Bacchus

Sunni: I imagine it's a lot of fun to post pictures and bits of sex stories, knowing that you're helping to give many of the prudes currently in D.C. an extra helping of heartburn. On balance, do you think sex blogging is helpful or harmful? By that I mean, does the promotion of positive sexual messages outweigh giving the puritans more reasons to keep sex issues out of the public eye?

Bacchus: I doubt I cause much heartburn in D.C. or anywhere else. A few hypocrites aside, the folks who don't like sex probably don't read many sex blogs. Anyway, the puritans are as motivated as they are ever going to be. There's nothing I can do that's going to increase their desire or resolve to put sex back in the locked dark spousal bedroom. So I don't see much prospect of doing damage there. I do think, however, that sex blogging has the potential to do some good, especially my brand of sex blogging. Sex positive messages are rare, and the porn world is so full of negative sex messages -- what I call the "bitch-cunt-slut" syndrome -- that the explosion of internet porn hasn't helped as much as you'd think. By consistently treating sex in all its variations as a good thing, I might change, or at least open, a few minds among the apolitical porn-surfing crowd.

Sunni: You mean you don't get any .gov or .mil traffic? I'm shocked! [laughs]

Bacchus: Not much, no. I don't think it's entirely safe to read sex blogs when you work in FedWorld ...

Sunni: You've pegged what I greatly dislike about porn, and why I've stopped watching adult movies altogether -- that bitch-cunt-slut syndrome.

Bacchus: I get a lot of comments from female readers telling me the same thing. Apparently, even though I'm a horny male pig-dog, I manage to avoid that syndrome well enough that many women find ErosBlog an unusually safe place to find internet smut. I definitely rank that among the things I've achieved with ErosBlog, even though I never really set out to target a specifically-female demographic.

Sunni: With good reason! I would imagine then, that you're familiar with Wendy McElroy and Candida Royalle, both of whom share a sex-positive perspective with you. Have you read XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography or seen Revelations?

Bacchus: I'm somewhat familiar with some of their web essays on various topics, but I haven't read or seen those specific titles. I suspect they'd both be worth my time.

Sunni: I really like Revelations, even though I cry every time I watch it. But, back on sex stories, do you try to only link to stories that you think are true? Given almost everyone's propensity to exaggerate sexual prowess and experience, I'd think a lot of the sex blogs out there are at least somewhat fictional.

Bacchus: Truth is a pretty slippery concept when you're talking about the stories people tell about themselves.

Sunni: Excellent point, Bacchus.

Bacchus: I try to avoid obvious fiction that's not labeled as such, especially when it's implausible in that special "Penthouse Letters" sort of way that used to define commercial American sex writing. Whatever I may think, I try to treat most sex blogging as if it were true. There's no value in speculating when I have no evidence and no way to find out. In fact, I have to discourage, and sometimes delete, commenters whose only contribution to a comment thread is to say "that can't be true" or "that's implausible" or "she must be making that up." They don't have any better idea than I do, and their speculations don't bring anything but negativity to the discussion. I generally let my readers reach their own conclusions, if they care, and I don't appreciate folks who aren't willing to do that. I mean, who appointed any of us to the Truth Police?

Sunni: Does it bother you that some proportion of sex blogs' content is probably fictional? Or is that a different kind of thing from the recent Oprah dustup over the memoir-that-really-wasn't?

Bacchus: It would bother me if sex bloggers were saying "Every word of this is true" and that was a lie. But most sex bloggers don't say that. Me, I just avoid the obvious bullshit unless it's especially entertaining. If I like something enough to link to it, the underlying truth isn't all that important. In sex writing, a bad lie is obvious, and a good one is erotic. No skin off my nose either way.