So we're all blasé about the Internet's bringing together communities of interest, not communities of geography, and now we all have our favourite obscure sexual fetish - tickling, anyone? As always, Julie Burchill gives good quote:
male sexuality is, in fact, a multi-mawed monster that can sexualise literally anything about femalesShe was writing about the BBC's new lovely-luscious-licking-lesbians period drama Tipping The Velvet - download your screensaver now! You can imagine that state of quivering anticipation in which I spent this evening, and I'm no New Lad.
It isn't quite acceptable for men to be titillated by lesbian porn - or rather by straight porn featuring lesbians - this distinction reaching the nub of the matter. The myth is that it's a co-option of a radical lifestyle by the prevailing orthodoxy, like another multi-mawed monster, what my colleague calls fuck-you capitalism. It buys the revolution, processes it and sells it back to you as a No Logo t-shirt and tongue stud.
But there's a contradiction in these two stances. If what goes on in men's heads and below is so wonderfully diverse - if it truly fulfils the transgressive promise of pornography - then (in particular) men's reactions to lesbian porn will be of all varieties. Including sexualising their own absence. Capiche?
Anyway, being against titillation is rather like being against fun, and the show's wholly entertaining. Be warned it contains the explicit consumption of oysters. But if you're entirely unreconstructed you'll do far better heading straight to http://www.girlskissing.co.uk/ Feed the beast.
[So I faked the date setting. So sue me.]
