Much of contemporary literary erotica defies easy categorization.
Beyond the headaches of harried bookstore managers, this vast perplexity of
unsorted subgenres, crossover hybrids, boutique flavors, designer titillations
and kink-specific niches; all loosely—often lazily—clustered under a single all-encompassing
rubric, seems to be perpetually expanding like the Universe itself. For
potential readers, trying to find something new in the erotica section can easily
become an exercise in futility leading to the very edge of mania; less
rewarding—but no less tedious—than the search for a new planet; more often akin
to shopping for toothpaste or shampoo with their myriad variations, targeting
every conceivable point along the spectrum of taste and turn-on. How does one
go about making sense of it all?
And who, for that matter, will comprise the “market
segment” for this unusual little book? James Wood’s The Doctrine of Venus
won’t be for everybody; but once found by its own small band of “proper
observers,” may well assume the cachet of a cult classic, inspire costume
parties and role-playing games, dedicated on-line chat rooms and secret societies. Simply
enough, the author pretends to have unearthed a scandalous handbook from the
Edwardian era (roughly 1901-1914); a manual or ‘vade mecum’ detailing the
practice, style and manner of “civilized” bondage and submission, copiously
illustrated with “racy” vintage glass-plate photographs. What readers will find
here is a ‘facsimile’ of this mysterious tome, said to have languished for
years in the restricted section of a large public library somewhere in North
America. Brief narrative sections set in the present day serve as bookends for the
manual, and provide context.
A neat idea to be sure, even if not, strictly
speaking, a wholly original one. Erotic
historical fiction is hardly a new phenomenon; there have already been quite a
few works of period-homage, contemporary fiction posing as long-lost
literature; intimate pseudo-biographies revealing the supposed hidden sex lives of
great and famous figures of the past, from the imaginary memoirs of body slaves in
ancient Rome to diaries of royal courtesans who never were; Victorian-era
confessions of guilty pleasure, or ersatz first-hand accounts of life on the
down-low in Gilded-Age Boston.
Still, suppose someone was to toss a copy of John
Norman’s Imaginative Sex into a time machine and send it back to 1907. What
would the most daring souls of the post-Victorian period make of Norman’s
infamous 1974 BDSM manual? How would they re-interpret it, taking pains to
maintain that all-important veneer of public respectability while employing the
language of their own reticent times; flowery, prettified—occasionally
stilted—unfailingly polite, freighted with euphemism?
The Doctrine of Venus makes for an easily
digestible primer to Wood’s contemporary stories of bondage and submission;
Taking Jennifer, Sharing Lucy, and Amy’s Choice. Those already familiar
with this fine body of work will recognize the author’s style of nostalgic reverence;
the longing for an imagined more elegant past, where elaborate language masks
society’s rigid, often cruel moral dichotomies. Wasn’t being “naughty” more
exciting—more fun—in a world that painted its mores in the starkest blacks and
whites? When taboo really was taboo, and quite literally unspeakable? When the
possibility of getting caught came with real-life consequences, scandal and
ruin?
On the downside, taken all at once, the manual section can make for some rather dry reading. The book as a whole might
have been more interesting had the author expanded the contemporary narrative
portions, interspersing them with excerpts from the vade mecum, the better to
delve into his characters’ backstories and relationships, showing how each of
them found out about the old book, and how reading it affected and changed them
in different ways.
And yet, Wood’s concept works because it connects
with the part of our imaginations that can’t resist the urge to wonder “what
if?” While, alas, according to Snopes, the oft-repeated story about the Vatican
Library’s massive porn collection is really just another urban legend—less
embarrassment of riches than simple embarrassment—one can’t help but speculate
about some of the possible undiscovered erotic gems languishing deep in the
stacks of many a restricted section throughout the world. Perhaps there is a
book very much like The Doctrine of Venus reposing silently beneath the dust
moats, waiting to be rediscovered and brought into the light of a more
liberated, albeit less gracious age.
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