So I get up this morning, go onto the internet and brace myself for the usual flood of partisan vitriol and sniping. Imagine my surprise when I find the discussion topic of the day (at least for some people) is whether or not a prisoner in California should be allowed to read werewolf porn.
The article--and people I know--express surprise that some folks are interested in werewolf porn. Um, I mean erotica. Werewolf erotica.
What's interesting to me is that people seemed surprised by the book itself, not the actual legal controversy.
To put it simply: Human beings are strange. We're also creative. And we bore easily. Those three things make for a beautiful, confusing, and at times terrible, world.
Fantasizing (especially sexual fantasizing) is largely about visiting places you won't go in real life. This isn't new this decade; it isn't even new this century. Most anime fans love to giggle about tentacle porn (really--it's a thing). Well I've got news: it's been around a lot longer than La Blue Girl, my friends. Don't believe me? Check out this article on Wikipedia (be warned: it may be 19th century art but it's also pretty graphic).
The whole werewolf-on-human action discussed in the California case is just a modern permutation of a very old fantasy. In Brazil, they have long told stories of weredolphins that come ashore to crash human parties and get laid.
Brazil isn't alone in the horny-aquatic-mammal genre, either. Ever heard of a Selkie? They're seals in Scottish folklore that take off their skins to resemble humans so they can have babies with us. Tragically, the stories all seem to end with the Selkie getting blasted by hunters (making me wonder if the myth represents some kind of cultural guilt over killing such an adorable animal).
No foray into weird supernatural sex would be complete without mentioning Greek mythology because, as Freud noticed, those guys had a story for every kink imaginable. Did you know where the minotaur came from? And then there's the original power-goes-bad CEO himself, Zeus. In an era before Rohypnol, shapeshifting was the next best thing. Just off the top of my head, I can remember Zeus becoming a bull, a swan, even a ray of sunshine. It's almost as if half the Greek myths were actually written by a sleazy private detective hired by Hera as he gathered dirt on the celestial rapist for a pending divorce case.
I think I just got a book idea...
*And somehow I didn't get to Furries, which I know isn't necessarily a sexual thing but always seems to come up in these conversations anyway.
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