
Critics have said Rushdie‘s writings about sex detract from his literary strength. A Muslim academic, Ziauin Sarda, has noted that a character in The Satanic Verses seemed sex-crazed: “Rushdie portrays Mohammad as a banal, frantic man obsessed with sex.” Rushdie, 54, is decidedly unstuffy, by the way, and just this side of being a roué. He was recently married for the fourth time, to Padma Lakshmi, in a Hello! magazine-covered Hindu ceremony in Manhattan. His lovelife with Laksmi, 26 years his junior, figured heavily in his last book, Fury, which was nominated for but didn’t win The Literary Review‘s bad sex award.
Why is pornography so vital to civilization just now? Gore Vidal, who wrote the forward to xxx: 30 Porn Star Portraits, says, “We didn’t take sex so seriously thousands of years ago because we had so many other things to worry about, such as surviving.”
(via Fleshbot, HindustaniTimes.com)