The Edge of the Bed: How Dirty Pictures Changed My Life. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.The Edge of the Bed: How Dirty Pictures Changed My Life

In a lively and poignant autobiography, next-wave pornographer, cybersex pioneer, and hopeful romantic Lisa Palac takes a frank, funny, and completely fearless look at the evolution of her sexual persona and the cultural influences that have had their way with her. Eight pages of photos.

A clear-headed look at some of the most explosive sexual issues of our daypornography, cybersex, freedom of sexual expression, marriagethrough an autobiographical lens. Palac, like her close friend and mentor Susie Bright, has been one of the foremost pop critics of the American sexual landscapeand of repressive tendencies in feminism. This book, part autobiography, part cultural analysis, shows off her lively writing and wacky sensibility. She describes her introduction to vibrators (she was cleaning out a closet, and one fell on her head; later she used it to masturbate to orgasm for the first time); her sexually repressive childhood (Catholic, though she's careful not to make too much of this too-worn theme); the boyfriend who introduced her to the joys of pornography (despite her hard-core feminist opposition); her quest to create erotic material that reflects women's desiresas a fiction writer, editor of the lesbian sex magazine On Our Backs, and founding editor of Future Sex magazine, a weirdly technologically oriented porn magazine; and her own adventures in S/M, E-mail and phone sex, love, and weddings (first as minister, then as bride). The author's story concludes with her marrying the man she loves, and she unfortunately ends up by too easily brushing off issues she's courageously raised (notably, how does someone raised to believe in sin, and in salvation through suffering come to grips with eros) simply because she herself has resolved them. And though the book is engaging throughout, it isn't focused enough to be a memoir, and, at only 34, Palac hasn't lived long enough to write a really satisfying autobiography. It would have made more sense to organize her material by topic rather than by the chronology of her life Still, Palac's approach to sexual politics and to her own life is infectiously spirited. (8 pages photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.