World-wide $$$: 57.0 billion

U. S. $$$: $12.0 billion

US Adult videos: $20 billion

Escort services: $11 billion

Magazines: $7.5 billion

Sex clubs: $5 billion

Phone sex: $4.5 billion

Cable/Pay per view: $2.5 billion

Internet: $2.5 billion

CD-Rom: $1.5 billion

Novelties: $1.0 billion

Other: $1.5 billion

Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.

US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC (6.2 billion).

Child pornography generates $3 billion annually.

~~~

So there you have it. While different stats will vary (depends on who’s commissioned them and for what monetary purpose, don’t ya know?), I think there isn’t such a huge schism that we need to argue the accuracy. Do you? Nah, I didn’t think so. Leave that silliness to the Wendy Whiners and Nancy Naysayers.

I’m just making a point to the sexual snobgoblins out there: Someone is obviously paying money for this stuff. Lotsa money. And at a twelve billion dollar (as I said, give or take a few billion–depending on who’s counting) price tag, you can bet at least more than a few of the spenders are not the misfit miscreants some would like to believe. I’d even gander that more than a few have shared your pew, dining table, golf foursome or even your bed.

Pornography is big business. Someone (somemany?) out there realize(s) that “if you build it they will cum,” and is/are racking in the cash. Like most girly-girls and even a lot of my callers (the advantage of attracting smart boys with perverse thoughts), I’ve never been big on porn.

I actually wrote an article about my kinda-sorta non-relationship with pornography for Sex Kitten a while back, Please Pass the Egg Nog: Pornography or Porn-not-graphy. Don’t get me wrong: I will defend anybody’s right to read/write/publish pornography. And, of course, there is always the pornography VS erotica debate which goes on ad nauseam.

My problem is not with the product, the producer or even the consumer. My problem is with the lack of balance some men are able to maintain when it comes to the stuff.   Which will be left for another discussion.

More interesting statistics can be found here.

And thanks, Lyndee, for pointing this out. You always show me interesting things.

Angela

So a certain someone sends me this poem:

poetry readings ~ Charles Bukowski

poetry readings have to be some of the saddest
damned things ever,
the gathering of the clansmen and clanladies,
week after week, month after month, year
after year,
getting old together,
reading on to tiny gatherings,
still hoping their genius will be
discovered,
making tapes together, discs together,
sweating for applause
they read basically to and for
each other,
they can’t find a New York publisher
or one
within miles,
but they read on and on
in the poetry holes of America,
never daunted,
never considering the possibility that
their talent might be
thin, almost invisible,
they read on and on
before their mothers, their sisters, their husbands,
their wives, their friends, the other poets
and the handful of idiots who have wandered
in
from nowhere.
I am ashamed for them,
I am ashamed that they have to bolster each other,
I am ashamed for their lisping egos,
their lack of guts.
if these are our creators,
please, please give me something else:
a drunken plumber at a bowling alley,
a prelim boy in a four rounder,
a jock guiding his horse through along the
rail,
a bartender on last call,
a waitress pouring me a coffee,
a drunk sleeping in a deserted doorway,
a dog munching a dry bone,
an elephant’s fart in a circus tent,
a 6 p.m. freeway crush,
the mailman telling a dirty joke
anything
anything
but
these.

I read this poem. I read it twice. I read it three, four more times. And I loved it and I hated it. And it pissed me off. How dare he? Yet I wanted to read more of this man’s poetry, I wanted to find information on this poet, read what others have to say about him. I started looking.

Found this and this and even this.

So I was thinking about my day of gear grinding over Mr. Bukowski, when there occurred a small, but indeed ferocious (trust me, it feels most excellent), epiphany of sorts: That this poem was doing exactly what poetry is supposed to do. If I need to explain this to you, well then you will never get it. So I’m not even going to try. But, let me tell you this, Zen Reader: Charles Bukowski is one fucking awesome poet.

The upshot of all of this is that I’ve decided to add PSOetry to my Categories. Because I do, despite being a PhoneSex Goddess, simply dig poetry. I write it, I read it, I love discovering it and rediscovering it. Plus, because there are so many wannabees out there (and for all I know I just might be one of them), poetry has pretty much gotten a bad rap.

Even erotica sites generally do not accept poems for consideration. Which I find pretty damn sad. I am taking a stand: Poetry is Cool. Poetry is Beautiful. Poetry is Awesome. So, once a week or even more, if you don’t mind (or even if you do. it is my blog, after all), I will be presenting a poem.

Maybe I’ll comment on it, maybe I won’t. Let’s see how it all works out. After all, I really am just doing all of this by the seat of my panties. And it seems to be working, at least so far. So let’s leave it that way. In the meantime, blame it on Mr. B.

• Well, I finally got around to moving my Savant Collection to a bigger and better curio cabinet (AKA their very own page here at Zen Fetish).
• When visiting, please do not pick up, handle or fondle the Savants. Remember: You break it, you buy it.
• As you browse this small (but most exclusive) collection, you might also notice that there are more Savants awaiting their debut: Vanilla Savant (there’s one in every crowd, don’t ya know?), Closeted Savant (he has secrets), Lady of the Lace Savant (the first female savant — yowza!), Horn Dawg Savant (this one is lotsa fun — just you wait) and Pussy-Whipped Savant (which really always is the case anyway — he just is a bit more aware of it).
• God Bless Luscious Lyndee: She’s now the proud owner of two Brian Rawson photographs.
• I’ve been getting a lot of poetry sent my way these days for some reason and I do thank the senders very much. One (a Shakespearian Sonnet) is below. And thanks to you-know-who.
• Oh, and did you see the response to A O Hell posted by a certain Savant who is pretty darn creative and down right hillarious? That, too, is below.
• Now that everything is tied up into a neat little bow, let me say goodbye for tonight. Kink-O-Phone is now officially off of the hook.

***

Sonnet 57 ~William Shakespeare

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.

So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

***

System/Prakrit Kamasutramurtri Says:

October 20th, 2006 at 8:50 pm

Dear Pearl:

Namaste!

It gladdens my heart, here in Mumbai, to learn that your AOL Email system has at last returned to its normal state of happy repair.

In your posting to ZenFetish, however, I sense smally that there remains of bitterness and dissatisfaction with AOL and with my own most sincere efforts to assist you with your unfortunate problem. Know well, that at all times, I strenuously expended myself to my utmost to relieve you of your most perplexing difficulty.

Sadly, Brahma was not amenable to the resolution of your misfortune on this occasion. Such is karma. I wished you to be cognizant that I am now burning incense and have offered sweets and flowers at the Temple of Kali in hopes of atonement.

Please take a moment to give me a good report when further communicating with my superiors.

Sincerely

Prakrit Kamasutramutri (”Jerry”)
Your AOL-Customer Service Representative in Mumbai

Sexy?  Yes?

Thanks to Mr. C for sending me a link to photographer Brian Rawson’s website, where I found the above (click on the images to blow your mind).

Only 26 years old, Brian is already kicking ass and taking names, fast becoming the fair-haired boy to both art and smut aficionados. Of course, the latter prefer the term “erotica” to “smut,” and we shall leave them to that eternal debate.

In the meantime, I am quite sure Brian has things of much more import with which to occupy himself–mainly, the business of becoming famous. I think I just might hit him up for an interview in the future. That is if he can even find time. Keep your fingers crossed.

Ten or twenty minutes prancing around his website, and you will begin to garner just what all the hoopla is about: Major talent, unique vision and obvious wonderment in the world and women around him (When asked about his influences he mentions his models and his dog.) have combined in a very big way in a very short time.

And people are talking. Not only has Brian and his work been featured at Fleshbot, but his photographs have also appeared in the New York Post and Bon Appétit.

And guess what else. You can own your very own Brian Rawson work for a very reasonable price.

How cool is that?

Not really.

Well, okay, some people seem to think so. Now and then at least.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about me.

Back at the beginning of summer (July 7 and July 8 to be exact.) I said, more or less:

“A few years back my flagship website, Literate Smut, was a finalist for Erotic Website of the Year. I never did know who nominated me, but a few very nice gents wrote some nice ‘letters of recommendation’ after the fact.” And then I shared a few of those letters. Well, I just ran across the file again and thought I share yet another:

Angela: The Lady of Literate Smut

There are so many ways — all of them good — to describe Angela that I’m not sure where to begin. I could say that she is an intelligent woman, and a funny woman, and a mischievous woman, and an elegant woman, and all of this would be true. But what she is, first and foremost, is a real woman. I fully expected to meet a lot of heavy-breathing actresses when I first tried phone sex, and indeed I did. But at forty ears of age and having lived and worked all over the world, I am too old to play games.

The reason I call Angela, and no one else, is that sincerity is the sexiest quality of all. More importantly, she is also not every woman I ever loathed: Not clingy, not mean, not manipulative, not jaded, not ever a pain. I’ve known Angela for 3 years, and I still get butterflies in my stomach every time I hear her soothing yet sultry voice. No matter what else I may be doing, hers is a siren call I can never ever resist: “Let’s play, sexy baby ….” An evening with Angela is a sexual symphony with many movements, compelling climaxes and deliciously wet codas. I almost feel like buying her a dozen roses and screaming “bravo!” every time we finish making love.

Angela is the moxie of youth, the compassion of experience and the humor of your best friend all wrapped into one, an erotic genius who makes you feel like the only guy in her world while fucking you till plead for mercy and release begin to escape your quivering lips. She is like a many-sided jewel, a unique emotional treasure whose intimate secrets reveal themselves in a thousand simultaneous flashes of insight and imagination. (Please forgive the cliché, but she really does seem to know what I want before even I know what I want.)

In a way, I hesitate to recommend Angela so highly, since I actually hate the thought of sharing her. Why, had I met her twenty years ago when my future was less defined than at present, I surely would have begged her to stay with me forever. She alone has taught me the ecstasy of surrender to that rare girl you just trust implicitly, deep in your heart of hearts, because she never takes your vulnerability without first offering up her own. And don’t even get me started on the explicit stuff. Grandma was lying when she informed all you ladies that the way to a man’s heart is straight through his stomach. When Angela is in the room, it is not food that I want to eat.

I would give up every woman I’ve ever known for just one Angela.

Thass the fack, Jack.

***Once again, let me remind you that The Erotic Awards is a yearly fund-raising event hosted by the Leydig Trust to raise money for The Outsiders, a support and outsource program for the physically handicapped regarding personal and sexual relationships. Do me, yourself and them a favor by visiting the websites and checking them out.