Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Nice tits, love

It's a while since I've re-read one cover to cover, but I grew up on Isaac Asimov's science-fiction writings. Asimov's later books built on his early novels and began to knit together the different sagas he initiated. His style changed also and became more openly racy. As an aside, Asimov collected and wrote dirty limericks, and you can still find copies of his anthologies.
"The Minister sat there, with a look of proud disdain on her face, and bare from the waist up. Her breasts were a smaller version of the woman herself – massive, firm, and overpoweringly impressive. 'Well?' she said. Trevize said, in all honesty, 'Magnificent!'"
That's from Foundation and Earth. I think it opens a can of worms. What does Trevize, the lucky dog, find to be "magnificent" in this context? Particularly proud nipples? (Mind, you'll have your eye out on that.) Perfectly proportioned? (A friend at college, when asked by his girlfriend if her breasts were suitably sized replied yes (the only right answer), as they were more than a mouthful but not more than a handful... Sounds like the Minister might qualify only if you have big hands.) Perhaps it's just the fact that he's about to get laid and knows it? 

For me this highlights a critical problem for the writer of erotica, in that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One lover's massive may be another's flat-chested; one man's 'magnificent!' may be another man's 'Crumbs! I hope you sued the plastic surgeon'; though only one of those responses gets the Minister to take off her knickers as well. 

In this age of digital printing, surely the solution is for the phrase "magnificent breasts" to be accompanied by an image clarifying what the author means? 

  
But then that brings us to a fundamental problem with communicating about sex on pieces of paper. Use all the words you want, illustrate them with pencil sketches and watercolours, and you're producing erotica. Put a photo in, and it's pornography.

2 comments:

  1. LMAO --- you are so right! And BTW, I grew up on Heinlein but came to love Asimov in adulthood. I curse my parents for only introducing me to one & not the other. Both sit on my shelves today, side by side.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmmm, and I've read very little Heinlein! Just a few short stories, I think. What's the best one to pick up?

      I saw a beautiful bound set of the Foundation novels yesterday (the original trilogy), very tempting.

      N

      Delete