Straight in the Eye

The wonderful and clear-eyed eroticist, Shanna Germain, posted a challenge to erotica writers to show the world that Charles McGrath is wrong when he intimated in his review of Nicholson Baker's latest sex-themed novel that writers who dare to tell stories about sexuality have bad coloring and furtive gazes from too much masturbating.  If you want to get riled up about the sad state of our culture, please do read the review--it's bursting with intellectual snobbery toward erotic writing, even as it supposedly celebrates Baker's courage in writing about topics that are usually delegated to stupid, shifty-eyed, sickly pornographers.

Anyway, I offer this above photograph as an exhibit of one pornographer who is not afraid to look anyone straight in the eye and proclaim--"I have a Ph.D., I write sexually honest stories, and I've got plenty of color in my cheeks and my life.  And I'm a hell of a lot more comfortable about sex than you are, Mr. McGrath!"

Although it wouldn't surprise me if Mr. McGrath allowed that females who dare to speak of erotic topics might wear too much rouge....