The 'Not-So-Rough' Guide

While searching the web for articles on John Updike I was amused to learn that Updike’s “The Widows of Eastwick” had been shortlisted for this past year’s Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award (he did not win, although he did receive a Lifetime Achievement Award).

One link led to another, which led to my thinking about the ubiquity of “pornography,” especially on the web. Shannon Rupp asserts that “the ubiquity of porn has rendered it invisible for most adults” and asks “why has pornographic imagery become such an acceptable part of public culture?” Bob Guccione, Jr., founder of Spin magazine and son of the founder of Penthouse magazine, opines on the future of pornography here.

Finally, here is a video clip from a November, 2008 interview of John Updike by Charlie Rose in which the author considers his “feminist detractors.”