"Mommy Porn" -- Cute and harmless, or insulting and degrading?

[articshark]

I did reference DH Lawrence as well. And as a side note, my 11th grade English teacher LOVED that book. Yes we read it in high school. I have secretly suspected that she um, um, tried anal, because of that book. lol And if you knew her, you would so totally agree with me.

P.S. I think I zeroed in on Lolita because he was a step"father" and it was a direct contrast with the whole mommy thing. I dunno.

[Rhoda Nightingale]

Ehhh, I kinda see where you're trying to go with that, except "mommy porn" isn't about mothers lusting after their sons. . . Unless there's some other definition floating around out there I'm not even aware of.

[judes]

This is an interesting discussion! I was rambling on in the other thread about fanfiction being published and how 50 shades brings up some great discussions about how people view sexuality and also power dynamics of relationships.

What I don't understand is why FSOG is so appealing to women of a certain age (which is what I'm assuming the "mommy" refers to)? What is so hot about it? Is it the wealth? Or the "BDSM" that is seen as dirty and wrong? And why is it so surprising to people that women want to read about sex? Have they not read a contemporary genre romance? I would love to understand this.

Anyway back to the discussion topic. I think mommy porn is such a funny term because bringing in "mommy" somehow sanitizes the idea of porn so that it's acceptable. When you say "mommy porn" it conjures up images of women pushing their strollers and reading this book at the same time, and it's somehow fascinating to people that women can be interested in sex and different sexual lifestyles while raising kids and working and doing multitude of things that women are doing. But is it really that much of a surprise? No.

And I certainly hope mommy porn is not about mothers lusting after their sons...

[kuwisdelu]

Originally Posted by articshark

Lolita was originally classified as erotica. I mean come on a 12 year old and her really old stepfather. Ugh. It was then classified as fiction with an erotic motif. Well sure, incest is slightly erotic in motif. Then it was classified as irony.

See, it went from smut to one of the greatest books of the 20th century.

I'm pretty sure it still gets called an "erotic novel" today, and I'm also pretty sure that description is used as meaning "a novel which is erotic" rather than "a novel belonging to the erotica genre".

It is an erotic novel, but it's not meant to be erotica, and I don't think it was ever classified as such.

[gingerwoman]

Originally Posted by judes

What I don't understand is why FSOG is so appealing to women of a certain age (which is what I'm assuming the "mommy" refers to)?.

It's the fastest selling book ever in the history of modern publishing, it doesn't just appeal to women of a certain age. The term "Mommy Porn" was just thought up by one dumb condescending, ignorant journalist with a toss off junk article. The catch phrase was picked up by numerous other journalists with no originality who just copied and parroted him endlessly. It really doesn't signify anything about women and fifty shades or women and erotica.