William Phillips
WRITING ABOUT SEX
Since sex is older than literature, one would think
it
is en–
titled to more respect. But the relation has always been just the re–
verse; literature has always been protected against the encroach–
ments of sex. Even now, when it would seem that almost anything
goes, a number of serious critics have been alarmed by the lack of
sexual restraint in literature, which they regard as a symptom of
moral decline. Most of their fire is directed at figures like Genet,
Burroughs and Mailer, though they are generally upset by the moral
tone of contemporary writing as a whole.
Now we need hardly be reminded that what goes by the name
of the moral question is an old and recurrent one, popping up with
almost every new generation, as new sensibilities and new attitudes
about the limits of literature come up against old ones. Today the
split is wider, though the old values are frequently being defended
by more sophisticated people, who themselves were brought up on
the idea that art made its own rules. This means only that the con–
fusion is on a higher level. The new values, on the other hand, are
supported by people who make a principle of going out of bounds
in every possible way - in morals, in sex, in art. Much of the new
writing represents not so much a break with an existing tradition as
with the very idea of tradition, while those who are holding the line
against the so-called new barbarians claim they are defending not
some philistine standards but literature itself, and some even go so
far as to insist they are protecting the very basis of civilization. Those
who feel themselves responsible for the health of art and society have
been warning us that what we have is a free-for-all and not the
normal kind of experiment and innovation prescribed for progress
in the arts.
