Michael

Did you know there is a whole niche of er, erotic literature called "time stopping?" I'd tell you more but it's not my bag and I didn't poke into it. I'm always surprised to see how sexual fetishes and fantasies, which people usually consider deeply private, are almost always common to many. And, of course, since the Internet came along, shared among many. (Hey, you name the fantasy--furry people, shrinking or growing people, gender-switching, smoking, hypnotizing your hot schoolteacher into being a bit more friendly--there's a community for you online, with an associated literature.) I'm also surprised by the ways in which culture, whether "high" or "pop," seems to often be informed by "underground" sexual literature. Wasn't it Delacroix who commented that the arts of his time were covertly saturated with the influence of the Marquis de Sade?

What was Delacroix reading?

You could do a whole Ph.D. thesis on the meaning for modern pop culture of Betty Page, who modelled for Irving Klaw's (classic name!)rather furtive plain brown wrapper publications in the 1950s--I've given up counting the number of references I've seen to her in the past 10 years. A few days ago I was rather surprised to see Michelle Pfieffer on a woman's magazine cover wearing a black dress that overtly refers to rubber/PVC- fetish ware. (Although, thinking of her "cat suit" in Batman, I guess I shouldn't be so surprised.)

Betty and Michelle--sisters under the skin?

Ubiquitous pop culture and still-ghettoized erotic culture are only separated by a razor's edge--and it's gotten to be a very sharp razor indeed since the launch of MTV.

Cheers,

Friedrich