WordsByNowak

It’s not often that you run into your long-lost twin, but such was the case for me last night. I was at a PR/media party and bumped into a fellow by the name of Patchen Barss, who is the director of communications at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research by day and fellow author of a book about porn by night.

Patchen’s book is The Erotic Engine: How Pornography has Powered Mass Communication, from Gutenberg to Google, released by Doubleday Canada and the University of Queensland Press in Australia in September. From the Amazon page:

Pornography: The force for change that has been written out of the history of world culture. From cave painting to photography to the internet, pornography has always been at the cutting edge in adopting and exploiting new developments in mass communication. And in so doing, it has helped to promote and propel those developments in ways that are rarely acknowledged. Without pornography, the internet would not have grown so quickly. The e-commerce payment systems that are now commonplace would be at a far more primitive stage security and usability. Without video streaming software developed for pornography sites, CNN would be struggling to deliver news clips. Without advertising from sex sites, Google could not have afforded YouTube. This smart, witty and well-researched history shows how a vast secret trade has bankrolled and shaped mainstream culture and its machines.

For the last few years, Patchen and I had both known of each other’s existence, and of our somewhat-competing books, and we’ve swapped the occasional friendly email. I think we were both thrilled to finally meet in person - accidently - because we quickly launched into war stories. Indeed, we share a great deal in common… frighteningly so, actually.

We’ve both worked at the National Post and the CBC, we were both at the same Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas doing research, we were both in Europe around the same time interviewing people, we even handed in our manuscripts around the same time. We’ve also had the same experiences since our books were published and, alas, we both have the rather dubious distinctions of being experts on porn.

Naturally, I read his book as soon as it came out (I bought it as an e-book - yeah right, like I’m going to be seen reading an actual book about porn on the subway!) and enjoyed it thoroughly. We seemed to have come to many of the same conclusions and in many cases, I could see exactly where he was going with something because I’d been there too.

Truth be told, I was a little jealous of his book because Patchen allowed himself to focus solely on porn and its evolution, which therefore meant he got to go much deeper into the subject matter (no pun intended). The most challenging part of writing Sex, Bombs and Burgers was weaving porn into a narrative that also included food and war. Ultimately, although we dealt with some of the same subject matter, the result is what I consider to be two very different books - two very good books, ahem (wink, wink).

We parted ways agreeing to meet up for some further conversation soon. I know I’m looking forward to it as there are some things only a fellow “porn expert” can understand.

In any event, if you’re looking for a good Christmas present, check out The Erotic Engine… but not before Sex, Bombs and Burgers, of course!