In its own era no less than ours, nineteenth-century British pornography enjoyed a reputation as a generic agent of dissolution and subversion. Its narratives mocked propriety, set marriages asunder, frayed public spiritedness, and botched lines of inheritance. This characterization of obscenity as corrosive to social cohesion, however, runs aground on a pornographic ballad like "Expostulation with a Fierce Preacher." (1) Set in India, the poem unfolds a salacious tale of unruly parishioners commandeering the sacred public space of the church for the purpose of sexual seduction. We witness the parson gnashing his teeth as the collapse of his authority seems to augur an attenuation of community: Oh, jealous Cotterill, why so warm? Because your congregation, In spite of all you preach and storm, Persist in fornication. (ll. 1-4) Here, the conventionally sovereign voice of the sermonizer-Cotterill-has been supplanted by the collective speech of the congregants. He would coerce his flock into submission by "barking" at them as "sheep in pens," warning them of the precariousness of their English identity, given their displacement in a foreign colony (II. 14, 13). Cotterill's gambit invokes a sentimentalized sense of nativity-familial and national-to keep his parishioners in obeisance: "He merely wants us all to leave / Our 'Hearts and Souls' at home" (ll. 23-24). The congregants, however, rebel against his injunction, detaching themselves from the concept of "home" that undergirds Cotterill's authority and instead embracing the "wantonness" that marks them as "rogues" who are "unfitted for a pew" (ll. 7, 12, 6). Far from disintegrating social bonds, abandoning their nostalgia for their origins allows them to erotically connect in makeshift public spaces-the church becomes "the ball-room and the play-house gay"-where communal coherence is no longer beholden to the citation of forebears (ll. 17). Indeed, the authority of the past is exposed as a frigid barrier to intimacy. Only when the communal memory of revered antecedents is swept away can an extemporaneous sociality rooted in erotic intimacy take hold. "Expostulation with a Fierce Preacher" is just one example in a broader constellation of twenty-three pornographic ballads that appeared in William Lazenby's underground periodical, The Pearl. Originally published in eighteen monthly issues from July 1879 to December 1880, the magazine is famous today for its six serialized novels, which contain a spoil of riches for the cultural historian. Far from merely limning penetrative intercourse, these texts, liberated from the imperative to maintain a veneer of propriety, rove across a startling range of territory: women's suffrage, physical disability and sexual impairment, secret sex societies, interspecies coition, India-rubber dildos, slave rape in the West Indies, duels, mock crucifixions, Turkish harems, prophylactic devices, friendships ratified by the exchange of pubic hair-the list goes on. (2) For all the insights these novels have yielded about gendered power, racially organized imperial conquest, and the global circulation of commodities, the concerted attention paid to them might lead to the mistaken impression that The Pearl was simply a platform for long-form fiction. In fact, the magazine came loaded down with a potpourri of bawdy supplemental pieces: hymns, odes, songs, nursery rhymes, acrostic poems, parodies, faux advertisements, and fabricated letters to the editor. Sifting through this miscellany, one comes to grasp the sophisticated cultural embeddedness of pornographic texts. They are a thick palimpsest whose meaning accrues through interplay with their literary precursors and the topical political environment. The sheer heterogeneity of these items, however, throws into relief one form that crops up with startling regularity: the ballad. In some respects, the genres of pornography and street balladry share a remarkable affinity. …

中文翻译：

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反对社区怀旧：重建色情歌谣中的社会性

19 世纪的英国色情作品在它自己的时代与我们的时代一样，享有作为解体和颠覆的通用代理人的声誉。它的叙述嘲弄了礼节，使婚姻四分五裂，破坏了公众的热情，并破坏了继承权。然而，这种将淫秽描述为对社会凝聚力具有腐蚀性的描述，在诸如“与凶恶传教士的劝告”之类的色情民谣中搁浅。(1) 这首诗以印度为背景，展开了一个不守规矩的教友为了性诱惑而霸占教堂神圣的公共空间的淫秽故事。我们目睹牧师咬牙切齿，因为他的权威的崩溃似乎预示着社区的衰落：哦，嫉妒的科特里尔，为什么这么热情？因为你的会众，尽管你布道和风暴，仍然坚持淫乱。(ll. 1-4) 在这里，布道者——科特里尔——的传统主权声音已被会众的集体演讲所取代。他会强迫他的羊群屈服，像“围栏里的羊”一样对他们“吠叫”，警告他们英国身份的不稳定，因为他们在外国殖民地流离失所（II. 14, 13）。Cotterill 的策略引发了一种感伤的耶稣诞生感——家庭和民族——让他的教区居民保持敬意：“他只是希望我们所有人都离开/我们的‘心灵和灵魂’在家”（ll. 23-24）。然而，会众反抗他的禁令，脱离了支撑科特里尔权威的“家”概念，转而拥抱将他们标记为“不适合坐席”的“流氓”的“狂妄” (ll. 7, 12, 6)。远没有瓦解社会纽带，放弃他们对出身的怀念，使他们能够在临时的公共空间进行情色联系——教堂变成了“舞厅和游戏室同性恋”——在那里，社区的一致性不再受制于对祖先的引用（第 17 页）。事实上，过去的权威被暴露为亲密关系的冰冷障碍。只有当受人尊敬的前因的共同记忆被清除时，一种植根于色情亲密关系的即兴社会才能站稳脚跟。“与凶恶的传教士的劝告”只是威廉拉赞比地下期刊《珍珠》中出现的二十三首色情民谣中的一个例子。最初出版于 1879 年 7 月至 1880 年 12 月的十八个月刊中，该杂志今天因其六部连载小说而闻名，其中包含了文化历史学家的财富。这些文本远非单纯的插入式性交，而是摆脱了保持礼貌的必要性，跨越了令人震惊的领域：妇女的选举权、身体残疾和性障碍、秘密性社团、种间交配、印度橡胶假阳具、西印度群岛的奴隶强奸、决斗、模拟受难、土耳其后宫、预防装置、通过交换阴毛确认的友谊——不胜枚举。(2) 尽管这些小说对性别权力、种族组织的帝国征服和商品的全球流通产生了所有见解，对它们的一致关注可能会导致错误的印象，即珍珠只是一个长篇小说的平台。事实上，该杂志充斥着一大堆淫秽的补充文章：赞美诗、颂歌、歌曲、童谣、离合诗、戏仿、虚假广告和编造的给编辑的信。通过这些杂七杂八的内容，人们开始掌握色情文本复杂的文化嵌入性。它们是厚厚的复本，其意义是通过与它们的文学先驱和时事政治环境的相互作用而产生的。然而，这些项目的绝对异质性使一种以惊人规律出现的形式变得更加清晰：民谣。在某些方面，色情和街头民谣的流派有着惊人的相似性。… 这本杂志充斥着一大堆淫秽的补充文章：赞美诗、颂歌、歌曲、童谣、离合诗、戏仿、虚假广告和编造的给编辑的信。通过这些杂七杂八的内容，人们开始掌握色情文本复杂的文化嵌入性。它们是厚厚的复本，其意义是通过与它们的文学先驱和时事政治环境的相互作用而产生的。然而，这些项目的绝对异质性使一种以惊人规律出现的形式变得更加清晰：民谣。在某些方面，色情和街头民谣的类型有着惊人的相似性。… 这本杂志充斥着一大堆淫秽的补充文章：赞美诗、颂歌、歌曲、童谣、离合诗、戏仿、虚假广告和编造的给编辑的信。通过这些杂七杂八的内容，人们开始掌握色情文本复杂的文化嵌入性。它们是厚厚的复本，其意义是通过与它们的文学先驱和时事政治环境的相互作用而产生的。然而，这些项目的绝对异质性使一种以惊人规律出现的形式变得更加清晰：民谣。在某些方面，色情和街头民谣的类型有着惊人的相似性。… 通过这些杂七杂八的内容，人们开始掌握色情文本复杂的文化嵌入性。它们是厚厚的复本，其意义是通过与它们的文学先驱和时事政治环境的相互作用而产生的。然而，这些项目的绝对异质性使一种以惊人规律出现的形式变得更加清晰：民谣。在某些方面，色情和街头民谣的类型有着惊人的相似性。… 通过这些杂七杂八的内容，人们开始掌握色情文本复杂的文化嵌入性。它们是厚厚的复本，其意义是通过与它们的文学先驱和时事政治环境的相互作用而产生的。然而，这些项目的绝对异质性使一种以惊人规律出现的形式变得更加清晰：民谣。在某些方面，色情和街头民谣的类型有着惊人的相似性。… 在某些方面，色情和街头民谣的类型有着惊人的相似性。… 在某些方面，色情和街头民谣的类型有着惊人的相似性。…