Alan Moore is a an imaginative and clever writer, but as he ages and his work suffers both from excesses and shortcomings, the last thing I want to read is his nonfiction essays on controversial topics. So, I approached this essay on the history, function, and hopefully bright future of pornography and erotica with low expectations. And I was pleasantly surprised—it's very readable stuff. His history, psychology, and sociology are all more fiction than non, but he maintains an approachable tone, so this reads more like a general argument than a deeply researched study. His ultimate point is rather sweet: that what's missing between the boob-banning strictness of religious antisexuality and the joyless, abusive churn of the porn industry is sex as a topic of good art. Moore doesn't give any specific examples of how to move in this direction, but I suppose he feels that he has already contributed most of what he can on this subject in his 'Lost Girls'. That book is at times overwhelming, but it generally does what Moore says pornography should ideally do. ( )