Comments on: Writer, Ho!

By: Todd Seavey

Todd Seavey — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:53:49 +0000

Etiquette is the means of “containing” without law.

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:45:56 +0000

That’s a real question. I’m unfamiliar with the rules of this blog. (Are there any?)

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:39:06 +0000

You mean I’m in violation of a point of etiquette, or the porn enthusiasts are?

By: Todd Seavey

Todd Seavey — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:19:50 +0000

Etiquette.

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:16:29 +0000

Not to get into a long back-and-forth here, but your response raises a couple of questions:

1) How would you propose to “contain” it, if not by law? You certainly will never succeed in containing it merely through moral argument, because the legality of porn guarantees its ubiquity, and its ubiquity more or less guarantees its acceptance.

2) You worry about “even a mild, watered down form of porn being publicly celebrated and treated as a model for every day behavior”. But why? Porn is far more accessible and extreme than it has ever been before, and yet I don’t (often) see people fucking in the streets these days. Nor, I’m sure, do you. (Actually, I probably saw more of that kind of thing before porn was everywhere. In fact, I’m certain I did.)

Why then do you think that the public acceptance (or, as you put it, the “celebration”) of porn leads somehow to the widespread failure to distinguish the right time and place for sexual adventure?

No need to answer these questions at length, or at all. But maybe you could address them in your Wed. and Thurs. entries?

By: Todd Seavey

Todd Seavey — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:44:54 +0000

I would at least suggest, as would any decent neo-Victorian, that it should be carefully “contained.” As with a lot of other things, I would be less troubled by circumspect private consumption than by even a mild, watered-down form being publicly celebrated and treated as a model for everyday behavior — the first acknowledges that “there is a time and place” (as for drunkenness) while the second implies we are no longer capable of making or respecting such distinctions. But a little of both will be addressed in my Wednesday and Thursday blog entries, for good or ill…

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:18:05 +0000

‘the last thing we need is to turn one of the most powerful physical and emotional experiences possible â€” one capable of binding two people together like little else â€” into the moral-emotional equivalent of a McDonald’s purchase”

Would you, for similar reasons, have a moral problem with pornography?

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:50:56 +0000

The novel also makes you aware of just how important the “callâ€ half of the phrase “call girlâ€ is, with the heroine’s whole business life physically incarnated in that cell phone to a very important degree. When to answer it or not answer, how long one can safely ignore its ringing, whether to get out of the business by selling the clients’ phone numbers en masse, all become central questions.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:20:15 +0000

Those novels are absolutely brilliant – the first two anyway. I wonder how long Quan can keep the series fresh and interesting. I can’t wait to get a copy of her new book!