Woman Erased: Forgotten Female Erotica and Sex Writers
During my third year of university I signed up for a class entitled ‘Sex Writing and Pornography’. I was interested in the topic of erotica, as sexuality (and particularly female sexuality) is something that I explore within my own work as a writer. The class also sparked an interest due to the fact that my schooling before university had always remained conservative around the concept of sexuality. We were of course taught reproduction but had no lessons surrounding contraception or even the emotions and sensitivity of sex.
So, as a twenty-one-year-old I ventured out to learn what I had not been educated on during my high school years and registered for my first class that went beyond the realm of just the practicalities of sex. No more would I be a censored reader. No more would I be shot down with the word ‘abstinence’ when raising a question about passion and desire. I was interested to read works of writers combatting the taboos surrounding female sexuality in particular, as that is something so seemingly hidden throughout literature and society itself.
Under the ‘required reading’ section of the class’s syllabus were many names. But I soon came to realize that all of them – save for one – were names of male authors. The one exception was that of E.L. James, the writer of the worldwide phenomenon ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. I was surprised to not find names such as Anais Nin under the writers we were to study during the length of the semester. I decided to attend the class regardless but throughout each erotic novel assigned to be read each week, I felt something was missing. An absence of a female voice speaking of the experience of sex and sexuality.
Since finishing that class and eventually graduating from university, I have found myself actively looking the works of the female erotica and sexuality writers who were forgotten by the professor of the Sex Writing and Pornography class I signed up for during my penultimate year of school.
Here is who I have found:
SAPPHO
“You came and I was longing for you.
You cooled a heart that burned with desire.”
Taking it all the way back to the ancient Greeks, Sappho from the island of Lesbos was a poet who spoke often of female sexuality in her lyrical verse. Although not much is known about Sappho’s life, she was so well known throughout ancient Greece that she was honored by figures such as Plato and has often been deemed as Homers female counterpart. Sappho’s sexuality has often been the subject of controversy as her poetry reveals her attraction to women, in fact, the term ‘lesbian’ is derived from Sappho’s hometown of Lesbo. In recent years, Sappho has been highly regarded as a feminist heroine through her bold and early writings on female sexuality.
ANAIS NIN
“I had a feeling that Pandora's box contained the mysteries of woman's sensuality, so different from a man's and for which man's language was so inadequate. The language of sex had yet to be invented. The language of the senses was yet to be explored.”
As mentioned earlier, Anais Nin was considered to be the first prominent female erotica writers of the modern western world. Teaming with Henry Miller, she began to write erotic stories for a dollar a page before sculpting all these stories into her novels ‘Delta of Venus’ and ‘Little Birds’. Her published diaries show her as the friend and lover of many literary figures such as Henry Miller, John Steinbeck and Gore Vidal.
KATHY ACKER
“Sex. You can't lie to yourself sexually. If you don't want it, it's the most disgusting thing in the world.”
Not often acclaimed as an erotica writer, punk writer Kathy Acker was one of the most daring writers combatting controversial subjects such as sex addiction and even trauma following sexual assault. Her novel ‘Blood and Guts In High School’ has been banned in several countries for its pornographic content. Written in a ‘collage style’ format, the book contains both passages and poetry referring to sex as well as sexual drawings by Kathy Acker herself.
AUDRE LORDE
“We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way.”
Audre Lorde’s poetry and prose dealt highly with the subjects of sexuality and feminism. Her essay ‘Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power’ identifies the concept of the erotic as a power within the female existence. According to Lorde, the erotic exists beyond pornography and instead is a reclaiming of female power that has been taken and oppressed by men. She writes that the erotic has been ‘misused’ to objectify and sexualize women in the past. Instead, the erotic is a force of female power, a ‘lifeforce of women’.
Women have so much to speak of. Particularly regarding the subject of sexuality. I challenge educators to consider female voices when writing a syllabus for a class. I challenge readers to seek words from female poets and authors who may have been forgotten. Moving forward, I hope to see the names of more female writers in all areas of education, and I hope to see new female voices inspired by the ones who came before.
