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It used to be that this country had dirty books. Way back before my day, in the 1930s, there was Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, and there were then decades of court cases to keep the book from being smuggled in from France and to prosecute bookstores that sold it.
In my memory, in 1971, Xaviera Hollander’s The Happy Hooker was published with much hoopla and outrage. I was in junior high, and a guy in possession of this book would keep it hidden in his locker at school or under his bed at home. You did not want to be caught by a parent or teacher in possession of such a thing. Because it was, to the agreement of all, a dirty book.
I even remember Jaws being secretly passed at church with some kids clandestinely peeking at the dog-eared sections. (That novel might not have been thought of as a dirty book, but everyone agreed it had dirty passages. If the book was read at school, it better be the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version).
And then there was Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying with debates on television talk shows about whether it was literature or trash (don’t recall anyone arguing The Happy Hooker was literature), but even those arguing for the importance and relevance of the book and its insight into the Women's Movement and Second Wave Feminism weren’t saying that the book should be taught in high school English classes, let alone be available in junior high or elementary school libraries.
Plenty of people these days argue there is no such thing as a dirty book. All information about sexuality should be available to children of all ages, and if you don’t think so, you’re a book-burning Nazi. (These same people argue that some books are HATEFUL, and children must be shielded from them – books that teach blasphemous things such as “People are born male or female, and that can’t be changed.” But that would be another post.)
But this is the Quote of the Day, and I found a pretty great quote for Valentine’s Week from one of those dirty book writers. She wrote this:
“Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.” Erica Jong
There’s a lot of truth to this. If you’re talking about true love. Not about sex. Which is what dirty books used to be all about.
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This could have been written by the Rainbow LGBT+ crowd. (Which is perhaps what Jong is part of) Is this why they seem to be winning the battle for the culture? Do we really believe that "Love is love" and that sex is merely a subset of the fluid notion of gender? They think they have true love. Or is there a TRUE true love that comes from something higher and greater than humankind's vain imaginings? Taboos existed for a reason.
Maybe I'm overthinking this.
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You're not overthinking this. But I do think what she wrote is true if one is speaking of True Love, Agape Love, Biblical Love as found in I Corinthians 13. But she may have just been thinking of sex, and then it's a lie. Just as the Alphabet crowd's "Love Wins". Now if one is talking about God's love, that's a very true thing. If one is talking about sex, which is what the Alphabet People are often really talking about, it's a lie.
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That is a good point. But the LGBT+ crowd confuses love with license. That you should be able to do and be whatever you want to be or feel like, and that all objects of affection are equally healthy. They are not. Love means having to say "no" sometimes.
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The dirty parts of The Godfather were a thing for a while.
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Who needs to read dirty books when you can watch porn for free?
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