"Hard and Fast" - Judging a book by its sex scenes!

One of the things that big box bookstore in Jacksonville had was a "human sexuality" section that was filled with nothing but erotica, despite being far from the fiction and embedded deep in the self-help.

As if that wasn't strange enough, only one book in the entire shelf was turned to face the eye cover-on, and it was gay erotica! I picked it up and used one of my superpowers (when I open a book, if it has a sex scene, it will always open to that page), which was trivial in this case.

They were pretty decent sex scenes until, after skimming the fourth or fifth one, I noticed a pattern-- they were all porn scripts. When told from the bottom's point of view, there was never any question that it was absolutely wonderful. The author has never bitten a pillow in his life.

But the most damning thing was that every sex scene ended with the top pulling out and coming (excuse me, "cumming") on his partner. In a book, the author doesn't need a "money shot" to explain to the audience that the main character had gotten off on (and in) his partner. But this book had them, with single-character third-person omniscient point of view! Every single one of them. They followed the porn pattern of interest, suck, fuck.

I can't tell if this was regarded as a necessity of the genre in the author's eyes (I wish I'd written it down, the cover did not look like what Amazon offers up when I type in the title), or if this was a lame excuse for not using condoms in the era of safer sex, but if I was going to read porn, I was not going to be subjected to that kind of absurdity.

Big Box Bookstore Redux: Did I Bury the Lede?

Omaha pointed out to me that I may have missed the biggest point in that big box store section on "Human Sexuality."

When you go into a Barnes & Noble, or a Borders (when they were around), any independent bookstore, and most definitely any gay & lesbian independent bookstore, the sections on "Sexuality" and "Erotica" are most definitely in two different places.

The "Sexuality" section is near the self-help, psychology, and so forth. It contains how-to manuals for people trying to improve their sex lives. It's about dealing with dysfunction, or learning new positions, or bringing new things to the bedroom to try out. It sometimes features nudity, but is never meant to be arousing.

The "Erotica" section is just that: erotica. Sometimes blatantly pornographic (missing any plot at all), but always containing at least one sex scene that resolves the central conflict of the story.

Omaha pointed out that for these people, sex instruction is pornography. If there's sex instruction, it belongs with erotica: even the mention of sex, and caring for one's sexual capability, is titillating. The idea that one could think about one's sex life without getting a hard-on or suffering embarrassment just doesn't occur to the people stocking the shelves.

But even worse is the notion that pornography is sex instruction. These books are not fantasies to entertain, but examples to be emulated. If you're shameful enough to want self-help with your sex life, books about unsafe sex and ridiculous enslavement fantasies are sufficient to your needs.

It's attitudes like this that make me once say that bad porn is a public health problem. One to be dealt with by the introduction of good porn, but it somehow has to compete and communicate that it is, in fact, "good" examples of healthy sexuality, without somehow also being boring.