Saturday, January 24, 2009


A Feminist View on a ‘porn’ Novel

"Lost Girls" is Alan Moore’s ambitious 280 page intellectual 'porn' (erotic or ‘porn’?) fantasy graphic novel, starring Wendy (of Peter Pan), Dorothy (of Wizard of Oz) and Alice (of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). Illustrated by his girlfriend, underground artist Melinda Gebbie.
Generally feminists oppose pornography. But, interestingly enough, I haven’t read any criticism of Lost Girls from feminist’s pen. Quoted here from the feminist blogger Amanda Marcotte’s review:

"Does it work? I thought so, I really did. I can see why people might balk at reading a story about women who free themselves from the scars of sexual abuse by indulging themselves in orgiastic behaviors, particularly since the reader is clearly supposed to feel free to get off on the pornographic illustrations and fantasies in the book. But I liked it, because it was a clear-cut assault not only on the horrible and degrading myth that posits that sex abuse victims should shut themselves off sexually forevermore, but it’s also an assault on the idea that “stories that arouse” should be different that “stories that intrigue”, particularly when the subject at hand is sex. If a story is about sex itself, it sort of follows that the emotion it should bring up for the reader is horniness, just as a horror novel should make you scared and a sweet romance about non-American cultures that has a lot of cooking in it should make you hungry."
To read more from the review , click
:
http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2007/05/21/review-lost-girls/