Sex in the Stacks: Porn and the Librarian by Stephanie Brown

Ed. note:  Last month, in honor of National Librarian Week, we asked poet and librarian Stephanie Brown (Domestic Interior) to tell us about her discovery of an exciting sub-genre of pulp erotica.  In these sexcapades, the librarian is the object of admiration and fantasy. Stephanie happily obliged with the following roundup:

Twenty years ago, in my first job as a librarian, a man cornered me in the 800’s section and recited a fantasy that involved me, him, a red dress, and the race track. Little did I know that he was probably confusing me with one of the librarians who live on the pages of pulp erotica and porn novels.  Here are a few of my favorites, from the tame to the tempestuous:
 

“For four years Major Sam Griffin had stayed away from Serenity, Texas, gruffly avoiding the fact that he was still heartachingly [sic] in love with the woman who almost married his brother. Now home on leave, the devastatingly handsome pilot had to face the beautiful Emma Dalton again.” (The Major and the Librarian  by Nikki Benjamin).

We who work in public libraries know that Sam can just walk in and hang out all day bothering Emma. If she asks him to leave, he can claim his rights as a taxpayer so that he can watch her bend, stretch, and walk the floor in her form-fitting pencil-skirt, which she probably does, since afterall this is a Silhouette Romance. Perhaps Emma wants Sam to hang out all day.

While librarians are often portrayed as humorless neuters and rule-bound fussbudgets, we all know that  rule-bound women just love to rule their willing partners.  In the world of librarian porn, a sex maniac lives behind the lorgnette those orthopedic shoes: 

"The prim miss took off more than her mask of respectability behind the stacks...with any man who asked" (Nympho Librarian (right) by Les Tucker).  This milquetoast has certainly met his match with this black bra clad dominatrix. He’s tied up, but is he willing?

I think so! I hope library patrons who encountered them “behind the stacks” had a good look. 

Voyuerism in the library is a common theme in librarian-sex romps, and our librarian is just as likely to be the voyeur as she is the gazed-upon. She likes to watch her students go at it and it makes her hot, that’s what. Lots of voyeurs look at librarians too, masturbating by their open apartment windows, one of the many Rabelaisian adventures that happen to this gal. Take, for instance, Nick Eastwoods Naughty Voyeur Librarian, which begins "It was Karen Evans' first day on the job as head librarian of the exclusive Pinecrest School.":

  
 

And this:  “Though not quite a classic on a par with The Librarian Loves to Lick, and lacking the studied innocence of Horny Peeping Librarian, still, The Librarian's Naughty Habit (above right) is easily the finest account of sex and the circulation desk that we at the Ophelia Press can legally do.” 

Wasting no time at all, the very first line of this book gets the party started: “Sitting on the stool, with my skirt primly pulled over my knees, I could feel my cunt burning between my thighs.” All you need to do is read the Library of Congress subject heading for this book to understand: “Libraries—Culture—Fiction,” “Police—Fiction”. “Group Sex—Fiction,” “Bondage—Discipline—Fiction,” “Lesbianism—Fiction” and last but not least,“Politics—Municipal Budgeting—Fiction.” In other words, something for everyone, including policy wonks!

 Forbidden Reading  by Lisette Ashton just might be my favorite, with its literary references. Surely I it could hold its own with The Club Dumas:  “Sexy librarian Justine, seeks to buy a lost (and most disturbing) manuscript by the Marquis de Sade. But first she must prove herself worthy of owning this catologue of excess and depravity.” 

As for me and the man in the 800’s? I sneered at him and walked away. He called my boss later in the day to complain about my rudeness. My boss understood, of course, as she knew all about the occupational hazards of real librarians.  

embroidery pattern from Sublime Stitching

Thanks, Stephanie

-- sdh

Comments

[Laura Orem]

Wow. Dewey Decimal decadence!

[G. Hertz]

I knew it!

[Thomas Baughman]

I think many male bibliophiles have a weakness for Librarian Porn

[Amy Holman]

Superb. I love the qualifying description of The Librarian's Naughty Habit not quite up to par with their previous publications but as racy as they were willing to go. AND I love the embroidered hankie. How to be saucy when stitching a sampler...

[DL]

A brilliant post. I agree that bibliosex is seriously underestimated and am grateful for the new evidence. Dorothy Malone as the bespectacled rare-book expert in "The Big Sleep" is a sexy example in cinema noir.