Shot From Both Sides: Modeling Normal Through Publication

I'm doing a lot more thinking about my thesis topic. Trying to choose my angle of approach. For those of you who have access to the online journal libraries through a university, search 'modern erotic literature', 'erotic fiction' or 'erotica' and see just how dead the field is. What you get is an avalanche of writing on pornography – with no distinction between written erotic fiction, photography and video pornography. Sure, there's lots about the erotic poetry in Greco-Roman culture. Lots about de Sade and the Victorian 'pornographers'. Lots about Lawrence, Nin, Miller, Bataille and Pauline Réage. There are historical examinations on the banning of books for obscenity and prosecution of publishers. It is interesting to me that, during the Victorian period, because all explicit literature was illegal, once writers stepped past the gates of what was deemed to be acceptable for public consumption, they felt personally free to write about all their sexual fantasies. From the sadistic and masochistic, sexual delight in corporal punishment, shaming and humiliation, rape, buggery, bondage and watersports – they practiced no limits. Strange that in a time when this sort of writing was so prohibited, the writers who DID transgress felt free to transgress [...]