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Most of us can look to our knowledge of classic literature positively. Who can forget John Steinback’s The Pearl/The Red Pony/Grapes of Wrath in which we all learned that being poor really really sucks? Or the plays of Henrik Ibsen, which always involve a beautifully positioned fjord? Classic books are always there, bursting with wonderful tales of triumph, tragedy and that weird old-book-fungus smell that we all have come to love.

So when a book is emblazoned with “Oxford Classic” you know it has to be a written work of art. Why, just look into the pages of A Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland:

As he stood on one side, for a minute or so, unbuttoning his waist-coat and breeches, her fat, brawny thighs hung down, and the whole greasy landscape lay fairly open to my view; a wide open-mouth'd gap, overshaded with a grizzly bush, seemed held out like a beggar's wallet for its provision.

Okay. Some sort of typo or something…

Her sturdy stallion had now unbutton'd, and produced naked, stiff, and erect, that wonderful machine, which I had never seen before, and which, for the interest my own seat of pleasure began to take furiously in it, I star'd at with all the eyes I had

Wait a second…

Long, however, the young spark did not remain before giving it two or three shakes, by way of brandishing it; he threw himself upon her, and his back being now towards me, I could only take his being ingulph'd for granted, by the directions he mov'd in, and the impossibility of missing so staring a mark; and now the bed shook, the curtains rattled so, that I could scarce hear the sighs and murmurs, the heaves and pantings that accompanied the action.

What?!

And so dear readers, this is your introduction to the literary classic, “Fanny Hill” or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. Did it feel like a cold plunge into ice water or a flea bath?

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is not only printed by “Oxford Classics” and hailed for its “sexual metaphors”, it was so popular the author John Cleland could never recapture the fame of this first novel, despite being followed by such works of art like Memoirs of a Coxcomb (1751), The Surprises of Love (1764) and Diary of Bosomy Beth Box Cutter (1789)

Fanny Hill, our title character and voluptuous narrator, begins her enlightening tale by penning a letter to an unknown “Madam” in true Clarissa form. If Clarissa was a five and dime hooker named Candy. You see, Fanny was a prostitute, and she needs to confess her sins. So like all English Protestants, she writes a letter with lots of inflection. Idol worshippers be damned!

Fanny presents herself as one who, “shall recall to view those scandalous stages of my life” (1) and was once, “careless of violating those laws of decency” (1). She seems regretful of her past, when she “violated laws” in the moral code of decency. Fanny refers to this time as a “stage”, or a step to the adulthood she has now reached, and can now refer back to her youth as “careless”.

So we have so far learned the following:

· Cleland is foreshadowing. As Fanny will soon reveal her sins and will receive a thorough spanking for her misdeeds. A sexy, literary spanking.

Then again, it’s not as if any of the other, less “explicit” classics hold a torch for women. Or express anything more from the fairer sex then weeping, writing and long division by drafty widows, which will therefore lead to the romantic disease of tuberculosis. From Wharton to Bronte, women relish in being sad just as one would relish pouring so much love oil over Fanny Rump’s Hill. Or whatever.

But the aforementioned female writers aren’t nearly as acerbic as classic male writers. Which one of them has ever used “a head of the liveliest vermilion” in a novel? Therefore it must be true that dead white writers from the 19^th century are above all others.

Take the already mentioned Clarissa. In that novel, Samuel Richardson presents Clarissa Harlowe as a tragic character who will not consider being sold into a loveless marriage by her family. She runs away with a man named Lovelace, who hates the Harlowes. He later rapes Clarissa after she refuses his offer of marriage. At the end of the novel, Clarissa dies poor and alone.

However, most literary critics view her death as a stand against marrying for convenience and also the moral code most women could not possibly follow without dire consequences. “As the novel comes to its long-drawn-out close, she is removed from the world of both the Harlowes and the Lovelaces, and she dies true to herself to the end.”

Yes. Because all women want to be equal to “penniless and molested”. It’s our right!

Therefore, great literature mostly contains a female heroine involved in some sort of sexual deadlock with herself and the moral standings of society. Obviously every woman who involves herself in any sexual escapade must suffer the moral consequences. Let us therefore compare and contrast the following novels:

Anna Karenina

Vronsky: I must have you or die!

Anna: No, we cannot! For in our society a woman must be faithful to her husband, no matter how treacherous he is….but okay, lets do it.

40 billion pages later (mostly filled with Stepan building a very intimate relationship with Fyodor and his “scythe”)

Anna: I have been ostracized from society! We are alone and destitute! But at least we shall die together!

Vronsky: Uh…about that. I was kind of “in the moment” when I said that whole “have you or die” thing. So why don’t you just die?

Anna: Oh. I’ll right then. DIES

Clarissa

Lovelace: I must have you or die!

Clarissa: No, we cannot! For in our society a woman must place herself in a loveless marriage. And I’m physically attracted to you.

Lovelace: Okay, so lets do it!

Clarissa: I’m physically attracted to you. But I don’t love you.

Lovelace: That’s fine.

Clarissa: I can’t be with a man I’m physically attracted to.

Lovelace: Uh…why not?

Clarissa: I can’t be in love with him or attracted to him! I have to suffer.

Lovelace: All right then. I’ll take you by force.

Clarissa: That’s more like it…I mean, NO! Oh, the AGONY! Will you die with me after we have both entered this equal corruption of souls?

Lovelace: Nah, just you.

Clarissa: Oh. Okay. DIES

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

Fanny: I’m a whore!

Charles: Sounds good to me.

Okay. So if you have an affair or are raped by a man you die destitute. But if you sleep with everyone you get a crumpet? Maybe if I write out this equation it will make more sense.

Two divisible equations will need to be set up. Let m equal the amount of men. Solve for crumpet.

1M X Death = PONIES

1200M Tasty Crumpet

Damn it. The answer is supposed to be great works of literature! I always get ponies! Oh woe is me. I will never sit by a drafty window devoting my bosom to long division while suffering the undeniable fate of typhoid.

Those who would stand by Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure would state that it is timeless because of the Cleland and his publisher’s fight against censorship. In reply, I will merely point to the section of the book comparing a woman’s privates to a wallet.

Forget you Cleland! I’m off to read Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

CELEBRITY REBUTTAL: ANNA KARENINA

Interesting theories. Now, a little help down here?!