Quotations about the nature and purpose of honesterotica
Remember that these are the views of the writers who have inspired us, and they need to be read in the context in which they were written; we don’t necessarily agree with every word they say!
Though both erotica and pornography refer to verbal or pictorial representations of sexual behaviour, they are as different as a room with doors open and one with doors locked. The first might be a home, but the second could only be a prison. The problem is that there is so little erotica. Look at or imagine images of people making love; really making love. Those images may be very diverse. but there is likely to be a mutual pleasure and touch and warmth, an empathy for each other’s bodies and nerve endings, a shared sensuality and a spontaneous sense of two people who are there because they want to be.”
Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, 1983
Pornography is almost always underworld, it doesn’t come out into the open. You can recognise it by the insult it offers, to sex and to the human spirit. Pornography is the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it.”
D.H. Lawrence, Pornography and Obscenity, 1929
Consuming pornography does not lead to more sex, it leads to more porn. Much like eating McDonalds everyday will accustom you to food that, although enjoyable, is essentially not food, pornography conditions the consumer to being satisfied with an impression of extreme sex rather than the real.”
Virginie Despentes, King Kong Theory, 2010
When you are secure in yourself, know what turns you on, and enjoy watching your partner watch you experience sexual pleasure, you have a highly novel relationship grounded in love. The experience of seeing and being seen fuels lust and desire. This is exactly the way you integrate healthy lust and love into your sex life. It’s relational sex, not the old pornographic sex of past addictions.”
Alexandra Katehakis, Erotic Intelligence, 2010
You can’t talk about fucking in America, right? People say you’re dirty. But if you talk about killing somebody, that’s cool. I don’t understand it myself.”
Richard Pryor, 1972, quoted in Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World that Made Him, David Henry and Joe Henry, 2014
We do not have to spend money and go hungry and struggle and study to become sensual; we always were. We need not believe we must somehow earn good erotic care; we always deserved it.”
Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth, 1990
