This review of a new two volume "Encyclopedia of Erotic Literature" illustrates the point. The reviewer writes:
The thematic subjects have been intelligently chosen. They include articles on syphilis as a literary muse, the rhetoric of seduction, confession and guilt, fairy tales, science fiction, slash fiction, grisettes, somatopia and furniture. The (very interesting) article on furniture concludes as follows: “In the fin-de-siècle, eros crosses over into sickness, and the furniture is caught up in the epidemic: the chaise lounge [sic] itself is sick with desire and pleasure. As the dominant notions of pleasure changed over time, so did the furniture”.Uhuh.
Although the reviewer indicates there are many quality entries, he remains somewhat cynical of the overall effect:
I also finished my reading of these two volumes with the feeling that sex was a lot less fun than I had hitherto supposed. Even thinking about sex has become difficult and it is being made more difficult year by year. For example, the American writer Pat Califia’s work “promotes lust in all its forms and her work contributes to the growing theoretical complexity about sexuality, both in relation to queer studies and the pornography debates”. The Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar’s “works narrate a desire for an impossible plenitude beyond the binary oppositions and hollow conventions which structure mundane bourgeois reality”.Social conservatives like me think people should take sex seriously, in the sense that it shouldn't be viewed merely as a recreational activity. But isn't there also something wrong with taking it too seriously, as do writers who portray it as an irresistible obsessive force, and the academics who then follow in their wake with arcane analysis?