The Forbidden Topic of Eroticism

George Bataille vs Pierre Klossowski

Eroticism is sadly all too often confused with other forms of adult video content, which is a graphic, raw portrayal of human sensuality without frills. True eroticism subtly and artfully appeals to and promotes imaginative fantasies, known as phantasms. Since remote antiquity, the fundamental dance of erotic desires has pervaded the visual arts and literature of multiple civilizations. You can find great examples of profoundly beautiful erotic works of art everywhere, from China to India and Persia to Pompeii.

Eroticism is a joyful celebration of the beauties of love and desire, and it has found its main opposition in dogmatic religious conformity and petty puritanical morality, which have sought to ban and censor its productions to retain their hold on human minds but have often had the reverse effect by involuntarily promoting the powerful and undeniable appeal of the forbidden. Transgressive literature, which deliberately seeks to undermine societal taboos and societal mores, has thrived despite the often desperate efforts to suppress it. 

Two controversial authors who fearlessly tackled such forbidden topics were my uncle Pierre Klossowski (1905–2001), a French writer, translator, actor, filmmaker, and artist, and his friend and sometime collaborator Georges Bataille (1897–1962), a French philosopher and novelist who was also a very close friend of both my parents.