Back before millions of images of every conceivable sex act could be accessed for free online, it was common for writers, especially genre writers, to pay the bills by writing a little porn on the side. Usually they would use pseudonyms, but occasionally someone would plaster his own name on the stroke book's cover, as Robert Anton Wilson did with The Sex Magicians, the first novel he published and, until now, a nearly impossible book to find. Since Wilson, who died earlier this year, had a large libertarian following, I'll mention here that his "adult" effort is now online in pdf form.
I should also mention that he once said the book was something he'd "rather forget." I'm enough of a fan that I've been reading it, and it's clear that it was written in a rush for some fast money and/or was edited with a sloppy hand. But despite its literary shortcomings it's an interesting curio: He throws in plenty of satire, political ruminations, and Illuminati references, including some characters and events that would later reappear in Illuminatus and Schrödinger's Cat. It's just that they're mixed up with a lot of hard-core sex, way more than you'll find in his later books, including what must be the only sex scene ever written that features a midget in a Teddy Snowcrop costume. Actually, there's a lot of surrealist sex here; at times the text feels more like Alfred Jarry than Gerard Damiano. I have to wonder what the book's original audience -- dirty old men? curious teenagers? vice cops? -- made of it.
If you're not a Wilson fan, for God's sake don't start here. But if you are a fan, you might find this interesting, even entertaining.
Update: Two readers remind me that a version of the Teddy Snowcrop scene appears in Schrödinger's Cat as well. But I'm pretty sure Wilson never recycled the chapter that cross-cuts a young man deflowering his fiancée with a series of TV commercials.
Update #2: Egg on my face: Another reader tells me Wilson revived the deflowering sequence for Schrödinger's Cat as well. It isn't in the one-volume edition I'm familiar with -- the only edition that's currently available -- but it is (apparently) in the original, uncut, three-volume version. Someone should put a pdf of that online. Or better yet, bring it back into print.
Porno for Paranoids
Comments to "Porno for Paranoids":
Xmas | April 11, 2007, 10:58am | #
Before alt.binaries.picture.erotica.grandmas?Man, that's a long time ago.
Science fiction nerds should definitely check out Robert Silverberg's essay in Sin-A-Rama, in which he talks about all the soft core porn he wrote and how it financed a quite opulent lifestyle.
Mad Max | April 11, 2007, 11:19am | #
Usually, sci-fi writers use pseudonyms when writing porn, so that nobody can guess their true identity.Captain Henry Love looked incredulously at the printout from the computer. He thought that his stay on Planet Terminus would give him a chance to catch up on his sleep and his reading. But not according to these results.
"By Space," said Captain Love, "You're saying that this is a mathematically exact description of the future, based on the most sophistimiced scientific knowledge?"
"Yes," said Doctor Esther Curvaceous, Curator of the Foundation Archive. "Five hundred years ago, a great scientist did all the calculations and predicted every development in the history of the Galactic Empire. So far, the predictions have been fully accurate. Observe how the predictions correctly foretold the Andromeda Wars, the Alpha Centauri Rellion, and the Attack of the Clones."
"And Now," said Captain Love, "It's predicting that I will have sex with you sixty-nine times over one week."
"You can't argue with science," said Dr. Curvaceous, hoping that Captain Love was too stupid to notice that some of the "predictions" on the printout were simply her own handwritten changes. It wasn't his brains Captain Love was famous for, but then, it wasn't his brains that Dr. Curvaceous wanted. She took off her . . .
Jim Lippard | April 11, 2007, 11:21am | #
Teddy Snowcrop appears in either Illuminatus! or Wilson's Schrodinger's Cat trilogy.Mad Max | April 11, 2007, 11:26am | #
How do you think H. P. Lovecraft made ends meet?Felicia Mortmain beheld the blasphemous horror of the creature as it slithered up from unimaginable and unspeakable depths into her bedroom.
"Oh, Cthulhu," she cooed, "your tentacles are so *big* . . ."
FinFangFoom | April 11, 2007, 11:39am | #
My cousin's kid wanted a cat for her birthday but is allergic to pet dander. I'm cheap so I gave her an empty Amazon box (one of the big ones) and stuck a five pound sand filled dumbell half filled with sand and stuck it to the inside with a bunch of duct tape. They make these little things that meow that work like those cow mooing toys (the little 3 inch tall cylinder ones) so I stuck one of those in there too. I covered the whole thing in more duct tape and used a sharpie to write "This End Up" and an arrow pointing the right way. I told her it was a "Schrodinger's Cat" in it and warned her not to open or it might die. It's funny cause she takes it everywhere with her.FinFangFoom | April 11, 2007, 11:39am | #
I told her there wasBoth Teddy Snowcrop and the virgin deflowering are in the "Schrodinger's Cat" trilogy, as are the white vans with big "Cocaine" labels, as if they were CocaCola trucks.
TomHynes | April 11, 2007, 2:14pm | #
"or was edited with a sloppy hand"If your hand is sloppy, it is usually pretty good porn.
Jesse Walker | April 11, 2007, 2:53pm | #
Both Teddy Snowcrop and the virgin deflowering are in the "Schrodinger's Cat" trilogyI found the Snowcrop scene, which I had forgotten in the decade-plus since I read the trilogy, but where is the other sequence? Maybe I just missed it -- obviously I don't have time to do more than a quick scan right now -- but I didn't see it.
That said, I only have the one-volume edition of the trilogy. I know a bunch of material was cut when the original three-volume sequence was reprinted in this form. Maybe the deflowering scene was lost in compression.
Stevo Darkly | April 11, 2007, 4:19pm | #
You might be surprised how many famous writers wrote porn on the side:Would you, could you, in a box?
Would you, could you with a fox?
Would you, could you, in a boat?
Would you, could, with a goat?
matthew hogan | April 11, 2007, 6:16pm | #
"....at times the text feels more like Alfred Jarry than Gerard Damiano."God, I hate it when that happens.
Stevo Darkly | April 11, 2007, 6:29pm | #
(Quit stealin' my material, Stevo!)Actually, I thought I was stealing that from some stand-up comic whose name I forget.
Restitution: Partial credit to Mr. Jesse Walker.
VM: Wouldn't you do it with a fox? Are you too young to remember 1970s slang?
Or at least I'd think you've seen YouTube clips of the old SNL Steve Martin/Dan Akroyd "wild and crazy Czechoslovakian brothers" sketches.
Charlie's Angels, Loni Anderson, Lynda Carter, Valerie Bertinelli = "foxes." (circa 1979)
Robert | April 11, 2007, 8:50pm | #
"Teddy Snowcrop...you're back!" Sure, I'd never forget that passage from Schroedinger.Today the most obviously Illuminated material is the TV serial, Lost.
Jesse Walker | April 11, 2007, 9:28pm | #
I searched for a few key phrases in an online text of the one-volume version, and the deflowering scene definitely isn't there. Can't say for sure about the three-volume version, though. (Someone should put it online, or better yet put out a one-volume edition that hasn't been bowdlerized.)The Wine Commonsewer | April 12, 2007, 1:26am | #
Dude, Jesse said sloppy hand.cs | April 12, 2007, 1:36am | #
FinFangFoom:I have a geeky friend who is very allergic to cats and yet he bravely pets my felines whenever he comes to visit. I'm going to use your idea for his upcoming birthday, assuming I can find one of those meow thingies. Thanks for such a brilliantly goofy idea.
FinFangFoom | April 12, 2007, 1:48am | #
Uh, guys, you know I was kiddin' right? My cousins don't actually have kids that are the right age for this.Andrew Ian Dodge | April 12, 2007, 6:23am | #
alt.sex.cthulhu is always an interesting one.Quite a few writers I know have tried to write porn to earn a few bob. Alas they were unable to as the water from the cold shower messed up the computer.
VM | April 12, 2007, 10:19am | #
Stevo - I do know the 70s term (remembered from the 70s, even though in 1979 I was still toting a Bee Gees lunchbox around)Just got a little excited about the goat.
um.
It's a Cubbies Fan thing :)
(I still hum the song "Wildfire" and "I am so in to you" and "You are the woman" and can remember jumping up and down on the bed to "undercover angel" or "afternoon delight"... but my fav song from the era (no, not "short people") was "Couldn't Get it right".)
grin!
FFF: phew! that was close! we just called off the airstrike!
Having now read the pdf, yup, that's the scene. Joe & Bridgette are in the trilogy, too, and some of the other scenes are familiar.
Pro Libertate | April 12, 2007, 1:25pm | #
Lawrence Block has been quite open about starting his career as a porn writer.