We need to talk about Anais Nin and her erotic short story collection Delta of Venus. Did Anais Nin write "female erotica"? Is there such a thing? Have Things™️ changed much since 1941? Noted smut writer Dame Jodie Slaughter is Shelf Love's international smut history correspondent. She schools us on the long history of smut, French people, Choice Feminism, why she doesn't believe in the female gaze, how her work is contributing to the demise of "our value system," and more! We unpack Anais's assertion that "women are more apt to fuse sex with emotion, with love" via Dr. Jodi McAlister’s book "The Consummate Virgin," and her theories of compulsory (female) demisexuality.
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Guest: Dame Jodie Slaughter, Shelf Love’s International Smut Historian
Discussed:
Delta of Venus by Anais Nin
The Consummate Virgin: Female Virginity Loss and Love in Anglophone Popular Literatures by Dr. Jodi McAlister: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-55004-2
Hard-Core Romance: Fifty Shades of Grey, Best-Sellers, and Society by Eva Illouz
Sady Doyle’s Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/apr/07/anais-nin-author-social-media
Sherilyn Fenn “MTV Books, Feed Your Head” 1991 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHRo5FAJ3g0
Anais Nin, writer of “Female Erotica”?