Hey Aaron,
I do understand all the objections to this stuff and am more or less in agreement. I really don't think I've redeemed the genre either, but I wrote this as a little challenge, a 'drill' (rather than an 'amusement') hence its placement in this forum. It isn't something that would have occurred to me to write otherwise. Unlike what I'm sensing from you though, (and Andrew, given the video reaction) I don't necessarily see the attempt as something that should be seen as somehow taboo. I think a poem could potentially exist on this, or similar, theme that wouldn't be exploitative. One that imagined a more equal power relationship between the speaker and the subject and where the eroticism seemed somehow natural and inevitable. Or where the speaker is self-aware and there's an acknowledgement of the transgression, maybe. I realise this quick poem hasn't managed the genre's redemption.
And clearly others feel the same as you, and even more strongly. I have received a PM from a Spherean (won't say who, obviously) suggesting I should "feel no regret if you deleted your Emily piece, title and all, from the Sphere? It does you and the Sphere little credit." They then go on, strangely to me, to say it might be "right at home on New Verse News or Asses of Parnassus."
I've changed the thread title from 'Sex with Emily' to something less flippant.
I wonder how Billy Collins got away with it?
Edit: changed 'your skirts' to 'the weave' to mitigate the creepiness, maybe. Basically, if someone says a subject can't be written about, I'll try to have a go and happily fail.
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