Jamima

Sorry, I don’t write porn. Neither does Nora.

As someone who started studying Ancient Greek in tenth grade (age 15) and continued right on through college, studying Plato, Homer, Aristophanes, Herodotus, and various New Testament writers in their original language(s) (Yes, Dears, the languages and vocabulary change throughout time and Homeric Greek is not the same at Attic Greek), can I just say that you are GREATLY misinformed about Aphrodite Porne?

You can create a new mythology for her all you want, and come up with new and intriguing ideas of what sort of love that goddess represented, but you’d have to first understand a whole lot more about the practice of ascribing descriptive epithets to gods and goddesses. Different cults used different names for the same goddess. When the goddess was acting differently, a WHOLE NEW epithet would apply.

Phoebus Apollo from the Homeric epics is NOT the same god as Apherteros Apollo. The god remains the same, his parentage, his symbols and familiars, but his meaning within the culture is totally different.

To link Porne with some odd description of one type of love (as in agape, philia, etc.) is to completely misunderstand how the gods and goddesses operated in Ancient civilizations. But that’s ok. As long as you can “prove” your point.

edited to add: Porne is the epithet which a sect ascribed to Aphrodite. But this does not mean that that particular sect’s view of Aphrodite’s role in Greek society was recognized by the larger Greek community. Sects were in the habit of taking on powerful goddesses to suit their individual needs. The most goddess the largest sector of Attic Greek women routinely prayed to was Hestia, not Aphrodite. Hestia was the goddess of the hearth, virginity, hospitality, and the home; hardly a goddess one would want to tag your aspirations of tipping over the patriarchy onto.

I get a bit tired of people using their own perceptions of the “wise and omniscient” ancient cultures to back up their modern points of view.

I’m a prudish, oppressed porn writer? Cool.

I did, however, donate to the ferrets, so I’ll get to go to the happy library in the sky where people who call all romances porn get their keyboards taken away.

But you can’t reclaim it for other people. If you write erotic romance and you want to call it porn and say it’s because it embodies an aspect of Aphrodite, that’s fine. But you’re still going to come up against the current dictionary meaning of pornography, which is not just ‘material designed primarily to sexually arouse’ but is also ’sexually explicit material with no artistic or literary merit’.

You can try and erase that meaning if you like, and replace it with a more affirming meaning (although if you succeed, what on earth are you going to call that material that still has no literary merit and is produced solely to arouse?) but if you apply the word porn to non-erotic romance, or romance with closed-door sex scenes, or asexual romance, then the first association people will make is the ’sexually explicit no literary merit’ one, and they’ll be pissed off. Partly just because it’s infuriating to be mis-labelled.

I’m kind of irritated by the idea that all romance is porn. But I’m much more irritated by the idea that all romance is porn and I’m ‘not willing to admit it’. If I wrote it, I would admit it. As I don’t, I won’t.

Also, to the comment that one man’s figure studies is another’s wanking material. That’s got nothing to do with the definition of porn. Porn is when something is designed to arouse–it has nothing to do with whether it’s successful or not. If I get turned on by pictures of baked beans (this is not the case, btw, so don’t go accusing me of TMI!) that doesn’t mean an advert in a supermarket is porn. I could use it as porn, but it doesn’t mean it is porn.

Yet, as Robin said, it’s a form of self-promotion.

I could, as she redefines porn, redefine christianity. We are all christians. Christ was an archetype, a symbol known for good works, who stood for helping your neighbor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving shelter to those in need. Therefore, anyone who has worked with any charity or donated to one in the spirit of good will is now a christian. The Jews, Buddists, Hindis, Wiccans, Muslims, atheists, etc, just have to accept that.