The List – a Review

The review and the original post are accessible on the next page.

Margaret and I have discussed at some length whether to include this material on the site. The List is an erotic narrative and is very explicit.

Living in the light is very much about understanding what we fear and why we fear it. There is much which we fear for good reason; there is also much which we fear only because we have been taught to. Ignorance, guilt and fear work together to create dark places in our lives which most of us feel compelled to deny. Living in the light is being willing to shed light into these places by deliberately illuminating them.

One does not have to be an exponent of BDSM to learn from those who are. It is our willingness to look, to be prepared and willing to discover things about ourselves, which makes us whole people. If we are unwilling to look and to learn, we choose to deny a little of the truth, to prefer darkness, and to surrender another part of ourselves to the Prince of Darkness.

The review discusses several issues arising in The List which might just as easily be found in any of dozens of other writings which are not explicitly sexual, and there is some temptation to select one such so as to avoid some of the dirty looks which no doubt we will now get.

There are two reasons to stick with The List:

It is to hand, well written, and is a document which has stimulated a great deal of thought and enjoyment for us; and
To pass it over for ‘social’ reasons would be to make an erroneous statement – that it is appropriate to deny literature because it is erotic. Certainly there are inappropriate places for erotica – but this is a site for adults which will not be explored and read by accident.

To those readers who think I should have not included it, I can only say I hope you, most of all, are able to learn from what it has to teach us; and that is a great deal.

Peter Hoban

Click the link to continue to A review of ‘The List’ an ASB post by ‘Nurse Jones’.

Original: October ‘99
This page is part of “Living in the Light”
found at: http://www.geocities.com/phoban2000/

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