Delta of Venus

Product Information

Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace, Encyclopedia of Feminist Literary Theory, Taylor & Francis, 1997, ISBN 0-8153-0824-8, p.190

Anaïs Nin (1903-1977), born in Paris, was the daughter of a Franco-Danish singer and a Cuban pianist. Her first book - a defence of D. H. Lawrence - was published in the 1930s. Her prose poem, House of Incest (1936) was followed by the collection of three novellas, collected as Winter of Artifice (1939). In the 1940s she began to write erotica for an anonymous client, and these pieces are collected in Delta of Venus and Little Birds (both published posthumously). During her later years Anaïs Nin lectured frequently at universities throughout the USA, in 1974 and was elected to the United States National Institute of Arts and Letters. tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine. How much do you lose by this periscope at the tip of your sex, when you could enjoy a harem of distinct and never-repeated wonders? No two hairs alike, but you will not let us waste words on a description of hair; no two odors, but if we expand on this you cry Cut the poetry. No two skins with the same texture, and never the same light, temperature, shadows, never the same gesture; for a lover, when he is aroused by true love, can run the gamut of centuries of love lore. What a range,The novel by Anaïs Nin on which the film is based is not autobiographical, nor does it have a frame narrative. The film imposes a frame-narrative about a "Nin-like" American who begins an affair with another expatriate American in pre– World War II Paris, and who writes erotic stories that represent her fantasies. Some of these stories/fantasies, based on those of Nin, are explored on-screen.

Bettie's most fruitful partnership came with bondage photographer Irving Klaw, who created custom photosets and film reels for clients based around the (now well-established) BDSM tropes: spanking, catfights, leather boots & fishnets, riding crops, etc. Interestingly though she was in-demand for that sort of material, Bettie never had any interest in bondage in her personal life – she considered it harmless, if a bit silly. I think that's part of her stuff's allure, aside from being ravishingly beautiful there was always an aura of carefree & fun coming through in her photos. You do not know what you are missing by your micro-scopic examination of sexual activity to the exclusion of aspects which are the fuel that ignites it. Intellectual, imaginative, romantic, emotional. This is what gives sex its surprising textures, its subtle transformations, its aphrodisiac elements. You are shrinking your world of sensations. You are withering it, starving it, draining its blood. Sadly, Miss Pedon's personal demons - drugs & alcohol & who knows what else - were powerful & persistent and contributed to her death of liver disease at the young age of 28. Beauty & tragedy often go hand in hand, it's a story told again and again as the generations go on by... In Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin conjures up a glittering cascade of sexual encounters. Creating her own 'language of the senses', she explores an area that was previously the domain of male writers and brings to it her own unique perceptions. Her vibrant and impassioned prose evokes the essence of female sexuality in a world where only love has meaning.Dear Collector: We hate you. Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it French-born novelist, passionate eroticist and short story writer, who gained international fame with her journals. Spanning the years from 1931 to 1974, they give an account of one woman's voyage of self-discovery. "It's all right for a woman to be, above all, human. I am a woman first of all." (from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, vol. I, 1966)

The book, unlike the later Little Birds, contains no poetry as such. Its introductory preface contains entries from her Diary, which expressed her hope that its unexpurgated version would one day be published.

If you nourished your sexual life with all the excitements and adventures which love injects into sensuality, you would be the most potent man in the world. The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion. You are watching its little flame die of asphyxiation. Sex does not thrive on monotony. Without feeling, inventions, moods, no surprises in bed. Sex must be mixed with Platinum-haired and with an unmistakable charisma & camera presence, Seka is one of the most recognizable adult actresses of the 1970s. Anne T. Salvatore, Anaïs Nin's Narratives, University Press of Florida (2001) ISBN 0-8130-2113-8, p. 17 As influential and revelatory in its day as Fifty Shades of Grey is now, Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus is a groundbreaking anthology of erotic short stories, published in Penguin Modern Classics