Purple Sage
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2006
- Posts
- 256
In a thread about Gor and Scientology, I remarked that we needed a new category- Wodehousian Porn. Well, okay, Wodehousian Erotica, since it's hard to imagine old P.G. getting really raunchy, no matter what the subject matter. I've been thinking about that since, and the more I think about it, the better a notion I think it is. Which may tell you more about me than about the idea itself.
Anyway, at first I thought about it as "If P.G. Wodehouse wrote porn...", but I found that a daunting approach. "If Fred Astaire danced the Lambada..." maybe, but getting inside P.G.'s head to that extent, and then changing it... no thanks. So, I decided to approach the idea more from the point of view of stealing his chops. That way I can just leave out whatever makes it porn-unfriendly.
So, here is a list of elements from Wodehouse that I think could be woven into a porn-friendly matrix- and I'd love to hear from others about what else they see there that might work.
1: Upper class Brits. Of course. Naturally. To be more precise, funny upper class Brits.
2: Servants. Nothing sexier than maids, after all.
3: complicated but lighthearted plotting- vast expenditures of effort over trivia.
4: Significant focus on issues of propriety/impropriety.
5: Utter lack of naturalism.
6: Settings as authentic as those from 1930's musicals.
7: And of course, all those little stylistic things that make Wodehouse Wodehouse and cannot be described- but hopefully can be stolen.
Looking over the list, it seems to me that the appropriate flavor of erotica here is a kind of fanciful BDSM. I then notice that something along these lines has been done- by 'John Willie' Coutts, the author of The Adventures of Sweet Gwendolyne and the magazine Bizarre, though his output was largely in comic format, hence losing much of the flavor that Wodehouse is able to impart to his characters. Does anyone know of other, more 'literary' examples? Anyone have suggestions? Additions to the list?
Anyway, at first I thought about it as "If P.G. Wodehouse wrote porn...", but I found that a daunting approach. "If Fred Astaire danced the Lambada..." maybe, but getting inside P.G.'s head to that extent, and then changing it... no thanks. So, I decided to approach the idea more from the point of view of stealing his chops. That way I can just leave out whatever makes it porn-unfriendly.
So, here is a list of elements from Wodehouse that I think could be woven into a porn-friendly matrix- and I'd love to hear from others about what else they see there that might work.
1: Upper class Brits. Of course. Naturally. To be more precise, funny upper class Brits.
2: Servants. Nothing sexier than maids, after all.
3: complicated but lighthearted plotting- vast expenditures of effort over trivia.
4: Significant focus on issues of propriety/impropriety.
5: Utter lack of naturalism.
6: Settings as authentic as those from 1930's musicals.
7: And of course, all those little stylistic things that make Wodehouse Wodehouse and cannot be described- but hopefully can be stolen.
Looking over the list, it seems to me that the appropriate flavor of erotica here is a kind of fanciful BDSM. I then notice that something along these lines has been done- by 'John Willie' Coutts, the author of The Adventures of Sweet Gwendolyne and the magazine Bizarre, though his output was largely in comic format, hence losing much of the flavor that Wodehouse is able to impart to his characters. Does anyone know of other, more 'literary' examples? Anyone have suggestions? Additions to the list?
