[Norman Ball]

Hello dear reader! Tell me, what led you here?

This line of thinking has been building in me like a repressed hang-nail for awhile and is really not driven by any one poetry thread. For the moment, I'm thinking out loud and may essify at a later date...

I find it a humorous and telling commentary on our sex-drenched age that when someone posts a crappy sex-poem, before anyone (rightfully) excoriates it, they first feel obliged to cite their sex bona fides, somewhere along the lines of:

1. Your poem sucks. That said, I ran a successful escort service in college.

2. Your poem sucks. That said, I roomed with Ron Jeremy when we were struggling actors in the mid-sixties and never blushed once.

3. Your poem sucks. Have I ever mentioned that my great-great Uncle was the Marquis de Sade?

You can beat your wife, you can torture kittens, but for God's sake, you better not have a sexually reticent bone in your body as it is the definition of mortification to be perceived as being one iota awkward about anything sexual. In short (and all bad poetry aside) we've been universally expropriated.

What brave soul will own up to sexual awkwardness? I will be the first. I cringe at the sight of naked bodies, of all hues, of all genders. Yech! For this admission, I expect fan mail from curious people wanting to explore the dark underbelly of withheldness with me. Really, it doesn't hurt. Much.

In her excellent book The Repeal of Reticence, Rochelle Gurstein unblushingly reprises the century-and-a-half long culture war during which the Forces of Exposure thoroughly routed the Forces of Reticence. Linda Lovelace became a freedom of expression issue, as opposed to a shameless hussy--or as I believe Linda Lovelace herself would concede later, a horribly abused and manipulated victim of unscrupulous pornographers. Perhaps our complete comfort with sex will have arrived when we don't feel obliged to 'hasten to add' our complete comfort with sex. In my opinion we're not there yet. Then again, will it constitute a momentous arrival when sex holds all the cachet of lawn furniture?

So, is the pendulum forever broken or will it swing back? By all rights, modesty should be the new sexy. Let's see if reality television allows it a time slot. Until then, I am redoubling my efforts at stamp collecting while awaiting shy inquiries from closet Reticents.