Out of necessity in frankly covering a murky subject like pornography, this book may occasionally have language that could be offensive to some people. The book explores pornography in a social context that originated with the first clothing and the first language. The exploration continues with the invention of the camera, its offering of new opportunities in pornography, and various legal and social interactions growing out of these. The author explores a hypothesis that interest in pornography has its roots in a debaucher-debauchee dichotomy beginning with civilization, and this generates the spectator fascination, commercial customers, pornography creators, and porno models themselves. Touches on the history of pornography, legal issues raised by pornography, and descriptions of aspects of pornography should enlighten readers to an enormous and real cultural phenomenon lurking below the surface of our contemporary civilization and not without its effects on everyone.

Aliens, aliens, aliens: Firewater -- Lisbon cubed -- Ghost standard -- Flat-eyed monster -- Deserter -- Venus and the seven sexes -- Party of the two parts. -- Immodest proposals: Liberation of Earth -- Eastward ho! -- Null-P -- Masculinist revolt -- Brooklyn project. -- Some odd ones: Child's play -- Wednestay's child -- My mother was a witch -- Lemon-green spaghetti-loud dynamite-dribble day -- Tenants -- Generation of Noah -- Down among the dead men. -- Future: Time in advance -- Sickness -- Servant problem -- Man of family -- Jester -- Project Hush -- Winthrop was stubborn. -- Out there: Dark star -- Consulate -- Last bounce -- Venus is a man's world -- Alexander the Bait -- Custodian -- On Venus, have we got a rabbi.

This book uses the body of letters and treatises addressed by major Christian thinkers to the women of the Anicia family, as well as comparative evidence from modern Hinduism and Islam, to explore how modesty became a creative and performative mode of being for late Roman Christian ascetic women.

When the young widow Cynthia Lonsdale was ready to remarry, her father had the perfect match in mind. But Cynthia had a mind of her own, and her proposal of marriage to Captain Brian Sheffield brought scandalous whispers from London society--and a surprising answer from the handsome captain. Nominated for the 1993-1994 Reviewers' Choice Award for Best Regency Romance.

A provocative, raucous dark comedy about race and racism in America, now back in print after twenty-five years and with a new preface by the author. Darius James’s scabrous, unapologetically raunchy, truly hilarious, and deeply scary Negrophobia is a wild-eyed reckoning with the mutating insanity of American racism. A screenplay for the mind, a performance on the page, a work of poetry, a mad mix of genres and styles, a novel in the tradition of William S. Burroughs and Ishmael Reed that is like no other novel, Negrophobia begins with the blonde bombshell Bubbles Brazil succumbing to a voodoo spell and entering the inner darkness of her own shiny being. Here crackheads parade in the guise of Muppets, Muslims beat conga drums, Negroes have numbers for names, and H. Rap Remus demands the total and instantaneous extermination of the white race through spontaneous combustion. By the end of it all, after going on a weird trip for the ages, Bubbles herself is strangely transformed.

The discovery of the fascinating and richly documented story of Sister Benedetta Carlini, Abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God, by Judith C. Brown was an event of major historical importance. Not only is the story revealed in Immodest Acts that of the rise and fall of a powerful woman in a church community and a record of the life of a religious visionary, it is also the earliest documentation of lesbianism in modern Western history. Born of well-to-do parents, Benedetta Carlini entered the convent at the age of nine. At twenty-three, she began to have visions of both a religious and erotic nature. Benedetta was elected abbess due largely to these visions, but later aroused suspicions by claiming to have had supernatural contacts with Christ. During the course of an investigation, church authorities not only found that she had faked her visions and stigmata, but uncovered evidence of a lesbian affair with another nun, Bartolomeo. The story of the relationship between the two nuns and of Benedetta's fall from an abbess to an outcast is revealed in surprisingly candid archival documents and retold here with a fine sense of drama.

In one of the most powerful and darkly satirical works of the 18th century, a chilling solution is proposed to address the dire poverty and overpopulation plaguing Ireland. Jonathan Swift presents a shockingly calculated and seemingly rational argument for using the children of the poor as a food source, thereby addressing both the economic burden on society and the issue of hunger. This provocative piece is a masterful example of irony and social criticism, as it exposes the cruel attitudes and policies of the British ruling class towards the Irish populace. Jonathan Swift's incisive critique not only underscores the absurdity of the proposed solution but also serves as a profound commentary on the exploitation and mistreatment of the oppressed. A Modest Proposal remains a quintessential example of satirical literature, its biting wit and moral indignation as relevant today as it was at the time of its publication. JONATHAN SWIFT [1667-1745] was an Anglo-Irish author, poet, and satirist. His deadpan satire led to the coining of the term »Swiftian«, describing satire of similarly ironic writing style. He is most famous for the novel Gulliver’s Travels [1726] and the essay A Modest Proposal [1729].