Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Brief Article

In Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (Doubleday), Sallie Tisdale conducts a poetic exploration of pornography, sexuality, dominance, submission, and physical joy. Tisdale sets herself against the idea, shared by many feminists and anti-feminists alike, that pornography is an exclusively male province. Her expeditions into sex shops remind me of female sports reporters' forays into the locker room--invasions of a jealously guarded male sphere. Tisdale bravely plants the flag for women in the wilderness of bawdy, unrestrained, unregulated sex. I wouldn't want to visit these peep shows, movie theaters, and newsstands myself. At the same time, I appreciate Tisdale's efforts to conquer and demystify them for all women.

Tisdale advances a broad and generous theory of the erotic that rejects repression, and makes room for a variety of sexual experience. It is a strikingly hopeful view: "What if the pleasure principal is allowed to ripen?" she asks. "This requires us to believe in human goodness, and most of us don't."

Such a libertine attitude is dramatically out of place in our current political climate. So it is with surprise and relief that I've noticed this radical notion of pleasure popping up in my reading throughout the year.

In the last chapter of her 1989 book Fear of Falling, Barbara Ehrenreich discusses the anxiety about scarcity among members of the middle class that creates conservatism and...