixes that make it impossible for the brain to make rational “sense” out of what is being heard.<\/p>\n Of course, ideas are cheap, and it\u2019s oh so easy to sit on the sidelines and say “Why don\u2019t you do this; why don\u2019t you do that!”\u00a0 As both a writer and an editor I know full well how hard it is to create imaginative erotic material, and I know equally well that what thrills one person to the bottom of his or her coccyx will stimulate nothing more than a yawn or a smirk in someone else.\u00a0 As Palac accurately says in her liner notes, when it comes to erotic material, “everybody whines \u2018I could do better than that!\u2019 but few people do anything at all.”<\/p>\n Palac and Gompertz have, in their own words, gotten off their critical asses and taken a shot — two shots, now — at doing something new.\u00a0 For their courage and their innovation, they deserve our deep appreciation and respect.\u00a0 The possibilities of what they are initiating are just beginning to be revealed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n April 7, 1995<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 1995 David Steinberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/p>\n Porn Politics, Norwegian Style<\/p>\n Ralph Ginzburg learned a difficult lesson in the politics of porn, back in 1966, when he was sentenced to five years in prison for engaging in the most artful erotic publishing venture of that time, Eros magazine. Eros was a distinctly classy, if irreverent erotic magazine, “devoted to the joys […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comes-naturally","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}