Pornography and Obscenity & You Touched Me

D. H. Lawrence's view on porn and obscenity vs romantic erotica and sexual openess.

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Excerpt:

But if it is a question of the sound love-lyric, 'My love is like a red, red rose--!' then we are on other ground. My love is like a red, red rose only when she's not like a pure, pure lily. And nowadays the pure, pure lilies are mostly festering, anyhow. Away with them and their lyrics. Away with the pure, pure lily lyric, along with the smoking-room story.

They are counterparts, and the one is as pornographic as the other. Du bist wie eine Blume- is really as pornographic as a dirty story: tickling the dirty little secret and rolling the eyes to heaven. But oh, if only Robert Burns had been accepted for what he is, then love might still have been like a red, red rose.

The vicious circle, the vicious circle! The vicious circle of masturbation! The vicious circle of self-consciousness that is never fully self-conscious, never fully and openly conscious, but always harping on the dirty little secret. The vicious circle of secrecy, in parents, teachers, friends-everybody. The specially vicious circle of family. The vast conspiracy of secrecy in the press, and at the same time the endless tickling of the dirty little secret. The endless masturbation! and the endless purity! The vicious circle!

How to get out of it? There is only one way: Away with the secret! No more secrecy! The only way to stop the terrible mental itch about sex is to come out quite simply and naturally into the open with it. It is terribly difficult, for the secret is cunning as a crab. Yet the thing to do is to make a beginning.

The man who said to his exasperating daughter: 'My child, the only pleasure I ever had out of you was the pleasure I had in begetting you'-has already done a great deal to release both himself and her from the dirty little secret.

Printed in a large 12 point font for ease of reading