On Wednesday, February 4, 2004, at 02:00 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>
> Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>>
>>
>> conversely, do you see erotica put front and center on display at the
>> barnes & noble? i'm not saying that constitutes acceptance,
>
> Reprints of Victorian porn plus new stuff was on sale front & center in
> chain bookstores in the early '70s. These were stores that opened on to
> the main walkway of malls & anyone could stroll through the arch and be
> immediately confronted with a large display of the stuff. And teenagers
> could still get the stuff easily in the mid '80s. I'm not sure when it
> disappeared.
>
that's a good question, too. probably with the receding of the high tide of the "sexual revolution", don't you think? and madonna's book _sex_ got lots of play, but (a) that's because she's madonna, and (b) iirc, it was pretty much panned.
otoh, it's not like you see tons of science fiction front and center, either, so maybe that doesn't tell us much about "acceptance".
there are certainly books of what you might call prurient interest ( the "round-heeled woman" book, for example -- am i remembering that right?), but we can wonder both about their acceptance and whether or not they are porn. i mean, shoot, look at harlequin romances. porn? certainly "accepted", whatever way you cut it, no? and another huge market.
j