"The bawdy lowbrow and the poetic highbrow"

[mirafrida]

Not that I would claim any literary merit for my stories, but nevertheless, I found this NYT editorial a bit inspiring

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/opinion/shakespeare-canceled-schools.html

One can no more take out the dirty parts of Shakespeare than one can take out the poetry. It’s all intertwined, so that Shakespeare seems almost purposefully designed to confound those who want to segregate the smutty from the sublime. His work is proof that profundity can live next to, and even be found in, the pornographic, the viscerally violent and the existentially horrifying.

 

[SimonDoom]

Agree 100%. It's one reason why I think debates about "Is it porn or is it erotica?" are off the mark and dull.

 

[AlinaX]

One of the most fascinating books I've ever read is 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess where the author casually inserts pornographic set pieces throughout the plot in a way that is both erotic and deeply frustrating.

 

[lovecraft68]

Articles like that make me laugh, they talk in defense of "smut' but this society still condemns it and treats it like a dirty secret.

 

[Altissimus]

Articles like that make me laugh, they talk in defense of "smut' but this society still condemns it and treats it like a dirty secret.

Well, quite. How dare any of us openly acknowledge such an outrageous thing that... well... consumes much of everyone's thoughts every day, drives our behaviours, influences what we buy, what we wear, what we watch...

...hang on...

 

[PrincessArianrhod]

Its all in the presentation. I'd rather drink my cheap wine from a crystal glass than a plastic beaker.

 

[lovecraft68]

Well, quite. How dare any of us openly acknowledge such an outrageous thing that... well... consumes much of everyone's thoughts every day, drives our behaviours, influences what we buy, what we wear, what we watch...

...hang on...

It said it all when the first thing to really blow up during the first stages of lockdown was subscriptions to porn hub.

 

[lovecraft68]

Its all in the presentation. I'd rather drink my cheap wine from a crystal glass than a plastic beaker.

Snob, I'll chug it straight from the bottle

 

[Altissimus]

...was subscriptions to porn hub.

I heard they purchased a lab in Wuhan in 2019.

 

[lovecraft68]

I heard they purchased a lab in Wuhan in 2019.

Nah, if they did, it wouldn't be covid that was spreading in 2020

 

[MillieDynamite]

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2
Hamlet: Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favors?
Guildenstern: Faith, her privates we.
Hamlet: In the secret parts of Fortune?


Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2
Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Ophelia: No, my lord.
Hamlet: Did you think I meant country matters?
Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord.
Hamlet: That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.


Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5, Scene 2
Benedick: I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes.

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 3
Nurse: Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit.

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 1
Mercutio: Now will he sit under a medlar tree
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.
O Romeo, that she were! Oh, that she were
An open arse, and thou a poperin pear.

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3
Juliet: O happy dagger! This is thy sheath! There rust and let me die.

Othello, Act 1, Scene 1
Iago: I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
(Translation, there be much fucking going on, sir.)