Am I Edgy?

Am I edgy? At the recent Loyalist workshop, when my piece was being commented on, one of the women started by saying – “knowing Duncan, when I saw this was his work, I knew I was in for something edgy, out-of-the-box and funny and I was was not disappointed.” This woman later presented a great piece about street people – one dressed in pink tutu with matching feathers in hair, so she knows edgy.

To be honest I don’t think of myself or my writing as edgy. When I think of edgy Electric Jon or Charlie Petch comes to mind – but me, I’m pretty tame, right? Sure when I write about sex I’m direct, fun – often people compliment me on being ‘brave’ – I just don’t get it – I know my audiences pretty well – what I present at the Erotica Writers certainly isn’t what I’d present at a high school poetry class.

So I guess writing frankly about sex is edgy? Or is the matter-of-fact way I present these pieces what makes them edgy? I’m thinking – what do I find edgy to write about. One area is race and sex.

Watching a recent spate of Weismuller Tarzan movies on Turner I couldn’t help but notice the amount of nearly naked flesh on screen – particularly the many ‘native’ bearers and tribesmen. I recalled Saturday matinees when I was a kid seeing some of these then and realized that the erotic appeal of black men had started then – now is this a racist memory? Is this dehumanization via a fetish of blackness or just some adolescent male seeing so much man flesh he likes it?

This reaches its apogee with Woody Strode in Spartacus – magnificent – his skin shines like armor in every scene – this movie brings up the another erotic area that caught me growing up – bearded, burly men in skirts. All those sword & sandal pictures: from the Ten Commandments to Hercules in the Underworld (I longed for Hercules out of his underwear).

I love all those Biblical epics with nearly naked men everywhere, rowing the galleons, training to be gladiators, just hanging around the market place waiting for Jesus (often a bearded hottie with a dozen other yummy bearded men to party with) to show up. When I see these today I am amazed at the amount of male flesh in them and am not surprised at how they informed my adult sex objectifications.

Sure there were pretty women in most these, usually so pure they gave our hero reason to win, or so evil they had to be vanquished. But first they’ll dance for you. Always in definitive period make-up too – eyeliner, eyelashes and blush. Not to mention cleavage that I’m sure required post-dub to removed the echo of any dialogue said near the valley of their ample, yet perky, breasts.

So Hollywood made me the queer I am – is that edgy?