As I mentioned yesterday on Twitter, I was linked by Salon in a piece by Tracy Clark-Flory entitled Sex writing goes limp. My initial reaction was to roll my eyes at the title, but I thought, well, writers often don’t choose their own headlines, so I’d better give the piece itself a chance. So I read it, and unfortunately I was pretty disappointed.
The bulk of the article is devoted to talking about how “sex writers” (not a huge fan of that term, as I feel it’s too reductive; but it’s the term used by Clark-Flory) aren’t talented, don’t work hard, and have nothing substantive to contribute. Take this quote from Susannah Breslin, for instance:
“Sometimes people become sex writers because they screw a lot, not necessarily because they can write well,” she told me in an e-mail. “If your career as a writer is driven by you showing your tits on your blog on a regular basis, maybe you shouldn’t be so surprised when you lose your cred.”
This is asinine but also infuriating, because it implies that the writers who were laid off and/or chose to leave fit this description. But none of them do. So why waste time talking about the mythical sex writers who have jobs only because they show their tits?
I said “mythical,” but I know such writers do exist. However, it’s pointless, misleading, and frankly seems a bit malicious to bring them up in this situation, because they have nothing whatsoever to do with the specific people being discussed!
The conflation is maddening. The loss of Regina Lynn’s Wired.com column and Tristan Taormino’s Village Voice column (and all the rest) is upsetting specifically because they were not fluff writers putting out glossy features about 10 ways to give an awesome blowjob.
The dearth of smart sex content is what we’ve been bemoaning, people. The fluff writers aren’t losing their jobs - who can resist a checklist of 5 daring and dirty new positions? The titillation factor is high and the threat level is low. That kind of material is exactly what a society that can talk about sex only in a “ha-ha tee-hee let’s make puns” manner demands - and it reinforces this arrested development mentality toward sex. The writing of the people who lost their jobs recently was remarkable because it challenged the status quo of how sex is represented, and helped to expose more people to the possibility of a thoughtful, interesting, non-judgmental discourse about sexuality.
I hear and completely agree with what Gracie Passette, Melissa Gira, Regina Lynn and others are saying about the lay-offs being part of the larger issue facing media: plummeting profits and circulation. I have no doubt that that’s what led to these writers being laid off, but I don’t think it’s pointless to note the fact that a particular type of writer is being let go. Coincidence or not, noting the zeitgeist of it is appropriate, and we should use it as a jumping-off point for greater analysis of how our society views sex.
READ ME: Disclaimer
Leave a comment