ABSTRACT
The post-Chatterley liberalization of sexual expression in Australian fiction has made it possible for a group of audacious authors to specialize in the use of licentious content in their creative writing. While some writers had sexual politics on their agenda, others were just concerned with giving readers the full picture of realistic lifestyles in their true-to-life fictitious narratives. Besides reminding us of our animal nature, literary representations of sexuality also serve the purpose of channeling readers’ undiluted attention thanks to the inclusion of power words.
This chapter will offer a survey of three milestones in the Australian literary panorama. In doing so, it will examine some of the writings produced by the Balmain Group counterculture, by the grunge movement, and by one of the contemporary authors who have tried their hands at erotica. The discussion of Frank Moorhouse’s, Linda Jaivin’s, and John Purcell’s poetics of sex will eventually draw attention to the cognitive mechanisms at work when readers come across sexually explicit cues in fiction.
