Erotica By Helen E. H. Madden

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Site Update: How Do You Like The New Look?

Well, after spending over a month beating my brains out against my laptop, I finally have a template for both the blog and the website that I like. I hope you like the roses, because they are here to stay. Some fun facts I discovered while building this template:

Lesson #1 - While Internet Explorer doesn’t seem to care too much, Firefox is very picky about how you use the DIV tag and its attributes. Do it right or don’t do it at all.

Lesson #2 - The nifty label widget that Blogger developed doesn’t entirely work with blogs hosted outside Blogger. Oh, you still get the labels, but not the nice little list of topics at the side. Bummer. That’s what I liked best about that feature.

Lesson #3 - PNG is a much nicer graphics format to work with than GIF. Both will give you transparency, but the graphics stay more crisp and clear in PNG. PNG is also more flexible in allowing you to decide what colors are transparent. Fireworks will let me choose more than one color for the transparency when working with PNG. Of course, PNG is a bit more of a memory hog, but I thought it was worth.

Lesson #4 - You absolutely can not fix errors in your html code when you have two small children screaming at you to either a) get them more milk, or b) change their poopy diapers.

Okay, I know that list is not sexy and not even remotely related to erotica, but hey, it's how I've been spending my days lately. Enjoy the site!

Labels: Site update

Monday, May 14, 2007

This Movie Is Rated 'R' For A Reason

I saw an article today on MSN.com about a lawsuit filed against the Chicago board of education over a showing of Brokeback Mountain to a class of eighth graders. Apparently a substitute teacher decided to show the film in class one day without getting permission from the students’ parents. One of the students was only twelve years old and her grandparents are now suing, saying their granddaughter suffered psychological distress after seeing the movie.

Before going any further with this blog entry, I feel I must reveal to you my ultimate dirty little secret. Are you ready? Here it is.

I am a closet prude.

No, really. I am. I know what you’re thinking. This is a woman who fulfills her artistic vision by writing erotic stories and creating erotic artwork. And I’m not shy about that either. Nor would I define any of my work as tame. I have written scenes about oral sex and orgies. I’ve published stories involving ass play and strap-ons. On the art side, if you check the gallery on the website, you’ll find images of full frontal male nudity, including a lovely picture of a young man masturbating while riding a horse. So yeah, I’m all about creative, explicit, erotic expression.

But you know what? I’m not keen on showing R-rated movies to a bunch of eighth graders without their parents’ or guardians’ consent. That may make me sound like a hypocrite, but keep in mind that though I work in the field of erotica, I am determined not to expose anyone under the age of eighteen to any of my work. I signed this website up with an internet review service designed to keep underage youngsters from seeing what I produce, and I intend to sign up with other services to further insure I don’t corrupt any young minds.

Here’s my beef. There is a time and a place to learn about certain things, and kids should be allowed to learn at a pace suitable to their age. I’ve never seen the movie myself, but a quick look online tells me that Brokeback Mountain got great reviews and several Oscar nominations. It is a movie that deals with the realities of being gay in today’s society and also looks at the problems caused by extra-marital affairs. Very sensitive, timely subjects that everyone needs to be aware of. However, that same quick look also tells me that the movie includes:

22 uses of the word “fuck”

A scene showing the results of a violent, fatal beating

Scenes of violence and fighting, some of which sound rather bloody

Lots of smoking and drinking

Several sexual encounters, both straight and gay, that show some nudity and action

Explicit sexual dialog

And on and on. It sounds like a movie I should watch sometime, something that deals with a highly charged subject in a sensitive yet realistic manner. It does not, however, sound like a movie appropriate for a child, especially given all the nudity and scenes of sex and violence. After reading the reviews, I can certainly see how a child of twelve would be psychologically distressed by seeing this movie.

I remember when I was twelve I saw a movie on PBS about women in prison. In one scene, one of the prisoners refused to eat, so the guards held her down and forced a feeding tube up her nose. Blood dripped out her nostril as they did it. It wasn’t an excessively gory scene and the woman wasn’t beaten into submission, just restrained to an examining table. But it was enough to make me feel positively ill at that age. There were other times I recall as well before the age of eighteen when I was exposed to sexual or violent material, and I simply was not ready for that kind of thing. It left me feeling ill and disturbed each time.

With age and maturity, my comfort zone has expanded (quite considerably, in case you hadn’t noticed). Though to be honest, there are still a few things within the realm of sex and violence that leave me feeling queasy any time I encounter them. However, at age thirty-eight I’m far more capable of handling the uncomfortable stuff than I was at age twelve. In fact, if I had encountered some of the things I deal with now back when I was twelve, I might never have grown up to have a positive view of sexuality. Seriously. Squick a person out at too young an age and you scar them for life.

So, it’s not for me to decide when and how someone else’s kids get exposed to sex and violence. Nor is it someone else’s business to expose mine before they’re ready. Leave the rough and ready cowboys of Brokeback Mountain to the adults who are ready to appreciate them, and give the kids something far more appropriate to their age.

Labels: My Inner Prude, Sex and Movies, Sex and Parenting

Thursday, May 3, 2007

People Eat The Darnedest Things

Just when I thought I’d seen everything...

The Incredible Edible Anus

Gives all new meaning to the phrase "Bite me."

Labels: Sex and Food

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Is Anybody Reading This?

The April 25th opinion column by Kathleen Parker of the Orlando Sentinel stated people who read books are a dying breed, and that newspapers are only helping them into the grave. Apparently, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has recently fired its book editor in an effort to cut costs, a move that has many people, including Ms. Parker, up in arms. I have to admit, I think it sucks too. My local newspaper gives short shift to book reviews. We get a single page each week in the Sunday paper that includes maybe two book reviews and that’s it. I would kill to have an actual book section in my newspaper. In fact, one of the joys of visiting my in-laws in D.C. is that I can steal the book review section from their Washington Post and enjoy it on the drive home. You see, I love reading about books almost as much as I love reading books.

So I agree it’s a tragic loss that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has decided to do away with their book editor. However, I think Ms. Parker goes a bit far in stating that this is a sign of the end times for literacy. She quotes a 2004 report from the National Endowment of the Arts as stating that fewer than half Americans read literature, and that literary reading has dropped 14 percent. I have some questions about this.

First off, how do I get a copy of that NEA report, because I’d like to take a look at it? Yours truly suffered through a course on research and statistics in grad school, and the one thing I definitely remember from that is that numbers in a report can be massaged or misinterpreted to look like anything. So between 1992 and 2002 the percentage of Americans reading any book dropped 7 percent, and the percentage of Americans reading literature (defined in the op-ed piece as non-work related reading of novels, short stories, poems or plays) dropped 14 percent. Is it possible that Americans are reading something other than books, like say magazines or (god forbid) blogs and websites? When I want to read short fiction, I buy a magazine like Asimov’s or I visit the ERWA.

Which leads me to my second question - Ms. Parker’s definition of literature. Are we talking novels, short stories, poems and plays in all genres of fiction, including sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance and erotica? Or do those not count as “real literature?” I’d like to know, because it could make a difference.

Third, if we’re not reading books, does that only mean we’re not reading printed books, or did anybody even bother to take a look at the number of e-books folks read these days? I have a vested interest in this, as my forth-coming novel is being e-published. In fact, a lot of erotica writers are e-published. Did anybody count our readers?

Fourth, Ms. Parker makes a connection between the decline of newspapers and the decline of reading in general. If newspapers don’t promote books to people who read (because as she rightly points out, if you read the paper, you probably read books), does that really impact the number of books being read? I would have thought people were reading less not because newspapers don’t review books anymore but because people have less leisure time these days than in decades past. The reason I read less these days has nothing at all to do with my local paper’s pathetic book section and plenty to do with the fact that I’m a working mom who has no free time to spare. I’d like to see if there’s any correlation between the decline in leisure time and the decline in reading books.

I think Americans are reading. We’re just not reading what Ms. Parker and the NEA expect them to read. I may not read a lot of books, but I am reading. I read my pathetic local newspaper. I read two or three magazines a month. I read stories for my writers’ group. I read blogs, just like you’re reading right now! So I don’t think we’re illiterate. If Ms. Parker doubts that, maybe she should take a look at bloggers. We might not be Herman Melville or Virgnia Wolfe, but we’re literate enough to write, and if you’ve looked at the blogsphere, you know we’re doing a lot of writing.

Labels: Reading

Subscribe: Atom Feed