Article: Arts: Confessions of a bibliophile Literature and porn are chalk and cheese. At least they were. Now, serious novelists can devote pages to three-in-a-shower bisexual orgies.

Writing about sex is, or should be, different from Writing Sex. Writing about sex is no different, creatively speaking, from writing about fishing or war or post-imperialism or lunch, in that it seeks to entertain the reader with description, vivid evocation, wit, drama, insight and the usual virtues of fiction; writing sex, by contrast - that which we call pornography - is a leaner and more brutal enterprise, an attempt to be the thing itself, hoping to translate the words and scenery of sex into physical action, until (if it's being done well) the reader becomes aroused, engorged, mentally preoccupied and dizzy with lust, and is driven to go and do something about it.

Literature and ...

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