Erotic Freedom. We have had 25,000 years of it, according to Alan Moore in his book titled 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom:

With each new technological advance, pornography has proliferated and degraded in quality. Today, porn is everywhere, but where is it art?

25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom surveys the history of pornography and argues that the success and vibrancy of a society relates to its permissiveness in sexual matters.

This history of erotic art brings together some of the most provocative illustrations ever published, showcasing the evolution of pornography over diverse cultures from prehistoric to modern times. Beginning with the Venus of Willendorf, created between 24,000-22,000 bce, and book-ended by contemporary photography, it also contains a timeline covering major erotic works in several cultures. 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom ably captures the ancient and insuppressible creative drive of the sexual spirit, making this book a treatise on erotic art.

TIMELINE OF EROTIC FREEDOM

(excerpt from Alan Moore’s 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom)

• Venus of Willendorf created 24,000-22,000 B.C.
• Founding of Rome (753 B.C.)
• Greek artists create pornographic drawings & paintings on amphora, goblets, and vases (5th century B.C.)
• Romans paint frescoes in Villa Dei Misteri at Pompeii of sexual acts and erotic images (1st century B.C.)
• In Middle Ages, hundreds of erotic carvings found on colonnades of Gothic churches
• sculpture of David by Donatello (1430-32)
• Birth of Venus painting by Botticelli (1480)
• Savonarola, a notorious and powerful censor, persuades artists of Firenze, Italy to destroy their nude art (1497)
• Pope Paul III establishes the Universal Roman Inquisition and condemnation of “immoral works of art” (1542)
• Pope Paul IV creates a list of books he banned to the Inquisition (1559)
• The Council of Trent of the Catholic Church issues the “Librorum Prohibitum” updated until 1948, including more than 4,000 works. The index was rescinded in 1965. (1564)
• Licensing Act of 1662 gives the English courts a mandate to “suppress indecent publications” (1662)
• “PORNOGRAPHY” comes into widespread use as a term in 19th century, appearing in the Oxford Dictionary (1857)
• Scandal of Oscar Wilde’s trials (1895)

Erotic Freedom has survived since the Victorian period. Since playwright Oscar Wilde was convicted of “gross indecency” in the stifling era of censorship for his writings and sexual preference, we have begun to loosen the bindings of sexual & erotic repression, dancing with the Great Goddess into the next millennium. Artists, writers, poets, novelists, photographers, sculptors, painters, musicians, burlesque dancers, belly dancers, prostitutes, web cam performers, lesbians, gays, straights, bi-sexuals, transgenders, hermaphrodites, erotic models, pornographers, erotic artists, shibari enthusiasts & artists, polyamorists, creative beings of the world, male and female, have the right to be sexually free and express themselves.

“The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.” ~ Oscar Wilde

(1885-1930) D.H. Lawrence, an English writer, was a famous novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, and literary critic. His novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, was censored when it was first published in 1928, and it was later part of a trial under the Obscene Publications Act. But D. H. Lawrence was true to his erotic expressions in his literature, not to be cast aside as “smut” :

Lawrence’s opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his “savage pilgrimage.”At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as, “The greatest imaginative novelist of our generation.” {quote from Wikipedia}

He was not alone.

Henry Miller, James Joyce, and Walt Whitman, to name a few. Here is a list of Banned Books in history. Oscar Wilde’s play “Salome” was deemed “vulgar,” and Tennessee Williams’ play “A Streetcar Named Desire” was “controversial” because of the story of a woman’s rape and mental decline.

Writer Henry Miller, lover of Anaïs Nin, published his first printing of Tropic of Cancer in 1934, and all of his books were banned in the United States, as his works contain detailed accounts of sexual experiences. His writing opened the doors of sex in American writing. He continued to write novels that were banned in the United States on the “grounds of obscenity.”

James Joyce’s Ulysses was banned for “obscenity.” In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Ulysses first on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Ulysses was an epic groundbreaking novel that was cause for much controversy due to its “Obscenity Allegations” :

“Written over a seven-year period from 1914 to 1921, the novel was serialized in the American journal The Little Review from 1918 until the publication of the Nausicaä episode led to a prosecution for obscenity. In 1919, sections of the novel also appeared in the London literary journal The Egoist, but the novel itself was banned in the United Kingdom until the 1930s. In 1920 after the US magazine The Little Review serialised a passage of the book dealing with the main character masturbating, a group called the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, who objected to the book’s content, took action to attempt to keep the book out of the United States. At a trial in 1921 the magazine was declared obscene and, as a result, Ulysses was banned in the United States. In 1933, the publisher Random House arranged to import the French edition and have a copy seized by customs when the ship was unloaded, which it then contested. In United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, U.S. District Judge John M. Woolsey ruled on December 6th 1933 that the book was not pornographic and therefore could not be obscene, a decision that was called “epoch-making” by Stuart Gilbert.The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling in 1934.Contrary to popular belief, Ulysses was never banned in Ireland.” {quote from Wikipedia under “Ulysses”}

All artists, writers, and creative people have the right to express themselves in art. Erotica, literature, paintings, poetry, music, and dance forms have the artistic freedom to involve the erotic. What about French Erotic postcards? Love letters? Erotic photography?

But we have much to celebrate. The latest and greatest news of New York Legislature passing a “same sex marriage” bill has us all shouting Let Freedom Ring!

“All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Fig leafs once covered genitals on sculptures. Paintings that were deemed “immoral” were covered and banned from museums. Writers were censored, and even criticized for their sexual identities. Like Oscar Wilde’s homosexual preferences, Walt Whitman was insulted for his presumed “bisexuality” based on his writings:

“Whitman’s sexuality is generally assumed to be homosexual or bisexual based on his poetry, though that has been at times disputed. His poetry depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy, individualistic way common in American culture before the medicalization of sexuality in the late 19th century. Though Leaves of Grass was often labeled pornographic or obscene, only one critic remarked on its author’s presumed sexual activity: in a November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Whitman was guilty of “that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians”. Whitman had intense friendships with many men and boys throughout his life. Some biographers have claimed that he may not have actually engaged in sexual relationships with males, while others cite letters, journal entries and other sources which they claim as proof of the sexual nature of some of his relationships.” (quote from Wikipedia)

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (known as Fanny Hill) by John Cleland was the first published erotic novel in England in 1748. Fanny Hill is considered the first original English prose pornography in novel form. It is one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history.

Quotes from Fanny Hill:

“I felt her dear lips again pressing and sucking my engine of love.”

“…and now, disengag’d from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and surprise, what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observ’d, it must have belong’d to a young giant. Its prodigious size made me shrink again; yet I could not, without pleasure, behold, and even ventur’d to feel, such a length, such a breadth of animated ivory!”

Southern writer Kate Chopin wrote an erotic romance titled The Storm, which was composed on July 19, 1898. It was first published in The Complete Works of Kate Chopin in 1969. Kate Chopin did not dare publish it, as the sexual content would have caused great controversy. She had already caused enough by publishing her novel, The Awakening, which was condemned due to its subject matter of a woman’s non-conformist behavior and sexual desire outside of her marriage.

To quote from the Kate Chopin website: “She was the first woman writer in her country to accept passion as a legitimate subject for serious, outspoken fiction. Revolting against tradition and authority.”

Other writers, like Anaïs Nin, could not find a publisher that would risk printing their books. Anaïs Nin decided to do it herself. She printed her own books with her own printing press! She bought a foot-operated press and handset to print her own works.

Many other creative spirits have been deemed unpublishable, pornographic, obscene, vulgar, and controversial, with works of art and letters banned. But Erotic Freedom Prevails.

Let’s rejoice! Let us Sing The Body Electric! We have Erotic Freedom! No more fig leafs, no more censorship, freedom for all. And for those who are in difficulty, pain, in oppression and suppression, those in sexual slavery, let us work toward freedom for all human beings to be healthy, happy, and free.

Find organizations to help stop violence towards all people for their erotic, sexual and human rights.

• SOROPTIMIST helps stop sex slavery & trafficking
• support sex workers SWAAY Sex Work Activists, Allies and You

• Sexual Freedom Activist Network

(photos courtesy of www.abbywinters.com)

I received these two photographs from a former lover. It was a gift, in my mailbox. I had taken these with a camera on a set timer, before the days of digital. These two were taken in a series I did of myself, on my antique chaise lounge. {I lost the originals in New Orleans, along with my chaise lounge} My body, approximately fifteen years ago, before three children, before gravity. I was amazed to see how little I have changed over the years, despite pregnancies and time. These black & white photos are unaltered, printed on photo paper, before the days of Photoshop. I feel like they depict me beautifully, circa 1996.

In these photos, I was attempting to emulate the “Sleeping Venus” of Titan’s reclining nude, “Venus of Urbino” and the Odalisques of art history’s past, such as Manet’s “Olympia” and other sensual nudes in paintings.

I borrowed this information about the term “Sleeping Venus“:

The first female reclining nude in European painting is Giorgione’s The Sleeping Venus, painted in 1510. It pictures a reclining nude as the principal and only subject of the picture. In creating this work, Giorgione was reviving a tradition of the female nude that can be traced back to ancient Greek art.

In fact, Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus started what became one of the great themes of European art: the nude in an idealized landscape setting. Not painted for sexual desire, the nude is depicted as a demure goddess sleeping and unaware that a viewer is peeking in on her.

The Venus of Urbino by Titan from Wikipedia described: The Venus of Urbino is a 1538 oil painting by the Italian master Titian. It depicts a nude young woman, identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace. It hangs in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. The figure’s pose is based on Giorgione‘s Sleeping Venus (c. 1510), which Titian completed.

Vogue Italia June 2011

BRAVA ITALIA for bringing back the CURVE.

The Hips, the Breasts.

Woman.

Soft, Strong, Warm, Fleshy

Venus of Willendorf, Primal Womb

Ripe, Juicy, Sensuous, Curves of the Cosmos

Primordial Sister Moon, Mother of Life

Breasts, Goblets of Milk, Elixir

Hips, Thighs, Buttocks

Beautiful Woman.

Feminine beauty for centuries has been based upon the round, soft hips, the swell and dip of breasts. Rubenesque. Zaftig. Curvy. Venus had them. Aphrodite, as she was called by the Greeks. Femme Fatales. Sirens. Seductresses. All of them had a powerful gift: femininity.

Photographer Steven Meisel has captured, and only with his lens, the magnificence of the curve, the way we women are supposed to be. Enough of this dieting, the maniacal efforts to be slim, to squeeze into a size too small, for our true beauty is built in. Honor the curves, don’t fight them, as we have for decades now. What have we been doing? It’s like trying to control a tidal wave. A natural force. Corsets to control our tummy, “body shapers” and “tummy tamers” and contraptions to bind our curves? Enough of them. Unless you enjoy wearing a corset along with your garters and stockings to accentuate the positives of your curves.

Tara Lynn, Candice Huffine and Robyn Lawley are on the June issue cover story of VOGUE Italia, portrayed by Steven Meisel.

(Interestingly, Steven Meisel was also obsessed with models such as Twiggy, Veruschka, and Jean Shrimpton at 12 years old. To meet famous model Twiggy, the 12-year-old Meisel stood outside waiting for her to appear). But, here we have curves like never before. Unlike Twiggy, these curvaceous beauties are bringing back the bounce, the boom boom, and the vavoom. Or the… abbondanza!

The Renaissance of Feminine Beauty, Power, and the Goddess. Real Goddesses. The Archetype of Woman.

And VOGUE Italia is fighting the war against Pro-Anorexia websites with their buxom beauties.

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION

SIGN AGAINST PRO-ANOREXIA WEBSITES AND BLOGS

“On learning that Facebook is considered today the culprit of anorexia, and since I believe it is impossible that a social network alone may be held responsible for the spreading of such phenomenon, I did some research and found that there are countless pro-anorexia websites and blogs that not only support the disorder, but also urge young people to be competitive about their “body shape”.

Vogue Italia, the magazine par excellence that deals with and promotes aesthetics and beauty, has decided to make use of its  authority and its readers on the web (over one million of contacts per month), to battle against anorexia and collect signatures with the final goal of shutting such sites down.

Fashion has been always blamed as one of the culprits of anorexia, and our commitment  is the proof that fashion is ready to get on the frontline and struggle against the disorder.”