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Searching for Pornotopia

(Audio accompaniment for this too-long post: LaTour, "People Are Still Having Sex," 1991.)

More and more news stories and essays (and mass media, and fanfics) keep reminding me of something I read about decades ago, in a used-book sale find called The Other Victorians by Steven Marcus. It's a fascinating book that came about by accident, when the Kinsey Institute inherited, unsolicited, one of the largest ever collections of 19th century European pornography, and hired a grad student to catalog it.

And that grad student had the whimsical realization that these various authors, all over the continent, had converged on a shared-world alternate history that resembled their own world in almost every respect: same countries, same political systems, same kinds of people in the same jobs, but with one important difference: none of the reasons to turn down sex existed.

A maiden both modest and mild Sought to keep herself undefiled By thinking of Jesus, Contagious diseases, And the bother of having a child.

In the fictional alternate-history Victorian-era world of Pornotopia:

Sexually transmitted infections do not exist, or are trivially curable. Nobody shows any worry about contracting or spreading them.

Unintended pregnancy does not exist. In fact, in most of these stories, it seems impossible to get pregnant by anyone other than your spouse, or at least not without both spouses' permission.

Sexual coercion does not exist because, on some level, everybody is horny for everybody most or all of the time, and are just waiting for the other person to mention it and point out an opportunity.

Emotional consequences do not exist; people treat it as the proverbial "equivalent of a formal introduction."

Social consequences exist, but are mild. If you get caught having sex, people might mock you for your taste, or tease you for getting caught. But it's gentle teasing, because all grownups understand that sooner or later it happens to everybody, that if it hasn't happened to them yet, it will.

Now, obviously this is back-formation from the premise "how do we write around the fact that, in the real world, these two characters wouldn't dare have sex." On a practical level these mostly-anonymous authors weren't so much sci-fi alternate-history world-building as making an excuse to smash their imagined characters together. (What, you thought AO3 invented this?)

Why am I bringing this up now?

At the top of the list of reasons why I'm thinking about this again, other than the entirely predictable freakout about recreational and "deviant" sex that you see whenever right-wing authoritarianism is on the rise (see Wilhelm Reich's autobiographical work about the rise of fascism in Germany), is the fact that in Vivienne Medrano's YouTube series "Helluva Boss," her fictionalized version of Asmodeus, the Embodiment of the Deadly Sin of Lust, is shown as having structured the society of his ring of Hell's native species, the succubuses (no longer a gendered noun in this story), as a Pornotopia. And I wonder how many people would want to live there?

Medrano's fictionalized Realm of Lust is governed by a being of near godlike power who is fanatical about enforcing enthusiastic all-party adult sober consent! But he's equally fanatical in promoting the idea that people owe it to their society to be as sexually enticing as possible, to be as sexually available as time and energy and minimal privacy permit, to be as kinky as all partners involved want, and to be entirely non-judgmental about each others' sex lives. Don't be ashamed of lusting after each other, and certainly don't be ashamed if people can tell that you've had sex. It's a great thing, Asmodeus says, and he seems to think that it's an essential pillar of any healthy, happy, prosperous society.

So here's my poll question. (And yes, in fact, I do know that being on tumblr is going to skew my sample.) If all of those conditions existed, how much casual, purely carnal sex would you want to exist in your world? Is Pornotopia a utopia for you, or a dystopia?

Full-on Pornotopia: Most adults should be horny for most adults, should play with each other sexually as often as time and energy and attention and minimal privacy permit, and there should be no lasting social consequences for sex no matter who you're accidentally caught having sex with.

Pornotopia Lite: Healthy people are entitled to desire as much or as little sex as is comfortable for them, should be picky about who they let themselves be attracted to, should be wary of addictive or compulsive behavior that would get in the way of them forming families and holding down jobs, and please keep sexuality out of the public eye at all costs, nobody should have to see that.

Anti-Pornotopia: Sex should be something that's special and sacred between two married people, reserved for intense pair-bonding, and nobody should ever find out that those two people have actually had sex any more often than would explain their number of children, if only to protect children and other people who shouldn't be exposed to sexuality. (Am I straw-manning, here?)

That's Because They're in Hell: Sex is disgusting and a waste of time that could be better spent doing literally anything else, so it should come with harsh consequences so that, as much as possible, people stop doing it.

Feel free to rant in the reblogs. (As if I could stop you, amirite?)

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Varric is not an option in the poll because I feel like it would be an obvious and huge sweep. I’m mostly curious to see how much love there is for these characters because (for the most part) they’re not the fan favourites!

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i didn't say it was good, i said it has bewitched me body and soul

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ashes to ashes, dust to dust, reeses to pieces

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(Source)

A chance meeting of Julien Cohen and the 10-year-old prodigy Yeonah Kim at an airport. Magic happens.

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BAD IDEA BAD IDEA

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aauuauauuuhahauaauhahHh euehhgah gweyeyhhhhhahhh nnnhnmnggjannm

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Beautiful cow who is mooing at you

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Hey you.

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👁️ ㅅ 👁️

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Omens in the dark.

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Favorite Cat Coat Pattern

The tortoiseshell point Siamese!

Did you know? Siamese cats have a genetic mutation called the Himalayan gene, which produces temperature-sensitive pigment. Darker sections are due to cooler temps. and lighter sections are due to warmer temps.

Their coats can actually change colors depending on age and season.

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Is the alphabet called the alphabet because the first two letters in the Greek alphabet are alpha and beta?

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How the sky would look if the planets were as close as the moon

Moon…

Mercury…

Venus…

Mars…

Jupiter…

Saturn…

Uranus…

Neptune…

Pluto can suck a dick

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if you’re gonna make me the third wheel on the sidewalk at least let me stand in front so i can pretend i’m leading my army into battle